#this lowkey sounds like it could be a really cool dnd campaign!

[oc-factoids]

so i have these ocs and theyre a group of magical boys,, their story revolves around them - humans - being the only ones able to save this fictional star-planet called Dream from ruin, since there are people trying to steal the power of Dream to destroy it and recreate the entire galaxy. the powers of Dream are these things called the Dream Chests, of which there are six, and they need a key to be open - problem: there are only five keys, the sixth one was hidden away by the Dream royal amily ages ago and not even the current Dream monarchs know where it is. the six Dream Chests are the Shining Chest, the Blazing Chest, the Shocking Chest, the Freezing Chest, the Blooming Chest and the Crystal Chest; each one of the chests has a specific type of elemental power (light, fire, lightning, etc) EXCEPT the Crystal Chest, which has unlimited power and is the one with a missing key. that's the one the bad guys want.

each of the chests - again, with the exception of the Crystal Chest - have an assigned planet and magical mascot, the Shining Chest being assigned to Dream itself. to obtain the key, the mascot that belongs to that chest has to give it to you - either because it trusts you or because you forced it.

so how does this relate to the group of magical boys? easy. a native of Dream steals away the Dream Chests to keep them safe and travels to the farthest away planet - Earth! while on Earth, the misfit group of friends that are gonna become the magical boys befriend the magical mascots and gain access to the keys and chests, along with the power they hold. so now it's their responsibility to stop the evil people from opening the Crystal Chest and destroying the galaxy!

Ok but this is actually so cool I'm 😍

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Troy’s Crystal Necklaces are IMPORTANT AND IDK HOW and other insane ramblings

No matter what happens from here on out, I think those crystals are important and I GOTTA know what they’re for! At the very least, they’re important to me. So cool... So glowy... *o* I want one...

So there are a couple possibilities for what they could be used for and my main guess is Stealing/Storing/Transferring Siren powers (Yes, I know, that’s probably Tyrene’s power, but, hey, humor me! I think it’d be an interesting twist to something we already know.)

Troy being able to steal siren powers and possibly keep them in the glowy crystals around his neck? Hell yeah! How? I have no fuckin’ clue!

Since his tattoos are red they could be derived from the crystals and, if this is the case, he is probably the one who stole Lilith’s tattoos during the trailer and possibly transfers them to Tyrene. (I’ll get more into this later as to why I don’t think he kept them) I lowkey kinda think they’re like raw seraph crystals or smth bc male siren goes against all the lore (maybe he’s like a seraph himself or some bullshit? yaknow, red vs blue... or he just used the crystals to steal a siren’s tattoos and put them on himself...) unless he’s actually trans which I'm afraid they wouldn’t have the balls to do. but oh mama if he is, that representation will be like nothing we’ve ever seen

Troy having gotten Siren powers from his sister Tyrene stealing them and giving them to him? I mean,,, yeah that’s probably what happened but GLOWY MAGIC CRYSTALS THE ERIDIANS DIDN’T LIKE BECAUSE SERAPHS COULD THEN STEAL THEIR POWERS AND USE THEM AGAINST THEM IN WAR (THAT IS [APPARENTLY] COMING)??? Now that’s some good reintegration shit mhmmmm. The Eridium buffeth and the Seraph taketh away.

Also, a siren being able to steal another siren’s powers seems kinda counterintuitive. Her power is useless unless she meets other sirens (THERE ARE 6 IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE - despite what the games want us to believe, that’s pretty fuckin’ rare!) and what is it even used for? All the other sirens we’ve met have very powerful, combat-oriented skills (even w/ Angel, while I’m still not sure what her power was exactly tbh. technological integration? (Phaseshift-ing of the bits???) that’s p powerful with Eridian tech I'm sure). If the Sirens were created by Eridians, they were probably made to be on the same side. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it make a lot more sense for something that didn’t want the Sirens around to have the power to steal theirs and redistribute them to their own forces?

Consider:

and

I mean, after all, “their return is to be feared” and Seraph crystals only started appearing after the opening of the second vault on Pandora (which could be triggering the return of the Seraphs... thus causing them to want to plunder vaults/kill Sirens? who knows lol). Also, the cultists leaving Pandora and heading to Promethea could very well be bringing back Seraph crystals. Shit, the guy you sell the crystals to in order to get some seriously powerful gear could have been shipping them off to Promethea. 

My only problem is they’re pink, not red, but it might be a product of activating them/”storing” the siren powers in them/some weird bullshit. I know raw eridium is a shade or two darker than processed Eridium, so it could possibly be some bullshit like “raw seraph crystals are redder while processed seraph crystals are pink” or something.

Actually, now that I think about it, the only way to get Seraph crystals is through Seraph Guardians. Disregarding the Dragons bc its a DnD Campaign, the Seraph Guardians are all hopped up on whatever the seraph crystals did to them. Maybe the crystals are drained of their power once we kill the Seraph Guardians and that is why they are that shade of pink. Maybe when they’re charged up they’re a more saturated red color. I mean, Hyperius is able to grow to the size of a skyscraper and Gee can absorb elemental damage so 👀

This is all a huge reach, but I’m having fun, so let’s continue.

Now there is this tidbit from the Battleborn Easter Egg: “VISIT PROMET[H]EA CHILDREN OF THE VAULT. WE ARE NOT ON PANDORA ANYMORE. TANNIS IS NOT WHAT SHE SEEMS. DO NOT OPEN THE VAULTS”. Ignoring the Tannis bit, I’m very curious why they don’t want the vaults open. Maybe it would bring about the return of the Eridians and they don’t want that? I mean... technically the Watcher is already back after opening only 2 vaults (Pandora1 and Elpis). Which is a whole nother thing that I could totally get into if the twins (either of them) are actually stealing people’s Siren powers lmao, be it with just the magic crystals or their own magic alien powers. The war the Watcher mentions could 100% be against the Calypso twins. I can’t help but wonder if it should be something bigger though lmao... sounded so ominous... 

Now of the theory that Tyrene is the one who can steal powers and gave Lilith’s to Troy: Totally possible. Boring, but possible. There is that screenshot of her holding a really glowing lookin’ orb (AND THE INSIDE IS GLOWING REDDISH: THE SAME COLOR AS TROY’S CRYSTALS OHHHHH-) which is probably someone’s Siren powers. My only way to dispute this is to say she also doesn’t have any facial tattoos like Lilith does, (Angel doesn’t have facial tattoos either) though Maya and Steele did have tattoos on their faces, and Troy totally does have a unique facial tattoo that wouldn’t match up with Lilith’s at all (I mention this because it could hint that she is the one to get the powers transferred onto her, not the other way around). Also, immediately after the scene with the image below, there is a shot of an area being absolutely BLITZED by fireballs and Lilith is usually associated with fire (Firehawk).

I do think this snapshot happens right after they steal Lilith's powers. Tyrene looks so smug like “oh, let’s see what this baby can DO”. So either she just got Lilith’s powers, or she’s about to shove her glowing ball into her brother and idk which is worse lol

Now, I mentioned before that Troy has facial tattoos, which don’t match up with Lilith’s tattoos at all. You would think transferring the powers would transfer over the same tattoos. But Alas, to disprove this part of the theory, Tyrene actually has a unique set of tattoos as well, as far as I can tell. 

Her tattoos. I can’t tell if Troy’s are similar or not because of her jacket, but you can catch a glimpse of them here! (At least, I think those are his tattoos. His arm is kinda a weird gray color...  🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔 Maybe the transference did an ouch of some kind)

AFAIK neither of these match Lilith’s.

Also, fun fact! Tyrene is the only Siren we’ve seen to not show off her chest tattoos. IDK if its a Siren thing or if they just want to show off their cleavage or what, but unlike the others, her clothes are not revealing whatsoever (in fact, she seals up her neck and stuff? Is weird). Troy, on the other hand, looks like he went on a shopping spree with Macklemore and V from DMC5. He’s also showing a fair bit of abdomen lol (Have you seen his ab tattoo that says Calypso? Neat). Interestingly enough, his red tattoos don’t seem to go down the left side of his abdomen like Siren tattoos do (easily seen on Lilith), nor his chest, and although they could be hidden by his jacket, I don’t think that’s the case. 

Also, I kinda wanna go on a tangent here and talk about his face? At first, I thought he had maybe gotten some Glasgow scars, but if you look up where his sideburns are, that is way too clean and almost mechanical to be scarring (plus, its super symmetrical, he has one right down the middle of his chin as well- which interestingly enough is not visible on his bust in the Mask of Mayhem... then again neither are Tyrene’s scars. Worship at its finest). My first thought after that was that he peeled someone’s face off and stapled it to his own 😅 I mean! He works with psychos, right? It’s not too far fetched? right? (tbh the placement of the metal bits (cheekbones, cheeks, one on his chin) gives me a huge Jack vibe, so maybe it's just his homage to the man, the myth, the legend)

Maybe the tattoos are fake/implanted technology in order to keep the cult in check and the crystals are there to keep them powered/working. Maybe he had to get a face stapled back on after whatever took his arm ripped his face off too. Who knowwwws. Maybe he had to have head implants for his arm to work (if its a prosthetic like Rhys’s, it could just be a huge exoskeleton arm) and being on Promethea (Pandora for a while before they left as per the easter egg I guess), they probably don’t have the greatest medical expertise, unlike Hyperion. Also, the crystals could totally just be a power source for his arm. That’d be super badass, just rip it off his neck and shove it into that ring looking area and power up. I’ll be honest, we’re throwing theories at the wall here to see what sticks!

But back on the topic of Power Stealing! For either one having the power of transferring (be it magic crystals or magic alien space superpowers), they could already have taken another siren’s power and are just adding onto it. Could be the reason Troy has 2 crystals (one for lilith, one for another siren), could be the reason both their tattoos are different from all the sirens we’ve seen so far. 

Personally, I like the theory that they stole the new little girl character’s siren powers and we’re going to help her and Maya get them back. Somewhere in the process, Lilith probably loses her powers to them. It would explain why he has two crystals instead of just one. Maya probably knows all this smart shit about who the twins are and what their cult is and has a plan but needs our help getting to the twins. 

I also just came up with this now, but I like the idea that the little girl is either actually working with the Calypso twins or being manipulated by them in order to get Maya and Lilith to show up on Promethea. Think about it. They need/want to collect Siren powers, right? What better way to do so than to jerk at the heartstrings of two super powerful sirens with a huge connection to their own powers by sending a little girl out who “got hers stolen by some big bad cult leaders”. In the Mask of Mayhem trailer, we see the little girl a few times. At one point, in the top right, right next to Troy and Tyrene, we see an unfamiliar smoll character who looks like this (below) and has the beginnings of what I think are growing wings at her back (meaning Siren) although her left arm is covered, which might mean she probably doesn’t have tattoos. Yet.

Maybe she was promised her own powers if she lured the two Sirens to the Calypso twins. I was going to use her earrings and gages to see if they were the same character but the girl below just so happened to be conveniently wearing a pair of headphones lol. Maybe its just coincidence. I do think their hair is different, the statue has a bun/ponytail, but that could be solved by her chopping it off with that huge knife or keeping it in a bun and keeping her hood up. Maybe the two characters are twins themselves and one joined the cult and the other wants to help her leave. Who knowwwwwsssss

I don’t trust her lies.

Also, one more thing, during the scene with Lilith on the floor, when they’re locking arms, Troy pulls away first, while Tyrene slowly retracts her hand like she’s unsure of what to do. Not the greatest of proofs indeed, but something to think about. Perhaps he’s just impatient to try out his new powers. Maybe he’s done this before and knows what he’s doing. She could just be annoyed and is giving him a death glare behind that fabulous collar. We may never know. There are plenty of ways to read into it.

Of course, Tyrene seems like to big boss type out of the whole thing anyway, so its more than likely she is the one that has the power to take and transfer Siren powers. She is the one in the Mask of Mayhem with the wings, and I find it interesting that they made it a point to have Troy’s left arm (the arm Sirens have their tattoos on!!) to be “under construction” during the video. It’s very likely the reason is because he gets his tattoos through his sister during the game. If that’s the case, well fuckin’ played Gearbox. Foreshadowing 100.

Shit, idk, maybe it's all just some weird shit that happens when your twin is a Siren. You get like... negative siren powers. it would explain his Shadow the Hedgehog color scheme smh. She stole all the blue pigment from him in the womb so he’s just red in the places her tattoos are lmao

Maybe his crystals are just Promethea’s version of Eridium, after all, the Vault key here seems to be producing a shitton of red light. be weird tho, since eridium didnt exist until we opened the vault so... maybe tannis just grabbed one of them siren-power-holding-crystals you just brought her after beating the shit out of an emo biker fuck and shoved in the vault key and prayed it would work while t-posing to assert dominance

who knowwwwwsss