Hello,
Not sure if this is the right community but you might have experienced a similar situation. I am at around $9Mn net worth starting a job with a 2Mn net income as of next year which will get me in the right trajectory the next few years. We have a lot of disposable income (after investments, savings, kids plans, etc.) so I like to enjoy my time spend it on nice experiences (by that I mean going out to nice restaurants, drinks, travels) nothing out of this world.
My wife on the other hand still acts and lives as if we are barely closing the year :) and this is driving me crazy. I spoke to her a few times about being more “liberal” with our funds but we are not seeing eye to eye. I get a feedback that I am not a responsible spender. To put some perspective we own a car each, a home, summer home and that’s it we don’t over spend compared to my friends who are not close to my situation.
Sorry for the long post but the key questions, did you face such a divergence in your couple, how did you get to see eye to eye?
Thanks

I have had the urge to make this post since I don't enjoy the idea of Teemo being that much of a niche pick that its best is a main pick for a small selection of players and at its worst gets relegated to the corners of irrelevance and domains of trolling his own team. Simple and plain, I believe Teemo deserves as a champion for it's possible utility and abilities to be a viable pick, and after brainstorming I've landed on multiple ideas on how to make him viable.
Before anyone asks why I would make a post on changes that 1. won't get heard/taken into account by Riot because of company and balancing ideals and 2. Riot wants to keep Teemo accessible to most of his mains and keeping this champion to their current niche and purpose, I do not care if they have an impact since this is an outlet for my ideas, and serves as redacting practice.
So, how do we start?

Champion Philosophy

The idea behind Teemo is for him to be, first and foremost, an annoying champion but counterable, a good champion to start playing for teaching lane dominance and kiting. His AA range of 500 makes him competitive for toplane, but not viable for botlane compared to other ADC's range. His invisibility, blind, E and R play into Teemo's role of being elusive and, at the same time, punishing for the least prepared players. His passive grants him the benefit of stealth to get the higher ground in most encounters, his Q nullifies champions' ability to autoattack, his W grants him the ability to kite easier, his E makes even his poke potential excellent and his R will punish the lack of sweeper by making an area untraversable. Almost all of his kit except R are point and click, and that makes him have the upper hand when ambushing an enemy. By default, the idea behind this champion is to punish the enemies' mistakes and counter any retaliation.
Teemo's current ability kit has survived for most of League's history and metas and has been adapted/buffed by Riot for him to not get outdated. Overall, Teemo's identity as a champion has always been the same and needs no long introduction to either old or new players. Teemo is a champion that benefits the most from cheesing and taking advantage of his opponents, but in this case, cracks have shown.

Teemo's problems with viability

The main grievances Teemo has can be numbered here

1. His invisibility passive leans into being immobile for medium-long periods of time, expecting an opportunity to make the time spent worth with a kill or guerrilla strategy, but most of the times isn't worth using since losing on cs, team kill participation, objective taking means losing out on xp and gold, vital for the game's progression. Not only that, but he's vulnerable to damage and camping his position while he's invisible, making him easy to detect with AoE abilities.
2. If Teemo cannot outperform his lane opponent and win the lane by a wide margin, he can't find a relevant role after laning phase, sitting in a bush is out of the question, ambushing enemies is not only risky but also not guaranteed to work.
3. His kit is not powerful enough to burst a champion, relying on on-hit and AP items to do most of the heavy lifting, his ambushes aren't powerful enough to make a difference in a game before .
4. Once his weak points are known, Teemo's strategy and gameplay are easily counterable, sweeper and tanks will make a quick work of his shrooms and keeping him out of fights is easy due to being squishy and him only being able to actively target a single enemy at a time, overpowering him with multiple champions at the same time is enough to take him out of the game.

The main point of this post

I believe in Teemo's identity as a champion and value the kit he has, but the scope of his talents hasn't been polished into a consistent form for him to adhere.

• His passive invisibility makes him vulnerable to attacks, therefore Teemo would benefit of not receiving AoE damage and being detectable while invisible. Before anyone comments how broken it would be for Teemo to endlessly sit in a bush, or camping Baron for example, being able to not suffer from any damage, think of the resource players have that is time. Every second a player is not contributing to getting xp and gold, getting objectives or taking down towers is at a deficit for that player. If Teemo decides to sit in a bush to camp, he gives up all the macro qualities of any champion except for his shrooms, and makes him instead the master of any situation developing in his limited area. This should be an investment that should be able to be a net benefit not only for Teemo, but for the rest of the team to use.
• His Q counters auto attacks and onhit based abilities, but given the scope of the game and the proportion of champions with ability centered kits to AA centered champions, he should be able to redirect abilities or counter the aim of them, not in a absolutely restrictive way like a silence, but as if the player's AA, abilities and skillshots were difficult to place/aim on Teemo, although possible to be cast on him, could be based on quick time events.
• His W is a basic ability granting movement speed, simple enough for new players and powerful enough to kite enemies, but should grant the passive ability of telling the player when they have been detected, not only as a tool for new players to learn about vision. In my mind, it should grant the passive MS bonus when teemo has been detected and get an exclamation mark when he's been detected for more than 3 seconds.
• The greatest problem Teemo has overall is lack of burst damage, he cannot deal enough damage to burst an enemy like an assassin, and despite him not being related to an assassin in terms of playstyle, the need for him to outperform another champion in an area Teemo controls is key for him to be worthy to be played. This mechanic has already been implemented in Teemo's iteration of Wild Rift, being damage amplification, although in my scope would be stacking or logarithmically increasing venom damage, being with continued E and R procs dealing more damage the more applications that occur on top of being reciprocal to each ability, but with the caveat that the initial DoT of his E and R aren't as powerful as they are now. What does this solve? First, it solves waveclear by making two shrooms being able to kill an entire wave and giving him the gold and xp he needs while he keeps his position while invisible, second, it solves the problem for tanks to singlehandedly tank all the teemo shrooms without using sweeper, making multiple continuous shrooms' damage lethal enough to chunk a tank's health, third, it grants Teemo the ability to burst and leave their enemy with enough stacked DoT to not outlast him in an encounter, but only given that Teemo has the upper hand by stacking attack speed and using a shroom to increase his E damage.

I'm not confident enough to say these ideas are balanced in their own right, but in my mind they respect Teemo's identity, ease of use and potential as a champion for him to be a worthwhile pick for any context in the game. I don't know what to expect for him to be changed in the future in case Riot decides to make him a viable champion. but in my conclusion, these are the ideas I wish they would implement.

Hi, I hit a pothole on the 8th of July 2022 at around 8pm on the Western Freeway leaving Ballarat which wrecked my car pretty bad. Over $2000 worth of damage. I submitted a request form for compensation and was only just finialised today.
VicRoads denied me compensation on the grounds that they did inspections on the 5th and 8th of July and found no defects in the road. However I went back the morning after on the 9th at 11:30am to take a photo of the pothole that I used for the claim. So it was clearly there and they clearly lied about the inspections.
I've had a rough past couple of years and am seething because I knew they'd try something so I'm making this post now in the hopes I can calm down before calling VicRoads and abusing the poor call centre lady I always seem to get on the half a dozen times I called over the past year.
But what are my options? Should I complain to VicRoads, talk to a legal aid (I know nothing about this process) or is there another body I can talk too? Also what documentation should I have at the ready?

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It’s been 18 months. 6 figures spent 7 figures lost It’s become 5 trips to rehab. I lost all the vitamin B in my body and lost the ability to walk for two months, my lungs froze over causing pulmonary embolisms and was saved minutes from losing my life. It’s taken away a multi million dollar business. I’ve lost friends, relationships and been arrested. I’ve become hopeless to this shit and I wish I understood.
I’ve come here to post about the reality of using nitrous and the fact we can become addicted to this, it is dangerous and a walk in my shoes is quite the horrid experience.
I drank often, I used most recreational drugs overall was a fun social guy, a business owner and my life was the one I always dreamed of. I would occasionally do a whip it every now again when doing some shrooms and nothing harmful happened. I worked everyday and woke up early and aside from a hangover every now and again I didn’t show signs of a life that was crippled by addiction. I had fun, I had control and I was doing life like any 27 year old who started a successful business and had a high level of income would.
In January of 2022, I found myself in a relationship that made me want to put down the typical party life as my 20’s were closing in. The idea of a family and serious relationship was the fulfillment I had always wanted and naturally I stoped that life of drinking often and blowing down on the weekends.
The night I went to get a vape: (01/29/22)
I quit smoking cigarettes and picked up vaping, normal trend of the millennial and went to pick up an elf bar at a local smoke shop. In a glass case laid out were new 600g galaxy blueberry mango nitrous tanks, I’d actually bought some a few months back called an infusion on Amazon and it tasted like shit (no cream like flavor) and I kept them around for a cheap thrill every now and again on days like my birthday and randomly on weekends. I took them to a festival once.
On this particular night, I was bored and grabbed the new flavor, my girlfriend was out of town and I went home to listen to music, watch key and peel and wah wah wah, whatever.
That evening, I proceeded to return to the smoke shop 4-5 times, it was close to home and for some reason felt harmlessly appealing. I knew no risks of vitamin B and thought okay, that got out of hand onward to tomorrow, back to normal….
Not the case. Over the next two weeks, I had bought out every smoke shop in town of these tanks, I was at a smoke shop at 10am every day and did two of these tanks per hour driving around all day for work. Some days I’d just lay on my ass and blow off my company and lie to my girlfriend about work engagements and my mood became terrible. Addiction started brewing.
02/08/2022 My girlfriend caught on to what I was doing and actually joined me in the fun for a couple days and just looked at my one night like “what the fuck” so I said I’d stop and apologized for even showing her. It felt wrong and I naturally wanted to stop.
02/09/2022 I lied about not being able to make it to dinner and my girlfriend showed up to my house, where I rarely stayed, I stuffed the tanks in the couch and faked some work on my laptop, said I’d meet her at the other apartment we primarily stayed at in an hour. She came back shortly after and the evidence of around 10 tanks on the table, we got into it, I apologized and we went home to the other apartment.
Later that night: I became hard of hearing and felt like ants were all over my body, my stomach swelled, my ankles tripled in size and felt like absolute hell and the function of my digestive system was frozen and I could not use the restroom. Something was wrong. I played it cool in and decided to leave and go home (to do more gas)
I went home and soon after my girlfriend called my family and the initial intervention occurred. She of course made it about her and that’s the day it clicked I needed out but whatever, that’s life.
2/10/2022 I had my best friend take me to the hospital, spilled the beans, they gave me a golytely for a cleanse and said my ct scans showed nothing and of course said “don’t do nitrous”
2/11/2022 - afternoon Went back to hospital as something was wrong, they said the same shit and sent me home with some magnesium citrate. Later that afternoon, I stood up on the couch and fell on my ass and couldn’t walk.
2/11/2022- Night visit I went to a different hospital, 28 year old guy, swollen head to toe, can’t walk and in pain, clearly entering the early phases of psychosis. I finally got a brilliant doctor, at a different hospital.
Almost 0 vitamin B in body Multiple large pulmonary embolisms in my lungs headed for the heart. Water retention from nerve damage head to toe. Everything appeared bright and I was clearly experiencing a mental health issue from the use. ANA positive (autoimmune markers)
Admission to hospital neurological floor.
I went nuts at the hospital and turned into the biggest asshole you’ve ever met. Disrespectful, not thankful, fighting every nurse and doctor to leave and go use.
2/14 missed Valentine’s Day. Not good
2/15 left hospital.
My life was saved that night. It wasn’t good enough as for the next two weeks I’d shoot myself up with vitamin b everyday and drag my ass to a smoke shop in a walker.
At this point February was closing in, I was using 10-15 tanks a day, lying, not working and having interventions once a week.
This behavior continued until March 18th and I finally went to a local detox center, not knowing anything about recovery I quickly AMA’D called them losers and left.
My relationship ended March 27th (I was walking with crutches at this time) My girlfriend never visited me at the hospital, tried to hide I was struggling. Encouraged me drinking on meds that combined with alcohol would kill me. Our relationship was toxic. I was in active addiction and she was terrible to me before and after this nitrous hell consumed me. It was for the best we ended. I was however in psychosis and absolutely a terror in the breakup. I regret my actions often for that.
In the next few days I wrecked a few cars, made a few scenes, probably did about 80 tanks of galaxy gas and waved the white flag for rehab.
04/01/22 I went to treatment in California for 10 days. Most expensive rehab in the country and no one knew shit about inhalants. I didn’t know shit about recovery and too conceited at the time to do any real research.
Beautiful place, I however left on 6 new fun medications, broke, psychologically misdiagnosed and obviously got drunk at the airport.
04/11/22 I’m home, back to 12-15 tanks a day. Debt piling up, trying to fake that I’m fine. Losing touch, cars wrecked uncontrollably using.
I was able to hide it well in some respects and I was counteracting the effects. This went well into May.
May comes around,
At this point I’m taking out loans to keep my business afloat, I had to trade all my vehicles in on a lease. The business is on thin ice. Layoffs are happening, projects are being delayed and or terminated. Headed for a cliff.
05/15/2022 I’m hitting a tank in the driveway of my house and floor my car and slam into a retaining wall. A true wake up call. I decided to call for help that day, learn about recovery in more detail and find a rehab in my state and get real help. I discovered the healthcare marketplace and got new insurance. I decided to go to treatment for 30 days on June 1st.
06/01/22 I went to rehab. Terrible place, terrible food, left on 11 medications and honestly It was a blurry time.
06/21/22 I was discharged due to the facility needing a bed and they said “I had this” I left not even knowing what aftercare was. My business partner disowned me at this point, gave up and filed bankruptcy.
06/22/22 Galaxy tanks up to 15 a day. Getting credit cards and just throwing them away. Time to trash credit and pawn shit for the next couple weeks. At this point I’m on my parents couch. My house was gutted from a renovation I had started and obviously unable to continue to work on it and barely making payments.
06/28/22 I found an iop and stayed sober for 5 months. I found CA and AA outside of a treatment facility and handed over my financials to someone who would only give me $20 a day and I stayed sober.
11/05/22 I started using again, I started another business and I lost control again and back to 15 tanks a day for a month and change. I held on by a thread during thanksgiving even sucking down the redi whip in the garage. My family would find me weekly relapsing in parking lots with the passenger seats of their cars filled to the brim with galaxy tanks and at this point the tanks were being made in 1200g size and I was using 15 of those a day.
11/28/22 I went to the hospital after using so much nitrous I was burning holes on the outside of stomach and froze my skin passing out. I was 1013’d the day after thanksgiving and taken off all the medications I was wrongly given and I proceeded to enter inpatient rehab at a better facility until Christmas Eve.
12/26/22 I started using the day after Christmas, I couldn’t help it. The holidays, the loneliness and the addiction was crippling. No matter what I did I used.
01/05/23 My birthday, I quit on my own, I found an iop and I quit for 4 months. In this time I’ve gotten to be successful again but miserable trying to find a long term solution.
04/14/23 I started smoking weed, avoided meetings and I relapsed on nitrous and was arrested within 3 minutes of relapsing. I bailed out of jail and proceeded to use for a few days.
04/18/23 - 05/02/23 I went to a relapse program at a rehab Id previously graduated and found a new mindset. I took a deep dive, I felt hopeful and I opened the big book instead of being a meeting attender only. I found a sponsor and I’m trying, Hard!
Here I am 49 days later. I relapsed about 4 days ago. My mental health is shit from all the use. I’m using using about 35,000 grams worth of tanks a day. The tanks now come in 4 sizes, every smoke shop sells them and is stocked to the brim.
Why is this legal? Don’t ever say this isn’t addicting. If you don’t think nitrous can harm you, you’re wrong. I’m grateful to be alive and I won’t give up on finding long term recovery. This shit sucks. This story is my life and addiction is a cunt.

I'm sorry this might be a long one but I would like some suggestions on how to proceed further in .y career
Tl/dr - a very late to college millennial is getting her degree but isn't sure if adding certs is a good idea. Also needs networking tips.
Okay so I'm a 35/f in So Cal. I've been in the corporate world for the last 15 years. I didn't go the college route but instead went through temp agencies and built up my experience from there and landed a few jobs as support staff, admin assistant and the like. Modt of my jobs before this was always small mom/pop shops. And yes full of the 'your family toxicity' that comes up with it. Two of them went bankrupt on me....fun times.
Back in 2020 prior to the shut down I had quit a very bad small business that I was working for (Vinyl Concepts). Horrible place, high-school mean girl vibes. Anyways I quit right before the shut down and I somehow got back to being a temp and finding a position in my current job as part of the HR staff.
It was my first time having a job with an HR and an official payroll. I loved it and they seemed to be good with me. I was hired in October 2020 and was moved to being the Admin Assistant to the warehouse manager. While being moved from HR to the warehouse, me and my manager are just not able to get on the same page. I've had write ups about my crochet sweater (HR said it was fine, boss disagreed....) and the more than usual level of micro management but also a hint of no management over view. It's a whole new level for me as she has to follow some of the protocols that our company has established. So it's been more of a slow burn between us, and while I will give her credit for being at least more professional than some of my other managers I cannot wait to move from under her control. (And yes I've applied for 2 transfers but both didn't work out for valid reasons. 1 wanted more programing skills and another went w/ a different candidate)
My industry (grocery) has a program that anyone after 3 months can join in on. It's the Retail Management Certificate Program and is offered industry wide. So I decided that I felt safe enough in my position and the company that I started the program fall semester 2022. Earlier this year I decided to go all out and while getting the RMCP, to also pursue my degree. As I am working with a community College I have went with getting my Business Management AA-T. Now I am not certain if I will transfer and pursue my BA but I figured it be better to proceed as if I am and get the units I need versus have to redo because I didn't get the required units while I could have. I am currently doing a full course load and got my counselor to agree to a 21 unit Fall Semester. My goal is to have my degree done by 2024 fall semester.
I know that this company has given me a chance to do something I hadn't been financially able to do before, go to school. So I am taking it and trying to pull forward as much as I can. I would like to take this as a way to become a manager myself. Now I don't mind switching industries, I am not tied to that. I just want a job that pays the bills and will allow a vacation to go camping. I'd add on benefits and a 401k would be very nice.
My questions on how to best continue career growth is these

1. I have thought about getting some other certificates that work within my degree once the RMCP is done. Cerritos offers a few business related ones like HR, Business Admin and International Business.

Is it worth it? Would my degree be enough? Would it look weird having them completed within a short amount of time?

1. I have thought about getting corporate level certificates. Like the IAAP (International Association of Adminsitrative Professionals) offers a certifcate that is supposed to help with career growth. Also the PMI (Project Management Institute) that also is supposed to help career growth.

Is it worth it? Would the possible networking be even more helpful to growing my career?

1. Suggestions for networking? Where and how best to do it at? Tips to avoid?

Thank you for reading!

Some have noted the similarities between the Empyrean Miquella and Dionysus/Bacchus.^[1] During the Hellenistic period, Dionysus was identified with Horus-the-Child (I’ll cover Harpocrates in another post eventually). The Cleanrot Knights share the same name with certain grapevines in the JP version of the game, “Noble Rot”.^[1] The bewitching branches that the young Empyrean used to compel affection seems very Dionysian indeed. The branches of the Haligtree also seem to have grapes growing on the vines. quirkus23 noted that the aforementioned image reminded him of this engraving of “Satyr Family”[F], by Sebald Beham.
The bewitching branches that paint the young Empyrean in a more sinister light seem to take inspiration from Bacchic wands, also known as the thyrsus. They are comprised of narthex (fennel rods) from the Giant Fennel plant found in the Mediterranean, and a cluster of ivy leaves adorned on top.^[2] This rod thus has the power and symbolic value of Dionysus. Bewitching branches in Elden Ring require both sacramental buds and Miquella’s lilies, both entwined into a spear shape, just as Dionysus calls one “an ivy spear” in the Greek tragedy The Baccahe by Euripides.
In this famous tragedy, considered one of the greatest ever written, the king of Thebes Pentheus (whose name means “man of sorrows”) has banned the worship of Dionysus, which prompts the god to visit the city to punish him^[2]. Dionysus in disguise prompts Pentheus to dress himself in Bacchic garbs, garlanded in ivy leaves crowning his head, to infiltrate a group of Bacchic maenads (cultists). Pentheus thus becomes a thyrsus visually, and becomes an even greater symbol of Dionysus as the tragedy progresses. The play makes explicit that “a thyrsus is something created from an ordinary narthex by attaching a cluster of ivy leaves to its tip; then it may be raised in the worship of the god, once it has again become a thyrsus.” A parallel is enforced between Pentheus, the thyrsus, and Dionysus (who is garlanded with snakes).
“He then asks for instruction in the use of the thyrsus, with the god approving of his ‘change of mentality’ (944, 947-48). ‘A creature filled with the Dionysiac sense of power…’” - Kalke
In the forest where the maenads (followers of Dionysus) are, Dionysus bends a fir tree downwards, and hoists Pentheus onto the tip of the tree, described as being “crowned” with Pentheus on top (who is under his Bacchic influence). He thus becomes a grand thyrsus in the climax of the play. Importantly, Dionysus can no longer be seen when Pentheus sits high on his perch, because he has manifested himself in that grand symbol of his power. Dionysus then instructs his maenads to have at him for his transgressions against the god. Pentheus at this point is only the crown adorning this massive thyrsus, no longer an individual. The maenads (his mother among them) then uproot the tree with their bare hands, symbolically raising it in worship of their god. Pentheus falls to the ground and his mind returns to reality as he sees his mother, still under the Bacchic frenzy, and begs for his life.
The maenads rip Pentheus to pieces with their bare hands. The scene as described in the Bacchae is shockingly gruesome and sickening. That scene alone is worth checking out from the Bacchae in my opinion. Agave (Pentheus’ mother) then sticks his head onto her own Thyrsus, Pentheus now crowning it (she does so believing he is a lion she has slain). In the end, he is transformed into a gruesome symbol of Dionysus and in the words of Seidensicker: “compares Pentheus to a sacrificial victim, who, ‘consecrated to the god by a rite of investiture,’ becomes a surrogate of the god.”^[2] Pentheus was truly, “a man of sorrows”.
There are strong parallels between Miquella and Pentheus here. Miquella had Bacchic wands of his own, and embedded himself in the greatest symbol of his power, the Haligtree, only to be torn away by his half-brother Mohg, an adherent of the Formless Mother, and became a gruesome surrogate of the goddess in the form of a womb, living up to his name like Pentheus in the end by becoming “one who is like god” (Miquella’s name seems to be “a variation of Miguella, itself a feminine version of Miguel, a name of Hebrew origin meaning ‘who is like God.’)^[3] in a bloody manner.
Some have argued the play is about an enlightened individual martyred to an evil religion, of reason versus the irrational, a criticism of the Olympian system. I’m no expert of Greek literature, but William Arrowsmith^[4] has argued convincingly in my opinon, that such interpretations are incomplete readings of Euripides and his Greek tragedies. Most importantly, he noted that Euripides invoked in the Bacchae most strongly the moral term that I believe permeates all of Elden Ring: “sophia”.
It roughly translates to “wisdom” but encompasses much more than that, especially in the Greek experience. “...they [moral terms like “sophia”] are exposed to static definition without regard to the transformations which tragedy may force upon them as the hero moves from a situation of conventional morality and reality to an ordeal for which the traditional wisdom of the Chorus may be utterly inadequate.”
Someone pointed out to me that Raya Lucaria sorcerer crowns resemble the busts of Greek philosophers, so the Burger King headpieces may be more than nods to these great thinkers.
For a good while, I’ve personally identified Marika with Sophia thematically, thanks to Solarbro and their post^[5] on Elden Ring and Gnosticism, the similarities for me didn’t stop there, and for reasons that would be best left to another post, I believe the world of Elden Ring is fundamentally Gnostic, or heavily inspired at least. I highly recommend watching Garrulous_Goldmask's excellent video^[6] if you’re skeptical.
In Gnosticism, Sophia, an emanation of eternal light, is analogous to the soul, and in some sects has a consort (Barbelo) who is her mirror image. In the Gnostic mythos, she is a fallen figure from her place as creator of the universe. The parallels are very strong in my opinion. Marika’s other self is Radagon, and the emanations that protrude from her would be the Elden Ring. There is much more to unravel here but my focus is on Miquella.
In the Greek experience, sophia means “a knowledge and acceptance of one's nature and therefore of one's place in the scheme of things. It presupposes, that is, self-knowledge, an acceptance of those necessities (fate and circumstances) that compose the limits of human fate. It also means the consequent refinement of feelings by which a man recognizes and respects the sufferings of others before necessity: it issues in compassion.” In contrast, its opposite amathia is “a deep, brutal, unteachable, ungovernable self-ignorance which breaks out in violence and cruelty."^[4]
Arrowsmith brilliantly describes necessity "that set of unalterable, irreducible, unmanageable facts which we call the human condition. Call it destiny, call it fate, call it the gods, it hardly matters. Necessity is, first of all, death; but it is also old age, sleep, the reversal of fortune and the dance of life; it is thereby the fact of suffering as well as pleasure, for if we must dance and sleep, we also suffer, age and die. It is also sex, the great figure of amoral Aphrodite who moves in the sea, land, and air and as an undeniable power in the bodies of men, compelling and destroying those who, like Hippolytus, refuse to accept her. Or it is Dionysus, the terrible ambiguous force of the Bacchae..."^[7] There is a dualism described here I find interesting in regards to Elden Ring.
Marika embodies “sophia” as an Empyrean who is host to nature and its laws in the form of the Elden Ring, a golden star guiding fate, enforcing one’s place in the world through Order. Her first consort Hoarah Loux is amathia incarnate, wildly violent, needing to be tamed by the beast regent Serosh. "If the sophos [wise man] is by definition susceptible to the feelings of civilized humanity, a compassion learned in fellow-suffering, the amathes is callous and merciless, a barbarian by nature.”
Sophia also groups traits such as skill, cunning, cleverness, know-how, and expedience (wisdom) under its umbrella. Below these traits but still encompassing sophia in the play are “the knowing animal cunning of the practiced hunter, the cool eye and feline skill of Dionysus stalking his intended victim."^[4] I believe some of these traits can be attributed to Mohg, who snatched away the young Empyrean at the opportune moment (most likely when Malenia warred with Radahn).
There is also to sophon, the “calculating, shrewd, even opportunistic, skill of the worldly and ambitious”, blinding its possessor to the good that comes from accepting the here and now, usually a confidence of the young according to Plato’s Republic.
Through the dynamic transformations of these terms during the course of the play, Euripides set out to show in The Bacchae the falsity of the sophias of the opposing Pentheus and Dionysus: “Pentheus' cleverness foundering terribly upon the force he refuses to accept; the sophia of the Dionysiac quest nakedly revealed as sheer animal cunning and brutality. We witness, in short, sophia becoming amathia. There, in amathia, the god and his victim meet."^[4]
Pentheus demonstrated his amathia as “the proud iconoclastic innovator, rebelling against tradition, outside of the community's ‘nomos’ (custom as law), and disdainful of any power above man.”^[4]
Miquella seems to mirror these traits as he showed his unparalleled talent in creating his needles of unalloyed gold, great ambition in his attempt to become a god of the next age, rejecting Golden Order Fundamentalism, and rejecting higher powers such as the Greater Will and the Outer Gods. Mohg in turn seems mad in establishing his bloody Dynasty, since Miquella does not stir in their shared bedchamber, the palace surrounded by bloody mire and wretched refugees squaloring in it.
He was a maverick who rejected the gods and sought an entirely different age, perhaps of Abundance with what’s left in the final game. Many of us already know of Miquella’s sinister side through his bewitching branches. The namesake of the sacramental buds used to create them could suggest use in a religious ritual. This is thematically significant to me, as perhaps Miquella unwittingly worshipped the Formless Mother as Pentheus did for Dionysus, participating in a grand ritual that ended in their demise. Mohg may have been drawn to the young Empyrean through the usage of his blood, with himself as a sacramental (religious ceremony or ritual) bud embedded in not a branch, but his tree, the greatest symbol of his power.
“Believed to originate long ago from a strain of buds cultivated with youthful, sacramental blood.” - Sacramental Bud
“A delicate water lily of unalloyed gold that has started to fade and wilt. A flower signifying faith in the Haligtree. Thought to be beloved by the Empyrean Miquella in his youth.” - Miquella’s Lily
Miquella → Sacramental Bud
Haligtree → Miquella’s Lily
The parallels between both stories may not of course, mean they mirror each other exactly. There are theories that Marika watered the nascent Erdtree with her own blood to grow it, and the Formless Mother never seemed to take any interest in her. Furthermore, the living jars seemingly gather up flesh and blood to fertilize the Minor Erdtrees throughout the Lands Between. The use of the word “sacrament” for the buds and Miquella’s blood could mainly refer to them as being sacred, not as part of a ritual (though the word to me seems an allusion to The Bacchae, and any ritual in regards to Miquella embedding himself in the Haligtree is more likely symbolic than literal).
In The Bacchae, “it is by playing upon Pentheus' vulnerability, his deep ignorance of his own nature, that the god is able to possess him, humiliate him and finally to destroy him”^[4] in a gradual usurpation, but I don’t believe this was quite the case for Miquella. There isn’t any evidence that the Formless Mother was influencing him all along when he used his blood. In terms of sophia, it seems it was his own hybris (hubris) of attempting godhood (or perhaps attempting to bewitch the world by embedding himself) on his own terms, and ignorance of his place in the grand scheme of things that led to his demise.
“If the stars command our fates, then amber-hued stars must command the fates of the gods. Such is the belief that inspired the use of these shards to prepare a most special draught.” - Amber Starlight
The Bacchae shows that “great powers...stalk the world, real with a terrible reality, the source of man's very condition...which determine his life. And if the feelings stirred by what is limited before the unlimited are religious, then man's attitude toward these “daimones” [personified spirits of the human condition] is religious, the veneration and awe the fated must feel before the great gods of existence: Death, Life, Sex, Grief. Joy. Sophia accepts because it is a wisdom of experience, based on awe learned of both joy and bitter suffering."^[4]
Though an Empyrean with unparalleled talent, called “the most fearsome” demigod by Malenia, Miquella, like Pentheus, was still yoked under the necessity (state of things or circumstances) enforcing his course (his being the Elden Ring). Seen broadly, for defying the gods, Miquella was reduced to a bloody symbol upon an altar. This doesn’t necessarily mean the Greater Will or Formless Mother consciously acted against him. It’s an interesting notion I feel, that the Outer Gods act with real awareness, but there isn't any real indication they do. The closest evidence of anything of the sort I feel are the Two and Three Fingers relaying the wills of the forces they serve, and tantalizingly, a female voice who can be heard communing with Mohg during his “Nihil!” (I can't find the video again on Twitter so I hope someone links it if possible). Nothing conclusive at all, so for now, it is safer to say that the gods are motive forces that act upon the world with real consequences, and that Miquella’s demise through his amathia was more circumstance than fatal flaw (Though it's possible Mohg became enamored with him due to his penchant for compelling affection I'll admit).
"the most conspicuous failure of both the traditional and the new critics in respect to Greek tragedy has been the failure to realize turbulence: turbulence of experience, turbulence of morality in the process of getting made, and the turbulence of ideas under dramatic test"^[7]
Euridepean plays are not as structured in the Aristotelian sense, such as where a man falls due to a “fatal flaw”, but to Williams, are more faithful to the human experience by displaying the turbulence of circumstance and fate that can befall a man at any time. To Euripides, there are often no heroes, only protagonists, where fate may deprive one of responsibility, or strike when it no longer matters. Necessity then, seems center to all of Greek tragedy, and before it in “anguish comes the discovery of community and love in weakness before necessity. Love is the hope which finally permits Heracles to endure a hideous necessity he never made, and from his discovery of love and helplessness flow acceptance and courage, the courage which asserts the human demand for order in a world which annuls all hope of a moral order".^[7] Heroism to Euripides is finding strength from the weakness one does not expect to face, first reduced by circumstance, then raised.
“If he [the hero] has a “hamartia” [fatal flaw], it is not sin or flaw but the ungovernable tragic ignorance of all men: we do not know who we are nor who fathered us but go, blinded by life and hope, toward a wisdom bitter as the gates of hell. The cost of action is suffering, and heroism is the anguished acceptance of our own identities and natures, forged in action and pain in a world we never made."^[7]
Sophia, amathia, necessity, turbulence. I find all of these moral terms and ideas very relevant to many of the characters and themes in Elden Ring. Did Martin and Fromsoft fashion the entire game after Euridipean and Greek ideas of tragedy and storytelling? I'm not sure. Sophia though, is one of the more important ones, even central in my opinion.
So now the young Empyrean lies in his bloody cocoon, and if he lives, then it is almost certainly in dreaming, though his slumber I feel, may not be a peaceful one. If Fromsoft continues Miquella’s story in the Euridipean fashion in the dlc, then it may be the Tarnished that helps raise him to heroism from his suffering, helping him gain his dignity and perhaps finally usher in a new age.
Sources:
[1]Miquellas Dream the Duality of Dionysus
[2]The Making of a Thyrsus: The Transformation of Pentheus in Euripides' Bacchae
[3]The names, terms and language of Elden Ring (etymology/nomenclature study)
[4]The Bacchae, translated by William Arrowsmith
[5]Elden Ring and Gnosticism
[6]The Frenzied Flame in Elden Ring is Based (on Gnostic Christianity)
[7]The Criticism of Greek Tragedy by William Arrowsmith