So I just read through the level in its entirety, I enjoyed it immensely. Given my propensity for pages about groups, this was right up me alley. I think you showed a good grasp of the various groups you used throughout the level, but I would like to talk about the main 3 you used the M.E.G., The Reverence, and The Masked Maidens.
The M.E.G.- The M.E.G. has long been a staple of the Backrooms, being the premier group on the wiki. Despite this, they have often felt underdeveloped and shoddily executed. Many have wanted to shy away from the M.E.G. having a "darker" side but I think this only leaves them in an even more uninteresting position . So I have to praise this article for showing the the M.E.G. is not all sunshine and rainbows, it is rife for corruption despite its noble aims. Without this side of the M.E.G. they are just a simple explorer group with little identity other than being "the good guys". Particularly, I enjoyed the depiction of the M.E.G. being corrupted by individuals from within, as the M.E.G. is unable to root out these bad seeds due to their interests in other areas. While I think depicting systemic injustice is much more accurate in most situations, it is also much more difficult to depict accurately, and so this individual approach is a adequate critique of the M.E.G. In future, I would like to see the systemic problems of the M.E.G., such as their need for progress to meet their ends, tackled.
Masked Maidens- Masked Maidens my beloved. The group that has made the M.E.G. interesting for so long in my opinion. They have been oft forgotten in the community and that has been a real shame. They act as the foil to the M.E.G., a group that wants to root out the corrupt elements of the M.E.G., to cut out the cancer that the M.E.G. cannot, through any means necessary. They are a "good" group with their own demons. They value independence, self expression, and genuine connections. They are a group that recognizes their shared trauma but does not let it control them, nor do they forget that trauma, instead, they wield that hurt like a weapon. pointing it at those that have done them and those around them harm. In this way, the masks are quite a succinct metaphor, being able to control you but being able to be wielded against corruption. While this article really did not get into the nitty gritty of the Maidens, it got their motives down pretty well.
The Reverence- A group that had been all but abandoned that I personally took an interest in. My current interpretation of the Reverence is a few things: A decentralized, reactionary, doomsday cult that wants to force the end. As I see it, this seems to be a pretty decent splinter cell for the group. While I have mostly conceptualized them as decentralized (for both philosophical and practical reasons), I have baked into the unreleased group page that they sometimes form groups to more effectively bring about the past. In this case, it seems that these folks were more inspired by the Reverence's message than adhering to it verbatim, but being in the approximate of their ideology.
