The following is an essay in progress. It will become a larger body of work at some point in the future.
Expect updates sporadically.
...
A game that you are thrust into, without your own knowledge and are pitted up against a seemingly indestructible, all-knowing, all-seeing entity. Imagine: you're a young person who's come pretty down on their luck- living alone far away from home, a horrible job, death of a mother figure.. so you drugs have become a stronger presence in your life. And drugs and sex together? Even more so. Your plug is pretty unreliable but the staff's great, so you keep ordering from them. Until on one day, your plug's sketchy arrival times keep changing, and you end up telling them off. You tell them they run business badly and that they've lost a customer.
Bad move, buddy.
You block the number as a barrage of threatening texts come in. It's a business just like any other, you think. The customer is always right, you think. As you collect your order from a different plug, you have no idea that you've changed the course of your life forever.
You have now been entered into the game.
About a week later you are invited over to a guy's place who offers to take care of the party favors for the both of you. Free drugs? How could you refuse? But baby.. nothing in life is free.
On the way in to his grounde-level apartment last two sets of gates, you notice a man sitting on a chair. You bring it up to your new friend who pretends not to have noticed anything. The shit he gives you is hard. Hard in a kind if numbing way. But it's hot, it's fun. His apartment is made up to look like a salon, and he claims to still take clients regularly - even though it's dirty, reeks of crack and hasn't had an update since 2003. But still, you stay for a few more hours. You say your goodbyes and walk out the door. The little man on the chair is gone. But over your other shoulder you see a large SUV in the ajacent parking lot with it's headlights on and pointjng towards you. As you approach the first gate, you hear your new friend's voice come through the intercom, but this time aggressive and urgent. He says "get ready! He's coming to the gate". A chill runs down your spine. Your try to turn around and jump the fence behind you. One fence leads right to the SUV and another to a walled in patch of grass. So you turn back and leave the first gate. You see two young guys hovering around the main gate. You back into the wall to conceal yourself as you call an uber and ask the driver to pull up to the gate. It fjnally arrives and you jump right in.
On the ride you notice that a few other drivers and motorcyclists are coming very close to your car, and driving aggressively. You notice the same ones are driving the same way throughout your whole ride. It hits you that this is no mistake. Those guys were waiting outside your building, and those guys are tailing you. You tell your driver you need to change your drop-off point. You can't have these guys know your address. You stay in the cab and have the driver take you through winding roads to evade them. You get out and begin to walk home.
On your walk you notice that you are seeing the same people over and over again. But they are not chasing you or following you. They're just there, around you. You walk for hours until you manage to outmaneuvre them.
You don't know it, but you've been entered into a very simple game - survival.
It will be as though you are standing in a field. Your opponent is like the air around you. You don't know where the air comes from. You don't know which part of you the air will hit. You don't know if the next contact will be a breeze or a gust of wind. If you stand still it will be there. If you try to run, you'll bring more air around you.
The goal is total isolation. Erosion of your sanity. Poverty. Torment. Ostracization. Suicide.
Their tactics are to invade every aspect of your life. To infiltrate and torment you in subtle ways that can be deniable. Phones pointed at you on the street. Strangers having conversations around or to you that reference contexts that are specific to only you.. songs playing where you go that are produced by AI to closely mimic the original, but with augmented lyrics that reference you and your experiences or even are used to communicate directly to you or give you instruction.
People you meet start to pick fights with you or speak in strange ominous tones. Gradually you start to understand more and more.
You are placed in social situations where you are forced to navigate according to the to your best moral judgment. These are tests.. games. Make incorrect decisions and you end up with the shit beaten out of you - or worse.
Each of these games are recorded and broadcast though private online servers. There is huge money being wagered for and against your survival. Your phone is Spywared, so even as you write a public post describing a hypothetical horror game with uncannily similar references.. is monitored and is being operated against. This recording, and broadcasting are followed along in servers of a children's computer game with millions of recorded users, and in cybersex chat rooms with groups of over 10k each (the most notable has the namesake of a major influencer's venture into a rehydration beverage).
Use being recorded to your advantage. Do not steal. Do not lie. Follow through on your word. Act with integrity. You are your actions.
To win, you must learn to listen. Your whole body becomes a kind of antenna. You become tuned in to everything around you. Everything has the potential to communicate messages that may warn, guide, support, lead, or contradict you. Trust your dreams, your instincts and your intuition. Animals will start to gravitate towards you and will communicate very clearly to you. You will be able to read gesture, expression and tone much more clearly. Listening will keep you safe. However, remain critical. Question these messages when necessary. Understand the potential impact of confirmation bias. Remain open to being wrong - because you will be.
Be strong in your convictions, and graceful in your approach.
Over time you put more and more small pieces of information together. You do this by asking questions.
You will be able to connect events, people, their roles and ultimately identify the specific parts of the mechanism of your opponent, and how each relates to the others in the construction of the opponent as a whole.
At first you may have had brutal, violent fantasies against your opponent. You are angry. Thats natural. Let yourself feel it. It will pass. You will respect your opponent. You may begin to appreciate your opponent's masterpiece. The game they have constructed is incredibly sophisticated. In every moment, they strive to test you, your patience, your kindness, your peace. Remember that every moment is a test.
But your opponent is playing to win. So, you will forget. You will lose your cool. You will cry. You will scream. You will learn that your opponent wants to see you frustrated. Your opponent wants to see you agitated and struggling.
Listen first. Listen well. You'll be able to identify when games are about to begin. You'll be able to identify bait. If youre anything like me, this will give you an opportunity for play. Force your opponent to pivot by shutting down the game as soon as possible. Do this by treating the opponent's representative with honest kindness. Ask them questions. Look them in the eye. Become friends with them. Make it really hard for them to effect you negatively. I often enjoyed giving the opponents' representatives performance notes mid-game. Often under my breath. And when they would implement them and improve their work, it would actually feel rewarding. Kindness is powerful and contagious.
Throughout the game you may have been questioning why you were chosen. But as you understanding deepens, you should understand that this is in fact the answer.
You discover that the opponent uses an app to make contact with cell phones around yours, and sends people cash to complete tasks to and/or around you.
It is designed so that everything you experience can be written off as psychosis, or hallucinations. They say you are paranoid. No one believes a drug addict.
So what do you do?
You collect.
Everything that you survive.. Extortion, attempted assault, stalking, drugging, laced drugs, asbestos poisoning, threats of gang rape (and HIV transmission), violence, and death.
Makes you more powerful.
This power, this knowledge, makes you even more of a threat.
You've seen some of these moments before in your dreams.
You record.
You research things you hear and see around you.
You're up against Dragons and wolves.
Patterns and shifts ( in behaviour, your envirornment , everything, everywhere) are your guide.
You put pieces together.
You learn to accept death. But this is not an act of submission or defeat. It is an act of letting go which should inspire you to act with more bravery and abandon.
You avoid your closest loved ones because you don't want them to be involved.
Apparently, everyone has a price. How much would it cost for you to taunt a stranger on the street? Or record an interaction where you threaten the safety of an acquaintance? Patrol their family's home?
Over time, your opponent will reveal more and more of themselves. Let them.
It would of course be very easy to try and ignore your opponent and the game itself. However, remember that your opponent surrounds you, and can act at any time. You are also faced with your own power. Shoumd you turn away from the game, you become complicit in it's future iterations. If this has happened to you, then surely you arent the first or the last. Once you realize this, anything else is complicity.
You gradually complete the chain of understanding who makes up your opponent.. you know how to ask the right people the right questions.
One night, nearing the "end" of the game, the top dog.. the number 1... the head... the master of it all shows herself in a 3min lipsync to threaten you and your life. That you recorded on an app that claims to not allow screen capturing..
By "chance" you two are sat at opposite walls of a starbucks the following morning. After her goons leave, you move to sit on the armchair behind her. So you're back to back. Both of you play it cool. You ask questioms that remain unanswered.
That night (while awake for your 3rd night in a row) as you look for a hookup, you're faced with the tougest game yet - survival of a public execution.
You have to win. You have no choice.
You are unemployed (after being drugged woth a bew form GHB in response to finding a hidden camera in a room ypu stayed in cost you your last strike at work). You face homelessness (you haven't paid this month's rent, and is your last month on the lease). Your closest friends are convinced you're living in a psychotic episode. You're a drug addict (being high is the thing keeping you confident, in control, and able to withstand the scope of your torture). You have been exposed in every way to maybe hundreds of thousands of people.
The goal is for you to have nothing left of your own.
Except love.
You survive.
But you still haven't won yet.
How could you win knowing this exists.. and anyone could be subject to exposure, torment, violence and cruelty on this scale.. that you had the chance to do something to stop it and didnt..
You remember what's kept you alive: Walking in the center of the road Kindness Integrity Grace
so (on the initial draft)you park yourself on a patio on a major street and start to write.
You hit post. You copy the url. You paste.
Phones at 1%... KAMIKAZE
"The practice of faith and courage begins with the small details of life. The first step is to notice where and when one loses faith, to look through the rationalizations which are used to cover up this loss of faith, to recognize where one acts in a cowardly way, and again how one rationalizes it. To recognize how every betrayal of faith weakens one, and how increased weakness leads to new betrayal, and so on, in a vicious cycle. Then one will also recognize that while one is consciously afraid of not being loved, the real, though usually unconscious fear is that of loving. To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith." -Erich Fromm, The Art Of Loving.

my_qualifications: Btech 8th semester.
Hey all
I'm from a Tier 3 private university where I had a lot of affluent kids with me. Through them, I saw the admission process of many universities abroad, primarily the US. For most, money is non issue for going for MS abroad.
Keeping the top 5 or top 10 schools aside for Engineering, it seems to be fairly easy to crack amazing colleges abroad. It seems that it's a mix of doing decent in college academics and maintaining a rapport with the professors for LoR and awareness.

1. CGPA/GPA: Honestly, if you have your aim clear, and won't be doing anything besides academics, it's fairly easy to get a good gpa in private universities. Merely attending all classes properly and studying 10-20 days before your exams can lead to a pretty good cgpa.
   
2. GRE: let's be honest, GRE cannot be classified as a tough exam. It's pretty doable if you devote 2-3 hours daily for 2-3 months. For students who aren't interning anywhere substantial, one summer is again, enough to get a phenomenal score.
   
3. Research papers: They aren't VERY TOUGH to author either, if you're doing it purely for namesake. Sure, it's a trash research paper if you're doing it for namesake, but it is something to talk about on your resume.
   
4. Resume: Even your resume is hardly ever double checked thoroughly during admissions to the unis.
   
5. SoP: it's essentially a glorified essay writing competition, which never even delves into your technical know-how of anything. Write whatever story with the help of education counselors and as long as it's believable, you're good to go.
   

Bottomline being, good unis outside seem to be doing no due diligence on the actual technical ability of people they'll be admitting to these prestigious programs. You can go into a CSE program at a decent school without ever installing VS Code in your undergrad if you're simply aware about what to project in your profile. That seems insane.
So my question is, outside of money, how high it the barrier to entry to a good/decent MS program abroad?
And if the barrier to entry is low, then why are these universities using an entry process like that?

Hey all
I'm from a Tier 3 private university where I had a lot of affluent kids with me. Through them, I saw the admission process of many universities abroad, primarily the US. For most students in my university, money is non issue for going for MS abroad.
Keeping the top 5 or top 10 schools aside for Engineering, it seems to be fairly easy to crack amazing colleges abroad. It seems that it's a mix of doing decent in college academics and maintaining a rapport with the professors for LoR and awareness.

1. CGPA/GPA: Honestly, if you have your aim clear, and won't be doing anything besides academics, it's fairly easy to get a good gpa in private universities (Expensive Tier 3 at least). Merely attending all classes properly and studying 10-20 days before your exams can lead to a pretty good cgpa.
   
2. GRE: let's be honest, GRE cannot be classified as a tough exam. It's pretty doable if you devote 2-3 hours daily for 2-3 months. For students who aren't interning anywhere substantial, one summer is again, enough to get a phenomenal score.
   
3. Research papers: They aren't VERY TOUGH to author either, if you're doing it purely for namesake. Sure, it's a trash research paper if you're doing it for namesake, but it is something to talk about on your resume.
   
4. Resume: Even your resume is hardly ever double checked thoroughly during admissions to the unis. Write whatever project, no one is going to interview you on it deeply.
   
5. SoP: it's essentially a glorified essay writing competition, which never even delves into your technical know-how of anything. Write whatever story with the help of education counselors and as long as it's believable, you're good to go.
   

Bottomline being, good unis outside seem to be doing no due diligence on the actual technical ability of people they'll be admitting to these prestigious programs. You can go into a CSE program at a decent school without ever installing VS Code in your undergrad if you're simply aware about what to project in your profile. That seems insane.
So my question is, outside of money, how high it the barrier to entry to a good/decent MS program abroad?
And if the barrier to entry is low, then why are these universities using an entry process like that?

Using a throwaway account for obvious reasons. Please note that I will not be disclosing any sensitive information such as my cohort particulars, the actual placement figures of my batch or any such information which could put me at a risk of my identity being disclosed, even as remote as this possibility may be. I'll be covering all the information I have been able to gather from multiple sources at BITSoM.
Shortlists & Admissions-
Let's cut to the chase and start by addressing the elephant in the room and the one question which has been on every applicant's mind- on what basis are the shortlists being rolled out this year? Well, the criteria consists of 3 factors, in the following order of preference-

1. CAT Scores
   
2. Past Acads
   
3. Essays/SOP
   

Nothing else matters. Not your extra & co-curriculars, neither your professional qualifications, nor your national level medals- no matter what the admission team says. This "profile based" sorting gives heavy weightage to your past academics which is only second to CAT Scores as their primary criteria. BITSoM is NOT the profile-based college it claims to be in their marketing campaigns anymore. Although many may have been informed otherwise during the profile evaluation sessions, the sorting for the review of applications is done basis CAT Scores now. And this change was brought about by the management this year due to a tremendous increase in the applicant pool starting round 2. The college still puts up a facade of it being profile-based to have everybody board the hype-train and maximize the money that comes in from the applications (more on this later). Their USP of profile-based applications lasted only for the founding batches since it was newly established then and they no longer follow the same ideology although it is still marketed the same as before.
Moving on, you'll notice that I mention the CAT Scores as a criteria only for sorting (and not shortlisting). It is so because your Past Acads and SOPs still matter to an extent. The sorting is done on the basis of CAT Scores since it carries the highest weightage which ultimately translates to a higher base Composite Score by default which is a good point to start the application evaluations with. This is the primary reason why many who have submitted their applications on the last day of Round 2 have had their applications reviewed earlier and received shortlists before those who had submitted them on earlier dates. Your profile is not evaluated on a first come first serve basis.
Does this mean that you'll have to wait quite a bit to have your profile evaluated if you have a lower CAT Score? Not necessarily. Something else which the evaluators keep a track of unofficially is how often you communicate with the college. Having attended a student-connect session along-with a query dropped regarding the status of your application increases your chances of being pushed in for a review. This is done so because BITSoM, being a new college, is desperate for a well-connected alumni network and actively looks for people who are capable of maintaining effective communication. This is no way increases your chances of a shortlist but rather only of it being pushed in for a review. All of this information is straight from a student who has been involved in profile evaluations. Oh yes, a student ;) (a handful of students have been involved in the process due to overwhelming number of applications this year)
Now moving onto the shadier stuff the college has been involved in. This is where the dishonesty worsens.
Marketing-
Everything you see online is a paid advertisement. And I mean everything in a true sense. From coaching institutes and reddit comments to YouTube Channels and CAT Preparation Groups, they are everywhere. BITSoM places a huge emphasis on word-of-mouth marketing and employs all means necessary to have a good image portrayed of them, bearing no second thought in mind of lies they peddle in the process. This college thrives on providing false hope to students.
The faculty of many reputed coaching institutes & Youtubers have been paid good $$$ by BITSoM to misguide students and create a hype for this B-School. Reddit and other interactive forums/groups have dedicated accounts for marketing with some reddit accounts even claiming it to be the next ISB 😂😂. If you don't believe me, search it up yourself. You'll find that it's always a "he says/she says/my friend says" account claiming to know a person who got in at 80-something percentile but it's never a personal claim and that's for a reason :)
And don't get me wrong, people do get in at sub-80 percentiles, but the number of people who get in at these percentiles make-up hardly 10% of the batch size (a batch which is also relatively small to begin with so the number is insanely low/and most of the sub-80%ile calls pertain to R1 btw). The marketing team has also been great at playing with the class profile numbers by showcasing the median at 94%ile (with a range of 80-99) for the previous batch but in actuality the majority lies around the median with very few outliers at lower percentiles (much like a bell curve distribution). The college would you have believe otherwise as a different picture is painted for the aspirants and the gullible. The college will feed you with hope that you have an insanely good shot at converting despite a lower percentile if you write your essay well. This is just not true and they see you only as bags of application money. And what's worse is, the BITSoM students in the sessions are in on this scam. They are strongly advised to encourage aspirants to apply in the student connect & profile evaluation sessions no matter the profile. These students are outright told that they need to help maintain the reputation of the college and hence propagate only positive reviews to those who reach out to them even via LinkedIn. And honestly koi student mana kyon hi karega isko. Koi bhi apne college ko bura nahi bolega especially after paying an exorbitant amount of 27L+. Yeh saari false hope, window dressing and dikhawa is done for the sole purpose of establishing a positive brand value and maximize the application money they receive. Kudos to the marketing team for doing an insanely good job though! :)
Faculty & Student Life-
The faculty is fairly decent and I have no complaints there. Obviously there are always teachers who just read out loud from the slides and teach you nothing. About 25-30% of the teachers fall under this category which is a fair number for a newly established college. But you have nothing to worry about since, unlike other MBA colleges, BITSoM has a very laid-back schedule which will provide you with ample time to study on your own. This is so because the college is always busy promoting namesake "self-development" classes/creating content for PR activities. Now how you perceive this is subjective, but in my eyes BITSoM lacks the rigor of other B-Schools and misses the mark when it comes to prioritizing education.
Placements-
The new age B-School claims a placement of 23.5LPA for the previous batch. The actual estimate lies around 18LPA, which means that the figures are inflated by about ~25%. This number is likely to fall even lower this year with the job scarcity in the market. The BITs Pilani network brings in about only a handful companies and is not all that it's made to be since engineers ya to khud MBA mein lagg jaate hai or they're primarily associated with tech facing roles ig. Some may claim that the report is audited so there's no chance of it being so but keep in mind that even the placement reports at Masters Union are labelled "audited" by the same company- Brickwork Analytics.
Currently this college is at par with other upper tier-2 colleges such as IMTG, GLIMC (PGPM), XIMB, IIMV & Certain IITs at best and not any higher as others may claim it to be (be it institute faculty or redditors). This scam is so far gone that many people actually believe that BITSoM places much higher than it actually does. My advice would be that whichever college you decide on taking up, please do not blindly trust the people who have been associated with the college, especially for BITSoM. Having faced disappointment and regret on a personal level, I sincerely do not want anybody to be misled and fall prey to the same marketing tactics as me, weaved by people looking only to fill the institutes pockets. I would recommend you do your due diligence if faced with an option b/w New IIMs, IITs, certain upper tier-2 colleges and BITSoM. This post was to help aspirants make an informed choice and odds are that it might end up getting downvoted by the people associated with BITSoM who are a part of this subreddit. I wouldn't be surprised if they switch up their tactics after reading this post either cause that's how the college is good at marketing. Just stay vigilant and take everything anybody says with a grain of salt unless it's a verifiable source, be it BITSoM or any college in that case.
Logging off now!
Wishing all the aspirants here a bright future 😃

Today I wanted to write an essay on the final battle of the fate route, because I see this battle slept on waaaaay too much, even though it’s amazing narratively and thematically. I’ve never seen a detailed analysis on it, so I wanted to do one myself, since this is one of my favorite battles in the vn. The sections I’ll be analyzing in particular are Fate/Stay Night and the first part of a golden separation.
There are quite a few things this battle means to Shirou and Saber, and I will be discussing them below.
Trust in one another
A major theme in the relationship of the fate route is learning to trust in one’s partner. Because, as we see in the first half, neither Shirou nor Saber were able to trust in the abilities of the other. This begins to change as they grow to understand each other better, and make a vow to always fight together after the scene at the school with Rider. Shirou and Saber parting ways in order to separately defeat Kirei and Gilgamesh is a MAJOR display of trust from both parties. They’re simultaneously working together while also trusting in the other to get their job done in order to destroy the Holy Grail. This battle shows just how much their relationship has changed and just how much they trust each other now.
A battle they must defeat
Both the pairings of Shirou and Kirei and Gilgamesh and Saber are narrative foils and this fight between them matters a great deal thematically. Shirou and Saber both outright state that their foes are battles they must defeat. I’ll go over each matchup individually and elaborate on what I mean. First of all, strategically speaking, it makes no logical sense for Shirou and saber to split up and fight alone. Gilgamesh straight up points this out to Saber during their confrontation. “You cannot beat me and that kid cannot beat Kotomine. You have mistaken your roles. If you had gone after the Holy Grail, this battle would have been yours.” The golden knight’s eyes are not laughing. He is serious. But that is wrong. For Saber, such a choice would be a mistake.” Saber basically outright stated in her monologue that fighting that way would have been a mistake, showing that there is significance to their matchups.
Shirou and Kirei
“It is just hatred for a similar person. Kiritsugu and I were alike, so everything he did got on my nerves. It is the same as the way you feel hatred toward me.” I feel like it’s a well-established fact that Shirou and Kirei foil each other in a unique way. I once described them to my friend as thus, “they’re not parallels, they’re perpendiculars.” They are similar in a specific way yet differ in their methods. This is something that isn’t explored much in the fate route, but becomes well established later in the heaven’s feel route. Shirou and Kirei are both empty men. Shirou can only feel joy when he’s helping others, while Kirei can only feel joy when he’s making others suffer. They’re similar in the sense that they can’t feel joy outside of their one reason for living, but they’re polarizingly different in how they cope with their emptiness. I’ll for now only focus on the stuff we get in the fate route, as I do plan on doing an analysis of the Kirei vs Shirou fight sometime in the future. But another point of fixation between Kirei and Shirou in this fight is Kirei’s persistence on treating Shirou as Kiritsugu’s “fake” and getting revenge on him. It already set up what we saw of Kirei and Kiritsugu’s relationship in zero. However, here, Kirei implies that kiritsugu got on kirei’s nerves for being similar to him, while in zero it felt more like a fixation. Anyway, it’s obvious that the sins of the past come into play a lot in this battle, and while Shirou hadn’t done anything wrong himself, he’s being punished for Kiritsugu’s mistake.
Gilgamesh and Saber
“…Yes. I will swear on my pride that he will not defeat me. Not as a Servant, but as a heroic spirit, I cannot allow him to beat me.” It’s made pretty obvious that saber sees Gilgamesh as an enemy she needs to defeat, not as a servant, but as a heroic spirit. There’s something more personal going on, just like there was with Kirei and Shirou. Now, the real question here is why does Saber consider Gilgamesh an enemy she must defeat? We get some insight on that here. “…She will never be able to come to terms with this heroic spirit. His arrogant thinking, his selfishness to consider himself the greatest, and his merciless nature that never thinks of others. This is different from the path of the king she chose. A set of beliefs that will never overlap with hers.” There was actually a connection I made a while ago, one that only comes from being a massive nerd and reading the in lore backstories of both characters. It seems that Gilgamesh and Saber had an oddly similar conception. Gilgamesh was made as the wedge of heaven, to bind the coming age of man to the passing Age of gods, while saber was created in order to not let the mystic of Britain die out, since the age of magic was coming to a close. They were both born to be kings and prevent the mystic from dying out of their lands. However, their ways of adapting to their circumstances couldn’t have been more different. After all, Artoria threw herself into her work headlong, willing to accept a miserable death, learning to suppress her feelings about the solitude she had to endure, while Gilgamesh abused his position of power to cope with overwhelming loneliness. This line here from the visual novel is meant to hammer down just how irreconcilable their views on kingship are meant to be. “Do not make me laugh, Saber. A country is just a possession. If he cannot rule everything, there is no need for a transcendental being like the king. Geez, King Arthur, that is why your own country destroyed you.” The golden knight sneers at her immaturity. …That brings back her determination. “Yes, you are correct. But, King of Heroes. That is why you destroyed your own country!” Just like with Kirei and shirou, they’re not parallels, they’re perpendiculars. In one area of circumstance they’re incredibly similar, but in all else they’re so different that they can never see eye to eye.
Now, that’s the longest section finished. Hopefully I managed to convince you that the two matchups are actually really significant, and that both fights are meant to be between irreconcilable foils. Onto the next section!
Rejection of past trauma
I talked in depth about how Gilgamesh and his villainous crush on Saber is actually meant to reflect the way Saber was objectified by herself and nearly everyone around her in Camelot in my essay regarding Gilgamesh’s obsession. I won’t go as much into depth on it here since I’d like to rewrite that particular essay, but, in essence, Saber defeating Gilgamesh in this fight is an act of reclaiming herself and rejecting the trauma that was forced upon her in Camelot. Likewise, the same is true of Shirou. Kirei was the cause of the Fuyuki fire, a fact that enrages Shirou during the battle. Shirou defeating Kirei represents Shirou rejecting his trauma from the fire and moving on. This is one of the biggest reasons the matchups matter in the fight. By defeating their enemy, they’re rejecting their trauma and moving on from their past of regrets and sadness.
A hopeless situation
The beginning of the fight can only be described as hopeless. We already saw in an earlier fight that Excalibur could not defeat Ea. And lord knows just how outmatched Shirou is in his fight with Kirei, only having an Azoth sword while Kirei has the power of the holy grail behind him. It’s a completely hopeless situation, one that neither of them are able to overcome…alone, at least. And that’s where the next section comes in.
The power of love
This battle has an ending that can only be described as an homage to the relationship of Shirou and saber. Throughout the fight, when Shirou and Saber are facing dire straits, the narration notes how they conquer their fear using the warmth inside them. “Using the warmth inside her, she tries to get up.” This warmth inside them is their love for one another, remaining strong throughout the battle despite being apart. She closes her eyes and looks within herself. “‘That is why you were destroyed by your own country.’ …She already knew that. She has heard those words over and over since she was summoned as Saber. But that man is different. He was mad like it was his own affair, but still he thought that it was something to be proud of. So there is only one thing that must be done. Even if there is not the slightest chance of winning, she cannot stop here. While the warmth is still in her heart. She must run to her master as fast as possible.” Throughout the fight, whenever Shirou or saber is facing peril, they use the warmth of their love to give them the strength to persevere. In the moment of their greatest peril, they both use the symbol of their love to win their fights—Avalon. “‘You were my…’ Why is that voice remembered? A light turns on in the darkness. The instant the eyes realize the light is “that light”, everything reverses.” Avalon represents the beautiful dream Shirou and Saber shared. “For that reason, the sheath is named Avalon, All is a Distant Utopia. The place where King Arthur is said to have gone after his death. The utopia the king dreamed of that will never be reached.” They use the symbol of their love, Avalon, to defeat their enemies—they use their love to reject their trauma.
Fate/Stay night
And now, we’re brought back to the beginning. Does anyone ever wonder why this specific battle is named Fate/Stay Night? After all, it’s the namesake of the visual novel. To begin with, what does the name Fate/Stay night mean? Well, in essence, the title is an homage to Shirou and sabers relationship. Before, during, and after this fight, Shirou continuously notes that they will be separated come daybreak. “I already knew this was going to happen. We climbed those long stairs together. Our parting is already done. All that’s left is to close the curtains.” This entire next part of Shirou’s monologue is important. “Saber will disappear once the Holy Grail is destroyed. No as she will destroy the Holy Grail, she will never again become a Servant. Saber became a Servant because she sought the Holy Grail. Destroying the Holy Grail out of her own will means destroying her contract as well. If she destroys the Holy Grail…She will end her life as the king. “Shirou. I want to hear you say it.” Saber’s voice. Every time I hear it, I want to scream. To tell her not to go. I want to scream for her to stay here. But. That’s something I should not do even for the sake of my life. I love Saber. I want her to be happier than anyone else and I want to be with her forever. But if I truly love her, that’s wrong. I loved Saber as she continued to fight even after getting hurt. She was a girl who discarded everything, was filled with injuries, yet still protected all the way through. If I consider that beautiful and want to protect it… I cannot destroy her life just for my own selfishness. She was born as a king and lived as a king. That will not change no matter what. From the time she swore to carry the sword, the girl became a king and nothing else. That is her pride. She ran through the battles so that in her final moments, she would be able to believe her path was the right one. The dreams of the girl Arturia. The mind that chose to be the king over her own life. To fight. Even after she learned it would be unrewarded, she still clasped the sword and defended the oath of the king. For many years. I cannot do anything to dishonor the pride that she has held until the time of her death. “Saber. Please fulfill your role.” I say so with a flood of emotions. An overflowing light.” And, with the backdrop of the rising sun, Saber proclaims her love for Shirou and disappears. Notice how Saber disappears with the rising sun. Fate refers to Shirou and Saber’s meeting of fate because of Avalon, and stay night refers to Shirou’s unvoiced wish at the end of the fate route, for the night to never end so that saber wouldn’t disappear. It refers to the beautifully bittersweet ending of the fate route.
Well, that’s my essay on the last battle of the fate route! I hope you all enjoyed it! I’m now experiencing shirousaber brain rot, like I always do after analyzing this relationship.

Due on the 3rd of March, ideas for humour go here. Also if you want to lay claim to any particular portion of the preview say so in the comments.
We need best 22's, brief club synopsis, 2023 season reviews, list changes, players to watch and players on notice.
I'm gonna need help or else it will mostly be an essay on why Caitlin Greisers voice is like an angelic choir
**Richmond Tigers 2024 Season Preview**

courtesy of

[Last Years](https://www.reddit.com/AFL/comments/11ojuyq/i\_think\_dimma\_dumped\_gyprock\_out\_the\_front\_of\_my/)
Established: 1885 (joined VFL in 1908) Home Grounds: MCG, Punt Road Oval (Training and Admin) Song: Go learn it here, I have of recent years been able to say 'don't worry you'll hear it soon enough' but we're solidly rebuilding so yeah. Premierships: 13 (9 in living memory for people on the internet) (1920, 1921, 1932, 1934, 1943, 1967, 1969, 1973, 1974, 1980, 2017, 2019, 2020) President: John O’Rourke CEO: Brendon Gale (15th season)

Gadget type operators

Head Coach: Adem Yze (1st season) AFLW Coacg: Ryan Ferguson VFL: Steve Morris Line Coaches: Chris Newman - Midfield Ben Rutten - Defensive David Teague - Forwards Jack Ziebell - Midfield development Kane Lambert - Development Ivan Maric - Rucks
Captain: Toby Nankervis (Like Santa, but instead of presents he gives away free kicks). Vice-Captains: Short, Baker and Lynch. Which honestly, if that doesn't sound like an accounting firm then i don't know what does. Seriously. "Welcome to Short, Baker and Lynch"
Changes: It turns out Damien Hardwick is in fact powered by a solar powered battery system, and he ran out of puff so he needed to be placed in the Sun to recharge. However, we replaced him with the Yze'st coach you'll ever see. Hooray for Yze? I get on the Booze for the Yze? yeah.
**Last Year And This Year, thanks to Limp-Dentist1416 (I think he is currently banned from here for being naughty)**
A deep love of exploiting awkward breakups for ratings potential sees the 2024 MAFS season kick off up on the Gold Coast vs Dimma's new toys.
Seeing our dad is now their dad, this matchup feels awkwardly like being introduced to your new step brothers for the first time.
Expect the AFL's fiercest new rivalry to instantly kick off if those mother fuckers ever lay a finger on our drum kit.
Rumours that Tom Lynch was refusing to take the moon boot off until Essendon won a final are thankfully untrue, and we should see him back out on the ground sometime in the next 7000 days.
Josh Gibcus will also return after missing the entire 2023 season with the only injury in the AFL that scores you a free overseas holiday. Seeing him miss so much footy at such a young age was a real worry. But that's Kids today. Even their hamstring issues are complex.
This year Tiger fans will get to relive some of the magic of 2017, as they endure another 12 months of feverish speculation about Dustin Martin's contract. It's not an easy decision. We just need to be patient and give Kane Cornes all the space he needs to decide where Dusty plays next year.
Where will the Tiges finish on the ladder this year? It all depends on who you talk to. Most of the experts at SEN have them finishing top...of the bottom four.
But SEN throw the word 'expert' around like they're handling baggage at an airport. So I talked to one of the techsperts at Harvey Norman. He was a lot more optimistic and said we should easily win the Superbowl. I suspect he also didn't know what he was talking about and trying to butter me up so I would buy a tv that costs more than the car I drive.
I'm no expert, but if you talk to me, I'd say I've got no fucking idea. Which is the only sensible answer anyone can give.
There's just so many unknown variables.
A new coaching group with a rookie head coach. We've seen that situation provide both tough starts and an instant boost up the ladder.
We've still got a decent number of high quality premiership players on our list. And not even they would know yet if this is the year where time catches up to them.
And a raft of talented kids the club is very excited about. But they're all potential superstars until they're not. And superstars just seem to come out of nowhere sometimes.
Which one of those is Thomson Dow? Brown? Banks? Tresize? Who knows, but this is the year we will find out.
Even if we aren't building a good AFL list, we are putting together a half a decent basketball team. Mate Colina and Oliver Hayes-Brown are absolute fucking units.
Take it Yze like a Sunday morning.
A review of who is on the up and down, thanks to Hawtproper whose name always reads in my head as 'hawktrooper' and i wonder why we have a hawks fan in our subreddit who is so wise in the ways of the yellow and black.
Players to Watch
Josh Gibcus- Who needs first round picks when your 6'5, [redacted] kg former pick 9 is back in the fray? After a great rookie season where he was robbed of a rising star nom for every one of his 18 games, Gibcus was missing for the entirety of the 2023 season with a hamstring injury that lingered longer than Gil as CEO. After a conservative approach, Gibcus looks ready to re-establish himself in a team crying out for some top end talent. His inclusion may help support Noah Balta or allow the flexibility to send him forward, as well mitigating the eventual retirement of Dylan Grimes.
Samson Ryan- After his infamous debut in a 62-22 loss to St Kilda where he had a -2 fantasy score, our baby giraffe was able to crack in for 14 games in 2023, splitting time between ruck and forward with Nank and Lynch down with injury early in the year. Coming into 2024, with Riewoldt retired and Soldo maliciously stolen from us, Ryan's biggest competition for a spot is Naismith who's played 30 games in 8 years and Koschitzke who was dropped last year despite being the only key forward in his team. With some more bulk to his frame, Sampa could carve out his niche as a ruck-forward and be a mainstay in the new era of Richmond, which hopefully means more interviews with his mum and BT.
Sam Banks- Much like his graffiti artist namesake we don't know a lot about Banksy yet. Banks was one of our most consistent VFL players in 2023 finally earning a call up and playing 6 games towards the end of the season. He showed some promise as a quick, line breaking half-back, with his best a 18 disposal game in a comeback win against Hawthorn. However, with Marlion Pickett potentially being one of the dumbest men in football and a new coach looking to experiment with new blood, a spot on the wing (his preferred position) could be on the cards for Sam.
Tom Lynch- It's lunch time!! I don't know if it's cheating to put an All Australian calibre player in players to watch but this bloke's season will largely dictate whether Richmond are contending for finals or contending to draft the 7th generational talent of this generation. I know every team complains about injuries (cough Geelong) but losing our 3 goal a game, 2022 BnF for a year devastated Richmond's forward line and no amount of chipped, Riewoldt-shaped pegs could fill the Lynch sized hole in our team. Lynch at his best can tear a team apart and at his worst he's a big galoot that gets in the way of the competitions best defenders and gives the other forwards a chance. Hopefully the only foot injury he has in 2024 is a bit of a bruise from kicking 50+ goals.
Players on Notice
Noah Cumberland- In 2022 you might remember Cummy for his game winning 5 goal performance against Brisbane or more likely his inability to tell time resulting in a draw against Fremantle. In 2023 you might not remember him at all and I can hardly blame you. Cumberland was a shock omission from the round 1 team after averaging 2 goals a game in 2022, with Dimma seeming to like Cumberland only slightly more than he likes Marvel Stadium. Said to have played too similar a role to Dusty (you'd think two Dusty's would be a good thing) Cumberland was in and out of the side due to form and injury, with him often looking lost at times on the field. In his fifth season at the club, if he can't gel with Yze's plan he may surpassed by others, and St Kilda may add a third Richmond small forward to their collection.
Thomson Dow- Since entering the AFL, Thomson is probably best known for being the second best Dow, a title many would rather die than have. Having never played more than 6 games in a season, many supporters were ready to say their goodbyes when Dow had only played one game coming into round 22, a 6 disposal effort against Essendon where he was subbed out. However, after playing the last three games of the season, including a career best against Port, he earned his coveted one year contract. With Cotchin gone, and Dusty spending more time forward, there's a spot up for grabs if Dow can prove to Yze he's got the goods, and there will be no other chances.
Marlion Pickett- This one kind of speaks for itself. If he's guilty he's obviously gone and if he's innocent he's coming into 2024 at 32 with a giant distraction over his head after an average year on the field. Pickett brought his signature intensity to the forward line for large chunks of 2023, and besides a game winning performance against GWS he seemed to fade in and out of games. With Jack Ross taking over his position on the wing and plenty of young tigers trying to break into the team, Pickett's future is hanging in the balance.
Dylan Grimes- Grimes' 2023 season was a familar site for Tiger fans, another premiership star who started to look a touch off pace upon entering his 30's. Having taken on some of the best talls and smalls in comp throughout his career, Grimes started to hand off these jobs to the likes of Broad, Balta, Rioli and even rookie Young in 2023. Despite playing on the opposition's 4th or 5th best forward, Grimes lacked his usual impact on games, and while he's well earnt the right to retire when he sees fit it would be something to be considered if 2024 doesn't turn out as planned. Here's hoping dropping the burden of the captaincy onto Nank's sexy, hefty shoulders will allow Dylan to fully focus on his game and get a resurgence.

(MODS THIS IS NOT A JOB POST OR A FREELANCE POST, PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE)
Do you like to write?
Do you have ideas in your head with like to express through words?
Do you want to be in a community of passionate writers?
I am starting an online magazine over at loktamagazine.com. As a writer, I find that there aren’t enough platforms to share my stories. I am starting the zine as a solution to that problem. Website is a WIP.
Lokta Mag aims to provide a platform for zealous writers to share their pieces. I am hoping as a community of writers, we can promote and preserve Nepali culture through words and art.
Lokta Mag is inspired by the namesake paper which is uniquely Nepali. Lokta paper comes from the Daphne shrub, found in the high Himalayas. Lokta paper is unique to Nepal and the magazine aims to follow in the essence of the Lokta paper.
Looking for writers to submit pieces of these varieties:
Essays/Opinions
Fiction
Poetry
Review
Slice of life (journalistic profiles of Nepali people in Nepal and abroad)
Also looking for folks to submit high quality photograph and art that fits the theme of the magazine.
Not every submission will be published though I can give $10 per article published. I would not see this as a job but rather a way to get paid for something you would have otherwise written. If you are not passionate about writing, I don’t think this is for you.
Comment for questions. If you’re interested in sending submissions, the email is on the website.

Hello TESLore! Been lurking for a few months. A while ago, I was trying to come up with a backstory for my Breton Dragonborn and ended up writing a whole essay. This is a collection of ideas that I wanted to run by the community for a fic that I'm writing. (Does this count as Apocrypha? Wasn't sure.)
I haven't played ESO or gotten very far in Daggerfall, just read too much UESP. Some stuff was based purely on geographic placement. I'm hoping to refine these ideas with some much-appreciated lorebeard insight. Thanks!
Wayrest was destablized by the sack of 4E 189, causing Greater Wayrest (the post-Warp kingdom) to fragment again. Much of the city has been rebuilt, but many merchant-barons are still financially recovering, Wayrest depends heavily on Imperial aid and supports Imperial control of Falkreath, which Jarl Siddgeir abuses to leverage favorable deals. Gavaudon, which broke away from Wayrest, regularly encroaches on western Bangkorai. Anticlere was partitioned into two states by the Warp in the West, and the east half still claims nominal fealty to Wayrest to prevent Daggerfall from annexing them.
In Alcaire, Tibedetha is still celebrated in secret, and Thalmor crackdowns have led to growing dissension. Alcaire is also the only territory under Queen Barynia's rule outside of Greater Menevia (3E Wayrest and 3E Menevia).
Daggerfall swooped in to fill the trade gap left by Wayrest, and retains firm control of southwest High Rock. An uprising in Glenpoint was suppressed by Tullius, cementing his reputation as a "fixer" of troublesome provinces. With the Beldama Wyrd scattered by the Crypt Knights, the Wyrd Tree is now tended to by a monastic, neo-Druidic order of Daenia. Daggerfall is still on the fence regarding the Skyrim Civil War, and can profit from either side winning.
Camlorn is currently the heart of magical education in High Rock, and its prestigious School of Julianos is the origin and namesake of the College of Whispers (though their current headquarters is now in Cyrodiil). Indeed, the feud between the College of Whispers and the Synod is built on the much older feud between the Schools of Julianos and the Mages' Guild.
Druids have resided in Ykalon since the Stonelore Renaissance (oft remembered as the "return of druids" to High Rock, but was more a boom in the popularity of druidism), but became especially prominent with the formation of the Flowchalice Circle, founded by Knights of the Cup after the Warp in the West, which oversaw the reseeding of Ykalon's forests.
Although Shornhelm fell under Northpoint's control during the Miracle of Peace, it regained autonomy sometime around 4E 80. The independence movement was led by purported descendants of Andorak who claimed to have survived the Mythic Dawn. They still have their eyes on the Ruby Throne to this day, and were the ones backing Motierre's plot.
Due to its Nordicized culture, Jehanna is more concerned with Skyrim's civil war than other kingdoms. Though still dominated by Nord nobles, it has been functionally autonomous for most of the 4th Era, as Skyrim's attention was diverted to rebuilding the Old Holds after the Oblivion Crisis. Some share the Stormcloaks' disdain for the Concordat. However, Jehanna is wary of alienating relations with Farrun, as the Wrothgar region overall benefits from trading with Solitude and supplies much of its steel. (Farrun has strong mining and steelmaking sectors thanks to a large population of City Orcs.) To further complicate matters, Elisif is the king's second cousin, one of Jehanna's many overtures to improve relations with its neighbors. For these reasons, Jehanna has yet to accept Ulfric's offer of alliance.
Bjoulsae tribesmen participated in the Sack of Orsinium in early 4E, allowing some tribes to regain long-eroded prestige and influence. Over the next century, power along the Bjoulsae River quietly shifted from urban nobles to wealthy tribes. This culminated in the Retaking of Dunkarn in 4E 144, in which a tribal bloc pressured knights from Wayrest, Gavuaudon, and Evermore to attack their ancient foes, the Reachmen clans. Many Reachmen fled east, and their children comprised a sizable portion of Madanach's army that seized Markarth 30 years later.
The War of the Bend'r-mahk left a lasting cultural impact on Bangkorai, with generations of Bretons raised on tales of fighting off bloodthirsty Nord barbarians. Evermore's disdain for Nord nationalism led them to outright disregard Ulfric's petition for alliance. They have not sent many reinforcements to Solitude either, withholding their miliary for their own defense.
My Breton Dragonborn comes from a small knightly order from somewhere in Greater Daggerfall (not sure which polity exactly, but she received some magic training in Ykalon). She traveled to Skyrim to gather information on the civil war for her duke/baron/lord (a mission she is currently ignoring to throw lightning bolts at giants and explore Dwemer ruins).

Disclaimer: I will start by saying that this is a critical review of the episodes. I wanted to wait until the first three episodes came out to give my opinion; I don't care about the race change or the physical appearance change (just saying, in case some tell me I'm being racist). I understand the show isn't going to be a straight copy-and-paste situation, but here are things I just could not vibe with within the show changes (and yes, I know some changes are needed for a better flow in the show):
Summarizing my thoughts of the three episodes:
Aryan portrayal of Grover had me worried, but I think episode 3 really shined through. I think he is doing a fantastic job. Walker is doing a great job, too. There are no complaints really there. Leah, I feel like I don't really know her to fully criticize her acting since the third episode is the first time we get a huge amount of screen time from her, but her line delivery isn't shining through. I feel like the emotion is missing in some scenes, but I felt like that with Grover in the first episode, so maybe it will be better in the next episode. Charlie is doing a great job with Luke a little dull in some areas but a great job overall. seems nonthreatening, which is perfect for why the characters will be unaware in the future. Clarisse is perfect. No complains there. My complaints are with the adults other than Medusa and Alecto (though she did scare me in the first episode). I feel like the adults aren't giving. Sally's portray while caring for and protecting parents is understandable i don't get her relationship with Gabe; Gabe just seems like what I honestly imagined Helen and Annabeth's relationship to be in a weird way (Annabeth and Helen not understanding each other and getting angry at each other) Chiron is so cryptic and so wise it doesn't fit with what i imagined him to be and Mr D cares to much about this quest.
The dialogue seems a little off for twelve-year-olds, even adults, because who uses "I'm not Nostradamus," really? I mean, who says things like that? "valiantly?"
It's making it hard for me to justify that Gabe is going to die when he is not being an ass. Kinda mad they didn't tell Percy the sword was from Poseidon. Did they not mention why Sally married Gabe in the first place? They could have also mentioned the orientation film, especially with what felt like a forced mention of Nico with the mythomagic cards and the sandwich shop.
Even the third episode felt like we were still being introduced to the show. it makes me question if the whole season will feel like an introduction to the series
rating 1: 4/10 2: 7/10 3:7/10
Episode 1:
Troubled Kid?-
The show portrays a different approach, in my opinion, to what it means to be a troubled kid; they are essentially tying it to mental health issues, which many people are saying is trying it on this new generation of kids (understandable as the past couple of years with COVID mental issues has been a huge thing). Still, I don't think it fits Percy.
Percy, in the books, is a troubled kid; he is a 'bad kid.' I mean, he was selling an illegal stash of candy from his dorm; he was on probation for in-school suspension before the book even started. He plagiarized the essay. Percy is impulsive and short-tempered, especially in the first book with the storms happening- he calls a teacher an old sot.
Seeing things- The TV show really threw me off with Percy just seeing all these things and just believing in them because Percy's life is up until the end of the night in the cabin normal- it's his normal.
In the book In the Cabin, he states:
"she met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me- all the weird, scary things that have ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget."
"When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head."
He does not get any help- mental health from anyone- not really, maybe his mom, but not the school with him being a bad kid. His seeing the creatures from the demigod world and encouraging him to understand it by Grover and his mom telling him the stories does not make sense to me because Sally is trying to make his life as normal as possible in the books, so why would she purposely tell him these stories (and I know its to prepare him, but Sally didn't tell him anything because she doesn't want him to leave her side- knowing the that there is a possibility that if others knew who he was, he would die.) Percy sees these things in the books, too, but he does not voice these things out loud- it's like he knows they are there, but he ignores them and tries to rationalize them.
Chiron and Grover literally used the Mist to hide Mrs. Dodds, making Percy feel like he was going insane because they knew that if he knew the truth, he would be in greater danger- they gaslighted him.
Perseus- The flashback of us finding out his full name and the story of the original Perseus was cute- the hold fast brave the storm (obviously mentioned again when he fights the minotaur), but it also felt like it didn't belong there.
WHAT IF: I would have rather liked the scene to be at the beginning of the second episode and end with Hold Fast. Perseus brave the storm before he fully wakes up again with Grover by his side.
Also, I would have liked Sally to be at his eye level- maybe they were sitting on the bench looking at the statue.
Fountain scene- the fight with Dodds was too short; why bother having it at all? Obviously, I know it's important, but it was like 30-40 seconds long. Also, mentioning why Nancy was a bully was a way to steer into mental health so smoothly (eye roll). Also, it's weird to me because it feels like it's trying to live in the present 2023, but the bullying is old school in a way, especially when Percy says Mom and Nancy's response to that. Also, it looked weird when Percy used his powers on Nancy.
WHAT IF: instead, Percy is called by Grover to look at a statue; Nancy then very obviously trips Grover, making him fall, and she laughs, walking towards the water fountain. Percy uses his powers, causing Nancy and her friend group to get splashed, and everyone is distracted. Mrs. Dodds pulls Percy away to a secluded area. Percy is then attacked, just like the books; Chrion shows up and gives him the pen, and when he goes out, everyone is already eating lunch. Percy asks about Mrs Dodds, and Grover gaslightes him into thinking he is just crazy.
You might hate me, but I think the movie does this portrayal so well when Chiron asks what if he can name another and he can read ancient Greek, giving him another name and Mrs. Dodds pulling him away before attacking him (obviously though not perfect as Percy doesn't kill it but I'm sorry better than the 30 seconds of the offscreen stab)
"I didn't touch Nancy"- I love that scene. He is so stubborn, and he repeats the line Just Chef Kiss. Ignoring my WI, I would have liked to see personally an indication that Grover didn't want to lie and get Percy expelled- it would have been nice to have a shot where we see everyone in the room with Grover looking at Chiron and Chiron being like yes go ahead lie- because I don't get how personally loyalty fatal flaw Percy Jackson would forgive him- I mean he was always defending Grover and he just caused him to get expelled. I don't even think they need to go through this route- because, personally, before the 3rd episode, I thought Percy might think it was Grover who would betray him (maybe that was the intention).
WHAT IF: Instead, they go straight to the end of the year with Percy being called to the headmaster's office, telling him he wasn't going to be invited back because of his behavior and falling grades (this, of course, with them not playing on the mental health role but the bad kid one). They could even say, "You called your English teacher, and I quote an old sot."
Waiting for the bus- Chiron is talking to Percy while he waits. Why? Just why? To tell him he is special? It reminds me so much of Dumbledore being cryptic and mysterious. We could have gotten Grover and Percy waiting instead since it was the end of the year for the bus to see the fates. The fates are such an important part, in my opinion, because Percy goes into these quests and war thinking he is going to die, and I don't think it really sets in until he reads the great prophecy, but still. If they can mention the minotaur and mythomagic cards, they can at least show the fates for 30 seconds like Mrs Dodds.
Gabe- I've seen people repeatedly comment how Gabe isn't being portrayed as abusive- I agree. In the book, while we don't get shown with their conversation really- he seems to be more of a verbal abuser in the book Percy does say, "or he'd punch the light out of me," telling us Gabe is physically abusive and Yes, I know there are different forms of abuse, but it feels more like a stepfather and son that don't get along in the show like a kid wishing that his parents where still together thus not accepting his step-parent. The delivery of the lines just doesn't fit the character. "They said I attacked a kid on a field trip." "Okay."- when I first watched it, especially the line delivery- it sounded like a step-parent trying to be there for his kid- trying to understand the situation. "What are we doing Percy? Every time!" I say people comment that Gabe is manipulative, and this line shows it, but again, it comes off as a more exasperated step-parent who is trying to connect with the stepchild.
Sally- I'm sorry, why? The Olivia Rodrigo's song. What adult listens to her Songs- gives the same vibe as Sally listening to Love Story by Taylor Swift. Sally isn't a teen, and even if it is being marketed to kids, it's weird because Sally is an adult, and those songs are teen songs. I would have understood if it was like Happiness by Taylor Swift since it's a more mellow song that was written when she (Taylor) was older. "There'll be happiness after you, But there was happiness because of you." It's a great line, but the scene would have entirely felt odd because Sally isn't doing anything but sitting in the rain. It feels odd because it's not natural.
WHAT IF: instead, Sally is doing something- making the bean dip, arriving at the apartment, folding literally anything with movement. It would have felt more natural.
"I'm scared."- Percy would never admit that to his mom- knowing that he makes her life harder, not being able to stay in the same school, he already feels like a burden to his mom.
Sally vs Gabe- this scene felt really off because knowing that Sally is abused by Gabe from the books, it doesn't show at all in the show- in fact, it appears that Sally has the upper hand as they yell at each other. Again, I know that people are saying Rick is trying to show different types of abuse or that they did a screen test and it was too much to have a book-accurate scene, but it felt sadly like a lot of marriages on TikTok now- I mean I guess if try it could be showing that Gabe is dependent too much on Sally- wanting her to be there with him to watch the game and with Sally working while he doesn't and it could be a sign of controlled but Sally also yelling at him just threw me off. Also, just to note, Sally is the first one to start yelling at Gabe when he asks why he is okay with it- which I guess leans more into controlling, but let's not forget she told him (it felt off because of r a split second it feels like Sally might be the abuser here- and she's not even asking to use his car she is telling him even if you say no I'm going to take it anyway) and yes him asking why he would be fine with her leaving is reasonable if she is going to be gone for three days I think to know where your spouse is going.
Again, the movies did a good portrayal of the book relationship between the three, Sally being quiet and obedient to Gabe trying to make him happy, sort of like a servant(yes, I know that sounds horrible, but it's true), Percy being angry and disgusted with Gabe and Gabe just being a rotten human.
The cabin- Percy not knowing that the reason why they go to the cabin every year is because that's where she meet his father hurts. In the book, Percy is the one who initiates the conversation about his father, wanting to know more about him. I think that Sally should not have been the one to tell Percy who he is. I mean, I love the line, "You fell in love with God like Jesus." It made me laugh, but I just don't think it made sense for Sally to tell Percy who he is because, as I said earlier, once his mother is dead, he enters this new world he didn't know he was a part of. So, it's unlikely that Sally revealing Percy's identity to him would have any impact because he does not believe it- he sees all this weird stuff and thinks he is crazy. Show Percy thinks he is broken, and that actually hurts because, as watchers, we start to understand how much his seeing the monsters has affected his mental health and sense of self-worth.
I think what really also bothered me about Sally now knowing he saw Mrs Dodds is that she knows he is in danger and still takes him to the cabin- because realistically, there was no point in them going there, not really- this whole scene really could have been taken place in the car to camp. I say this because, in the books, Sally doesn't know that he was attacked; Percy tells his mom that everything is fine, so she takes him there because it's their tradition, and she still thinks he is safe. It isn't until Grover shows up that they have to leave because Sally and Grover realize it is too dangerous for him to wait any longer.
"I not panicking"- she's right. She's not, but she should be. I mean, Grover showed up earlier than anticipated. What do you think that means? It should have been like, "I'm not panicking- should I start panicking- Percy, get your bag was leaving." She should be panicking about why she is so nonchalant, like what is happening is normal. It's like she is madder at Grover for being there already.
Car Ride- They are on a road running from a monster. Why isn't this more urgent- the pace for this scene is so calm when it should be high-stakes
"Percy there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety," but the show makes everything feel so calm, like they aren't being chased.
Car Crash- They just crashed, and there is no urgency to anything. I mean, you were attached by the minatour in the movie, at least. As they are getting out of the car, Grover is yelling- that I think shows how important moving forward is but also keeping the high stakes of the situation. Everything about this feels muted. Boundary line: I never really understood this because Rachel later could pass through, so why didn't Grover just find someone to let her through, or did he himself let her in (like in the book, he is unconscious, but this Grover is fully awake)? I get Sally is being protective, making Grover swear it, but A) she knows life as a demigod is hard, and she is making him swear to protect him; B) I swear! I thought Sally was going to make him swear in the river of Styx like that. Honestly, scared me because poor Grover has to keep him safe, and also, Chrion asks Annabeth something similar in the second book.
"Hold fast, brave the storm." This was cute, but Sally being able to talk for such a long time ruins again the urgency of the situation.
I like how they muted the sound when Percy lost his mom, but it would have been nice to hear a small "mom" before he got angry and rushed toward the minotaur because I think it would just pull on strings more.
The minatour fight 10 out of 10 it was chefs kiss. But still didn't like Percy having the sword because I wanted there to be a sword lesson and for Chiron to tell Percy the sword was from his father. (Also, I kinda just really like how the sword (in pen form) looked in the movie because, I mean, it is made of celestial bronze, but I mean, it gives it something mythical instead of the ballpoint pen in the book)
But I would have really liked for Grover to be unconscious just so we can get Percy hugging Grover as if he were his lifeline, pulling him towards Thalia tree while crying out for his mom.
The scene afterward, where he is being welcomed to calm by Chiron and a few demigods- just didn't make sense to me because he immediately faints again- so it's technically useless; I would have rather had it in the other perspective where Luke Annabeth and Clarisse maybe Chris all rush out hearing Grover crying for help and they see Percy either fighting the minotaur or holding its horn and the scene ends with Annabeth saying "he must be one"
Episode 2:
"You drool when you sleep"- I love that scene in the book, but the delivery of it was not it; why have it when he's unconscious and barely walking up? I think it would have been better to have her ask about the summer solstice. Also, as I said, I would have loved to open the episode with Sally telling him the story about Persues and to hold fast, and it could have been instead in the cabin, like Percy could have run to his mother afraid of the storm, and she could have told him the story about his namesake.
Infirmary- Having filmed the shot with Percy lying down was just an odd angle, in my opinion; would he be resting against bed rest or on his side? Percy shooting down Grover, saying his job was done, makes sense after everything he had done, including getting him expelled, which is why I hate that storyline of Grover being the reason because it makes me question why Percy didn't suspect Grover would betray him (he did it once already).
Meeting Chiron and Mr. D-Grover, the timing when he enters the scene is off; he should have entered sooner, and he speaks like there is urgency because he needs to stop Percy from angering a god, but again, the timing in the show is just not doing it justice for the scene. Also, Grover's saying, "You don't want to start with this guy," is a little confusing because Percy is not being portrayed as a bad-tempered kid in the show. Also, I'm kind of salty that Percy didn't figure out by himself that Mr. D is Dionysus; if his mother had been telling him stories, it should have been easier for him to figure out which god he is. And I just really missed Chiron explaining the Greek world to him.
"Dad?" That was hilarious.
Hermes Cabin-Luke is a great portrayal of him; unlike in the books, Percy in the show especially has no one by his side, so for him to have a friendly face who is there for him is honestly great.
Chiron—I really don't know, but he feels so wise and mysterious, like Dumbledore, that it's throwing me off because he is so cryptic and manipulative. And where is his respect when he enters? For example, when he enters, people notice and bow in respect. When Grover tells him that Sally was taken, this bothers me so much because it is so manipulative, and for what? This detail would have hit so much harder if they left it like the book Sally Dead because then Percy is just thrust into this new world. In the book, Sally being alive was a plot twist that made Percy choose between his new friends and saving the world.
Glory- I like this idea, but Luke's explanation is, Why not just say the titles that you earn?
Montage- Why couldn't they add the sword class? Or canoeing because it would have been hilarious to see Percy being so good at it and for people saying that, and they could pass it by saying he is the son of a minor god.
Offering- It was cute that Percy burned something for his mom, but I think a big problem I'm having with the show is that Percy doesn't seem to like his father. A lot of the things he does are out of resentment; he doesn't care about his father, and he only tries to find him in camp because his mom died. "I'm going to make him see me." He sounds so bitter and vengeful, like he is against the gods. In the books, Percy does care about his father; he wants to know about him and believes he truly loves his mother. The movie even shows it with Percy in the car with his mom and asking her why he had to leave. I'm just not sensing at all that he cares about his father; his wanting glory is out of spite again because his father is ignoring him.
Bathroom- I actually really liked that Clarisse is bullying Percy because she thinks he lied about the Minatour- it gives the whole situation and how she treats him in more depth. "Are you stalking me, Annabeth" That's hilarious. I loved that line, but with her just leaning against the door frame, it was, ehh, I would have liked for her to examine the mess in the bathroom or even look into the toilet and see the water back. "Win, capture the flag" made no sense because she chose him, knowing Clarrise would go after him. Saying that his powers are the reason why she chose him seems odd.
Luke's backstory—Kinda annoyed; they went deeper into the story because, from book one until five, we don't know why Annabeth defends Luke so much until Percy discovers his backstory and how much she looked up to him and how he and Thalia found her.
Annabeth- having her stalking Percy was just kinda weird- wished they interacted more in the second episode. Annabeth feels more stand-off-ish than in the books; Annabeth was arrogant in the books, thinking she should know everything and be able to go on quests because she didn't see herself as a child. Show Annabeth seems just be rude, and Annabeth in the book was also mean to Percy, but she did explain things to him, telling him his position in capturing the flag. Even if it was cold, she helped him, alerting him about Clarrisse's spear.
Annabeth stalking Percy-
"Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. he wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until... someone special came to camp."
VS
"Annabeth is the strongest warrior in camp. The only real way to prove herself is to go on a quest. Chiron's been promising for years. One day a demigod would arrive who was fated to go on quest, that even Chiron couldn't prevent. And when that happens she could join."
Let's talk about the different implications- the first one is Annabeth can't go on a quest because of a prophecy; she has to wait for the right moment, while the second one emphasizes Annabeth's strength and desire to prove herself.
"Athena always has a plan." Where is this line? I miss this line.
Percy gave up the flag like that, even if he pointed in the wrong direction without getting hurt; it just threw me off because he came off as scared, which I got Percy in the books. Even if scared, he still drew his sword. How did Percy get so good at sword fighting because he is not in the water, okay? Throughout the fight, he is near it but not in it, so he should not be good at sword fighting because, yes, he is skilled, but he has not been trained. When Clarrise picked up, she should have thrown him into the water after yelling at him (Clarisse, by the way, loved her acting in the scene)
It made no sense to me why Annabeth would push him in to prove her point? I saw people commenting, saying it's to prove that she is right, but it also proved that she is willing to push down others to show she is right, which is just mean. The scene entirely of him being pushed into the water was not needed because, in the book, she tells him to go into the water by telling him because she knows his wound will heal in the water after seeing his cuts from his fight with Clarisse heal. Annabeth still proved she was right, but not by being an ass. Annabeth, in the book, helped Percy with his Greek knowledge, helping him read ancient Greek and informing him of things even if they weren't so nice. Annabeth, in the show, is a stalker who is pushing people down to prove she is right.
Claimed- Why is Annabeth smiling? Percy was claimed but is the rival of Athena. Annabeth knows how terrible it is to be a child of the big three, a forbidden child, and she will use him to go on a quest (both in the show and in books). In the show, Annabeth is interested in him because she thinks she will get to go on a quest, while in the books, Annabeth wants to prove herself by going on the quest and seeing the world since she is always stuck in camp.
I don't care if it's too cheesy; they should have bowed. Percy is the son of the King of Seas and a child of the Big Three. It's also a Disney show, and there have been cringeworthy scenes. Also, let's make this clear- they are bowing to show respect; Percy is the only child in 70 years who is alive and made it to camp safely- they don't know what implications that brings to them; thus, it is now a myth on that alone (fighting a minotaur, a fury beating ares cabin beating Luke in swordsmanship) in the books he has then earned the right to respect.
"You have been claimed by Poseidon, earthshaker stormbring Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon," the TV show claims. VS
"Poseidon, Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses, Hail Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God"
I mean, I'm sorry, but you can't compete with the original claim quote. It was magical; it gave me goosebumps. It bothered me how, in the show, they just continued, almost brushing it off by not leaving a pause to really take it in. Chiron's delivery of the line falls flat, like a narrator with no emotion. I mean, it's subtle, but it needs to have an umpfh.
"Who's Sally Jackson?" "My Mother," that's literally all he had to say to make it more impactful. We know she cared about you, Percy. She is your mother, and we saw how much she loved you, making Grover even swear to protect you.
Quest- I don't think they really set up the stakes for the quest; yelling does nothing; it should have been spoken softly but firmly of the consequences. Mr. D would not even care about some demigods dying unless it's his children. Also, Chiron and Mr. D getting mad at Grover for telling Percy his mom is still alive is wrong; it is like they are manipulating him.
Episode 3:
Prophecy- It was less anti-climatic. To be honest, I thought it was going to be more mysterious
Talking about the quest- I thought it was cool having the best campers there and Percy having to choose between them
Grover and Blackjack?- I actually loved this scene. It was cool, but Percy is near horses. He should talk to them at least a little. At least let them call him my Lord.
packing- 200 dollars in cash (really? I mean that low of cash for their journey. They have to go to New York to California, back to New York, and they get 200 dollars)
talking about Thalia- "she met a pinecone's fate." Percy, that was so out of pocket
"Do exactly as I say and maybe you survive this." Annabeth seems to be leading the quest when, in the books, she kinda knows her place, which means she knows the quest is Percy's, and she's just trying to keep him alive while Annabeth in the show seems to be taking charge.
Bus- I really like Grover's acting; the first episode, not so much, but I really like how he delivered the lines about Percy being unable to travel through the plane. Annabeth, in this scene, feels unreasonably angry at Percy. I get Percy insulted Thalia, but the banter reminds me of the Pery and Annabeth in the books arguing about olives. Also, where are the wanted posters and newspapers? Annabeth's line deliveries are hitting in this scene like something is missing from it. I don't know if it sounds too dull or lacks emotion, or something in her line delivery seems off.
Why is Annabeth so calm when talking to Alecto? I mean, they are the reason why Thalia died; I don't know why they would have a civilized conversation. I also kinda hate that interaction because it proved that Annabeth wouldn't give up Percy to fulfill the quest and thus is not the friend that betrays him. The timing of Annabeth screaming to Percy to get off the bus is again off. I mean, there is a lack of urgency in the situation.
Satyr Path- "pull himself together" irks me so much because Percy telling her to ask for Athena's help is reasonable in the fact that I don't think anyone has really fully told Percy that the gods ignored them- I think Luke might have mentioned it but's not stressed enough that the gods. Ignore their children. Why would Grover lead them to the hamburgers? Is he under a spell or something? In the book, Percabeth is the one who falls under the spell, but for Grover, it's odd since he's supposed to be able to smell the monsters.
Aunty Em- Can they read English? Also, I kinda hate that Annabeth figured everything out so fast. It's kind of odd to me that Annabeth immediately called Medusa a monster, not willing even to give a second chance- someone she personally hasn't fought but Alecto, who she had fought when she was 7; the reason why her friend died, she is willing to have a conversation with her a civilized conversation.
"it was a curse." Annabeth, why are you trying to provoke a monster?
I really loved Medusa's backstory- again bringing in the resentment toward the gods and, honestly, the best acting from the adults. It is ironic that Medusa has grey eyes when that's the eye color of the kids of Athena in the book.
"Sure." I know it was supposed to be a "sure" attitude; Annabeth does not want to abandon her hat, but why did it feel so dull?
Grover is speaking facts. Aww, Percy, poor Percy.
"you guys do not believe this."- I love that; I wished we had the reaction of the gods.

(Preemptive spoilers warning here and placed under theory because the essay's argument delves into it)
​
Hello everyone, I am a fellow fan of this visual novel and took the past couple of weeks writing up a video essay describing how Slay the Princess, from its art, music, story, chrs., etc. provides an exercise to the concepts of Cartesian doubts and truth of the "I" noted by the namesake Rene Descartes' Discourse on the Method. I do intend to make this light-hearted with tongue-in-cheek moments scattered throughout to give semi-serious and jovial arguments. I am nearly done with the first draft and would like to poll anyone who wishes to be a part of a post-essay Q&A section or supplemental video. I am aiming for a mid-January release, but it's dependent on how quick I am with DaVinci Resolve.
​
As a piece of media that deals with misinformation, I examined how the warm monochromatic sketch art and the music, although thematic to each princess, are often distorted which both visually and auditory represent the limitations of the senses. The changing environments per loop, how the Narrator changes the player's trust in him by not talking about the random box cutter the princess uses to start the Razor run, how the mirror is not interactable outside the abyss and reflections probably not to be trusted as it is how the narrator sees what we are doing, how being unable to play previous routes indicates that the Shifting Mound does not remove our memories upon leaving the Abyss as the prompts are greyed notes how these entities misinform or manipulate the birb/playe
​
_(┐「ε:)_ Anyway, I end it by noting the Long Quiet and voices are the doubts and therefore the medium by which the thoughts of the player are expressed. Even with the misinformation and manipulation, the thoughts of voices, birb, and the player exist and the world which it exists which we can therefore assess it and build a collection of knowledge to act and progress. Things will change as I do the second draft.

^{¹ Obviously, no game can give you schizophrenia, or any other mental illness. Please seek professional mental health services should you require them.}

• Omori is a second-person, narratively-driven RPG initially released in 2020.
• In this game, the part of you is played by one of two actors: Omori & □.
  • While you are sleeping, your internal experience is portrayed by the game's namesake, Omori;
  • While you are awake, your experience of waking reality is portrayed by □.

I Lied

I told myself several months ago I wasn't going to finish the game; that I wasn't in a good headspace (hah!) for it. And, probably I still am not. But I tried to watch some rando's playthrough on YouTube—but I couldn't do it. I felt like I, personally, owed it to Basil to do it myself.
Like I said, bad headspace.
It hasn't gotten better. I haven't been this close to my own psychosis in two solid decades. I slayed that beast twenty years ago. What the fuck is it doing rearing its head back now? There is a lifetime of nightmares dead and bled dry in a narrative graveyard whose headstones have all been sandblasted blank. There is an entire past I've largely forgotten, purged from the Internet in the brink of time, by the looks of it. Evidence of my derangement has certainly been long forgotten, or resides in the periphery of the memory of a single-digit cast of characters, only two of which are of any note: One, a true friend extraordinaire who will never betray me; one a nemesis so damned and autovilified no one would ever believe even the truest statement they made if I expended any effort to contradicte them.
So, why now? Why are the seams fraying again? It's not this dumb game's fault; the game's timing just could not have been worse. I wasn't paying enough attention before January to notice the signs. I hadn't been keeping up with therapy, or even with psychiatry. I tried in January this year—2023—to reach out to my previous therapist, but she had moved on, though she graciously gave me an hour of her personal time for me to tell her how I was noticing the signs, the universe curling in on itself even when the view from the inside shows the distances in space and time accelerating and accelerating from all other distances in space and time. ChatGPT was a big thing that was leavings tracings on the edges of my sight. I don't know how to say that quickly in a way that is likely to impart understand rather than dismissal, either her or with her; though I don't think she was dismissive—she had simply retired, as had the interim therapist I was seeing after this retired one. So many mental health resources collapsed in the wake of COVID-19, and it has not recovered. I can remember one of my last appointments with the retired lady in a professional setting; we discussed what the future might be like. The community clinic I was seeing her at in 2021 was being acquired, consolidated, streamlined. Gutted. The "community" was gone. Faces I had been accustomed to seeing vanished, ghosts of what were little more than pleasant phantoms in the first place, but which made the clinic feel as much like a home, a refuge, as any enclave of the impoverished and disenfranchised can be. It's all gone. I told her in 2021 I thought it would be 2025 before any sense of normalcy would return. I thought I was being pessimistic; I think I was not being pessimistic enough.
But, you're not here for that in your Omori subreddit. What does any of this have to do with this game?
Okay. I lied that I would not finish the game. I was compelled by psychosis to finish even as in psychosis I was clearly having trouble delineating reality from fantasy. This may not make sense per se now, but if I can unleash the narrative that's been plaguing my mind for most of this year, maybe it will make sense vis-à-vis my psychosis later. Or we'll find out together I should have kept my yap shut. I don't anticipate learning anything from writing all this down. Could be I do; could be because it focuses broken fragments of thought to coalesce into terminable threads; could be someone here asks me something or tells me something that frames things differently from how I've come to internalize them, even as concrete as those frames and their portraits may be.

Spoiler Alert

There is no good ending. Even the "good ending" gives plenty of clues: You wake up in the hospital surrounded by flowers and well-wishes from the dozens of friends you've made in an extremely busy three-day weekend. It's staggering that you could be so revered in such a short amount of time from a community you've completely disavowed for four unbroken years; even moreso that everyone would, maximum friendship level unlocked like a game of Persona, all learn in less than 24 hours what happened, where you are, and all individually if not independently send gifts and well-wishes to you—only you, in your private double suite. Your hospital bed is described as "very, very comfortable"—a level of praise preserved only for Mari's bed. The television in your room only picks up static. The hospital halls are haunted by the visages of your friends in headspace, before they leave for the balcony you can eject yourself from in an equally dreamlike sequence in another timeline. Stranger haunts these halls, too. No staff of any kind to take notice of you, make sure you're good to be walking. And note the vignette pervading the edges of everything; this is as much a dream as the dream sequence where your "friends" – older, but still only in your head; not the real people you've condemned to a lifetime of hell plus four years of torture once they find out the truth – encourage you to play on, a concert for (no) one. A hospital with no way in and no way out. Only rooms you cannot enter and a balcony you, in your dying mind, can't jump off of anymore, as your desperate ego constructs a final dream where everyone loves you immediately and unconditionally, where your friends forgive you without question, all of them conveniently gathered at just the right time in a hospital with no nurses, no doctors, no staff, no mother waiting to take you away.
Guys.
Sunny is dead. Sunny doesn't survive the fight with Basil. And the game doesn't tell us anymore about what happens to Basil and everyone else. Maybe if you hadn't been such a colossal shit-heel to the flower boy. And everyone. The canonical "best" ending has Basil murder you and your last comatose thoughts are the greatest fantasy of all.
Chapter List

• Part 0: Omayra Sánchez
• Part 1: Prologue

A dragon is a dragon, however… since the release of A Dance With Dragons; many, many moons ago; a debate has been born on whose blood runs in the veins of a certain lad introduced to us in the above mentioned volume. Often referred to as Young Griff, and even more often as (f)Aegon, the lad is presumed to be: (1) the last of the Blackfyres, be that on a female line; (2) the miraculously saved son and heir of Rhaegar Taragaryen; (3) some Lysene of uncertain pedigree; (4) and, only seldom, the descendant of Aerion Brightflame, a claim the following essay aims to investigate, alongside the lad’s right to sit the Iron Throne - presuming the said theory can be given enough credit.
Small disclaimer. I want to specify that I am not the one who has come with this theory. Speculations have been for some time in fandom, based on the author’s own initial intention to give the Brightflames the role later given to the Blackfyres. I do confess to have willingly ignored the subject for the best part of my ASOIAF obsession years, as one needs a significant amount of time to make oneself comfortable with so many Aegons, Aelors, Maelors, and so forth.
It was only in the last couple of weeks that, inspired by some beautiful art displayed on a different sub, I dared reflect a bit on THAT particular branch of the complicated Taragaryen tree and consider that… maybe Bloodraven didn’t manipulated ALL the events that placed the fourth son of a fourth son the Iron Throne. Moreover, it occurred to me that there is another Targaryen whose actions around the time might have set certain events in motion, albeit unintentionally, with extreme consequences for Egg’s reign and the current timeline, as well, including the lineage and legitimacy of our lad Aegon. This man’s name: Aerion “Brightflame”.
Like a snake in the grass, the horrid human being that is Maekar’s second son is easy to miss, especially in the shadow of his more worthy brothers. And, in all honesty, who can take seriously an idiot who manages to kill himself drinking wildfire? However, if we go back to Maester Aemon’s personal reflections on his family cursed legacy, it can be questioned if Aerion’s madness derived from nothing else but dragon dreams, in possible conjunction with some misinterpreted prophecy.
As many members of his family, Aerion was obsessed with fulfilling a purpose, a man with a plan, one might say. Yet, as many other Targaryens before and after him, it is possible that Aerion tried to fit this plan into his personal ambitions. More precisely, he tried to cut a path to the Iron Throne, through traditional means of marriage and murder, for him and perhaps his descendants, only to lose it all to his brother Aegon, as is to be discussed in the next section, but not before a small digression on legitimacy.
While legitimacy is controversial within the Targaryen dynasty, and the author himself has once suggested that the throne belongs to the man who has the guts to take it, rather than to those who are waiting patiently in line, a legitimacy pattern can be traced around Targaryens whose name’s root is “Rhae”. Not surprisingly, if considering “rhae”, in its many real world Indo-European variants, is the root of words meaning “king” and “queen”: Rex and Regina (Latin); Re and Regina (Italian); Rey and Reina (Spanish); Roi and Reine (French), Rege and Regina (Roumanian); Raja and Rana/Rani in Hindu and so on…
Following this pattern, people whose name starts in “Rhae” have a particular relationship with legitimacy. Their list includes:

• Rhaenys, wife of Aegon, whose only son is Aegon I’s heir and the ancestor of almost everyone with a right to the Iron Throne;
  
• Rhaena, the oldest daughter of Aenys, whose claim to the throne is sistematically denied due to her sex;
  
• “Rhaella”, first born of Rhaena, deemed unfit to rule and forced to become a septa, on grounds of “shyness”;
  
• Rhaenys, the only child of Aemon Targaryen, whose claim to the throne is also denied on grounds of sex;
  
• Rhaenyra, the sole woman monarch to reign in her own right, albeit her claim to the throne is also denied and challenged on sex grounds;
  
• Rhaena, daughter of Daemon, perceived as more pliable than her older twin sister, Baela, hence briefly considered as Aegon III’s heir;
  
• Rhaena, daughter of Aegon III, who wears the hart - symbol of royalty - embroidered, alongside the Maiden, on her dress;
  
• Rhaegel, prince of Dragonstone, brother and heir to Aerys I;
  
• Rhae, Aegon V’s sister who unsuccessfully tries to feed him love potions and/or allegedly gets pregnant by Dunk, thus missing her chance to later become Queen;
  
• Rhaelle, Aegon’s daughter, whose blood legitimises the Baratheon claim to the throne;
  
• Rhaella, Aerys wife and queen;
  
• Rhaegar, Rhaella’s son, the alleged father of the one Aegon and the confirmed father of another;
  
• Rhaenys, daughter of Rhaegar - whose first born status can theoretically place her in the line of succession, as per Dornish custom, before Aegon and… the other Aegon;
  
• last, but not least, Rhaego, Daenerys’ son.
  

From the list above, the key of the theory I am proposing to you, lays with Rhaegel Targaryen, Aerion’s uncle and the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, at least for what the main branch of the Targaryen house is concerned. As history wants us to believe, Rhaegel wasn’t exactly in his right mind, with official historians mentioning the prince’s habit to dance naked around the Red Keep. Must say, I really would like to know what will this historian make of Winston Churchill’s habit of receiving visitors in his bath tub. Whatever the truth, Rhaegel’s alleged condition did not prevent him to do his duty to the realm and sire no less than three healthy children of his body before prematurely chocking on a lamprey pie. Or so the same historians will have us to believe.
Truth to be told, Rhaegel’s death is too convenient and exotic, at the same time, to be dismissed as just an unhappy coincidence. Yet, while many are tempted to lay it at Bloodraven’s feet, the narrative actually provides with clues leading to Aerion:

• Firstly, I will count the nature of the death. Death by choking on pies has already played a major role in the main story, where king Joffrey, the first of his name, gobbles down a significant amount of “tears of Lys”, alongside a chunk of his wedding pie.
  
• Secondly, I will note on Aerion’s Lysene connection, due to his forcible exile in 209 AC, six years before Rhaegel’s death.
  
• Thirdly, I will remind the reader that Aerion weds Rhaegel’s only surviving daughter and heir, Daenora, a woman at least twenty years younger; the huge age difference between the couple suggesting the prince might have stayed unmarried until the ripe age of forty on purpose.
  

A speculation can be thus made that, had Aerion returned from Lys prior to Rhaegel’s death, he could have, as well, brought with him some poisonous souvenirs and a marriage scheme which might have just help him go before his father and brother, in the line of succession, if something was to befell to both his uncle and heir, Aelor.
I already pointed to Aerion in conjunction to Rhaegel’s “accidental” death. I will furthermore suggest Aerion is also to be blamed, instead of Bloodraven, for the suspicious deaths of Aelor and Aelora. It is my opinion that Aerion’s initial plan was to eliminate Aelor and marry his sister-wife himself, however, the devious way in which he tried to accomplish this plan, was also its doom. Not only Aerion might have murdered Aelor in a grotesque way, but he also framed Aelora for it. In addition, it is very likely he had Aelora raped by the infamous Rat, Hawk and Pig individuals - an attempt to further brake her spirit or just a way to insure any child of Aelor his wife might have been pregnant with be considered a bastard.
To a point, Aerion plan might have worked. After Aelor’s death Aerys (read Bloodraven) named Aelora as his successor. However, Aelora took her own life - because of trauma, if not for fear of having to marry her cousin, leaving the latter with the prospect of grooming for marriage his other cousin, the two to five years old Daenora. It is also very likely that around this time Aerys (read Bloodraven) might have figured out Aerion’s plan because, instead of naming Daenora his heir, Aerys named his brother, Maekar. However, Maekar’s eldest son and heir “managed”, soon after, to die in some odd circumstances, too, while Daenora eventually grew old enough to marry Aerion and bare his son. If Aerion died before seeing himself on the Iron Throne for sheer stupidity, or Bloodraven fed him the goblet of wildfire himself, as I hope, it one of those for another day stories.
What we know for certain is that Aerion left after him a trueborn son named Maegor. Morally, little Maegor had a strong claim to the Iron Throne through his mother, Daenora, the sole surviving child of Rhaegel’s body. Legally, little Maegor had an even strongest claim to the crown, through his father, Aerion. As we all know, the Great Council of 233 AC (read Bloodraven) thought differently. Better claim or not, Aegon the unlikely ascended the Iron Throne and little Maegor Targaryen disappeared from history. Or maybe not.
With Bloodraven out of the picture, the proponents of the Brightflame theory suggest little Maegor managed to somehow grow into a young man who somehow found his way to Essos where he decided to have kids. More precisely, following the precedent set by his namesake some two hundred years earlier, young Maegor, as this theory goes, landed himself in Pentos and fathered Illyrio Mopatis on the last of the Blackfyres. Alternatively, other theories suggest that the young Brightflame fathered the lad Aegon’s mother, Saera, on the last of the Blackfyres. Either way, the essence of the theory remains the same: young Aegon VI, also known as (f)Aegon, far from being a false pretender, has a better claim to the Iron Throne than any of Rhaegar’s children; in fact, Aegon VI has a better claim to the throne than any of Aegon V’s descendants.

This is my first major post here, so first off I want to say that I'm a life long fan of both Spider-man and insomniac. I've been playing their games since Spyro launched in 98', and I really enjoyed most of my 27 hours with Spider-Man 2. That being said, I'm a little disappointed with their characterization of Venom here, and I'd like to share my thoughts. For context, I'm a screenwriter, so I'm very passionate about storytelling, as well as the character of Venom, so I apologize if this feels like an essay.
I'd like to start with praise. They NAILED Venom's iconography, his look, his presence. And Tony Todd knocks it out of the park considering how little dialogue he has here. And the Black Suit arc with Peter is incredible. "Destroy...us...?" Gives me chills. But my problem is with Venom's character. His personality and what makes him tick.
First, there seems to be a disconnect among the fans on who Venom really is. Is Venom simply the suit? The mind of the alien creature? Or is Venom the host? I think most fans can agree that Venom is truly formed when the alien is at symbiosis with the right host. And I'm not just talking canonically, but thematically as well. And that's where my issue here lies. The host.
Harry. Oh boy. Harry. At his core, Harry is a good human being. A bright young man who's mission in life is to "Heal the world", as he states Ad Nauseum throughout. He loves his friends, his father, and wants to improve the world. So, after the first two acts unfold, after Peter hogs the symbiote for a while, what changes by the climax? Nothing. Does he hate PeteSpider-man? No. Not really. He's upset with him at the worst. His motives haven't changed. In his heart, he is still a good man that's been twisted and manipulated by the symbiote. This is my issue. Traditionally, Venom gets both his purpose, and his namesake from the toxic, poisonous hatred he holds for Spider-Man, and in most iterations, Peter Parker too. Both the alien and the host hate him. They actively want to destroy him, and everyone in his life. Torment him. Make him suffer. Now whether you think the character justifications for this are weak or not, this is what makes Venom a compelling and threatening villain. This version is completely void of that, and in turn, I believe completely lacks any real threat. Harry's crusade for 95% of the final act is to simply have his friends "Join us"- and consume the planet in an all out symbiote invasion, which he's clearly being manipulated by the alien into believing is somehow a good idea. I never for a single second thought "Oh my God... he's going to kill MJ". Or, "Pete and Miles are in real trouble here." Beacuse that's not his goal here. The man inside the monster still deeply cared for his friends. Sure, he's massive. Horrifyingly powerful. A monster. But his motivations, his inner workings, they make him a non threat. A gun is only as dangerous as the person with their finger on the trigger, and this gun never fires. It's only the last 10 minutes where we're shown that Harry is completely lost and no longer in control that he becomes a threat and tries killing Miles with the meteorite. And yes, I know, there was a world ending, alien invasion apocalypse threat here too. But come on, who really thought that'd would come to fruition? It rarely does in these comic book stories. I'm sure most people loved this, but I think myself, and a few other fans, were hoping for something more personal. Devastating. Something with real consequences- an empire strikes back, if you will. Not every story has to be some world ending- city wide threat to be epic and impactful.
And I've heard SO MANY people saying how "Evil" this Venom is. How scary and threatening he is compared to most versions. But who are we talking about here? Certainly not Harry. If were referring to the Alien itself here, then sure! That thing was a vile, manipulative monster. But Harry? Not so much. And Harry is almost always in some form of control here. We've seen in other media (Specifically Spectacular Spider-man) that Venom can absolutely start as Peter's close friend and slowly turn into someone truly hateful. I believe that if this Harry were given more motivation and more room to breathe, he could have become so much more dangerous and compelling. I also believe that Harry works much better as a character when he has a tumultuous relationship with his father. And here he was stripped of that, instead given a loving, devoted father who'd do anything for his son. This works great for Norman, especially when it comes to his turn as the Goblin, but leaves Harry with a lot less depth.
At the end of the day, it seems as if insomniac was more concerned with making Venom a big, scary monster, than a well fleshed out character who had motivations and goals that made him a genuinely DEADLY threat to Peter and everyone around him (Beyond the alien wanting to infect the world) They chose bombast and fan service with Venom sprouting wings like the latest comic run, the nods to knull, and the very web of shadows ending set pieces, over building a CHARACTER. A monster, yes, but one with a personality. And if you, like insomniac, think the coolest part about Venom is that he's a big scary monster that refers to himself as "We" and looks absolutely goddamm cool, then hey! Great! This one's for you. But I've spoken to a decent amount of fans who didn't resonate with this at all, and I see you 👀
And if you noticed my complete lack of acknowledgement to Eddie Brock here, that was intentional. I know a lot of people on this sub don't like that character (which blows my mind) so I wanted to make my points without him.
Anyway, this isn't meant to hate on the game! I loved most of it. Great work. Just wanted to rant about my feelings with some other passionate fans about characters I love. If you managed to read all this. I apologize for wasting your time. Go play the game. It's rad.
Fanboy side note: Anyone else tired of the Ultimate Spider- man hentai tentacle monster motif they always go with? I'd kill to see a Venom who shoots webs for once since 1999. End rant.

So after sinking nearly 70 hours into Armored Core VI, I still can't stop thinking about it. I hunted down every last data log. I dug into the lore. And I spent far longer than is probably healthy poring over emblems, callsigns, and arena bios.
Turns out, there's a lot of fascinating stuff in there! Well, fascinating to a nerd like me, at least. Most of y'all probably don't care that much. But I'm putting my discoveries here anyway, so you'll just have to deal with it. 😛
Spoilers for multiple endings, including for NG++!
Oh, and it should go without saying that I'm not any kind of expert on anything covered here. I'm not an academic, or a professional researcher. This is just a compilation of stuff I dug up online and thought was interesting. It's probably full of rookie mistakes.
Cool? Cool.
I'm hardly the first person to notice that each faction's callsigns follow a particular theme. For instance, RaD and the rest of the Dosers all use deliberately ironic nicknames. "Chatty" Stick is famously taciturn. "Honest" Brute is a pathological liar. "Invincible" Rummy is anything but. And "Cinder" Carla appears to be way too young to have been a survivor of the Fires of Ibis, according to a data log from the Junker Coyotes. This turns out to be the only nickname that isn't ironic, although she probably wants people to assume it is.
It took me a while to twig to this one, but members of the RLF are named after the digits of a hand: Thumb Dolmayan, Index Dunham, Middle Flatwell, Ring Freddie, and Little Ziyi. Some of the symbolism here is pretty obvious: Ziyi is the youngest, newest, and least experienced member. Freddie is Dolmayan's lover, and the ring finger is where one traditionally wears a wedding ring. The opposable thumb is what lets the hand function to its fullest potential, letting us easily grasp tools and manipulate our environment, making it the most important digit of all. The only two I'm not so sure on here are Dunham and Flatwell. The index is our pointer finger, which maybe fits with Dunham's role as an enthusiastic mouthpiece for the ways of the RLF. Flatwell, though? No idea.
Special mention goes to Rokumonsen, who, as a formerly-independent mercenary now allied with the RLF, is an exception. His name instead references the emblem of the Sanada clan, depicting the toll of six mon coins that must be paid to cross the Sanzu River.
Speaking of rivers, now we get to the really interesting stuff: The corporate AC squads.

The Redguns

The Redguns are all named after rivers. This is doubly notable because so is the game itself: The Rubicon River in northern Italy. Named for its red hue (also the colour of Coral), in the time of the Roman Republic, it marked the official northern border of Italy. Julius Caesar leading his army across the Rubicon was the catalyst for the civil war that saw Caesar emerge as dictator and ultimately led to the formation of the Roman Empire. (This game loves its references to ancient Rome, as plenty of folks have already observed.)
"Crossing the Rubicon" is thus an idiom meaning "to commit to an uncertain course of action" or "to cross the point of no return". "Alea Iacta Est" ("the die is cast") is a phrase supposedly spoken by Caesar as he crossed the river, and the game uses it repeatedly to refer to Coral Release; it serves as the name of the third ending, and Dolmayan, in his writings, laments at being "too afraid to cast the die" when confronted by his own discovery of what Coral Release entails.
All of which is to say that 'Fires of Rubicon' is probably the cleverest and most symbolically dense title that FromSoft have given to one of their games since Bloodborne.
But anyway! We're getting off topic.
G7 Hakra exists only as a license that we pilfer during the tutorial. Their name is likely a reference to the Ghaggar-Hakra River, an intermittent or temporary river system that flows through India and Pakistan during the monsoon season. The Hakra channel in particular is completely dried up, fitting for a character who's dead before we even arrive.
The Volta River runs through Ghana, with its most prominent feature being the Akosombo Dam, a giant hydroelectric power plant. G4 Volta's only role in the story comes in an early mission, in which we attack a dam complex to destroy a series of electric generators.
Like the rest of the Redguns, Volta's emblem is an animal- in this case some manner of long-necked beetle (possibly a giraffe weevil?). Its head has been transformed into the barrel of a cannon, befitting his AC's name, CANNON HEAD.
The Iguazu River runs through Brazil and Argentina. Its major attraction is the Iguazú Falls, right on the border of the two countries. To quote the Wikipedia article:

Legend has it that a deity planned to marry a beautiful woman named Naipí, who fled with her mortal lover Tarobá in a canoe. In a rage, the deity sliced the river, creating the waterfalls and condemning the lovers to an eternal fall.

Seems oddly fitting for G5 Iguazu, a character motivated by anger and petty jealousy.
At first I thought that Iguazu's emblem was a stag beetle. But blowing it up in the decal editor reveals it actually depicts a group of ants, carrying aloft a stag beetle's severed head. I had no right to be surprised, though, since his AC is the HEAD BRINGER.
G2 Nile is so obvious that I don't even need to say anything. And as the cradle of Egyptian civilisation, the Nile River is so rich in culture and history that it could symbolise just about anything. The only connection I can think of is this: Just as the true source of the Nile has yet to be found despite centuries of investigation, so G2 never succeeded in resolving the investigation into his arch-nemesis, Michigan. This is probably a stretch, though.
Nile's emblem is a pair of blue whales, fitting with his AC, DEEP DOWN. If there's a broader connection here, it escapes me.
G1 Michigan can only be named after the Michigan River, though I can't find anything notable about it. Perhaps the writers simply chose it because 'Michigan' feels like a good ol'-fashioned American name, fitting his role as a good ol'-fashioned American drill sergeant.
Michigan's emblem depicts some kind of leonine creature (presumably a liger, if his AC the LIGER TAIL is anything to go by) with a stylish bladed tail and, curiously, at least five visible limbs. Symbolic of the five other Redguns, maybe?
There are many Red Rivers across the world, including one in China and several in the United States. If I had to guess, though, I'd say G6 Red is named after the Red River of the South, which lent its name to the Red River War. G6 also shares a historical connection to war, for it was witnessing Michigan's heroics as a child that led to him aspiring to join the Redguns.
Red's AC is the HERMIT, and his emblem- fittingly- is a hermit crab wearing a military helmet. Very Full Metal Jacket vibes.
G3 Wu Huahai is a tricky one. 'Wu' is the name of several rivers across China, but my guess goes to the Wù Jiāng), or Black River (烏江). Here, 江 means 'river', and while 烏 means 'black', it can also mean 'crow' or 'raven'. Make of that what you will.
As for 'Huahai', I've no idea: My Mandarin is pretty poor, and online dictionaries don't furnish anything. Wu's rather ornate emblem shows a carp and a Chinese dragon emerging from the waves, which I'm not sure signifies anything beyond marking him as the token 'East Asian' member of the Redguns. His AC is the LI LONG, which is named after the SoulCalibur character again, I'm not sure. My guess would be either 李龍 (plum dragon), or 戾龍 (evil dragon), but, as stated, my Mandarin is terrible.
EDIT: Courtesy of lovelies in the comments, Wu Huahai appears to be named after the Five-Flower Lake (五花海, Wǔhuā Hǎi) in the Jiuzhaigou nature reserve. This breaks with the theme of river names, but then G3 himself also breaks with the Redguns to join the Vespers after Balam withdraw from the planet, so I guess turnabout is fair play. His emblem is likely a reference to the myth of the Dragon Gate), in which a carp that climbs a waterfall is transformed into a dragon, alluding to his ambition to climb the ranks. His AC is thus properly the Lǐ Lóng, or 'carp dragon' (鯉龍). (And yes, this is the same myth that inspired Magikarp and Gyarados.)

The Vespers

With a couple of exceptions, the Vespers are all named after intellectuals- typically poets, painters, playwrights, or literary critics, but there are some philosophers and scientists in there too. A fairly snobby bunch, they're fond of emblems that contain unsettling transhumanist imagery.
V.VII Swinburne is the overseer for Arquebus' re-education program, and his AC, GUIDANCE, bears as its emblem an outright ghoulish depiction of a lobotomy. His name can only be a reference to Algernon Charles Swinburne, an English poet, playwright and novelist who was awfully fond of writing about various taboo topics.
At first I couldn't really see much connection between Swinburne's body of work and the character of V.VII. But Swinburne is also the namesake of Flowers for Algernon, a novel by the science fiction writer Daniel Keyes. You can read the Wikipedia article for more, but in summary, it tells the story of a man with a low IQ who volunteers for an experimental surgery to augment his intelligence, only for tragedy to unfold. Famous for being repeatedly banned, and despite being written in the 50s, it's still a rather sympathetic (for its time) examination of the ethics of how we treat mental disability.
I couldn't find a source for why Keyes chose to homage Swinburne with this particular book. In any case, the head of Arquebus re-education being named Swinburne feels more like a reference to Flowers for Algernon and its associated themes than it does to any of the writings of Swinburne himself. The cherry on top is that the novel opens with an epigraph from Book VII of Plato's Republic, which is either a total coincidence or a seriously deep cut.
(One possible connection: Swinburne was pretty wild in his younger years; so much so that his health suffered, and at the age of 42 he was taken into care by his friend, Theodore Watts-Dunton. Theodore taught him how to be socially respectable, but in the process he lost his youthful passion. Swinburne was re-educated in a quite literal sense.)
V.VIII Pater I'm fairly confident is named for Walter Pater, the English essayist and art critic. It could theoretically be Jean-Baptiste Pater, the French painter, but I'm pretty sure Walter is our man here. First, 'Walter' is the name of another prominent character in AC6. Second, Walter Pater was an avid reader of the aforementioned Swinburne. Finally, his only published work of fiction, Marius the Epicurean, explores the philosophical development of a young man in ancient Rome. And this game loves ancient Rome!
I'm not 100% on Pater's emblem- two human foetuses connected by a branching structure that looks awfully like the bronchi of a pair of lungs- nor on his AC's name, DUAL NATURE. His arena bio alludes to him possessing a lack of empathy that he masks with a veneer of politeness, so maybe that's something to do with it?
V.VI Maeterlinck has to be Maurice Maeterlinck, a Belgian poet and playwright. We barely meet V.VI, and get very little about her personality, so it's difficult to see any connection to Maeterlinck or his writings. We really only know two things; that she's a 'risk-averse problem solver' (according to her arena bio), and that Snail leaves her to die alongside G3 in the ruins of Institute City. You could maybe argue that this situation somewhat parallels the plot of Maeterlinck's play Pelléas and Mélisande, but... that feels like a bit of a stretch.
V.VI's AC is the INFECTION, and her emblem seems to depict a mosquito acting as a vector of transmission between a line of human subjects. On closer inspection, the 'mosquito' is mechanical, and its head is an oversized syringe. Maeterlinck wrote essays on both termites and ants (and the former was famously accused of plagiarism), but nothing on mosquitoes that I could find. So... no idea!
V.V Hawkins is totally up in the air- Wikipedia has a very long list) of notable people with the surname 'Hawkins'. We can narrow it down a little by sticking to the theme of artists and intellectuals, but that still leaves too many to definitively say. His AC is the RECONFIG, and his emblem is a wildly complex diagram of what looks like a modular cybernetic body- the strongest transhumanist vibes yet. Again, we don't see much of him, but he shows a fatherly attitude towards Pater, and his arena bio indicates he feels great survivors' guilt for the augmented humans of previous generations who died in the name of perfecting the surgery.
V.IV Rusty is a clear odd one out in the naming scheme, given his status as a double agent for the RLF. On top of all the other evidence, his emblems seal the deal for me. As part of the Vespers, piloting the STEEL HAZE, his emblem is a muzzled wolf, and is contained in the same rounded, vaguely triangular frame as those of the other Vespers- a shape that looks sort of like a guitar plectrum. When he shows up in STEEL HAZE ORTUS during the finale, his emblem is now unmuzzled, with its teeth bared, and framed in a vertical rectangle that perfectly matches the shape of the other RLF emblems. It's even grouped together with them in the decal menu.
Wikipedia once again has a decently long list of notable O'Keeffes. I'm fairly confident, though, that our V.III O'Keeffe is supposed to be Alfred Henry O'Keeffe, the New Zealand painter. The evidence lies in his AC, the BARREN FLOWER, and its emblem, which looks rather like an eyeball surrounded by wilting petals.
O'Keeffe was known for his still life paintings depicting various mundane objects, and in particular his still lifes of flowers. He work also showed a preoccupation with mortality, including various sombre portraits of elderly men and women.
The O'Keeffe that we fight shows very similar inclinations. He speaks repeatedly of the mundanity of living- the bland coffee, the sleepless nights. Yet the banal, day-to-day tedium of human life is still part of human life- he values it, and refuses to give it up for the wholly uncertain future offered by Coral Release.
EDIT: Yet more lovelies in the comments have suggested this might instead be a reference to Georgia O'Keeffe, the American modernist painter noted for her many pictures of flowers and desert landscapes. Not only is she just as solid a fit thematically as Alfred, she's also more well-known, which makes her a much more likely candidate!
V.II Snail is another strange exception to the naming scheme, this time for less clear reasons than Rusty. For the life of me, I have no idea why the writers called him 'Snail', except perhaps to make him sound even more slimy and detestable than he already is.
EDIT: In addition to the whole "Freud's cranium is a snail!" incident (see below), folks have also pointed out the story of 108 snails, in which a bunch of snails martyr themselves to keep the Buddha's head cool while he meditates in the sun, becoming the origin of the curly, ring-like 'hair' depicted on his statues. This is pretty much a perfect mirror of V.II- many snails sacrifice themselves to aid a philosopher, while a single Snail sacrifices many other philosophers (his fellow Vespers) for his own selfish benefit.
His emblem, meanwhile, I'm a little more certain of. The double-faced visage just begs to be taken as an image of Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings, changes, thresholds, and transitions. (Hey, we're back to Rome again!)
His designation of 'V.II' corresponds nicely to this, and even the name of his AC- OPEN FAITH- calls to mind the doors of the temple of Janus, which were opened in times of war and closed in times of peace. (Note how the faces of his emblem are almost swinging open like double doors.)
EDIT: I'm leaving the Janus stuff up here because it's neat, but commenters have pointed out that Snail's emblem bears a remarkable resemblance to the Arhat robot by Takashi Murakami, which was itself partly inspired by a statue of the Buddhist Priest Baozhi. Baozhi is unfortunately a bit of a tricky one to search for online, so I'm leaving pursuit of this particular avenue as an exercise for the reader.
Finally, V.I Freud is so obviously Sigmund Freud that... Do you even need me to say anything here?
Okay, fine, I'll seal the deal for you. V.I's emblem shows a hand rising out of some kind of black, sludgy mass, and in its palm is held a golden key. His AC is called the LOCKSMITH. Sigmund Freud was born in a locksmith's house; his parents, too poor to afford better lodging, were renting a room there.
We don't see much of V.I Freud, but he seems like a remarkably impulsive sort, living only for the thrill of piloting his AC into battle. He's also completely unaugmented; just a regular human guy, yet still an ace pilot. The connection here, if I had to guess, is that the man is just 100% pure, unfiltered id.
EDIT: Speaking of Freud, several folks in the comments have pointed out the "Freud's cranium is a snail!" quote and associated sketch, made by Salvador Dalí after a much-anticipated meeting with him. Bizarre as it sounds, this could be an equally solid candidate for the source of Snail's name. Or maybe it's a reference to both the Dalí sketch and the Buddhist story, and the writers are running rings around us all.
Holy hell... this downright turned into an essay! Damn you, FromSoft, making games that are so rich in lore and meaning! 😭
I wanted to add a few more obversations about the independent mercs, but... honestly, I haven't been able to uncover much. Here's a few bullet points:

• Sulla, as others have pointed out, is named after Sulla, the Roman general and statesman. No idea about his emblem and AC name yet.
  
• OVERSEER's emblem depicts a pair of robed figures standing by a tree, one of whom appears to be pruning it with shears. The presence of the tree strongly suggests that the group of independent mercenaries known as Branch are a subsidiary of OVERSEER. Note how the inverted triangular frame matches Walter's emblem. Oh, and if you're wondering about the tiny text at the bottom, it's "Praestat Cautela Quam Medela", or "prevention is better than cure".
  

Part I: Introduction

Games Workshop took many inspirations when they formulated the Imperium of Man. Its Imperial Guard takes heavy inspiration from the commissarial system of the Soviet Union. The Inquisition bears an obvious resemblance to its namesake: the Spanish Inquisition. The Imperium’s architecture and iconography is evocative of the High Gothic churches. However, there is one civilization whose course through history strikingly resembles that of the Imperium: The Roman Empire. We can immediately see some obvious surface-level similarities between the Roman Empire and the Imperium of Man. Both claim sovereignty over most of their known world and the Imperium enjoys borrowing from Latin for much of its nomenclature. However, I will show here that commonalities between the two civilizations grow much deeper. There are several macro-level trends that are common to the histories of both the Imperium and the Roman Empire. These trends are:

• Bureaucratic Accretion/Corruption
• The Transition from Secularism to Theocracy
• -The Degradation of Military Ability
• The Rise of Endemic Violence
• A climactic battle that sharply demarcates a dramatic reversal of fortunes

In this analysis I will use the Lexicanum for the great majority of my sources when discussing the Imperium of Man. When describing the Roman Empire, I will be relying predominantly on a range of secondary sources including The Cambridge Ancient History series and Corruption and the Decline of Rome by Robert MacMullen. I will use primary sources as well, but mainly for anecdotal purposes as I do not believe I have the expert knowledge necessary to parse the biases of contemporary writers. I hope that this analysis will give us deep insight into the past of the Imperium and a glimpse into the future as well. However, I feel that this analysis would be remiss if I did not include a singular aspect of Roman decline not shared by the Imperium of Man. This aspect is the catastrophic weakening of the legitimacy of the central authority, and I will describe it in the last section of my essay before the conclusions. It could be the one reason why the Roman Empire fell, and the Imperium of Man may yet survive.

Part II: The Commonalities shared between the Imperium of Man and the Late Roman Empire

I:Degradation of Military Ability
Introduction: The Early Roman army and Imperial army are alike in their impressive martial ability. Famed for its professionalism and tenacity, the Roman Legions conquered across three continents to form the only state ever to completely encircle the Mediterranean. Likewise, the Imperial Army fought first to dominate the anarchic Terran warlords and then to conquer the galaxy to form the largest single power in the Warhammer universe*. Yet, their reputations would also suffer a similar tarnish as they gradually lost their preeminence even as their enemies grew more powerful.
The Roman Empire Let us first focus on the Roman army. 1st century historian Josephus was so impressed with the Roman Army that he would write “its drills were akin to bloodless battles and its battles bloody drills”. Indeed, the outstanding discipline and professionalism of the Roman legions was what made them so-often victorious over numerically superior enemies ([1], pg. 152). The Roman legionary was a full-time soldier who was constantly drilled, even in peacetime. He was also well armed, having a minimum of a helm, cuirass, shield and sword. Indeed, being a soldier was scene has an honorable profession with the great majority of legionaries being volunteers rather than forced conscripts ([2], pg. 76) Yet, this disciplined and well-oiled military machine would rapidly degrade during the Third Century Crisis. For a period of over 80 years, internal dissent, civil war, foreign invasion, and natural disasters would lead to anarchy within the Roman Empire. The facade of civilian rule disappeared as emperors realized that the army was the foremost key to holding power. This realization led to emperors giving greater and greater concessions to the military, loosening discipline and decreasing military effectiveness ([3], pg. 141). This gradual decline gave way to rapid disintegration during the 3rd century crisis. Professionalized systems broke down as dueling claimants sought to quickly boost military manpower by recruiting any able man and combat manifold foreign adversaries. The army which came out of the 3rd century crisis was no longer an exalted institution but a lumbering beast. Whereas the army was an avenue of gainful employment and social progression for citizens in the early Empire, citizens in the later Empire would go so far as to mutilate themselves rather than be conscripted into the army ([3], pg. 208). Indeed, conscription would become the modus operandi to fill in the ranks of the late Roman army. Gone were the days of strict physical standards for recruitment, now even self-mutilated citizens were forcibly conscripted into the army([3], pg. 208). Gone too were the effective arms of the early Roman legions, conscripted soldiers often fought with neither helmet nor cuirass- greatly reducing their combat effectiveness [4]. Toward the end of the western Roman Empire, the Roman armed forces were consistently viewed as second-rate and the security of the empire was instead delegated predominantly to independent barbarian warlords ([5], pg. 173).
Imperium of Man The Imperium of Man also faced a similar decline in military capability, though perhaps not quite as drastic as that of the Roman Empire. The Astra Militarum of the 41st Millenium is a far cry from the military ascendancy it once claimed during the Great Crusade. It has neither supremacy in technological capability nor martial ability. Rather, Its greatest strength appears to be the innumerable bodies it has at its disposal. From the Lexicanum: Despite the technological immensity that the Astra Militarum can deliver to the battlefield, the cold fact of the matter is that the most important resource of the Guard is the seemingly limitless number of bodies it can deploy to contest its objectives [6] The Astra Militarum uses whatever tools at its disposal, including the very dredges of humanity. A common punishment for a criminal is to be sentenced to serve in the Penal Legions. The men of these legions are little more than human fodder, thrown mercilessly at enemy forces with no training and little equipments in a bid to exhaust enemy munitions. Such formations were nigh-unheard of during the Great Crusade, but commonplace in the 41st Millenium. How did this degradation in military might come to be? Part of this is related to the overall decline of the Imperium. Technologies and techniques once commonplace in the Emperor’s armies are now rare and few. The Baneblade super-heavy tank was once easily found in the armies of the Crusades yet now are mainly produced in just three Forge worlds.[7] Likewise, the Terminator power armor developed in the Great Crusade becomes ever more rare and most plasma weapons are centuries old[8]. There are innumerable other examples of arms now rare in the arsenal of the Imperium, such as plasma weapons or dreadnaught war machines. One can only conclude one thing: the arms and armor of the 40k Astra Militarum is a paltry shadow of what its 30k counterpart had at its disposal. The other reason for the degradation of military might lies in the reforms undertaken after the Horus Heresy. During the Great Crusade, there was no limit to the size of Adeptus Astartes legions, and all branches of the Imperial Army worked together in concert. This allows for a centralization of command and control, leading to much more effective prosecution of war. However, this organizational structure also concentrated military power, causing the apocalyptic catastrophe that was the Horus Heresy. Roboute Guilliman’s solution to this was to break up the Astartes legions into small 1000-strong units and to separate the Imperial Navy from the Imperial Guard[9]. While useful in preventing grand-scale rebellion, this structure also hinders efficient prosecution of war. Smaller chapters can less effectively coordinate a response against large threats. Indeed, this problem is exemplified in the Devastation of Baal, where Blood Angel chapter master Dante could do little more than issue a plea for Blood Angel successor chapters to defend their progenitor’s homeworld. 30,000 space marines-the largest gathering of the blood angels since the Horus Heresy, stood to defend Baal and was seen as a gargantuan accomplishment[10]. Yet, even this great feat is a far cry from the 120,000 Blood Angels who worked as one during the Great Crusade[11]. Conclusion: In both the Imperium of Man and the Roman Empire, we see the following: (1) a beginning period of military pre-eminence (2) a sharp decline in both the quality and quantity of military armament, and (3) the degeneration of military personnel. These trends amalgamate to form military institutions that fundamentally fail in their responsibilities. The later Roman army was incapable of providing security to the citizens of the empire and was often despised by the people it purports to protect[25, pg. 178]. To say that the forces of the Imperium of Man are able to provide security to the empire is laughable. In the opening scrawl of every 40k book, we see the rejection of such an idea- for in the grim dark future of the 41st millennium, there is only war.
​
II: Bureaucratic Accretion/Corruption
Imperium of Man: The central bureaucracy of the Imperium of Man is nothing short of awe-inspiring in its scale. Such is its size that the parchment it uses is the 7th largest import to Terra by weight[1]. Indeed, the Lexicanum describes how entire departments are forgotten even as the adepts continue to perform their work, now to no purpose[12]. Imperial administration was not always so bloated. It had once been much smaller and wielded much weaker power. Indeed, the Council of Terra was the first governing body of the Imperium not based on the personal rule of the Emperor or primarchs[13]. It had no military power and in fact did not even impose Imperial Tithes until after Horus became Warmaster. We thus see that Imperial administration began as quite a small and weak entity. Now, it has become so overwhelming that the Master of the Administratum is the most powerful member of the High Lords of Terra. The sheer size of Imperial bureaucracy would not be such a problem if it was not also hopelessly byzantine, corrupt and ineffectual. We see countless examples of how imperial bureaucracy fails its mandate to administer the sprawling empire. The Administratum still relies predominantely on parchment instead of cogitators, greatly increasing the difficulty of accomplishing even mundane tasks[12]. The administration is also hopelessly nepotistic, with positions being inherited rather than earned[14]. Small wonder then, that the Administratum fails to even keep track of its own departments.
The Roman Empire: We likewise see the same trend in the history of the Roman Empire. The bureaucracy of the early Roman Empire (known as the Principate) was modest, even for the standards of the time. Most polities still had complete control of its internal affairs even after submitting to Roman suzerainty. This system has even led to some historians dubbing the empire a “confederation of of self-governing cities” ([1], pg. 86). Its central government was chiefly concerned with the maintenance of the army and the keeping of the peace. During the 3rd Century AD, the Roman Empire became embroiled in crises both within and without. What followed this period of extreme anarchy was a period of equally extreme re-assertion of control. The emperor that fully re-established Roman control of its world, Diocletian, did so under extreme duress and would greatly expand imperial bureaucracy. The so-called “Dominate” period of Roman history that Diocletian would inaugurate would be defined by a larger central administration than anything the Mediterranean world has seen before. The number of provinces in the empire more than doubled from 48 to over 100. Above the provincial level another administrative unit called the “diocese” was formed ([3], pg. 179). Finally, whereas the early empire was normally ruled by a single emperor, Diocletian first established a co-ruler (Maximian) to form a diarchy, and then elevated two more men to emperorships to form the tetrarchy. While the tetrarchy system will soon fall after Diocletian’s abdication, the system of multiple rulers of the Roman Empire would remain until the fall of the West. What we see here then, is a dramatic expansion of imperial bureaucracy at all levels as a direct response to the preceding period of anarchy. Yet, as with the Imperium of Man, greatly enlarged administration is not necessarily deleterious if that administration is efficient, effective and beneficent. Unfortunately, the newly empowered class of imperial bureaucrats would instead be known for their rapacity. Indeed, in A.D. 400 when Christianity had become the dominant religion of the Empire, a church council ruled that “Anyone who takes up imperial service, even if he admits to nothing worse, shall not be made a deacon” ([5], pg. 154). Such was the perceived venality of the imperial civil service that just being in it marked a man as being corrupt. As the multiplying administrative personnel necessarily brought them closer in contact with the civilian populace they ostensibly served, the opportunities to abuse their station multiplied as well. These civil bureaucrats took these opportunities at every turn, and so the civil bureaucracy became not only highly inefficient but actively deleterious to the health of the Roman Empire.
Conclusion: In both the Imperium of Man and the Roman Empire, a lighter form of governance gave way to a much more top-heavy and bureaucratized administration. While a larger bureaucracy might be beneficial to the wider empire in certain circumstances, both administrations also experienced an accompanying outgrowth of inefficiencies. In the Imperium, this took the form of a hopelessly byzantine and nepotistic structure of the Administratum whereas in the Roman Empire, it took the form of officials flagrantly using their positions for personal gain. We will see that in the latter case, this corruption would bring about one of the worst catastrophes to face the Roman Empire.
​
III: The transition from Secularism to Theocratic Absolutism
Imperium of Man: The Emperor of Man embarked on the Great Crusade not just to unify mankind under his banner, but to lead its ascension from superstitious ignorance to become true masters of the galaxy. This desire to spread enlightened secularism was so total that the Emperor ordered every church in Terra to be destroyed after unification[15]. Yet even during the days of the Great Crusade, religious superstition not only evaded destruction but spread. One of the Emperor’s own sons, Lorgar, was among those who began to venerate the Emperor not just as his chosen liege but as a god[16]. These seeds of religiosity would later spread like a weed during and immediately after the Horus Heresy. The sheer destruction and chaos wrought by the Heresy led the masses to seek safety and security in a higher being. So, previously hunted sects coalesced into the Imperial Cult.. As the millenia wore on, this cult grew ever more powerful in the Imperium, eventually becoming the Ecclesiarchy.[17] It is important to note that a theocracy is not just a government based on religion but rather one which derives its authority from its divine mandate and excludes all other beliefs. In the Imperium of Man of the 41st millenium, all those who do not believe in the Emperor’s divinity are hunted, completing the empire’s descent from enlightened secularism to totalitarian Theocracy.
Roman Empire: Ancient Rome can never claim to be atheistic; its emperors were also the chief priests of the Roman religion. However, in the early empire the emperors claimed to only be princeps, first among equals, rather than a divine being. Those emperors who sought to push an image of their divinity (eg: Nero and Domitian) were hated enough to be assassinated([1], pg. 96)*. Religious toleration was also a noted characteristic of the early empire, with other beliefs being generally tolerated- the one exception being the Abrahamic religions- so long as they also sacrificed for the health of the emperor. Indeed, the writings of emperor Marcus Aurelius suggest that he holds a doubtful view on the existence of the gods. As has happened in the Imperium of Man, great crises would also lead the citizenry to exalt the emperors further and further from common men. The emperor was no longer just first among equals but rather something hidden behind layers of ceremony to be venerated. Here is what historian Pat southern writes: “The power of the emperor was almost absolute in every field — military, administrative, judicial and fiscal — and he was himself the source of law…Holiness is the proper sphere of the sovereign, not an emperor-God but an emperor by divine grace” ([18], pg.352) This trend would continue as a single religion, Christianity, spread throughout the empire. From the time of Constantine I onward, Christianity would grow to not just become the dominant religion of the Roman Empire but to also be the state religion, to the exclusion of all others.
*It is important to note that this applies less to the beliefs of provincials, who did sometimes venerate the Emperor as a god even in the early Empire.
IV:A climactic battle that sharply demarcates a dramatic reversal of fortunes
Introduction: Though both empires have long since witnessed their glory days, there was a period in which both empires were stable if not ascendant. For the Roman Empire, this would be the 4th century AD, after the ascension of Diocletian. Yet, in both cases there would be a singular military conflict that broke the stable equilibrium the empires were in. For the Romans, this was the Battle of Adrianople. For the Imperium, it was the 13th Black Crusade. Let us turn first to the Romans.
The Roman Empire: The Battle of Adrianople represents a culmination of the trends in the decline of the empire previously described. Its burdensome and corrupt bureaucracy would begin this disaster, and its incapable military forces would bring it to fruition. In 376 CE, a large group of Goths asked permission to migrate into the Roman Empire. The Emperor Valens, eager for a new population to work the land and produce military recruits, agreed to this migration. Already, a migration of such size should be a cause for wariness but, given enough care, the Goths entering the empire could be properly and peacefully settled. Our previous discussion of corruption in the later empire hints that the civil government is far from capable of this task and indeed, corruption would be the spark of this crisis. The Goths were at first beset by hunger, as they were meant to be led to their allotted lands but were instead restricted to the areas near the border. Seeing this, the local Roman leaders, rather than ameliorating the privations faced by the Goths, sought to profit from it. They forced the Goths to pay exorbitant prices for basic goods. Indeed, it was said that the Romans demanded a slave in exchange for a single dog for the starving Goths. When the Gothic chieftain Fritigern was detained at a dinner with the Roman general Lupicinus, the gothic migrants finally decided to revolt ([5], pg. 184). In this revolt, we see the sheer ineptitude of the Roman forces. Lupicinus’ forces, faced with the starving barbarian masses, were swept aside in a resounding defeat. Other settled barbarians within the Empire, nominally sworn to fight for the Empire, instead saw the success of the Goths under Fritigern and joined in the plunder ([5],pg. 98). It was only when this disaster already reached such proportions that the eastern Emperor Valens moved to counter this threat. He would force battle against the Goths at Adrianople, and see the flower of eastern Roman forces would be annihilated. In this battle, Roman discipline (better said to be the lack thereof) is evident. The battle did not begin at the will of Emperor Valens but rather when overeager archers started engagement. The rest of the army, unbidden, joined the fray and so battle commenced. At the battle’s height, the gothic cavalry returned from foraging and immediately attacked the Roman army’s left flank, thus routing it. Notably, the Roman cavalry failed to support the infantry and the consequences of the Gothic cavalry’s flank would be the devastating defeat of the Roman army. The emperor Valens was slain, and the greater part of the Eastern Roman army was completely destroyed([5], pg. 100-101). Now- we must assess the consequences of this loss. Most obviously, the Goths were allowed to run amok across the interior of the empire virtually unchecked and the Roman army was severely crippled. However, what truly made the Adrianople such an important death knell was that the Goths were never defeated. Indeed, the best the emperor Theodosius could do was to negotiate a treaty with the Goths in which the barbarians would be settled en-mass within large tracts of the emperor. That is to say, large, independent and armed barbarian nations with uncertain loyalty to the Roman Empire now reside within the empire’s borders ([5] 103). The Roman Empire, though long since past its golden age, was stable before Adrianople. After, it would see a terminal decline that leads to the collapse of the western half.
The Imperium of Man: The Imperium’s most intractable foes has a refuge within Imperial territory itself- the Eye of Terror. For ten millenia, the world of Cadia served as a bulwark to guard the Eye of Terror and imprison the horrors within[19]. In 999.M41, Abaddon the Despoiler would lead the 13th Black Crusade and destroy Cadia- opening the floodgates for Chaos to spread throughout the Imperium[20]. This black crusade would first begin when several space hulks broke through the imperial blockade on the Eye of Terror and began to raze the worlds beyond. These fleets would be revealed to be plague fleets of Nurgle, spreading pestilence to worlds across the Cadian, Agrippina and Belis Corona sectors. Chaos appeared on imperial worlds as anarchy, mob rule, apocalyptic cults and heresy took hold. However, Abaddon had but one objective that would determine the success or failure of his crusade: Cadia[20]. On Cadia were pylons that held back the warp energies of the Eye of Terror. If those pylons failed, then the Eye of Terror would rip open and launch daemonic energies across the galaxy. Yet, Cadia was also the home to one of the most elite Guard units of the Imperium: the Cadian Shock Troopers[21]. All of the Imperium’s upper command knew of the paramount importance of Cadia and Imperial forces were rapidly moved to the sector. Eldari and Necron interested also demanded that the Eye of Terror be contained, and they will be vital in maintaining the pylons and turning back Chaos forces at crucial moments. At the climax of the Battle for Cadia, Abaddon himself would arrive on the world’s surface in a bid to destroy the Imperial high command in one fell swoop as his forces attacked the last stronghold of the defenders. Yet, the power of all of the defenders would be too much for his forces, and he himself was grievously wounded by St. Celestine. The pylons were repaired thanks to the Necron Trazyn and Belisarius Cawl, causing his daemonic forces to dissipate. At the precipice of the Imperium’s final victory, Abaddon had one last card to play. He directed the fragments of his blackstone fortress Will of Eternity toward Cadia, breaking the planet asunder. The pylons on the planet irreversibly failed, and the Eye of Terror exploded forth across the galaxy[20]. The after-effects of the 13th Black Crusade were devastating to the Imperium. The Cicatrix Maledictum, otherwise known as the Great Rift, bisected the galaxy in two[22]. Abaddon’s Black Legion spread out into Imperial Space and demons threatened even Terra itself. Even more catastrophic, the Cicatrix Maledictum caused what is now known as the Noctis Aeterna, whereby the light of the Astronomican was obscured. Massive warp storms, daemon legions and corruption afflicted nearly every world of the Imperium[23]. Indeed, only the resurrection of the primarch Guilliman prevented the total collapse of the Imperium.
Conclusion: Both the Battle of Adrianople and the 13th Black Crusade utterly devastated the empires in which they took place. In both cases, enemy forces thereafter were allowed to penetrate deep into those empires and whole regions of the empires were lost to Imperial administration. It is still too early to begin to predict what the true consequences of the 13th Black Crusade would entail, but the consequences of the Battle of Adrianople would prove mortal.
​
V: The Rise of Endemic Violence
Introduction: There can be no doubt that the Imperium of Man and the Roman Empire rose to their ascendancy through military conflict. However, endemic violence refers to the common occurrence of violence within the territory of the empire. During the Great Crusade of the Imperium and the early period of the Roman Empire, large-scale violence took the form of wars on the periphery and rarely ever penetrated into the interior of their respective territories. However, over the course of both their histories, constant warfare of all scales would occur not just at their borders but deep inside their own empires. The Roman Empire: During the early empire, it was said that a person a mile from the frontier was as safe from invasion as a person in Rome itself. However, the ravages of the anarchic 3rd Century Crisis profoundly disrupted this security. Ever after, violence within the Empire-whether it be through outside invasion, civil war, or rebellion- would be both more widespread and more common. Indeed, we see in our archeological record a dramatic change that attests to this violence. First, we see walls spring up around cities which had no defense during the Pax Romana ([1], pg. 180)]. Second, we see a nucleation in settlement patterns. That is to say, where farms once spread across the landscape, now they were clustered amongst each other for protection([18], pg. 309). Third, settlements were relocated to more defensible locations from economically advantageous locations. For example, where a city might be located next to a river for easy transportation/water access, the city would now be located on a hilltop for protection. Finally, society was militarized at a scale not seen ever before in the Empire. The number of men under arms sharply grew and even civil bureaucrats now adopted military garb and titulature.
The Imperium of Man: The Imperium of Man of the 41st millennium faces several threats that did not exist during the Great Crusade. First and foremost is the insidious threat of Chaos, which threatens the Imperium both within and without. Second, Tyranid invasions leave any world they touch completely devoid of organic life. Indeed, we have reason to believe that the invasions will only grow in scale. Third, the Necron are slowly awaking from their crypts and are already actively engaging Imperial forces. Like the Tyranids, the Necron have only shown a paltry fraction of their strength, and the Imperium will face much greater danger from them in the future. Fourth, the Tau empire continues to expand, luring Imperial worlds to their side with promises of enlightened rationalism. All of the threats above are ones specific to the later Imperium[24]. The early Imperium faced neither the Tyranids nor the Tau and had only limited engagement with Chaos or the Necrons. Yet at the time of its greatest peril, the Imperium has lost much of its strength. Gone are the demigod primarchs and their invincible legions. Of those loyal primarchs, only Guilliman has returned. Fading are the technological marvels of the Great Crusade and gone is the God Emperor of Man, imprisoned in his golden throne. With the creation of the Cicatrax Maledictum, the levels of anarchic violence in the Imperium have reached a level never before seen.
​
Part III: The Singular Aspect of the Decline of the Roman Empire not shared by the Imperium of Man
The Roman Empire: Rome is unique in that when it became an empire, it did not adopt an explicit method of succession. Though it was technically the duty of the Senate to proclaim the emperor, they were just one power bloc that decided who would become emperor. Indeed, a claimant needed the loyalty of the army and the populace as well ([3], page 138). During the reign of the Five Good Emperors, there was a peaceful consensus in which each emperor would adopt a capable heir that would be accepted by general consensus. This system broke down after the reign of the tyrannical Commodus. Soon after the death of Commodus, the Praetorian Guard would auction the office of the Emperor to the highest bidder, forcing the Senate at swordpoint to accept their nomination. This shows just how dangerous the lack of official succession became. For a period of 50 years during the Third Century Crisis, 30 emperors would take the throne. Any general with an army now had the ability to proclaim himself emperor. Even after the anarchy calmed, the legitimacy of the Imperial throne would be forever tarnished. It would be a rare emperor who did not fight a civil war during his reign or accession.
The Imperium of Man: The Imperium of Man, on the other hand, had no such problem of legitimacy. After the Horus Heresy, the Emperor of Man, far from losing legitimacy, ascends to the status of a God in the eyes of the population of the Imperium. Children of the Imperium are taught from birth to obey the Emperor- and by extension the Imperial regime- without question. For the next 10,000 years following the Horus Heresy, there would only be two events that could be called a civil war in which the master of the Imperium was questioned through bloody conflict. These events would be known as the Age of Apostasy and the Nova Terra Interregnum[24].
Conclusion: The civil wars that ripped through the Roman Empire were near-catastrophic and exacerbated every other flaw it had. The deteriorating armies of the Empire were more-often directed against other Romans rather than against outside threats. The destruction wrought by such civil wars severely degraded the military ability of the Romans and damaged the people’s loyalty to even the idea of the Roman Empire. These tragedies are ones that the Imperium of Man has so-far escaped. The Imperium of Man after the Horus Heresy has remained a single unit ruled by a single government with peaceful succession barring extremely rare exceptions. This difference between the historical course of the Roman Empire and the Imperium of Man may be the key factor causing the former to fall and the latter to survive.

Part IV: Summary and Thoughts

I have so far analyzed each historical trend separately. Now I seek to show the overarching narrative common to both Empires. In both cases, an early nation founded by a secular government managed to conquer much of their known world through the superior strength of their respective militaries. However, a period of anarchy and violence would precipitate a transition from small secular government to large theocratic autocracy. The increase in size of both bureaucracies would only be matched by the increase in corruption and ineptitude. These bloated theocratic empires would also now lack the military superiority it once claimed. Whether it be due to the anarchic period in its past or due to the new ineffectual administration, the military of both empires would become a poor imitation of its past selves. However, there would be a period of stability for these empires, despite the problems they face and the heightened background level of violence. This period of stability would be brought to a sharp end by a climactic battle in which both empires would lose, causing disastrous consequences. The disastrous consequences for the Roman Empire would be the gradual disintegration of its western half. The consequences for the Imperium of Man are not yet evident, but we can say that the Imperium is now closer to the precipice of oblivion than it has ever been since Horus launched his rebellion.

Source: The Preacher's Word
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,” opined President George Washington in his 1796 farewell address.
Apparently 65% of Americans disagree with our Founding Father.
“Is it necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values?” asked a recent Pew Research Center survey. Almost two-thirds responded that belief in God is unnecessary to be moral.
As we’ve observed in past posts, individualism, relativism and secularism has subverted and shook the spiritual foundations of our society. These attitudes undermine Bible-based morality by proclaiming, “I am my own god.” “If there is a God, He is unnecessary.” And “there are no absolutes.”

As George Barna once observed, “Americans have become comfortable with the idea of being the arbiters of morality. In the same way that most Americans contend there is no absolute moral truth, they now believe that there is no divine guidance required or even available to define right and wrong.” Barna lamented that most Americans “are now more likely to take their moral cues from government laws and policies than from church teachings about biblical principles.”

Honesty, of course, admits there are good people, who are not Believers. And there are hypocritical Christians who fall short of their profession. Yet, there remains this issue of what is the standard for right and wrong? Who decides what is moral and immoral? What’s the solution when your definition of morality and mine differ? Issues of abortion, same-sex marriage, and gender, while they have become politicized, have moral implications. And what you and I believe are based on our moral standard.
The societal shift in morality affects all of us. It impacts our laws. Our homes. Our relationships. Our government. Our schools. Our churches. And the media. We can’t escape it. So, what is a Christian to do?
In an essay entitled “The Gospel, Human Flourishing, and the Foundation of Social Order,” Jason Glas suggested there are four specific pillars of truth, which ought to serve as core convictions for Christians.
#1 Human Beings have Value Because We’re Created in God’s Image.
The Bible says God created us “in His own image” and according to His “likeness” (Gen. 1:26-27). The Psalmist reminds us that we are created just “a little lower than the angels,” but higher than the animal kingdom (Ps. 8). This speaks to our divine nature. To the soul. The spirit. The inner person.
Not only do we have a soul that will never die, but we’ve been given the ability to think. To reason. To create. To choose. To understand right and wrong.
This fact reminds us that human life is valuable. It has worth and dignity. And, because our Creator is good and righteous, we have the ability to aspire to nobler thoughts and higher ideals.
#2 Sin perverts God’s purpose and Enslaves us to Satan.
While I would disagree with Glas’ theological explanation of this point, I agree that sin is the most basic problem of humankind. Sin stains the soul. It destroys homes. It erodes the foundations of our society. And corrupts the character of our leaders. Sin leads to lawlessness. Perversion. Perpetrates itself in more sinfulness. And results in destruction.
The wise man was right. “Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people” (Prov. 14:34).
#3 The Importance of “The Other Worldview”
Our society sees only a secular world view. The here and now. This world. This earth. This environment.
A Christian world sees beyond this life. It sees the unseen (2 Cor. 4:16-18). It acknowledges the eternal. And accepts the reality that this world is passing away. And one day will be destroyed (2Pet. 3:10-13). As my Mom often said in her last few years, “We’re not put on this earth to live forever.”
#4 Marriage and Family are Fundamental to an Orderly Society.
Human sociologists opine that the nuclear family is the product of Western civilization. Or some experiment that once worked, but is no longer valid. Marriage between one man and one woman was God’s idea. He ordered it. Ordained it. And arranged it. (Gen. 2:18; Matt. 19:6-9; Eph. 5:22-32).
The rejection of marital relationships as God commanded leads to chaos, corruption, and perversion. In The Case for Marriage by Maggie Gallagher and Linda Waite, they argue this societal benefit of the traditional marriage.

…communities where good-enough marriages are common have better outcomes for children, women and men than do communities that suffer from high rates of divorce, unmarried childbearing, and high-conflict or violent marriages.

What does all this mean for Christians?
It’s not enough to preach the Truth, we must practice it. Our beliefs should be reflected in our behavior. In a world that has tasted the dregs of sin, we need to be “the salt.” In a sin-darkened society, we need to be “the light.”
Interestingly, New Testament writers didn’t advocate for a change of Caesars, but a change of life in Christian conduct. The means that saving souls and creating a climate of righteousness is not achieved by political methods, but by a spiritual message and ministry.
Washington today needs to return the principles of its namesake.
Believers today need to return the precepts of God’s Word.

https://youtu.be/XAF0UXBKWAc
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Retired Pope Benedict XVI, who had an impressive record as a teacher and defender of the basics of Catholic faith, is likely to go down in history books as the first pope in almost 600 years to resign.
He died Dec. 31 at the age of 95, nearly 10 years after leaving the papacy to retire to what he said would be a life of prayer and study.
Pope Francis was scheduled to celebrate his predecessor's funeral Mass Jan. 5 in St. Peter's Square. Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said the funeral rites would be simple in keeping with the wishes of the late pope.
As the retired pope neared death, he was given the anointing of the sick Dec. 28 in his residence, Bruni said.
His body was to lie in St. Peter's Basilica beginning Jan. 2 so that people could pay their respects and offer their prayers, he said.
A close collaborator of St. John Paul II and the theological expert behind many of his major teachings and gestures, Pope Benedict came to the papacy after 24 years heading the doctrinal congregation's work of safeguarding Catholic teaching on faith and morals, correcting the work of some Catholic theologians and ensuring the theological solidity of the documents issued by other Vatican offices.
As pope, he continued writing as a theologian, but also made historically important gestures to Catholics who had difficulty accepting all of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, particularly about the liturgy. In 2007, he widened permission to use the "extraordinary" or pre-Vatican II form of the Mass and, a short time later, extended a hand to the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X. Besides lifting the excommunications of four of the society's bishops who were ordained illicitly in 1988, he launched a long and intense dialogue with the group. In the end, though, the talks broke down.
His papacy, which began when he was 78, was extremely busy for a man who already had a pacemaker and who had wanted to retire to study, write and pray when he turned 75. He used virtually every medium at his disposal -- books and Twitter, sermons and encyclicals -- to catechize the faithful on the foundational beliefs and practices of Christianity, ranging from the sermons of St. Augustine to the sign of the cross.
Pope Benedict was the first pope to meet with victims of clerical sexual abuse. He clarified church laws to expedite cases and mandated that bishops' conferences put in place stringent norms against abuse.
Although he did not expect to travel much, he ended up making 24 trips to six continents and three times presided over World Youth Day mega-gatherings: in Germany in 2005, Australia in 2008, and Spain in 2011.
On a historic visit to the United States in 2008, the pope brought his own identity into clearer focus for Americans. He set forth a moral challenge on issues ranging from economic justice to abortion. He also took church recognition of the priestly sex-abuse scandal to a new level, expressing his personal shame at what happened and personally praying with victims.
While still in his 30s, he served as an influential adviser during the Second Vatican Council, 1962-65, and as pope, he made it a priority to correct what he saw as overly expansive interpretations of Vatican II in favor of readings that stressed the council's continuity with the church's millennial traditions.
Under his oversight, the Vatican continued to highlight the church's moral boundaries on issues such as end-of-life medical care, marriage and homosexuality. But the pope's message to society at large focused less on single issues and more on the risk of losing the basic relationship between the human being and the Creator.
Surprising those who had expected a by-the-book pontificate from a man who had spent so many years as the Vatican's chief doctrinal official, Pope Benedict emphasized that Christianity was a religion of love and not a religion of rules.
The German-born pontiff did not try to match the popularity of St. John Paul, but the millions of people who came to see him in Rome and abroad came to appreciate his smile, his frequent ad-libs and his ability to speak from the heart.
Some of Pope Benedict's most memorable statements came when he applied simple Gospel values to social issues such as the protection of human life, the environment and economics. When the global financial crisis worsened in 2008, for example, the pope insisted that financial institutions must put people before profits. He also reminded people that money and worldly success are passing realities, saying: "Whoever builds his life on these things -- on material things, on success, on appearances -- is building on sand."
He consistently warned the West that unless its secularized society rediscovered religious values, it could not hope to engage in real dialogue with Muslims and members of other religious traditions.
In his encyclicals and in his books on "Jesus of Nazareth," the pope honed that message, asking readers to discover the essential connections between sacrificial love, works of charity, a dedication to the truth and the Gospel of Christ.
The retired pope looked in-depth at his papacy and resignation, his relationships with St. John Paul and Pope Francis and a host of other issues in "Last Testament," a book-length interview with journalist Peter Seewald published in 2016.
In the book, Pope Benedict insisted once again that he was not pressured by anyone or any event to resign and he did not feel he was running away from any problem. However, he acknowledged "practical governance was not my forte, and this certainly was a weakness."
Insisting "my hour had passed, and I had given all I could," Pope Benedict said he never regretted resigning, but he did regret hurting friends and faithful who were "really distressed and felt forsaken" by his stepping down.
Less than a month after resigning, he already looked frailer and walked with noticeably more difficulty than he did when he left office. The video images released by the Vatican March 23, 2013, when his successor, Pope Francis, visited him at Castel Gandolfo underscored the "diminishing energy" Pope Benedict had said led to his resignation.
Pope Benedict moved to the papal summer villa at Castel Gandolfo Feb. 28, 2013, the day his resignation took effect. He remained at the villa south of Rome for two months -- a period that included the conclave that elected Pope Francis as his successor and the first month of the new pope's pontificate. The retired pope moved back to the Vatican May 2, 2013, living in a monastery remodeled as a residence for him, his secretary and the consecrated women who cared for his household before and after his resignation.
On his only post-retirement trip outside of Italy, he flew to Germany in June 2020 for a five-day visit with his ailing 96-year-old brother.
Answering questions from reporters on a flight back from Brazil in July 2013, Pope Francis spoke with admiration of the retired pope's humility, intelligence and prayerfulness. The unusual situation of having a pope and a retired pope both living at the Vatican was working out very well, Pope Francis said. Having the retired pope nearby to consult with, or ask questions of, Pope Francis said, was "like having a grandfather at home -- a very wise grandfather."
By the time Pope Benedict had been retired for a year, his daily routine was set. Archbishop Georg Ganswein, his personal secretary, said his days began with Mass, morning prayer and breakfast. Although mostly hidden from public view, he was not cloistered, but continued welcoming old friends and colleagues, engaging in dialogue or offering spiritual counsel. He spent hours reading and dealing with correspondence before a 4 p.m. stroll in the garden and recitation of the rosary.
In the early days of his retirement, to the delight and surprise of pilgrims and cardinals, Pope Benedict appeared at major events with Pope Francis, including the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica Dec. 8, 2015.
At a June 2016 celebration in the Apostolic Palace, where Pope Benedict once lived and worked, Pope Francis, top officials of the Roman Curia and a few friends gathered with him to mark the 65th anniversary of the retired pontiff's priestly ordination. Pope Francis told Pope Benedict that with him in residence, the monastery in the Vatican Gardens "emanates tranquility, peace, strength, faithfulness, maturity, faith, dedication and loyalty, which does so much good for me and gives strength to me and to the whole church."
Pope Benedict replied to Pope Francis, "More than the beauty found in the Vatican Gardens, your goodness is the place where I live; I feel protected."
He prayed that Pope Francis would continue to "lead us all on this path of divine mercy that shows the path of Jesus, to Jesus and to God."
Mercy was a prominent topic in an interview Pope Benedict gave in 2015. The Catholic focus on mercy really began with St. John Paul, the retired pope told Belgian Jesuit Father Jacques Servais in the written interview, which was not released until March 2016.
From his experience as a youth during World War II and his ministry under communism in Poland, St. John Paul "affirmed that mercy is the only true and ultimately effective reaction against the power of evil. Only where there is mercy does cruelty end, only there do evil and violence stop," said Pope Benedict, who worked closely with the Polish pope for decades.
"Pope Francis," he said, "is in complete agreement with this line. His pastoral practice is expressed precisely in the fact that he speaks continuously of God's mercy."
Pope Benedict had said he planned to live a "hidden life" in retirement -- and to a large extent he did. But when he did make contributions to public discussions, they became headline news. In April 2019, for instance, what he described as "notes" on the clerical sexual abuse crisis were published; and, in January 2020, an essay he wrote on priestly celibacy was published in a book by Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.
In the text on abuse, which the retired pope said was motivated by the February 2019 Vatican summit on the crisis, Pope Benedict traced the abuse crisis to a loss of certainty about faith and morals, especially beginning in the late 1960s. To address the crisis, he wrote, "what is required first and foremost is the renewal of the faith in the reality of Jesus Christ given to us in the Blessed Sacrament."
The 2020 text on celibacy became the center of a media storm, not only because of its content, but also because Catholics were awaiting Pope Francis' official response to the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon and suggestions made there that in remote areas the church could consider ordaining some married men to take the sacraments to Catholics who usually go months without.
Since marriage and priesthood both demand the total devotion and self-giving of a man to his vocation, "it does not seem possible to realize both vocations simultaneously," Pope Benedict wrote in his essay.
The retired pope's contribution to the discussion became even more controversial when Archbishop Ganswein informed media and the original publisher that while Pope Benedict contributed an essay to Cardinal Sarah's book, he did not want to be listed as co-author of the volume.
As inevitable as his election seemed after St. John Paul died in 2005, Pope Benedict's path to the papacy was long and indirect.
Joseph Ratzinger was born April 16, 1927, in the Bavarian town of Marktl am Inn, the third and youngest child of a police officer, Joseph Sr., and his wife, Maria. Young Joseph joined his brother, Georg, at a minor seminary in 1939.
Like other young students in Germany at the time, he was automatically enrolled in the Hitler Youth program, but soon stopped going to meetings. During World War II, he was conscripted into the army, and in the spring of 1945, he deserted his unit and returned home, spending a few months in an Allied prisoner-of-war camp. He returned to the seminary late in 1945 and was ordained six years later, along with his brother.
In a meeting with young people in 2006, the pope said witnessing the brutality of the Nazi regime helped persuade him to become a priest. But he also had to overcome some doubts, he said. For one thing, he asked himself whether he "could faithfully live celibacy" his entire life. He also recognized that his real leanings were toward theology and wondered whether he had the qualities of a good pastor and the ability "to be simple with the simple people."
After a short stint as a parish priest, the future pope began a teaching career and built a reputation as one of the church's foremost theologians. At Vatican II, he made important contributions as a theological expert and embraced the council's early work. But he began to have misgivings about an emerging anti-Roman bias, the idea of a "church from below" run on a parliamentary model, and the direction of theological research in the church -- criticism that would become even sharper in later years.
In a 2005 speech that served as a kind of manifesto for his young papacy, Pope Benedict rejected what he called a "hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture" in interpreting Vatican II as a radical break with the past. The pope called instead for reading the council through a "hermeneutic of reform" in continuity with Catholic tradition.
In 1977, St. Paul VI named him archbishop of Munich and Freising and, four years later, Pope John Paul called him to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where he wielded great influence on issues such as liberation theology, dissent from church teachings and pressure for women's ordination. Serving in this role for nearly a quarter century, then-Cardinal Ratzinger earned a reputation in some quarters as a sort of grand inquisitor, seeking to stamp out independent thinking, an image belied by his passion for debate with thinkers inside and outside the church.
As the newly elected pope in 2005, he explained that he took the name Benedict to evoke the memory of Pope Benedict XV, a "courageous prophet of peace" during World War I, and said he wanted to place his ministry at the service of reconciliation and harmony among peoples.
Like his namesake and his predecessors, he was untiring in his appeals for an end to violence in world trouble spots and for dialogue as the only true and lasting solution to conflict. Another key to building a better world, he said repeatedly, is to respect the right of each person to seek and to worship God.
A direct appeal to China's communist government to respect the religious freedom of its people was a central part of Pope Benedict's 2007 Letter to Chinese Catholics. The letter also pleaded with the faithful on the mainland to work toward reconciliation between communities that had accepted some government control in order to minister openly and those that continued to practice their faith more clandestinely.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States and amid reports of rising religious-inspired violence in various parts of the world, Pope Benedict also repeatedly and clearly condemned all violence committed in the name of God.
One of the biggest tests of his papacy came after a lecture at Germany's University of Regensburg, in 2006, when he quoted a Christian medieval emperor who said the prophet Muhammad had brought "things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
Protests in the Muslim world followed, and Pope Benedict apologized that his words had offended Muslims, distancing himself from the text he had quoted. Soon after, he accepted the invitation of an international group of Muslim scholars and leaders to launch a new dialogue initiative, "The Common Word," looking at teachings that Christians and Muslims share.taken from:
taken from: https://www.usccb.org/news/2022/pope-benedict-eight-years-pope-capped-long-ministry-teacher-faith

Two days and nearly fifty miles up the Knife’s edge, the Lockes were sitting around the morning cookfire, breaking their fast on strips of bacon. Sylas was the only one of the triplets who had visited White Harbour since Androw Manderly’s death, and had his characteristic list of unlikely anecdotes from the city.
Halfway through one of his stories, Valena accidentally dropped her fork in the mud. She didn’t give it a second glance before she started shovelling bacon into her mouth with her fingers, wiping grease from her chin with her knuckle.
“I can get you another fork, sister,” Sylas offered, the momentum of his tale faltering.
She swallowed down her mouthful, feeling a little bad – not for being unladylike, but for interrupting her brother’s story. “No, sorry, Sylas. I’m just rushing, ignore me.”
“Why the rush?” Harwin asked.
“I want to visit Latchwood before we go on.”
Harwin took a bite of his food, shooting her a question with his brows.
“I know that name,” Sylas said, squinting frustratedly.
“It’s an old holdfast near here,” Valena said. “Built around the same time as Shackleton. I’m going to have a look after I finish eating. If you want to accompany me, I could tell you about it on the way.”
Both boys nodded their assent, and soon afterward the triplets had readied and mounted their horses. Jorah offered to accompany them, but Valena assured him they would be safe without him. The rest of their retinue wished them well, not complaining of the opportunity to relax before they set out again. As they left the loose ring of carriages, Harwin was on Magpie, as always, Sylas astride a stubborn grey mare he called Harridan, and Valena on Surefoot, the red palfrey.
Valena led her brothers a little down the road before she found the long-overgrown path that led into the sentinel forest. Surefoot strode confidently through the underbrush, while behind them Valena could hear Magpie and Harridan hesitate and complain when they couldn’t see a clear path.
In all, the journey was no more than half an hour. They drifted between the grey-green trunks, and were quiet for the first while as they digested their meal. As they drew closer, Valena’s grip on the reins tightened. Remembering the tome she had stowed in her saddlebag, her eyes darted around, looking for any sign of Latchwood’s outer walls. Details of the history seemed to tangle one another on their way to her mouth.
“I told you about Brandon Locke, didn’t I?” she asked her brothers, not wanting to sound over-eager to share.
“He was the one who enjoyed puns, if I recall?” Harwin said.
A paragraph of reminders swept itself away behind Valena’s lips. “Indeed. Well, he was the lord before and during Aegon’s Conquest. He built Latchwood for his second son, so the second son could have his own holding to pass on.”
“Shit, father never built Edd his own castle,” Sylas commented.
Valena waved off the jape away as her mind grappled with the actual point contained within. “Well, there are some accounts that say Brandon’s firstborn might have been a bastard, or at least Brandon thought so. Different maesters, different versions of the story. Regardless, Brandon wasn’t overfond of him.”
She paused for a moment as she ducked under a low-hanging branch, and something caught her eye ahead – a patch of smooth mossy grey between the mottled trunks of the forest.
“I think I see the walls!” she managed before she flicked her reins without a second thought. Surefoot jolted forward over the uneven ground, and Harwin’s calls for her to take care fell on deaf ears.
Indeed, there was a wall, or at least the ruins of one. It had never been the thick, stair-laden wall of a true castle, and it had long since crumbled, surrounded by its own rubble. Its tallest remaining point was perhaps Valena’s height, and there were plenty of places to climb through. Away to their left, a particularly large pile of debris stood in place of the old gatehouse.
Valena pulled up a few feet from a break in the wall, dismounting smoothly and hitching Surefoot to a sturdy-looking sapling. She retrieved the book from the saddlebag, ignoring the calls from her brothers behind her.
Clambering over the lowest point in the wall, she regretted that she had not taken a moment to gird her dress as moss scraped and stained the wool. On the other side, the courtyard of Latchwood Hold stretched out before her, overgrown with trees and shrubbery. At first glance, the walled patch of forest seemed like nothing more than a poorly-maintained godswood, save for a missing heart tree. But ahead of her, between the trunks, under hanging boughs and looming over bush and leaf alike, she saw what remained of the central keep. Much of the facade of its lowest floor still stood, though the two storeys she knew had once crowned the keep were long gone.
As she picked her way through the underbrush, she opened the book in her arms, skipping past lengthy essays, quotations, glossaries and family trees until she found the illustrations. One showed the proud holdfast in its former glory, fine ink depicting details and carvings that centuries had since beaten from the stone.
She reached the entranceway, and looked up to the wide slab that formed the top of the doorframe. Valena reached towards it, pulling stubborn ivy away from the stone. There were faint impressions where words had once been carved.
Harwin was the first to reach her. “I didn’t realise it’d be so overgrown,” he commented.
Valena didn’t answer. Her gaze fell, looking through the doorway, to the grasses that had grown by feasting on rotten floorboards, and the uneven remains of a stairway. She flicked through another few pages of her tome, finding the floor plans, and stepped through the keep’s threshold.
“Where’s she going?” she heard Sylas ask, but Harwin’s reply was indistinct and unsure. All the same, their footsteps followed hers. Valena led the way towards the back of the keep, past the outline of a modest hall and what must have been an armoury, identifiable only by rust stains where blades had once leaned against the walls.
When they emerged into the yard proper, Harwin spoke up again. “What happened to Lord Brandon’s children?”
Valena glanced back. “At first, they ignored one another. When Brandon died, the firstborn inherited Oldcastle. A sickness came through and killed him and his sons, so his grandson, Howland took over. He wasn’t popular. Married a Borrell girl, converted to the Seven. There were riots in Shackleton. A sept was built, and burned. A lot of people started going to Lord Jon of Latchwood, Brandon’s grandson, asking him to correct his cousin’s sins.”
“Hard to imagine riots over the Seven in Shackleton now,” Harwin commented, though he sounded uncertain.
“That’s what had Marlon so worried, the night he died,” Sylas pointed out.
Valena returned her attention to the plans, her search. They couldn’t be far now. The boys were quiet for a moment, before Harwin asked, “You don’t think people would get angry about us working with the Faith a little, do you?”
“Hard to say,” Valena replied idly, bending to push aside the grasses and feel the ground.
“Benjicot’s putting a friendly face on the Seven in Oldcastle,” Sylas said.
Valena straightened, then turned to point a finger at Harwin. “Don’t give him a holding. Even if he’s the best holdfast keeper to ever grace the North, it won’t go well.”
Her brother raised his hands defensively. “I wasn’t going to.” He scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I asked him to speak with the Order of the Green Hand, if he’s able to, in White Harbour. He said he met an initiate once. I was hoping they might be convinced to help us with Shackleton and the refugees.”
Valena considered that. “Risky, brother, but not a terrible idea. As long as it doesn’t look like they’re influencing you.”
Harwin shrugged. “Benji said it was unlikely, at any rate.”
Valena nodded, turned, and, taking a step, felt something hard against her foot. She looked down. Half-obscured by moss, and more rust than iron, the pull-ring of the trap door may as well have been pure gold for how her heart quickened at the sight of it.
“Sylas, help me with this,” she called. He came up beside her, and they both gripped the ring. Some of the ancient trap door lifted, splitting and cracking along seams of rot. They both nearly lost their balance when the ring and its bracing pulled free of the wood.
“I’ll get it,” Sylas assured her, pulling gloves from his belt to grip the splintering edges of the door.
Valena stood back, shoulder-to-shoulder with Harwin, watching their brother work.
“What ended up happening with Howland and Jon?” Harwin asked.
“Jon tried to give Howland advice, for a time, but was thrown out of Oldcastle. Tensions got worse, and some maesters say that Jon was planning to overthrow Howland altogether.”
Sylas finally pulled the rest of the door up, scattering shards of old wood. He glanced down the tunnel, and reported, “Vines. Or roots, I don’t know.”
“Can you cut through them?” Valena asked. Sylas just shrugged, grinned and pulled a shortsword from his belt. He was the only one of them who had thought to arm himself.
“What do you think about Jon?” Harwin questioned as they slowly followed Sylas down dusty old stairs into a basement obscured by darkness and the hanging roots of overgrown sentinels. Fingers of light crept through cracks in the floor above, and flooded in from the stairwell. Valena wondered how long it had been since anyone had seen this place.
“I don’t think it mattered what Jon wanted. His rebellion came either way.”
“I hadn’t realised we had one of those.”
“It was a small one,” Valena said, taking care to skip a step run through with cracks. “One decisive battle. This was when Maegor was the King on the Iron Throne, and made an enemy of the faith. Howland called his levies, meaning to go south and support the Faith Militant. Most of his bannermen flocked to Latchwood instead, telling Jon he must rise up, so he did.”
They reached the end of the staircase and began picking their way through the hanging roots, the brothers giving Valena the lead once again.
“Jon’s firstborn died in the battle, and Jon killed Howland. That was the end of it, regarding succession.”
“Howland didn’t have sons?” Sylas asked. Valena appreciated the reassurance that he had been listening.
“None that the histories remember. Either way, a knight of Sweetsister murdered Jon after the battle. He was Lord of Oldcastle for all of three hours.”
“So who inherited?”
Valena felt something bump against her foot and she took a step, and reached out for what she had kicked. The timber was dusty and shrunken with rot and age, but it was an easel. Despite the darkness, she smiled. They had to be close.
“Jon’s son,” she said, willing her eyes to adjust to the darkness of this black corner. “But he was only four. His sister, Jon’s daughter and eldest, became regent. For twelve years, a Lady of Oldcastle ruled these lands, and ruled them well.”
Valena rummaged blindly at the wall she felt looming in front of her. She found the braces for a long-rotted shelf, ivy and moss, and, as he stooped towards the ground, what she had hoped to discover. Old, dry leather, bent into long tubes. Three here, perhaps more elsewhere. She grabbed them, and turned back for the stairway.
“What about when Jon’s son turned sixteen?” Sylas asked as she pushed past her brothers, “What happened to his sister?”
The overcast sky was sharply bright when Valena emerged from the basement.
“She came here,” Valena said. She looked at the leather tubes, relieved to see them sealed, their brass buckles dirty but uncorroded. She opened the first of them, pulling its contents gingerly out of the case that had protected them through the centuries.
“She came here and she ruled,” Valena said, unfurling the canvas, kneeling on the ground to spread it gently out before them, “and she remembered.”
The oil painting was beautiful, its edges only slightly marred by age and nibbling bugs. On it stood an armoured figure, salt-and-pepper hair spilling from a braid, long bearded face obscured in shadow. The greatsword in his hand was bloody, and he stood in what was recognizably the throne room of Oldcastle, a crumpled corpse in bloodstained Locke regalia at his feet and an open, bleeding wound over his heart.
The triplets were silent as they stared at it. They were the first to see this in over four centuries, and in that moment they were together in feeling that in their hearts.
Harwin knelt, and gently lifted one of the curled corners of the canvas. On the other side, a note was inscribed in faded charcoal. A title.
“My Father, Beloved Kinslayer,” Harwin read aloud.
Without speaking, Valena stood, and went to another case. The next painting was another man, cloaked in bearskin, young and tall and thoughtful before Oldcastle’s grim weirwood. His silver eyes were full of hope and sorrow alike.
“He looks like Marlon,” Harwin said.
Valena looked at him for a moment, smiling to herself. Marlon had never worn his hair that long, and was stockier besides. But Harwin would never see himself in a proud lord, not even his namesake. Valena checked this title herself. Lord Brother.
The last canvas had the most stubborn latch, and Valena saw its title as she pulled it free. Self Portrait, 68 AC. Valena blew the dust off it carefully, and laid it out on a piece of ground that Sylas had scraped completely free of moss.
A beautiful older woman looked out from the canvas, grey hair streaked with the last vestiges of her youth. Silver keys interlocked in a chain around her neck, and her dress was a deep purple lined with grey furs. Her eyes were kind, and tired, and bright with intelligence. The Lady of Latchwood smiled gently out at her kin, and Valena felt something inside herself settle.
“What was her name?” Sylas asked.
That brought a smile to her lips. “The same as all the smartest girls.”
“Valena,” Harwin said.

Hi all, Thank you in advance. I am writing a creative essay that contains a town in Connecticut, USA named New London. When introducing the town I write
"For Londoners this location may seem oddly familiar, the water this pier is built on is known as the River Thames and down that river is not London but its namesake, New London"
Now the word namesake isn't correct and I know this, but in this context what is New London to London what relation do they have, I'm wondering if there is a word for it or English or latin phrase that can express this. I've approached a few English Language professors, some which know Latin and none have come up with an answer off the top of their head. So I decided to write this to see if any of you know. This question also I guess applies to the River Thames in US and River Thames in London. Thank you for your time.