#deoxytalks

First stop, WOW. The entire fact that Rover raised Aemeath after her parents died was SUCH a lore drop. I was crying during the whole second half. Like, the plushies???

Not only are they adorable but the way you go up and see youself reading to Aemeath before the actual reveal so you think "why does it look like I'm taking care of a young Aemeath?" ABSOLUTELY INSANE

Now then, for more of the theory crafting. During Rover and Luuk's exchange earlier (also crazy) it goes something like this:

(pause, what does he mean by 'live in each others pockets.' That's such a strange phrase. Like, money? Or the kinda thing in your pocket when you're happy to- okay. I'll stop)

This is the actually important frame. We entrusted him with a long-term assignment. And this directly relates to what he told us earlier which I tuned in on but others could've easily missed:

We asked him to come and stay at Lahai-Roi. To keep an eye on things here for us. And while we know Rover cares about helping people and protecting them so this could mean just watch over Lahai-Roi as a whole while we rove again, there is one thing we actually care about here. Something that still needed to be looked after.

Aemeath.

I think I was so caught up in the moment that I forgot to take a screenshot of Rover telling Aemeath that the academy would look over her while we were gone if she liked, but I know that was said. And that is because Luuk is there.

NOT TO MENTION HOW SURPRISED HE IS WHEN WE MENTION THAT WE FOUND HER

Could you imagine being tasked to look after a child that your friend cares about so much that you give up your previous life to move to this place just to watch over them? Can you imagine that child growing up, being happy and sucessful just like your friend wanted, everything going perfectly, until one day she just disappears? Your friend has been gone for years and now the one thing they entrusted in you is gone too. What is going to happen when they comes back? How do you tell them that you failed? You stayed here after they were both gone to keep looking for that child but you never found her again.

And when your friend finally does show up one day, they have no memory of you or the past. They're a freshman again after they were such a huge part of this academy. I think Luuk thinks similarly to Aemeath where he's hiding the past from us because he doesn't know what to say and thinks that if we don't know we won't get hurt. We forgot about him and that's okay, maybe that's even for the better to forget about him.

But now that we know? Now that Aemeath is back? What is left to hide from us now?

Also, I have to mention the waveline messages he sends:

They were so close to getting her back again, and now all that's left is a shell of herself. He failed again, he's a doctor and he can't treat this. He knows seeing Aemeath in this state will only cause Rover more pain and he can't do anything about it but try and comfort them. But he also knows that they'd want to see her again so he lets them know where she is.

The two tubes are metaphorical and were there to hint as his two sides, his past and present. Them being there only to allude to this idea would explain why we never see the purple one brought up again. However, if we assume that the gold is his current self and the purple is the past self that was involved with the Fractsidus, why not make it a red tube? Is that because it would look too much like blood (which it easily could be) and they would have to censor it? But with how much they love to cover him in blood, censorship doesn't seem to be an issue here. It could be because a red vial would stand out too much and the purple does blend better, but then it looses a lot of its ability to hint at something like this.

The tubes represent him and his brother. He is the golden tube for the Ichor and Rhein is the purple tube, which is close enough to represent the blue in his eyes. Similar to the above point, these tubes were placed as a hint to this.

Side note on his brother, I was looking him up and noticed that the WuWa wiki states him as still being alive. I guess it was never explicitly stated that he was dead, but considering the treatments didn't work on him and his body was wasted away and could barely leave his bed, I had assumed it was implied that he did eventually die.

The purple tube is another type of medicine. This one is a stretch because we know a lot about the Ichor, but why wouldn't a second medicine have been brought up yet? If he had to take it to control the pain and burning of the Ichor, surely it would be talked about at least once? It is also possible that instead of a medicine, it is more like a poison that he could pull out later to use on someone, but I also see this as pretty unlikely at this point.

Okay wait, could the tubes represent his connection to the Grand Architect? This one is the closest colour-wise if we consider their Kharon form, but aside from that we still don't know what they really look like. If it was hinting it this it would be a weak connection for us to try and understand.

This is now driving me crazy that we don't know what the purple tube is for. It could easily be that they were originally going to do more with the tubes and simply scrapped it from his design/kit (which is sad, I was looking forward to him using the tubes in some way now that I think back on it). I noticed that the strap connecting his bag to his coat doesn't have the loops in his first marketing image, but if they really did remove the tubes from him then why add slots to keep them on his final outfit? They could've easily kept the bag strap like how it is in the first image, but this change still hints back at them.

Luuk's intimacy is still only at level 2 for me, so maybe one of his stories mentions it later? But this also seems very unlikely because what point would there be mentioning this purple tube that no one else has thought twice about in one of his character stories?