*:･ﾟ✧

The eastern foot of the Pamir Plateau, Kashgar Prefecture, traditional clothing and daily wear of Tajik people in China. (cr 歌莱诠，刘星球，CCCCEE是个秀导，FoodWine 中文版)

Great stellar 10/10 Occam blacklaw is a gay icon we stan.

Now let’s talk about what this ep teaches us/ potential plot threads for later.

First off and something that I haven't seen anyone talk about yet, is that the showdown with Matilda and her pack probably won't happen in the Umbra*. Remember, in ch5.4 Kitten states that they believe the pack is operating out of Fritton/Waveny forest 

(timestamp is 21:56).

 Now like i said Kitten believes they are there, nothing is confirmed, but i would understand why the HTP team would place it there as from what brief glimpse of the umbra we got when Matilda snatched Marckus, having a whole group of people fighting 3 Garou in there would be incredibly difficult to animate without it being straight up impossible to tell what's happening, so i understand it being moved to the woods instead.

Second off, The Coalition sucks, but we already suspected that from Fatigue’s warning. But damn they are just nasty. Let’s review what they asked of the family (note i am condensing similar conditions down to one point to save time):

For them to surrender custody of one of their members*.(G-Kontoret [Marckus], Grandad’s foodstuffs [Boy])

For some or all of the family to join a larger organisation that limits their freedom. (the EAU, The Newburgh group, St.Leopoldites)

That the family gives up their information and several other points of data [image, land, identity, rights, etc]. (all of them except St.Leopoldites)

And for the family to convert to their religion with a binding contract. (St.Leopoldites)

Also lets not forget they are in leagues with Pentex via Grandad’s foodstuffs, AKA the Wyrm. And so is the 99P store. I swear it’s like every business and organisation is either owned by or working with Pentex, D really wasn’t kidding about the Wyrm being everywhere.

And speaking of the Wyrm, let’s talk about Door and Blair, and how he may have fucked everyone over on accident.

Now i’m not the first person to notice this, @generalshadowmc already made a great post about it, but to summarise their point: The mole in the Arcanum is probably HER, not some random ghoul, we know that she and Palmer work with the local Tremere and thus also probably work with the Camarillia. And Door knows she’s involved with the Wyrm from the incident at O'Tolleys, and calls her out on it.

(timestamp is 44:44)

And note how he spells it, WORM freak, not WYRM, because he doesn’t know what the Wyrm is, only that it’s bad news.

And now Blair knows that he knows, and she also now has his face, AND the faces of the family's allies through the coalition's monitoring of the chapter house.

Which means PENTEX now knows all this, and also consequently probably the regent. 

So yeah there's a pretty good chance that, best case scenario, Kevin and Chapman are going to have to bust ass to keep the Regent from sending a blood hunt after them, worst case scenario? Pentax decides to deal with them and sends Palmer, Blair and Ross to ‘clean up’ as it were, which is bad enough considering one of them seems to be a black spiral dancer [Ross] and another might be a mage [Palmer] (possibly of the technocratic or even nephandic variety) add the fact that they might also have an army of well equipped goons on top of that? Yeah shit’s fucked.

And finally, what does this all mean for our boy Marckus? 

You may have noticed me adding an asterisk (*) to the ends of some of my points earlier, this is is the part where i bring them back up, now if you’ve read my other posts on HTP you know i operate under the assumption that Marckus is an un-awakened Mage (or a mage who was in the process of awakening when his brother Anton was being taken by the fae but was interrupted by D). With the fight potentially happening in the woods instead of the Umbra, it removes a lot of the danger Marckus would be in should he awaken during the fight. While yes he would be much stronger in the Umbra due to consensus not really working there, his awakening would also act like a beacon to anything that might be nearby, including all the nasty stuff like powerful wyrm spirits and their cronies. Who are way beyond the power level of the hunters, think about it, Garou are to ones who go toe-to-toe with wyrm spirits and even they struggle, the hunters can barely survive one Garou, a Wyrm spirit would cook them.

And secondly, If Pentex finds out Marckus is a mage? They are double fucked because Pentex is partnered with the Technocracy (correction from my belief that they were owned by them, they are not and i was wrong) through the Syndicate, a branch of the Technocracy, Who would be very very interested in getting their hands on a fledgling or unawakened Mage who they could potentially ‘guide’ to their cause (AKA brainwash). So yeah things are not looking good for the family right now.

She's a theocratic fascist, working for one of the most evil organisations to ever exist (the Catholic Church) whose every belief repulses me.