Not so long ago, Kailua (the city of “two seas” as the name translates from Hawaiian) was known for its golden sandy beaches with turquoise water - a surfer's paradise! Also, Kailua was one of the residences of the kings - the rulers of Hawaii. Barack Obama, when he was president, moved his office here for the winter. Now the city, located just 20 minutes drive from the center of Honolulu, has become associated with the Russian Orthodox Church and its shrines, first of all - with the world revered by Orthodox people myrrh-flowing Iverskaya Montreal (Hawaiian) icon of the Mother of God.
The Mother of God in the altar was painted by Matushka Anna Kalinina from Moscow. Nectarius Youngson, the keeper of the myrrh-flowing icon, serves as a deacon in the temple. He shared with us the difficult history of his parish, told us about the miraculous discovery of the Hawaiian icon and about the miracles and healings that occur through prayers before this icon.
Deacon Nectarius Youngson
Islanders

• Fr. Nectarius, were you yourself born in Hawaii?
  
• My family is native Hawaiians, we have lived on the island of Oahu for many years. My great-great-grandfather came from China and married a Filipina. From that marriage, my great-grandfather was born. He married a Puerto Rican woman of Spanish descent. We did a genetic test and, in addition to Polynesian, there are many ethnic lines in our family, including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Filipino, Japanese, Chinese and, interestingly enough, Georgian and even Russian!
  

I was the first in my family to become Orthodox, having been baptized at the age of 12. Before that, all my relatives were Catholics

As far as I know, I was the first in my family to become Orthodox, having been baptized at the age of 12 (before that all my relatives were Catholics). One day my stepmother and her parents went to a Greek festival in Honolulu and bought a book called “The Orthodox Way” by Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware). So she became a parishioner of the Greek Church of St. Constantine and St. Helen. She invited me to the temple. I was interested and began to go to catechization classes. There was a wonderful priest there, Father Peter Salmas. He was going to baptize me, but then the Greek Archdiocese sent him to California. Then I began to go to the temple of the Russian Church Abroad. At that time it was a small mission that rented space in the Episcopal Church. When I first went to their service, it seemed to me that angels were singing, although there were only two people singing on the choir. I was charmed by the service itself, the atmosphere in the parish, and the kindness of the parishioners.
Father Seraphim Rolman was serving there at that time. He agreed to baptize me the following Friday and asked me what name I would like to be baptized with. I said that I had read about a wonderful man, St. Nectarius of Aegina, and I would like him to be my heavenly patron saint. “Oh!” exclaimed the priest, “this Friday is just his commemoration day".
So I was baptized on the day of the memory of St. Nectarius of Aegina according to the old style. For me it was a confirmation that I made the right choice and came to the church where I should be.
On Sunday I was blessed to read the Gospel, and I received Holy Communion for the first time. And after the service, Father Seraphim gave us everything we needed for services and told us that Archbishop Anthony (Medvedev) of San Francisco was sending him to serve in Montana, and for the time being there would be no priest in the parish.
By the way, in the same parish I met our future priest, Fr. Anatoly Levin, who was then a longtime subdeacon.
The parish received a professor as rector

• Father Nektarius, the history of your parish is the history of rent, of moving from one building to another; once you had a priest, once you did not, and you had to maintain the “breath and life” of the parish yourself....

I, 12 years old, began to ride my bicycle to the temple every Sunday, where I would lay out icons and read the Liturgy in layman's terms

• That's right! And at that time the future father Anatoly was teaching in Vladivostok, and I, 12 years old, began to ride my bicycle every Sunday to the temple, where I laid out icons, took out books and read the lay readings. The temple was empty, almost no one came because there was no priest. I would finish reading, pack everything in the closet, close the door of the temple and drive to the ocean. And no one knew if or when the priest would come.

Finally, a gifted pastor arrived from Jordanville - Hieromonk Averky (Moreno). He stayed on the island for a month and so came four times a year. When he came, many people gathered. He was our rector for several years.
In the meantime, our subdeacon Anatoly returned from Russia. Fr. Averky, knowing that we needed a permanent priest and that our subdeacon would make a worthy shepherd, began to persuade his Japanese wife Emiko to agree to ordain her husband. Fr. Anatoly was at that time a professor at the university in Honolulu, and after retirement he could devote all his time to the temple.
Priest Anatoly Levin
In 1984, Archbishop Anthony (Sinkevich) of Los Angeles came to us and told us that the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God had begun to myrrh-streaming in Montreal and brought us a copy of it. Vladyka suggested that we dedicate our parish to the Iveron Icon of Our Lady of Montreal. So our community became the first in the world to be dedicated to this icon.
Since 1986 we had Hieromonk Thomas (Delano; a former Hollywood actor who became a monk in 1978) serving us for five years, and then again for almost ten years there was no permanent priest.
But we were gradually building our parish. Sometimes I would get sad and call Fr. Averky in Jordanville and almost shout: “Why can't we just go to the Greek church?” But Fr. Averky told us to keep praying and that there should be more temples, not fewer; that the Mother of God would help us.
And so God sent us Fr. Anatoly. That's when we began to have a real regular liturgical life.
At that time we had only a few families who supported the parish: Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs, Romanians, local Hawaiians.

At that time we served in a tiny office converted for the church (only 18 square meters!)

Fr. Anatoly tried to tell as much as possible about the temple, and the parish gradually grew. We served then in a tiny office (only 18 square meters!) converted for the temple. But what a joyful atmosphere there was! I remembered the words of Vladyka John (Maximovich). When his congregation in Shanghai was deprived of its cathedral, they were forced to serve in a garage, and many people cried. And then the saint consoled them that this place is greater than any cathedral, because here is the Body and Blood of Christ. We felt the same way when we served in our little room. Ten years later we rented a bigger place in the center of Honolulu.
And the church we have now is a miracle!
Our iconostasis was made... 100 years ago
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• Five years ago our long-time pastor gathered for retirement (now Fr. Anatoly is our rector emeritus and continues to serve to the best of his ability). We needed a younger priest. In 2016, I just went with an icon and several priests to Alaska. One priest I liked there was Fr. Athanasius Cohn. He had lived with his family on Kadyak Island in Alaska for many years, and he had an islander mentality.

Archbishop Kyrill of San Francisco and Western America considered him a good candidate for our temple and sent him to Hawaii. Our parish is mixed: now there are Russians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Palestinians, believers from Alaska, and we needed a missionary priest who would be able to spread Orthodoxy on the island in the future, to bring people to faith, so that they would seek Christ and follow Christ to the temple.
Two years after Fr. Athanasius came to us, in 2018, we started looking for a new place for the parish. But we didn't have much money, especially since the parish decided to pay the rector a salary for the first time in more than 20 years so that he wouldn't have to work a secular job as well. After all, it is no secret that abroad almost all clergy, in addition to serving, also work. There are priests-computer scientists and priests-doctors, construction workers, truckers and even cleaners. And in Hawaii, life is expensive.
It took us a long time to find a suitable place to rent. We thought maybe we could buy it. We looked for two years, and one day we got a call that there was a former mission in Keilua, not far from Honolulu, that was moving to Texas. It was a Baptist congregation with a small church, a school that needed to be remodeled.
We liked the place. The pastor told us that Jehovah's Witnesses and other denominations wanted to buy the premises, but he wanted to sell it to a real Christian parish.
Temple in Keilua
Then we started looking for a bank that would help us with the money, but we couldn't find one. And then something interesting happened. We found an Orthodox bank that gave Orthodox churches money on credit for repairs, expansion, and remodeling, but had never before given money to buy a church. Father Athanasius and I applied to them, but before that we served a prayer service to the Mother of God. And they accepted our application! And the entire management of the bank, starting with its president, was very willing to help our mission. We launched a fundraising campaign, and people from all over the world sent money, which we were able to make as a down payment.
All of this was happening during the coronavirus pandemic. We bought the spaces of our future church in March 2020, Easter services were held at the old location, and my father, the contractor, began working on remodeling and remodeling the buildings.
Last year was a year of much work. And all along we had some obstacles that came up. But as soon as the obstacles came up, the solution came!
When we started to renovate the masonry on the outside of the church, the mason took the money for the work and disappeared. But on the same day another mason came and offered to help. He did everything in the best possible way, and even poured cement near the church where there had been earth before.
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And one day the headman of the Cathedral in San Francisco told me that he had an iconostasis that was eighty years old or more, and he asked: “Do you need an iconostasis?" We would have gladly taken it, because at that time we were just making an ambo in the church. But he didn't even know the exact dimensions. My father said to me: “Let's build the ambo, then we'll decide. Mother of God will help.”

We assembled the iconostasis given to us, and it turned out that it exactly fits our ambo!

The iconostasis was delivered by container to Hawaii. We assembled it, and it turned out to fit our pulpit exactly! As Fr. Anatoly said, the iconostasis was made 100 years ago just for us.
About a year ago we completed the reconstruction of the church building and the neighboring school building, kitchen, library, and began to serve in our new church.
Even though the new church is a 15-minute drive from the former church, the very thought of driving through the mountains proved psychologically difficult for some of our members who live close to downtown Honolulu. We have lost some families, but gained more. We have Sunday school, the children serve, and sing in the choir where my matushka practices with them.
On a personal
Matushka Iya

• Fr. Nektarius, people usually see you in churches, where you visit with your myrrh-flowing icon. But few people know about your secular life, about your mother in particular.....
• Blythe grew up in a not very church-going family, but she loved music and sang in the choir at the same Epiphany Episcopal Church in Honolulu, where our Orthodox liturgy began at the end of their service. But this we discovered later. In the mid-1990s, she converted to Orthodoxy and was given the name Iya in baptism. Interestingly, the same weekend that Blythe was baptized, I was tonsured a reader.

We married, and when I was ordained a deacon in 2018, Iya became a matushka. She is of Japanese descent, a math teacher by profession, and teaches at a Catholic high school. In the temple, she leads the choir and teaches the younger generation to read and sing.
Honolulu

• And what is your secular profession?
• I was a policeman, and after I was badly injured in the line of duty, I switched to investigative work. Almost at the same time, the icon became myrrh-flowing, and I had more opportunity to pilgrimage with it. On trips I take my computer with me and work. When there is a lot of work, one of the attendants is in the temple with the icon, and I work with documents - in the church office or in the car.

I love my job, but I still look forward to the time when I retire and can devote more time to the icon of the Mother of God and the temple.

• Have you counted how many temples and monasteries you have visited with the icon?
• This year it will be 15 years since I have been traveling with the Iveron of Montreal (Hawaii) Icon. As long as Brother Joseph Munoz has been traveling with the Montreal Icon. Only by car I travel more than 160 thousand kilometers a year, not counting flights from Hawaii to the continent and back!

The icon and I have visited over 1700 temples around the world

The icon and I have visited over 1700 temples around the world, in the US and Canada - over 1200 in almost every state except maybe one or two. And wherever I have traveled, I never have seen empty temples.
Very many I remember are either simple parishioners or students at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, St. Tikhon's Seminary and St. Vladimir's Seminary.
Some priests come up to me and ask, “Do you remember me? I was a seminarian and I was friends with a girl. Now I am a priest, she is my matushka, and we have four children!”
The icon was sent for sale, and it became myrrh-flowing
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• How did the icon begin to flow the myrro?
• It happened in 2007. In the late 1990s, Father Anatoly traveled to Toronto and bought a small icon from a church kiosk. It was sold at a sale for $20 because it was considered too dark. It was the last one, and the grandmothers argued over who would buy it. Matushka Nadezhda, who worked at the kiosk, said: “Let the icon go to Hawaii.” And Father Anatoly bought the icon. He brought it to the temple and gave it to me for my angel's day.

In 2006 my bride and I got married, we moved the icon to our new apartment and put it on the highest bookshelf.
In 2007, I began to feel an odor throughout the apartment. I told my cousin and she too sensed an odor similar to what the flowers of the macorange plant smell like (it's a mixture of rose and orange scents). I'm highly allergic to smells, and at the store, I can't even go near the shelves of cleaning products. But I wasn't allergic that time. Still, I asked my wife what it smelled like. And even joked, “Are you trying to get rid of me?” She confirmed that the air in the apartment was fragrant. The odor came and went.
Just about that time, I was injured on duty and taken to the surgical ward. I remember when I woke up from anesthesia after surgery, I immediately felt a familiar aroma. It smelled like roses again.
At home I had a small cross, I looked at it and saw drops of liquid on it. I thought, where did that come from? And again I smelled the same odor of roses.
Time went by. One day I was working at home in my office. There I had a red corner with icons. Suddenly I noticed our cat entered the room and came to the red corner. He stood on his hind legs just at the spot where the Iveron Montreal Icon of the Mother of God stood on the shelf. The cat started sniffing and was about to jump up on the shelf, which he had never done before. I went over to put him away, and then I smelled the aroma again - and so strong! It was October 6th.
I called my wife over and she again confirmed that it smelled like rose. We started looking for where the scent was coming from. I raised my hands and found that the shelf was wet and the smell of roses was coming from there. I picked up an icon and an oily liquid - myrrh - trickled out of it. The myrrh flowed right from under the dust on the icon. Then drops began to appear on the icon itself.
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We knew about the myrrh-flowing Iveron Icon of the Mother of God of Montreal because our parish is named after her, but I had never seen it myself, it had never come to Hawaii. I was told that Brother Joseph Munoz was going to come with the icon, but while he was living on earth, he was not able to do so. Perhaps after his martyrdom he was here with the icon.
We blotted the icon, but it kept getting wet again and again. Then I realized that the icon was myrrh-flowing. And the cross is also myrrh-flowing.
My godmother, a Serbian, advised me to tell the priest about it. We brought the icon and the cross to the church. Father Anatoly served a prayer service and said: “Now we have a myrrh-flowing icon of the Mother of God, and it will change all our lives.”
After Christmas, with the blessing of Vladyka Kirill, we brought the icon and the cross to the Radoste-Scorbiaschensk Cathedral in San Francisco and left them there for several months.
I returned to Hawaii, not knowing what would happen to the icon: maybe it would be left in the cathedral or given to some monastery.

The clergy noticed that when people prayed before the icon, it began to myrrh-flow more.

In 2008, the archbishop said that the icon was returning to Hawaii. I rejoiced. We have our own myrrh-flowing icon! The clergy at the cathedral told me how they had begun to notice that when they prayed before the icon, it began to myrrh-flow more.
On the Sunday of the Solemnity of Orthodoxy, the icon was first taken out of the altar for the faithful to worship. Before that it was in the altar, and its presence in the cathedral was kept in secret.
Vladyka Kirill told the priests to change the absorbent cotton inside the icon, but not to tell anyone that the icon was here. The faithful were anointed with ointment, even not everyone got absorbent cotton with ointment, but then people who were anointed with ointment began to come to the bishop and to the priests of the cathedral and say that they were healed! Some from cancer, some from other diseases.
During the Week of Triumph of Orthodoxy, the icon and the cross were placed in the cathedral so that people could pray and lay their hands on them, and soon we took them to Hawaii. The cross began to be kept permanently in the church as a blessing to the parishioners, and the icon of the Mother of God was assigned a keeper.
How I became an icon keeper

• A keeper is the person called an "iconophore" (icon keeper) in Greek. This Greek word was used by Pushkin in his works, but more often in Russia they used to say “icon bearer”.
• Yes. In a broad sense it is a person who takes care of church utensils and the temple as a whole. Vladyka Kirill told me that since the icon of the Mother of God is constantly myrrh-flowing, people should be witnesses to it. And not only to see the miracle with their eyes, but also to feel it with their hearts, so the icon should visit as many temples and monasteries as possible, and it should have a keeper who will take care of it and travel with it to the parishes.

I asked who would do all this and he pointed to me.
I was confused and began to say I have a wife, a job, a cat. I work every day, I pay my loan. So it should be someone else. “The Mother of God came to you and chose you. And She had a reason for that,” the Vladyka said. - "And you must answer Her call. Of course, you can refuse, but God doesn't offer that a few times in life, and there may never be another opportunity to serve Him. So make up your mind!” - and I agreed, putting all my hope in the Mother of God.
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We brought the icon to the island, and since then it has been traveling around the world for almost 15 years, and millions of people in hundreds of churches pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary in front of this small icon. In one church in Georgia alone, where we were in 2014, more than 100,000 people came to worship her. The Georgian patriarch then told us that only in that small church two women were healed of cancer. They were healed during a prayer service, which the priest of that temple served for the family and their loved ones late in the evening. Among those praying were those two women.

The woman who had died five minutes earlier was placed an icon on her chest, she breathed, and her heart began to beat

It is noteworthy that in those days many possessed people were healed in Georgia and even a woman who had died five minutes ago. They put an icon on her chest, she breathed and her heart began to beat.
In one monastery I saw the healing of a girl. She wriggled in front of the icon, then a priest came out of the altar, prayed and anointed her with ointment. I had never seen an exorcism rite before, and for me what I saw then was the most frightening and at the same time spiritually strengthening.
People tried to hold her down, and at one point the girl screamed loudly. The Abbess asked if we could put the icon on her chest. At that moment I looked at her face - distorted and really “demonic”. We put the icon on the girl's chest, she raised her hands to the icon and tried to hug it like a child. And suddenly an incredible aroma began to emanate from the icon and penetrate all corners of the temple.
Later the Abbess told me that the girl was healed the same day and was playing quietly with the other children. It is unbelievable that they tried to drive out the unclean spirit from the girl for months and could not. And they anointed her with peace from the icon only once - and she was completely healed.
I know a priest in Washington, D.C., who is a Catholic priest. His friend, a Catholic priest-exorcist in Rome, told him how difficult it is for them to exorcise spirits there. And our priest sent him myrrh from our Hawaiian icon.
“What did you send us? - the exorcist from Rome wrote to him. - “People are being healed. Can you send more?” We sent him myrrh, of course. We send to anyone who asks.

• Do you visit temples of other denominations?
• As a rule, no. They don't ask. Catholics, Anglicans usually come themselves to the places where the icon is.

A non-Orthodox woman asked me to come with an icon to her son in the hospital - and he was healed

I can bring an icon home, to the hospital, if they invite me to visit a sick person. I even visited a sick Muslim girl. There was a case when a non-Orthodox woman asked me to come with an icon to her son in the hospital - and he was healed.
Some people are indignant and say that I should visit only the Orthodox with an icon. But everyone can come to the temple and ask for healing. You cannot forbid people to come to the Mother of God and ask for help.
One thing is sacraments, but it is unfair to close the icon for prayer from those who have not yet come to the right faith. You cannot separate some people from others. It is unmerciful!
One must be patient with God

• Fr. Nektarius, how do you choose where to go with an icon?
• I don't choose them myself. The Mother of God decides everything. And I receive certain signs. I feel, for example, that I need to go to Texas. Then I usually wait, because with God, as with people, you have to be patient. He is patient with us!

I'm waiting, praying, and all of a sudden I get a call from a minister in north Texas asking: “Can you come to Texas?” And then I get a call from a priest in Austin, from south Texas, who also invites me to come. And after him - regardless of those priests - I get a call from the abbess of a convent in Houston. And all this happens within a few days. And they offer dates close to each other, even though they had not even agreed. This is how the Mother of God guides me.
I have learned to read such signs and never force trips. I am like a humble “donkey” that stands by and waits to be taken and pulled in one direction or another.
In the beginning, I tried to force it, to initiate trips myself, but things didn't work out, things went wrong.
For example, a few years ago I was with an icon in a church in San Francisco, and I was offered to visit one of the monasteries. A group of clergy gathered and went with the icon in one car, and I went in another. Suddenly I noticed that I was falling asleep. I decided to stop at a coffee shop, bought coffee and saw a Woman at the car. “You need to go back,” She said. “How?” I asked. “You don't have to go any further. Go back.” I opened the car door and felt a strong odor of peace waft out of the car. But the icon wasn't there! I turned around - the Woman was gone. I realized that it was the Mother of God, so I went back.
A monastery as a gift

Nearby stood a Young Woman, “Get up, it's time to get on the plane,” She said. I took my things, and She disappeared

And this case is not the only one. Once I was flying from Honolulu to Fresno, California, with a layover in San Francisco. It was about two hours before landing, so I decided to take a nap and put the icon in its cover under my head. They announced boarding and I was still asleep. They were announcing my name on the loudspeaker, but I didn't hear. Suddenly someone patted me on the shoulder. A Young Woman was standing next to me. “Get up, it's time to get on the plane,” She said. I picked up my things and She disappeared.
In Fresno, the Abbess of the monastery, Mother Markella, and her sisters were waiting for me. I approached her, and she said, “Did the Mother of God appear to you?” - I said, “What do you mean?” - and I realized Who was the Young Woman who woke me up at the airport.
The Abbess told me that a family from Ukraine had come to the monastery and their daughter was very sick. She asked me to bless the girl with an icon and anoint her with holy ointment. And the girl was healed!
Her father, who worked in construction, was so happy that he rebuilt that monastery. This is a convent in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Life-Giving Source”, one of the most beautiful women's monasteries.
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The man in the cloak

• October 31 marks the 25th anniversary of the tragic death in Athens of Brother Joseph Munoz-Cortez, who for 15 years was the keeper of the myrrh-flowing Iveron of Montreal Icon of the Mother of God. Have you ever felt fear while traveling?
• Once in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I saw a man enter the church after a prayer service. The priest at that time was just anointing the people with ointment. The man was wearing a long cloak. And since I'm a police officer, I usually have an instinct that something is wrong. So I start watching.

The man knelt down and started crying. I realized that the Mother of God was now doing something with him, with his soul

The man approached the icon. I also approached and looked carefully at his hands. He knelt down and began to cry. He cried a lot. I realized that the Mother of God was doing something with him, with his soul.
The man approached the priest, he anointed him with myrrh, and the man came to me. He unzipped his cloak, pulled out a large hunting knife and handed it to me. He told me that he had come out of his office for lunch and then he saw a flyer that someone had put up, probably someone from the church - about the Hawaiian icon coming to their temple. And he heard a voice urging him to destroy the icon and kill the person who brought it. The voice in his head played over and over again. When he came to the temple to destroy the icon, he felt that someone hugged him from behind, started breathing in his ear and sort of kissed his neck like his mom used to do when he was a child. He felt his mom holding him in her arms, fell to the floor, and the voice disappeared.
This man later embraced Orthodoxy, but before that he knew nothing about the faith.
I always remember the words of our Archbishop Kirill - never to travel alone. The Mother of God in Her image is certainly a protector. But I remember what happened to Brother Joseph in Athens. And with the myrrh-flowing Iveron of Montreal icon that went missing and of which no trace has been found to this day. That is why I value every minute, every second, as long as a copy of it - our Hawaiian icon - is with us. Because at any moment it too may, God forbid, disappear.
Deacon Nektary Youngston.

Apologies in advance for formatting, I can’t access my account on a computer and I can’t do in-line pictures on mobile so you’ll have to swipe through pics up top!
I was reading u/ep1grams amazing first post and had the biggest lightening strike moment. Both sides of the fandom know Taylor loves to talk about time, clocks, “she’s a clock” etc….and we all know that “meet me at midnight” is important. Here’s the lightening strike:
Taylor the person (authentic self) = MIDNIGHT Taylor the brand = AFTERNOON
12am is the inverse/reflection/opposite of 12pm — numerically they look the same but by comparison in reality are polar opposites.
If we go in under the Karma Truther assumption that after 1989, Taylor wrote/recorded an album (Karma) that was going to be her attempt to come out publicly but was forced to pivot (ie: cut the wings off the plane in the Look What You Made Me Do video) bc her brand/big machine/etc wouldn’t let her proceed with Karma bc it was too gay/loud — then ever since that Karma/Rep era, 12AM Taylor has been forced to walk around (very much like Zombie Taylor from LWYMMD) in a 12PM world….both worlds are technically 12 o’clock, but her reality is the wrong one.
So if Karma was her first attempt to let us meet her true authentic self, theoretically the clock was ALMOST at Midnight, she could see it on the horizon….but then with the cutting of the plane/pivoting to Rep, her world was flipped upside down (or inversely)….her MIDNIGHTS very literally became her AFTERNOONS bc she was forced to protect The Brand by staying in the closet. And ever since she’s been living in this inverse/alternate timeline in the 12PM world even though she wants to be in the 12AM world.
This idea plays directly into the inverse/opposite/yin-yang motifs that are at the crux of TTPD, which is all very Through The Looking Glass coded — AM and PM Taylor are reflections of each other, where everything is the same only backwards/different
Here’s some lyrical support:

AFTERNOONS

• Last Great American Dynasty: - “Rebekah rode up on the afternoon train” - she arrived in the “real world” in the afternoon (and then proceeded to ruin everything…). - Later, “They say she was seen on occasion, Pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea” She’s LONGING for the 12AM world
• London Boy - In arguably the most satirical song in her discography convincing everybody that she’s soooo in love with Joe Alwyn, what time are they doing all of their activities? In the afternoon - in the 12pm world that she doesn’t want to be in. This song is in the voice of Taylor Swift the Brand with a big repetitive emphasis on afternoons. - “You know I love a London boy, I enjoy walking Camden Market in the afternoon” - “I enjoy nights in Brixton, Shoreditch in the afternoon” - “I enjoy walking SoHo, drinking in the afternoon (yeah)”
• The Bolter - A bit more of a reach to interpret here but can be taken as an implied meaning: - “When it's all roses, portrait poses, Central Park Lake in tiny rowboat, What a charming Saturday” she is describing an “idyllic” *afternoon** in the park. And with the comphet undertones of this song it fits as support…..on the surface 12PM Taylor looks like she’s living the perfect life, but 12AM Taylor knows she has to bolt*

MIDNIGHT:

There’s honestly so many but here’s a few: * Ready For it? - “In the middle of the night, in my dreams, you should see the things we do”

• All to Well:
  
  • “Cause there we are again in the middle of the night We're dancing 'round the kitchen in the refrigerator light”
• Untouchable
  
  • “In the middle of the night, we can form this dream I wanna feel you by my side, standing next to me You gotta come on, come on Say that we'll be together”

CLOCKS

Her overarching theme throughout her discography is counting down till midnight, biding her time until 12PM becomes 12AM….waiting until her TRUE self can separate from Taylor Swift the brand: • Suburban Legends: “Tick-tock on the clock, I pace down your block * Midnights prologue “For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching - hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes 12….we meet ourselves” * Which brings us to Peter: “And I won't confess that I waited, but I let the lamp burn”

BACK TO THE KARMA COFFEE CUP

A few weeks back I theorized that the blue/black nails in the Karma mv coffee cup are pointing us back to the You Need To Calm Down music video by alluding to the alignment of Blue/Bi wig Taylor across from JVN (see pics). The YNTCD image that I used for this is the one indexed by Google, so it already exists in internet world, it’s not an obscure screenshot that I took myself…but I DID rotate it to align it to the coffee cup nails after noticing that the blue and black hair were in a perfect straight line across, much like 8 and 2 on a clock. When I first considered this, I didn’t know exactly WHAT this meant other than I think she’s pointing us back to her at her loudest in the Lover era. But now I think I have more to add:
With the idea of afternoon Taylor vs Midnight Taylor in mind…..let’s assume that the coffee nails are a DOUBLE Easter Egg, and that the nails DO ALSO represent the 1989 era (blue) and the Rep era (black), which is what most people accept as the intended Easter Egg…..if the Karma ALBUM was supposed to be her original coming out where we got to “meet her at midnight”, it would have fallen between 1989 and Rep…..so what if the coffee cup is pointing to what was SUPPOSED to happen after 1989? The straight 8-2 line between the nails is referencing the straight 8-2 line between Taylor-JVN…. I don’t think you’re supposed to read the clock in this rotated view, but I think the rotation is a way of making it not such a straight forward reference/connection to YNTCD/Lover era ….in the side by side of the original orientation YNTCD pic compared to the Karma coffee clock, you’ll see that true, colorful, bi-sexual hair Taylor is ALMOST to midnight, she lines up perfectly with the clock hands. She was THIS CLOSE to coming out with Karma, the clock was alllllllmost striking 12am. But then she was forced to cut off the wings and stay in the closet.
And while I know that timeline wise, YNTCD is from lover which is after rep so NOT a direct Karma reference, if you look at it as a reference to her TRUE SELF (gay/out/loud, “gay pride makes me me”) I think the coffee cup/YNTCD reference is just pointing to the idea/portrayal of true self is what SHOULD HAVE COME at Midnight and now what WILL come when she escapes the 12PM world and gets back to 12AM world.
So essentially….12am colorful Taylor was ALMOST out in between 1989 and Rep, but then she had to cut the wings off the Karma plane/album and has been since stuck in a 12pm world with shades of greige, waiting and counting down until her color returns at Midnight again (hopefully soon??)

https://youtu.be/pIfKVXSd0ak?feature=shared The Link of Music

This mall always had a creepy ghost town aesthetic to it. Obviously, the consoles at the time couldn’t handle the capability of a full blown mall with crowds and every store being accessible, but it’s so funny how Vice City had this when GTA V didn’t even have a simple fast food restaurant.
Regardless, I do want VI to have a full blown mall, and definitely modernized with parody stores like Hot Topic or Banana Republic. But man… it would be such a fun Easter egg to include this very mall in VI, with the same music, the same dead atmosphere, basically a small town mall that use to be the shit but not anymore thanks to the brand new mall in the city.
It would also be cool if you could drive your car in the malls too, since the malls have a fun parkour setting if you will with cars, like Coconut Mall.

Has probably been said before but if you listen closely to the background music at the hotel in Holland in sly 3, it’s a remix of Dimitris beloved nightclub theme. I think it’s a really cool little easter egg they added since Dimitri’s new job is at the bar in the hotel. Just adds to how awesome this games soundtrack is! Found this out a while back when I kept whistling the tune to myself and realized it was two different tracks.

Taylor Swift’s new album The Tortured Poet’s Department is referencing old black & white films, not the stages of grief. This can be seen in so many of the posts that have shown up on this sub, connecting the songs, the tour visuals, and the lyric videos to old black & white movies. As I have believed since my first listening, TTPD is about the entertainment industry (specifically the toxic aspects of it)and not about specific romantic muses. There are many references littered throughout, but another mod and I are working on something that discusses my very fav reference…so this post won’t reference the best of all the references imo.

Black & White Films

There has always been debate about if Taylor comes up with easter eggs on her own or if she sees what fans are saying and rolls with it. I think she did the latter with the concept that TTPD was referencing the stages of grief. If you’ll remember, she never said that’s what she was intending, she just created some playlists and Swifties rolled with it and declared that that’s what the colours meant the entire time. What if it wasn’t? What if the colours of the albums and the poses on them were referencing old Hollywood films, predominantly black & white ones? What are black and white films comprised of? Black, white, grey, and sepia.
https://preview.redd.it/dttug3xpdg1d1.jpg?width=1091&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7cd7952587ee62f83e3e33fa912ca2dcf43a7578
https://preview.redd.it/232qt9xpdg1d1.jpg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=19ff505b8521f6d2267bd5ef022267563c0cf32a

The Eras Tour in Black & White

We can see this reflected again in her presentation of I Can Do It With A Broken Heart at the Eras tour, referencing Gentleman Prefer Blondes…but black and white…with a silver and a gold version… I am writing this post for u/rott-mom, because her comment made me want to swish it off my mental desk so I can think more about the wild connections I’ve been seeing between my fav gay men and Taylor. This is a comment she posted that caught my attention, with Reddit‘s misogynistic censoring accounted for.
https://preview.redd.it/xznmdftzeg1d1.jpg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7b235ee93992e78bf29836b504b79862b1da3211
This video is a great discussion of the possible connections that link even further to old Hollywood and TTPD.
https://reddit.com/link/1cw08rp/video/7ehn928geg1d1/player
Taylor is leading us all to these things, in my opinion… And by us, I do actually mean gaylors…because much of the connections I’ve made will not be seen by Swifties/Hetlors. They are directly related to closeting, Morality Clauses, Lavender Marriages, and the fact that the “golden era of Hollywood” was also the dawn of massive homophobic closeting on a national level - James Dean, Cary Grant, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, and soooo many others.

Lavender Marriages

During the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1920s, queer actors and actresses were only able to achieve success if they curtailed their authentic selves and tailored their image to meet the expectations and demands of the film studios. For queer preformers, that most often meant that they would need to be closeted and to marry a individual of the opposite sex.
Studios and management companies would be aware that some of their biggest stars were queer and would go so far as to have actual weddings to quell what they considered unsavory rumours — this is where the term “lavender marriage” came from. They actually closeted two queer celebrities by marrying them to one another! The widespread belief is that lavender marriages are no longer as widespread in the industry, though many — particularly queer historians — have their doubts about this.

Morality Clauses

Lavender marriages were a solve in part for “moral clauses” issued by big studios at the time. The clauses, first introduced by Universal Film Company, permitted the company to discontinue actors' salaries "if they forfeit the respect of the public.” The kind of behavior deemed unacceptable ranged widely from criminal activity to association with any conduct that was considered indecent or startling to the community. The clauses exist to this day — Harry Styles was explicit regarding the immense relief he felt when he left his One Direction morality clause and entered into a less restrictive (but still present!!) morality clause in his solo career.
(Yes, I did just copy/paste from our Wiki. I wrote it, I am allowed to.)

Screaming Colour?

The Fortnight music video is entirely in black & white, with the only pieces that are in screaming colour being the lesbian pride flag, the gay men’s pride flag, and fire. She‘s burning down the old ways, allowing colour to come in…and the colour is gay and lesbian, sunrise/sunset and twilight/night. Similarly, in a landscape reminiscent of an old western film (cowboys 💅 and culturally subversive), they are surrounded by the white script pages, written by the shadowy individuals old hollywood forced into closets…it is with the blinding fire of white flame, blue flame, and red/pink/orange flame, that the scripts are burned…with the only other scene with colour in the video being that of Taylor standing in a room where their forced act - their stunt - is burning up around her…liberating them all.
https://preview.redd.it/61vfnvbfjg1d1.jpg?width=2678&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=312ff18d0eb6396002599119d681239017446ee9
The concept of shadow figures in music videos represent the closeted self, hidden lovers, and the shadow self (Hi Peter!) that follows one around in hopes of reattaching can also be found in Harry Styles’ works. Similar to how I've been revisiting old Taylor stuff with a muse free perspective, I've been revisiting Harry and Louis' stuff through that lens in order to see additional meanings. While I do believe that Louis is represented by the shadow man, I also believe the shadow represents Harry's hidden (queer) half, his literal shadow self - cut off from him and sent to the sidelines as a result of being forcibly closeted by the entertainment industry. Here is a wonderful post on how Peter is about Harry Styles
https://reddit.com/link/1cw08rp/video/ogo4twrrmg1d1/player
I also think it’s worth noting that in black & white films, the makeup women are wearing is wildly and freakishly colourful - it needs to be to show up ”normal” on film. If this was shot in a traditional manner, Taylor is wearing green lipstick in this shot. She likely looks wildly colourful, but in a manner that would be considered grotesque by those who don’t understand.
https://preview.redd.it/oly21gv8ig1d1.jpg?width=2018&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d4adec5bafb44ea38596609594511272010c0b11
Similarly, this shot is conversion therapy…but also pulp science fiction. As someone who is a devout horror lover and has written on the topic of horror as one of the ultimate sites of subversive discourse around race and misogyny, this is next level iconography. What is grotesque in this? Is it her femininity, her masculinity in a female body, her orange/white/pink/purple essence, her face, her curly hair? Is it the dog who has been surgically altered to represent a worldwide beauty standard? Is it the men surrounding her, experimenting on her, while looking "normal" and being fully clothed?
https://preview.redd.it/t7csr0sglg1d1.jpg?width=2036&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d5fb694fa10a5811eb15bfd0dac385331c9a63e7
In conclusion, there is no conclusion. This will be followed up sometime this week with another post that has u/premier-cat-arena and I very excited…we haven’t started writing it tho 🙃
How Taylor Swift’s Fortnight Evokes German Expressionist Film
Taylor Swiftstein
Inventing the It Girl
Taylor is Post Malone
Shawshank Redemption
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" couple who inspired the play

https://preview.redd.it/1oqpqpbe8e1d1.png?width=1914&format=png&auto=webp&s=e6dd9d42e82c0db0924cf6d712f582db77d8ba97
What's up guys! It's your friendly Genshin overthinker Inotia King. As always before we begin I just want to make sure new readers have checked out my first topic which is the basis for all my theories. So if you haven't checked that out yet please click here.
The new story's come and gone now and it seems to just be a reinforcement for what we've seen previously. We did already know that Remus tried to pull a Deshret but now we're seeing how far people go to achieve this flawed idea. Both Remus and Deshret before him realized just a little too late that preserved eternity was never going to work and dissolving everybody's consciousnesses into a collective goo was a bad idea. The Golden Slumber didn't save anybody and neither would melting people into Ichor, shoving their bodies into statues and then shoving them into a magical musical score. Ei lucked out in this sense. She had Yae pulling out all the stops to prevent it, using the Traveler to push Ei into place for Makoto to finally show her what she'd learned herself.
So while it isn't groundbreaking to know that Boethius was wrong just like Rene would also be wrong centuries later I think this quest series gave us a few more details and showcased more of the research the miHoYo devs do for these regions. Therefore just like I did last year with Farakhkert I want to discuss a few of them.
https://preview.redd.it/3et7oxo79e1d1.png?width=494&format=png&auto=webp&s=044bdf3b50882942127e2457a31d3298f8edc333
https://preview.redd.it/y1qe7t1x8e1d1.png?width=3840&format=png&auto=webp&s=670151ea2bada74662e50f24ed78a153e73d8887
We've actually known about this city (town?) for a long time. I think it's actually the first Fontaine city we learn about, all the way back when Inazuma first released. I don't think anybody really thought too much about it either but now it's name really makes sense. Petrichor is made from the two Greek words petr and ichor so in terms of Genshin it's very on the nose. Remus literally turned his people into ichor by dissolving their Oceanid bodies with the Primordial Sea and then shoving the resulting goo into statues, the petr or stone. In real life petrichor is just the smell of rainwater on dirt and the word ichor is actually what the Greeks called the blood of gods. From a Genshin perspective it was in a way what Remus intended the Ichor to be, a way for humanity to break free from fate which they believed was the power the gods had over them.
But what is actually new is where Petrichor is. Previously we didn't even know that Fontaine was on an artificially raised platform so there was no reason to believe Petrichor would fall into some weirdly separated space yet still be called part of the region. Our oldest information about it was just that it's waters were very pure and it was beautiful. Yeah that's pretty much all of Fontaine though. In fact we knew so little about Petrichor back then that even by v4.3 Xavier, who is a local never talked about how it wasn't actually located on the Fontaine plateau but rather some separated area where even the drown-proof aspect of Fontaine's waters didn't reach. So what is this area of Fontaine called? Nostoi which is Greek for "return." In our world it was part of the story about the Trojan War, preceding Homer's the Odyssey and acts like a prologue for that part of the story, the return of the Greek heroes besides Odysseus back from the war. (There's an "Ajax" who dies in this story though he's not the same Ajax that Childe is based on.)
Side Note: This timeline placement might also be important but that's a topic for another day.
There's actually a French connection to Petrichor too probably to justify it's inclusion in a French region lol. If you talk to Xavier's childhood friend (and girl next door) Goldoni, her possessing Remurian tells you about Petrocorii a territory of Remuria that fell to barbarians. In our world the petrocorii were Gauls that opposed the Roman Republic during Caesar's time. Unlike petr-ichor, petro-corii is Gallic for four (petro) armies (corios) with corii acting as a common suffix for their tribes.
Actually this connection to Gauls keeps going. In the same dialogue that Goldoni tells us about Petrocorii she name drops Lucius Septimius Sebelius which is a reference to Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus. (Sebelius is likely just an intentional bastardization of Severus but Sebelius is a real surname too.) Severus is notable for being the founder of the last Roman Dynasty before the Crisis of the Third Century, when Rome was temporarily defeated by the Gallic Empire. I actually brought up this part of Roman history in another topic about something that should have been totally unrelated lol. It was about how religion was historically tied to currency on our side of the world.
Side Note: Goldoni herself may be a reference to the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni. I bring this up because it's a common theme when it comes to Remuria but that's also a topic for another day.
Finally when possessed Goldoni calls Xavier, Xaverius. This is a reference to Franciscus Xaverius or Saint Francis Xavier, the first missionary that went to Japan before it went into Sakoku. The name Xavier is interesting by itself though. It actually predates most of these references because it's a Latinized version of the Paleo-European (Basque) surname Echevarria meaning new house. The Basques are the last surviving ethnic group native to Europe (current Europeans are all some form of Indo-European, including the Celts, Romans, Germanics) and their modern populations are located in Spain and France, influencing both nations over time. Who knew our engineefilmmaker would be such an interesting reference to his hometown which also is a preceding ancient culture that heavily influenced the modern French-inspired one?
Side Note 1: After completing the Remuria World Quest it's discovered that Petrichor is stagnating. The elderly are increasingly closed off and the young find the town boring and are starting to leave. This might be a reference to the Vatican which has the world's oldest median age. As the headquarters of Catholicism it's also very traditional and young people have been leaving it too, though part of the reason is disillusionment of religion over the many scandals plaguing the church. (That said the young Petrichorians might wanna stick around. If Mecantre and Babisse are brainstorming what I think they are then Petrichor might become really interesting one day.)
Side Note 2: Geographically Petrichor would more likely be based on Corsica but there is no shortage of self-importance as a stereotype of the Corsicans. No young people are going to ditch that town anytime soon. It was the birthplace of Napoleon after all. However that could actually be the link to Petrichor, to the pre-World Quest version where everybody is a proud Remurian. According to a friend I have who is part French, as arrogant as the rest of the world see the French, the French see the Corsicans. And certainly that was the vibe we got upon speaking to all of the Remurians.
https://preview.redd.it/1jm7n40dee1d1.png?width=494&format=png&auto=webp&s=3747aeab86048a6a0dbc56f2f210c44a40d40f9b
https://preview.redd.it/25piz3xdee1d1.png?width=1758&format=png&auto=webp&s=146010da267fa6b19482b04f3d7d8a709cedacdf
Yes the previous section was just the name of the region and all the stuff we can gather from just that. That's how miHoYo's devs do things haha
Now for a speed round. Hortus is the Proto-Indo-European for garden while euergetis is Greek for a worker who does good work. Together it probably means Garden of the Good Worker. However Euergetis can also be a title applied to good leaders specifically female leaders of the Hellenistic world. (Euergetes is the masculine form) Cleopatra III was also called Cleopatra Euergetis for example. The "garden" can only be reached by doing the World Quest so it's likely this garden honors Sybilla who does have the merits to justify the title.
With Caesareum Palace I'm pretty sure miHoYo was going for the specific Caesareum of Alexandria so they mean a temple but that's not was Caesareum actually means. It just means Julius Caesar who of course doesn't exist in Genshin. (although going off of Rene's Root Cycle stuff he's supposed to show up sooner or later lol)
Collegium Phonascorum is probably the easiest to match with the theme. It's just a group of music teachers. Since the whole thing was getting people ready for the Grand Symphony it makes sense to have some teachers teaching the music stuff. That said it's not actually a group at all. It's the name of a place and that makes sense with its real name 谐律院 or Courtyard of Harmony. Actually 谐律 is really fitting. The term does mean harmony but in both the sense of being united in peace and in terms of musical harmony, being in tune with each other. It's a very nice allusion to what the Grand Symphony was meant to do.
That said Phobos is such a red flag lol! Phobos aka phobia is the God of Fear. (alongside brother Deimos) No wonder this genius plan failed.
https://preview.redd.it/k2lmfvgafe1d1.png?width=1364&format=png&auto=webp&s=bd55e79583981fdd6931c63f78390870e79fedf2
Wasn't Fortuna the man's boat? Can't have a physical device double as an abstract concept my friends. That said if Fortuna actually means fate then it fits even better with the Stella Fortuna thing Ashikai came up with before, but she'd have to forego the connection with sun gods.
Sebastos is the Greek version of Augustus. But I don't think Sebastos Remus is correct syntax. If this was Latin then honorifics come after the name so Remus Augustus. It would be just like the Guuji Yae issue. In English the localization team went with Guuji Yae but Raiden Shogun. Raiden Shogun is correct but because of that the correct syntax would be Yae Guuji, surnames followed by titles. In Greek we have Oedipus Rex or Oedipus Tyrannus so the titles do come after the name and therefore it should be Remus Sebastos. But I read somewhere that modern Greek puts the titles first like keerie Remus would be Mr. Remus and not Remus keerie. If there are Greeks reading this please advise thanks!
Osse the cat first named himself Ouranides of Ouranopolis. Ouranides is just the name for the first generation of Titans because they were the children of Ouranos. I'm not sure what that was trying to reference for the game. Ouranos would be Saturn so he's one of the Classical Planets that have come up before. It is interesting to note that the children of the sea, the Oceanides were the second generation of Titans. Maybe Osse was trying to suggest that Remurians were the first generation of Fontainians while the ones we know of today (the former Oceanid humans) are the second?
Anyway Ouranopolis is a real place or it was. It's just south of Macedonia. Today there's a small town there called Ouranopoli with a very lovely beach. Pretty sure that's not what Remus was going for when he called it the city of the future.
And of course we learn that our keerie Ouranides is really Cassiodor based on Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus who was born in Scylletium. Probably just a cute reference. Scylla himself is a reference to a monster from the Odyssey sometimes described like a hydra. (S)he was the lesser of two evils because the seemingly weaker Charybdis sucked up water and anything that happens to be floating on it. We have a reference to Charybdis too all the way back in the Narzissenkreuz World Quest when we go to Fort Charybdis Ruins.
Anyway Cassiodorus was a contemporary of Boethius and actually replaced him as magister officiorum when he was accused and executed for conspiracy against Rome. Gee if only Remus had let Romulus run things huh? The Romurian Empire would've seen Boe-boe coming a mile away. That said his charges were trumped up. Real life Boethius was a good guy. He was trying to reunite the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. (albeit it probably wasn't going to happen since the "Western Roman Empire" we're talking about is Germanic Rome and even today we have trouble accepting that Rome.) Cassiodorus himself lasted much longer probably because he was stationed in the Eastern Roman Empire and became more focused on education than politics. Finally, he would retire to Castellum not a golden castellum but a monastery where he continued supporting education.
Before we dive into the Faded Castle part there are NPCs that are also significant. First you have Contarini Tiepolo a cop whose name is actually made up of two surnames from important Venetian families. She interpreted some of her lingering memories from being possessed as the Liliacruces Ordo. This is another fiction actually. The Liliacruces Ordo is based on the Narzissenkreuz Ordo and was popularized in Fontaine's mystery novels that Paimon likes so much.
Her father Tiepolo is the Doge. It's not bit currency but Italian for the Latin Dux or leader. It was a title used in the Republic of Venice and he's actually based on the first Duke of the city-state, Jacopo Tiepolo. Duke is also a form of Dux.
https://preview.redd.it/wmrqpr1rge1d1.png?width=494&format=png&auto=webp&s=c698b4b939e1f17e689557259a88af8e50722dc7
https://preview.redd.it/utbsvbprge1d1.png?width=1912&format=png&auto=webp&s=875aac379c99d89c07c190a0e2e0a22786fc1168
We already knew Cassiodor was a Harmost but now these Remurians are calling him Dominus. Harmost is Greek, specifically Spartan for a military leader. As it relates to what Remus did during his conquests the Spartans used the Harmosts to undermine Athens push for democracy with the Delian League. Similarly Dominus is a title used by Roman Emperors only after the Crisis of the Third Century when it started declining and becoming more authoritarian. Dominus actually translates to head or master like that of a household. For instance Roman slaves addressed their masters as Dominus.
And it's the household thing that plays out in the next term: Domus Aurea or the Golden House. (A dominus is the head of the domus.) It's cute to think this is some kind of link between Remuria and Liyue. Ashikai would love this kind of detail for her God King theory. But I don't think it's what it is. The Golden House in Liyue is literally just the Golden House 黄金屋 whereas Domus Aurea was 黄金的大宫. 大宫 is much more glamorous than 屋. For example the White House is 白宫 and 故宫 is the Imperial Palace. The real Domus Aurea relates more to that latter example. It was Nero's second home after he supposedly burned down Rome in 64AD just to have it built. Sounds about right with who we're dealing with in Genshin's version.
Side Note: Actually could that be why there's a Caesareum Palace? I mean Caesar did burn down Alexandria. And then after he died Cleopatra built the Caesareum to commemorate him. So it could relate to Nero and then our Remus. What do you guys think?
To get to Domus Aurea we're told we need to breach the Initium Iani. Initium means entrance and in the original Chinese it's door which actually works really amusingly with Iani or the Roman god Ianus because he's the God of Doors. Well pretty much all definitions for initium parallel what Ianus was so we could translate Initium Iani as the Doorway of the God of Doorways, Entrance of the God of Entrances, Transition of the God of Transitions, etc. The point was that Ianus represented a change in something like when you change rooms by going through a door, the changes in season every year or changing of the guard between historical periods. It's like the miHoYo devs just wanted to throw in a cute easter egg only nerds would get, the doorway to end all doorways lol
Side Note: Also because their names are so close to each other apparently Janus (alt spelling for Ianus) got mistaken for Juno (Iuno is the more accurate spelling*) sometimes confusing which god represented which month. It's funny because I had previously brought up Juno (and the Golden House actually) in that totally unrelated topic about the Gauls and the history of currency. Again this is all probably just coincidental. I just found it funny.
\or* Yuno for us anime fans. Rome's version was probably more stable though. Then again she is based on Hera so....
https://preview.redd.it/fu82a3crie1d1.png?width=494&format=png&auto=webp&s=447a161bd6c1adea6908d93765ac861528fa6373
And that was all the references I found interesting from the new quest. It's really long so I think I'll leave it at that and save the lore deep dive for next time.

https://preview.redd.it/pkcgps4c8e1d1.png?width=1914&format=png&auto=webp&s=312db7fe238952a8655cc950fee2efcea965aeb4
What's up guys! It's your friendly Hoyoverse overthinker Inotia King. As always before we begin I just want to make sure new readers have checked out my older topics which my newer theories are built upon. So for the Genshin ones you can click here. And for the Honkai related ones you can click here.
The new story's come and gone now and it seems to just be a reinforcement for what we've seen previously. We did already know that Remus tried to pull a Deshret but now we're seeing how far people go to achieve this flawed idea. Both Remus and Deshret before him realized just a little too late that preserved eternity was never going to work and dissolving everybody's consciousnesses into a collective goo was a bad idea. The Golden Slumber didn't save anybody and neither would melting people into Ichor, shoving their bodies into statues and then shoving them into a magical musical score. Ei lucked out in this sense. She had Yae pulling out all the stops to prevent it, using the Traveler to push Ei into place for Makoto to finally show her what she'd learned herself.
So while it isn't groundbreaking to know that Boethius was wrong just like Rene would also be wrong centuries later I think this quest series gave us a few more details and showcased more of the research the miHoYo devs do for these regions. Therefore just like I did last year with Farakhkert I want to discuss a few of them.
https://preview.redd.it/artw51tn8e1d1.png?width=494&format=png&auto=webp&s=1e61c4a97f75fe96cbea3e2a7e1da3031bb91e08
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We've actually known about this city (town?) for a long time. I think it's actually the first Fontaine city we learn about, all the way back when Inazuma first released. I don't think anybody really thought too much about it either but now it's name really makes sense. Petrichor is made from the two Greek words petr and ichor so in terms of Genshin it's very on the nose. Remus literally turned his people into ichor by dissolving their Oceanid bodies with the Primordial Sea and then shoving the resulting goo into statues, the petr or stone. In real life petrichor is just the smell of rainwater on dirt and the word ichor is actually what the Greeks called the blood of gods. From a Genshin perspective it was in a way what Remus intended the Ichor to be, a way for humanity to break free from fate which they believed was the power the gods had over them.
But what is actually new is where Petrichor is. Previously we didn't even know that Fontaine was on an artificially raised platform so there was no reason to believe Petrichor would fall into some weirdly separated space yet still be called part of the region. Our oldest information about it was just that it's waters were very pure and it was beautiful. Yeah that's pretty much all of Fontaine though. In fact we knew so little about Petrichor back then that even by v4.3 Xavier, who is a local never talked about how it wasn't actually located on the Fontaine plateau but rather some separated area where even the drown-proof aspect of Fontaine's waters didn't reach. So what is this area of Fontaine called? Nostoi which is Greek for "return." In our world it was part of the story about the Trojan War, preceding Homer's the Odyssey and acts like a prologue for that part of the story, the return of the Greek heroes besides Odysseus back from the war. (There's an "Ajax" who dies in this story though he's not the same Ajax that Childe is based on.)
Side Note: This timeline placement might also be important but that's a topic for another day.
There's actually a French connection to Petrichor too probably to justify it's inclusion in a French region lol. If you talk to Xavier's childhood friend (and girl next door) Goldoni, her possessing Remurian tells you about Petrocorii a territory of Remuria that fell to barbarians. In our world the petrocorii were Gauls that opposed the Roman Republic during Caesar's time. Unlike petr-ichor, petro-corii is Gallic for four (petro) armies (corios) with corii acting as a common suffix for their tribes.
Actually this connection to Gauls keeps going. In the same dialogue that Goldoni tells us about Petrocorii she name drops Lucius Septimius Sebelius which is a reference to Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus. (Sebelius is likely just an intentional bastardization of Severus but Sebelius is a real surname too.) Severus is notable for being the founder of the last Roman Dynasty before the Crisis of the Third Century, when Rome was temporarily defeated by the Gallic Empire. I actually brought up this part of Roman history in another topic about something that should have been totally unrelated lol. It was about how religion was historically tied to currency on our side of the world.
Side Note: Goldoni herself may be a reference to the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni. I bring this up because it's a common theme when it comes to Remuria but that's also a topic for another day.
Finally when possessed Goldoni calls Xavier, Xaverius. This is a reference to Franciscus Xaverius or Saint Francis Xavier, the first missionary that went to Japan before it went into Sakoku. The name Xavier is interesting by itself though. It actually predates most of these references because it's a Latinized version of the Paleo-European (Basque) surname Echevarria meaning new house. The Basques are the last surviving ethnic group native to Europe (current Europeans are all some form of Indo-European, including the Celts, Romans, Germanics) and their modern populations are located in Spain and France, influencing both nations over time. Who knew our engineefilmmaker would be such an interesting reference to his hometown which also is a preceding ancient culture that heavily influenced the modern French-inspired one?
Side Note 1: After completing the Remuria World Quest it's discovered that Petrichor is stagnating. The elderly are increasingly closed off and the young find the town boring and are starting to leave. This might be a reference to the Vatican which has the world's oldest median age. As the headquarters of Catholicism it's also very traditional and young people have been leaving it too, though part of the reason is disillusionment of religion over the many scandals plaguing the church. (That said the young Petrichorians might wanna stick around. If Mecantre and Babisse are brainstorming what I think they are then Petrichor might become really interesting one day.)
Side Note 2: Geographically Petrichor would more likely be based on Corsica but there is no shortage of self-importance as a stereotype of the Corsicans. No young people are going to ditch that town anytime soon. It was the birthplace of Napoleon after all. However that could actually be the link to Petrichor, to the pre-World Quest version where everybody is a proud Remurian. According to a friend I have who is part French, as arrogant as the rest of the world see the French, the French see the Corsicans. And certainly that was the vibe we got upon speaking to all of the Remurians.
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Yes the previous section was just the name of the region and all the stuff we can gather from just that. That's how miHoYo's devs do things haha
Now for a speed round. Hortus is the Proto-Indo-European for garden while euergetis is Greek for a worker who does good work. Together it probably means Garden of the Good Worker. However Euergetis can also be a title applied to good leaders specifically female leaders of the Hellenistic world. (Euergetes is the masculine form) Cleopatra III was also called Cleopatra Euergetis for example. The "garden" can only be reached by doing the World Quest so it's likely this garden honors Sybilla who does have the merits to justify the title.
With Caesareum Palace I'm pretty sure miHoYo was going for the specific Caesareum of Alexandria so they mean a temple but that's not was Caesareum actually means. It just means Julius Caesar who of course doesn't exist in Genshin. (although going off of Rene's Root Cycle stuff he's supposed to show up sooner or later lol)
Collegium Phonascorum is probably the easiest to match with the theme. It's just a group of music teachers. Since the whole thing was getting people ready for the Grand Symphony it makes sense to have some teachers teaching the music stuff. That said it's not actually a group at all. It's the name of a place and that makes sense with its real name 谐律院 or Courtyard of Harmony. Actually 谐律 is really fitting. The term does mean harmony but in both the sense of being united in peace and in terms of musical harmony, being in tune with each other. It's a very nice allusion to what the Grand Symphony was meant to do.
That said Phobos is such a red flag lol! Phobos aka phobia is the God of Fear. (alongside brother Deimos) No wonder this genius plan failed.
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Wasn't Fortuna the man's boat? Can't have a physical device double as an abstract concept my friends. That said if Fortuna actually means fate then it fits even better with the Stella Fortuna thing Ashikai came up with before, but she'd have to forego the connection with sun gods.
Sebastos is the Greek version of Augustus. But I don't think Sebastos Remus is correct syntax. If this was Latin then honorifics come after the name so Remus Augustus. It would be just like the Guuji Yae issue. In English the localization team went with Guuji Yae but Raiden Shogun. Raiden Shogun is correct but because of that the correct syntax would be Yae Guuji, surnames followed by titles. In Greek we have Oedipus Rex or Oedipus Tyrannus so the titles do come after the name and therefore it should be Remus Sebastos. But I read somewhere that modern Greek puts the titles first like keerie Remus would be Mr. Remus and not Remus keerie. If there are Greeks reading this please advise thanks!
Osse the cat first named himself Ouranides of Ouranopolis. Ouranides is just the name for the first generation of Titans because they were the children of Ouranos. I'm not sure what that was trying to reference for the game. Ouranos would be Saturn so he's one of the Classical Planets that have come up before. It is interesting to note that the children of the sea, the Oceanides were the second generation of Titans. Maybe Osse was trying to suggest that Remurians were the first generation of Fontainians while the ones we know of today (the former Oceanid humans) are the second?
Anyway Ouranopolis is a real place or it was. It's just south of Macedonia. Today there's a small town there called Ouranopoli with a very lovely beach. Pretty sure that's not what Remus was going for when he called it the city of the future.
And of course we learn that our keerie Ouranides is really Cassiodor based on Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus who was born in Scylletium. Probably just a cute reference. Scylla himself is a reference to a monster from the Odyssey sometimes described like a hydra. (S)he was the lesser of two evils because the seemingly weaker Charybdis sucked up water and anything that happens to be floating on it. We have a reference to Charybdis too all the way back in the Narzissenkreuz World Quest when we go to Fort Charybdis Ruins.
Anyway Cassiodorus was a contemporary of Boethius and actually replaced him as magister officiorum when he was accused and executed for conspiracy against Rome. Gee if only Remus had let Romulus run things huh? The Romurian Empire would've seen Boe-boe coming a mile away. That said his charges were trumped up. Real life Boethius was a good guy. He was trying to reunite the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. (albeit it probably wasn't going to happen since the "Western Roman Empire" we're talking about is Germanic Rome and even today we have trouble accepting that Rome.) Cassiodorus himself lasted much longer probably because he was stationed in the Eastern Roman Empire and became more focused on education than politics. Finally, he would retire to Castellum not a golden castellum but a monastery where he continued supporting education.
Before we dive into the Faded Castle part there are NPCs that are also significant. First you have Contarini Tiepolo a cop whose name is actually made up of two surnames from important Venetian families. She interpreted some of her lingering memories from being possessed as the Liliacruces Ordo. This is another fiction actually. The Liliacruces Ordo is based on the Narzissenkreuz Ordo and was popularized in Fontaine's mystery novels that Paimon likes so much.
Her father Tiepolo is the Doge. It's not bit currency but Italian for the Latin Dux or leader. It was a title used in the Republic of Venice and he's actually based on the first Duke of the city-state, Jacopo Tiepolo. Duke is also a form of Dux.
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Once we dive down it turns out that the little harp thing we grabbed was part of a series that tells Remuria's history in the Ancient Autoharmonic Music Box.
The first piece of this melody is the Locus Amoenus or lovely place in Latin. The rest though are actually part of the Sequentia section of Mozart's Requiem which is of course a musical piece to honor the dead and also how we stop the Phobos. Sequentia is followed by the sinners being saved and brought to salvation in Offertorium, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei. (Agnus Dei is an allusion to Jesus and there's another really obvious one in this quest too.) Mozart actually didn't complete his Requiem and died while only completing the introduction. Joseph von Eybler is the one that actually finished the Sequentia parts and then a guy by the name of Franz Xaver Süssmayr finished the salvation portions. Franz Xaver. Hmmmm. Yes Franz is Germanic for Franciscus or Francis and Xaver is the Germanic for Xavier. Cute that one of our first Fontainian NPCs and also a native to Petrichor has such a large role in its history, at least in real world references.
Before heading into the painting portal thing to get to memory world Remuria we can find a few choice books in this castle. I'll get more into them later but for now there was one term that's interesting. Cunicoricus is the predecessor to Erinnyes of Aremorica. In real life he's Welsh and the adoptive father of King Arthur in local legends. Last week I brought up Clervie and Crucabena who are also Welsh (and Irish) characters and King Arthur has been referenced a few times now with relation to Khaenri'ah.
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We already knew Cassiodor was a Harmost but now these Remurians are calling him Dominus. Harmost is Greek, specifically Spartan for a military leader. As it relates to what Remus did during his conquests the Spartans used the Harmosts to undermine Athens push for democracy with the Delian League. Similarly Dominus is a title used by Roman Emperors only after the Crisis of the Third Century when it started declining and becoming more authoritarian. Dominus actually translates to head or master like that of a household. For instance Roman slaves addressed their masters as Dominus.
And it's the household thing that plays out in the next term: Domus Aurea or the Golden House. (A dominus is the head of the domus.) It's cute to think this is some kind of link between Remuria and Liyue. Ashikai would love this kind of detail for her God King theory. But I don't think it's what it is. The Golden House in Liyue is literally just the Golden House 黄金屋 whereas Domus Aurea was 黄金的大宫. 大宫 is much more glamorous than 屋. For example the White House is 白宫 and 故宫 is the Imperial Palace. The real Domus Aurea relates more to that latter example. It was Nero's second home after he supposedly burned down Rome in 64AD just to have it built. Sounds about right with who we're dealing with in Genshin's version.
Side Note: Actually could that be why there's a Caesareum Palace? I mean Caesar did burn down Alexandria. And then after he died Cleopatra built the Caesareum to commemorate him. So it could relate to Nero and then our Remus. What do you guys think?
To get to Domus Aurea we're told we need to breach the Initium Iani. Initium means entrance and in the original Chinese it's door which actually works really amusingly with Iani or the Roman god Ianus because he's the God of Doors. Well pretty much all definitions for initium parallel what Ianus was so we could translate Initium Iani as the Doorway of the God of Doorways, Entrance of the God of Entrances, Transition of the God of Transitions, etc. The point was that Ianus represented a change in something like when you change rooms by going through a door, the changes in season every year or changing of the guard between historical periods. It's like the miHoYo devs just wanted to throw in a cute easter egg only nerds would get, the doorway to end all doorways lol
Side Note: Also because their names are so close to each other apparently Janus (alt spelling for Ianus) got mistaken for Juno (Iuno is the more accurate spelling*) sometimes confusing which god represented which month. It's funny because I had previously brought up Juno (and the Golden House actually) in that totally unrelated topic about the Gauls and the history of currency. Again this is all probably just coincidental. I just found it funny.
\or* Yuno for us anime fans. Rome's version was probably more stable though. Then again she is based on Hera so....
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And that was all the references I found interesting from the new quest. It's really long so I think I'll leave it at that and save the lore deep dive for next time.