#spitballing

throughout the night, his gaze keeps trailing down the contours of your waist. the cropped tank top you had on did nothing to hide the sheer, enticing fabric that peeks around your hips. it takes everything in him to fight back the urge to pin you down against the couch, breathe you in and let your scent burn down his system like a shot of the finest whiskey.

but that line couldn’t be crossed, it wasn’t allowed.

Inception was the start of the Fever Era and was filled with Lore. Like a stupidly crazy amount. We have the boy's in their dreams, dreaming within dreams, trapped? was it a warning of what is to come?

At the end of the World Era, they leave World Z (...supposedly) and then we get Not Okay, the only other MV that is connected directly to that specific lore of Ateez - a darker continuation of their dreams, though more like a twisted nightmare.

After Not Okay we have Golden Hour and the start of that Era, which a lot of us are thinking isn't real, an illusion. Could these be the real golden hours of our lives?

A small part of Not Okay shows the suble ways it tries to get Ateez (and us?) to wake up.

Yeosangs watch (and Seonghwa's all flash different words)

Money and Crazy here before flashing to this:

Notice how all this is Red and I recently said that red/sopro is the red pill, meant to wake them up

What if Golden Hour is just one of the layers to a dream/illusionscape that they are apart of? Maybe they have to 'wake up' a number of times.

They lyrics to Inception do say I'm dream in a dream every night Deja Vu has a similar line: It feels as if I just had a dream in a dream

I will leave you with this lyric (from Yeosang in Wake Up)

Locked in illusions, bound up by lies

And these images of Yeosang from Not Okay

I believe that Spamton played the Mantle game at some point leading him to recognize our actions if they happen to play out in Chapter 2 and act on them (giving us the ring), and maybe that's how he GOT the thorn ring.

...

The answer should be yes right? Uroro is in Ichi’s majik circle! Ichi can use Uroro’s powers even against his will!

But what’s Uroro’s name?

All the majik have a secret name. Every single majik. Even in the lettering box Inuzari isn’t called Raiko, it’s called Inuzari.

Yet Uroro is always called Uroro. By everyone in story and even by the letterers. Which has only happened for majiks we don’t know the true name of.

How does Desscara know this? Witches have been trying to acquire Uroro for a thousand years! If he’s ever been acquired at all, surely the records would have stated in big bold letters that it was done by a man?

All the characters say that Uroro is The Exception but what if he’s not? What if his trial has two stages? What if the lack of a stone, true name, chant, Ichi accidentally immediately equipping Uroro after their first fight, Uroro popping up in blob form, Uroro and Ichi striking a pact for possession when that seems unnecessary for every other witch are signs that Ichi hasn’t finished Uroro’s trial?

Origins of House Tachonis

This is just me putting two random things together. But.

During the fight with the spectres, Brennan was saying that Vaelus knows their nature. While they were rare before the gods died, there have always been souls who defied the gods and sought to find their way back to the waking world.

When Occtis is on the path, he sees a vision of a figure in the underworld beside his father, who is a Tachonis, or looks like a Tachonis, but isn’t one he knows. An ancestor, possibly his grandfather.

I suppose I’m just wondering how long the Tachonis have been defying the gods in pursuit of eternal unlife. And how happy they were when the orcs, in pursuit of freedom, kicked off the Shaper’s War and gave them one whopper of an opportunity.

Halovar vs Tachonis

Okay. Having now seen House Tachonis in action? Particularly Vaelus’ guiding bolt on Primus and his distinctly unhappy reaction?

A lot of Yanessa Halovar’s more batshit insane actions actually make a fair amount of sense? If you look at them with the thought that she’s trying to hard counter the Tachonis.

It’s clear from what she said that Yanessa doesn’t know what the Tachonis are up to, nor does she know where their power comes from or what they did to get it. But she is worried about them. Letting Thjazi die despite the damage it would do to her house’s reputation was done purely to keep the Tachonis happy until she knows which way is up as far as they’re concerned. They appear to be the single thing that most worries her.

And. While she doesn’t know what their goals are or where their powers come from, the way their powers present is likely obvious to anyone who’s spent two seconds in Primus Tachonis’ vicinity. She knows their powers deal in darkness and death.

In that context. The context of a house whose greatest threat is a bloodline built on darkness and death. Her decision to build her own house’s image and assets and bloodline around light suddenly takes on a whole new meaning.

Especially … House Halovar were servants of Tansul, the god of the sun. When he died, the Obridimian Empire, their place of origin, was plunged into darkness. And Yanessa lived through that. Darkness and death on a cataclysmic scale, following the death of the gods. Maybe she didn’t find and keep Aetheon with the Tachonis specifically in mind, at least initially, maybe there’s older darkness-related trauma there, but she found a being of raw celestial light, and immediately made it the foundation of her family’s power.

(… Which country do the Tachonis come from? Are they from what used to be the Obridimian Empire? Did a whole nation drowned in darkness give them a fantastic kick start and a whole new hunting ground?)

Even making a son from Aetheon’s blood … She can’t control Aetheon. He won’t ever fight for them. But Godard, her son, with his ray beam eyes and luminous wings, sure can. She wanted a weapon. A weapon of light. And a family with powers that can fight darkness.

Even the weirdest of her decisions. The Filament tattoos. It’s not tattooing her family in their tortured grandfather’s blood (or not just that), she’s tattooing her family in celestial light. Like. Is it genuinely a sort of twisted gesture of love? An attempt to protect them?

Genuinely. With the context of the Tachonis in action … Yanessa kind of makes a lot more sense.

(Oh. Sidenote sidenote. The humans made staves to kill the god of the sun. He was killed by human spellcasters. Um. Where are the Tachonis from?)

Thjazi Fang vs Tachonis

Thjazi stole the Stone of Nightsong, apparently the lynchpin artefact of the Tachonis’ plan, months ago. And then months later, the Tachonis are the primary force behind Thjazi’s execution. Which doesn’t necessarily mean Thjazi knew what he’d done, or understood who he’d pissed off or why.

But. Thjazi has also gathered at least one other artefact related to undeath and the Shaper’s War, the coffin of the halfling celestial psychopomp that he had Murray bring him. (And the mask it contained). And he did that after the whole thing went down with the stone.

He’s also keeping an eye on Bolaire, one of the weapons of the Shaper’s War. One of the things that once killed a god.

I’m getting the distinct feeling that Thjazi did stumble at least partway into the Tachonis’ plan, enough to start possibly trying to get certain things out of their reach. In which case I am extremely pissed off at him for not telling anyone. Like, you know. Thimble? Or anyone? If you find out about potentially apocalyptic plans, tell some people, you absolute dumbass.

Alternately, mind you. Alternately, he was working for the Tachonis, possibly without realising it, procuring artefacts for them, and only figured out that something was up when he did … something. Possibly withholding the stone from them? And only then realised that something was rotten in the state of Denmark.

Even still, though. That’s months. Tell someone, you dipshit!

Other Ominous Bits

Cormoray was at the museum looking at the collection of Pariah Blades. The god-killing weapons. Everybody’s real interested in Shaper’s War artefacts right now, huh?

Hal just bought the deed and is building his theatre on the sacrificial ground where his people were forced to worship their god, the first god mortals made war on. Possibly the first god killed? Which, um. If one were in Dol-Makjar to conduct a massive necromantic ritual involving artefacts of dead gods, that, um. That feels like it would be a very potent ritual site.

The paint. The paint Thjazi sent Hal, for the theatre, via Bolaire. The shadiest possible route he could send it on. The paint that Bolaire was not expecting. The paint that arrived after Thjazi died. Oh. Oh, I don’t like the paint suddenly.

Especially since Casimir had infiltrated them. Especially since it might not have been Thjazi who sent it. Oh, I definitely don’t like the paint, suddenly. Shadia is touching that. Shadia wants to paint pre-Shapers murals with it. Oh, that feels like it could go very badly.

How. How broken is the Tachonis plan by Occtis doing the opposite of what was intended? And, uh. Assuming that the Tachonis are fighting a war with dead gods in the underworld, how … how screwed are we if it is ruined?

Also. Someone is collecting weapons from the Shaper War. Lady Cormoray in the museum, looking for the Pariah Blades. Thjazi having collected one of Bolaire’s broken siblings, possibly to keep them out of Tachonis hands. I’m thinking we are fighting a war against dead gods in the underworld? That’s feeling increasingly likely. Which. Bolaire himself …? He might want to keep an eye scanned, maybe.

And. Question. How did Bolaire and his siblings kill the halfling goddess?

What I mean is, all the other weapons were weapons. Arrows and spell staves and swords. Yes, specially made so they can kill gods, but the how is still fairly obvious. Stabbity stab, or explody splode. Bolaire and his siblings were masks. How did they kill her? Because the only thing I’m thinking here is that Bolaire is apparently really rough on his hosts. That it kills to wear him, or be worn by him.

But if I’m thinking that, I’m thinking about the spectres fighting Vaelus, trying to drain her immortal life, and just not being able to. Like trying to drain the ocean through a kitchen tap. And Bolaire was made two days before he killed the goddess, so it doesn’t seem to have taken that long? So that’s maybe not the right track? But then how? What was the mechanism they used to kill her? The masks, the play, the trickery, possibly to get her to wear the masks, possibly all the masks in turn as the trickster goddess played out her many roles, but what was the mechanism of her death?

(Her celestials? Bolaire's broken sibling was in the coffin of a celestial. Which could have been Thjazi himself, a later addition, especially given the 'new thing made from old materials' nature of the coffin itself. But still. Did they turn her celestials against her via the masks?)

(But that still doesn't feel quite right. The masks themselves were the weapons).

Anyway.