#congrats to Lucien for being super special so everyone wants him

[mareastrorum]

Tinfoil Hats for LitMoR

OKAY SO, here is a shitty conspiracy theory map for the connections between people in @grayintogreen's Life in the Margins of Redemption series on AO3.

Turns out Scrivener is useful for charts as well as drafting really long stories.

Here's a few excerpts to back this up:

Let's start with The Seven. They're the masterminds behind a lot of what's going on. The current members are Ashley Allard, Jayne Merriweather (both co-leaders), Gabriel Ferreira, Obann (idiot who doesn't know what's going on), Jourrael (geas), and Zerxus (geas).

Gabriel's reveal as a member included some background about the Seven:

His mother's line was a family of Tharizdun worshipers, much like the Merriweather family. Given that pattern, and that Yves Allard was also a worshiper, it's safe to assume the entire Allard family is as well, which explains Ashley's involvement.

But Ashley's the one running the plan about interfering with stuff, not Yves!

Presumably Ashley still plans to get the Laughing Hand, just not yet.

So that would be their Seven members. And they wanted to delay Cognouza's return! They did this by getting Lucien away from the Somnovem and interfering with the other Tombtakers gathering the crests.

Ashley is the one that ensured the MN would find a way to get Lucien away from the Somnovem because he put Twiggy and the Happy Fun Ball in their path.

Ashley's the one that intervened with Tyffial in Aeor, and (presumably) had Jayne (and maybe Obann) inflict a geas on Tyffial, Zoran, and Otis.

Jayne was personally invited to Yves Allard's party in OUADYA and knew Obann's plan for Yasha.

Oddly enough, Ashley wasn't at the party. He wasn't invited?! Some kind of falling out maybe. Ashley had a brother, so maybe there was some family strife that got resolved with murder so he could get the Blade of Broken Mirrors.

Ashley being the unfavorite Allard would explain SO MUCH about his need to lead and have everyone's attention.

But, anyway. At the same party, Jayne pissed off Molly to get him to go feral...

and kill Yves Allard...

and/or to get Molly to lose control and let the Somnovem take over? Or was that a test?

So the Seven know how to trigger Molly for sure. But to what end? When do they plan on making that shit permanent?

Gabriel also kept an eye on the Mighty Nein for Ashley while the group was in Darktow.

And Jayne checked in on the Somnovem after Lucien's rescue to ensure they were feeding off of the chains at the fane they had broken when they first escaped to the Astral Sea.

So the Seven are manipulating the Somnovem and the Nein, and they're waiting for some specific time to try to get Cognouza back. We just don't know when, nor why Molly would be useful as the Somnovem's puppet. Maybe they just want a body separate from Cognouza and the Nonagon's body has some specific use.

That's all we know about the Seven for now. They're behind everything and have some timeline they're working on.

Next is Shadycreek Run. There's a few loose ends there that need tying. First, when Lucien was 5, before the Dougals were killed, thugs showed up and offered 1,000 gold for Lucien.

Now, I thought it'd be the Jagentoths at first, BUT once the Dougals were murdered and the thugs took Lucien to the Jagentoths, Reese commented they could get 800 gold for him. They didn't have a buyer lined up!

So it couldn't be that the original buyer was from or went through the Jagentoths. It must have been that they heard about some buyer and decided to get some quick cash by taking Lucien by force, but they couldn't find whoever the original buyer was. So SOMEONE ELSE wanted Lucien as a kid and didn't get him.

Later, when Lucien, Cree, Tyffial, and Jurrell are caught by the Jagentoths, Ionos bragged that he found a rich buyer for him on the coast.

Which is where Yves Allard's estate was! We know Ashley is too young to have been plotting this scheme since Lucien was a kid (which would have been behind the 1000 gold offer), so it probably wasn't Ashley's plan. Thus, it might have been an older generation's plan. Yves? Probably not, since he was off having a party and being useless. Another Allard then!

And that brings up another thing: why would Jack Mardoon adopt Ophelia? C'mon, that was just too weird.

And it seems awful convenient that the Mardoons have a no kid policy. That means Lucien would have HAD to be left behind.

But Ophelia went through with it, leaving Lucien with the Dougals, and pretty much anyone else in the Run would have sold him in those instances above. It seems that plan fell through.

But the Allards were on the coast if that's actually true. So who was their contact in Shadycreek Run?

This brings us to Rowan.

At the Court of Nightmares party, Jester ran into a weirdo that stuck out just a bit too much!

Rowan is another name for the mountain ash, a tree that is native to Ireland and grows red berries that look like eyes. That's a little too convenient. Plus the Allards (Ashley and Yves) have names derived from trees! Ashley-> Ash and Yves is another word for the yew tree, which ALSO has red berries. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

So let's figure out where else we might have seen Rowan. Rowan's appearance was unique because of asymmetrical bangs...

and gold eyes.

Caduceus also had a vision of a gold figure with antlers (very fey) near where his family was turned to stone.

And both of those are similar to Solana, who was the quartermaster on Gabriel's ship.

And again, Gabriel was tracking the Nein for Ashley. Now, granted, Rowan was a half-elf, whoever was at the Menagerie had antlers, and Solana was an eladrin. But you know what other fey-related race often has metallic skin/features? CHANGELINGS.

/tinfoil hat

If so, Rowan could be anyone who has gold motifs. That is a LOT of people, admittedly. Fjord, Nott, Cree, Chance, and a few others have been described as having gold eyes. But maybe they need to be hazel. The only person seen up close enough to be sure was Rowan so far. Maybe we'll get a closer look at others.

And since there's a gap in Shadycreek Run, I bet Rowan (or IS THAT THEIR REAL NAME..?) was the contact in the Run for the Allards. Which means they would have been responsible for Jack adopting Ophelia. So Rowan has to be older and have some connection to the Allards, but probably NOT Yves since he wasn't doing anything.

SO Yves probably also had a sibling. MORE ALLARDS! But what happened to that one? Maybe the same thing that happened to Ashley's brother.

SO THAT'S MY CONSPIRACY THEORY FOR NOW.