op in light of coming across this in the midst of this ahavili feast, i wrote a whole ass (cut 🤟😔 yeah) essay on the “secret third thing” being sharing a connection so deep their very existences are intertwined,
i.e. eldritch sex / cosmic romance / esoteric marriage / philosophical convergence / metaphysical entanglement.
not even by definition / comprehension of any arbitrary distinctions of bonds, ships, pairs, foils—they just… compositely go together. Even canonically “go way back”…
two thrillseeking, troublemaking, novelty-driven, mortal-mingling Aeons can pioneer/conduct or imitate/convert other paths, and in different ways do they bridge the gap between the mortal and divine, and the people, planets, paths.
they’re concepts uniquely close to immediate experience / sentience and human will / life, while others might be more removed; they’re open to interpretation, whereas other paths may be more set in their ways; they’ve got a sort of exalted “observer” status and meta significance.
the Trailblaze asks what it means to establish a Path towards infinity; the Elation asks what it means to become an Aeon for an instant.
their sensations in the moment are “alive” like trailblazing Fire or laughing Air, that oppose an existential end to an essential drive (Finality) and an essential end to an existential prompt (Nihility), and challenge the “locked path” and “eerie silence” of the universe.
and they just fit together. They even reached each other’s conclusions: Aha reached the crux of the Tree only to find meaning in experience; Akivili pursued the end of the universe until they ran into a halt in destiny.
Akivili is the focal presence of purpose that Elation alone couldn’t find; Aha is the medium awareness of simulation that Trailblaze cannot succeed without.
Aha once traveled and bonded with Akivili as a Nameless on the Astral Express; "Akivili" now plays and dons Aha's mask as a Supplicant in the Phantasmoon Games. As Sparkle says, it truly “must be fate.”
there’s a side note here that, if Sparkle in 4.0 serves as a reflection of Aha in 4.x—especially with their “like Aeon like Fool” similarities in reacting to the lie of their life with “yo chat that’s kinda cool”; putting that old “wise man knows himself a fool” proverb to the test with Erudition shenanigans; and pushing a “Become Aha / Sparxie” campaign—then Aha, in the billions of faces they’ve worn across thousands of AEs, may have spent more time wearing one mask on the Express than they usually do for a role.
it was played off as a throwaway joke straight to the punchline, but that year they spent journeying together may mean more than it seems at first glance, especially when Aha’s nature / Elation’s power in particular is described as “fleeting and ever-changing,” and moreover when it is in their Primum Mobile / Paths not to settle or stagnate.
maybe “When straying paths converge once more, Fate’s quiet design has already been laid down” means more than it seems.
maybe Nihilux!Nanook meant something when they said “I just want to hear you laugh once more,”
maybe Nihilux!Aha meant something when they said “I just wanted them to *look* back at me, but they never did.”
all these terms mean something significant in the eyes of the Aeons.
though I’ve also seen theories compare Planarcardia’s duality motif to Schrödinger’s box or speculate multiple timelines, so converging paths may also refer to that disastrous “cause and effect” reunion Eva mentioned
Nihilux’s official Trailblazer serial is interrupted by one minute of “truly inspired” Aeon gossip; Evanescia too says to the 4th wall “observer” not to look at them, but rather either the Phantasmoon and the Astral Express, the faceless Fools and the Nameless pioneers, or Aha the Elation and Akivili the Trailblaze.
most likely the latter, though they’re all deeply entangled, especially with the reveal that the Trailblaze was “reborn” on Ahatopia alongside the suggestion that Aha resurrected Akivili through wounding Nanook.
“You're Akivili — you're alive and well, what an interesting opponent! Please play with me more, that's what I want...Grow up and defeat me!”
*this is after Herta’s accusatory comment that this disgrace is still pretending not having figured out Trailblazer isn’t Akivili, but what if they did actually figure it out and weren’t pretending, and “fake Akivili” was just an intimidation tactic?
“If I were Akivili, I'd have wanted to kill Aha. Pity I'm not an Aeon, and I can never figure out what THEY were thinking,”
*implies Akivili didn’t want to kill Aha, couldn’t, or otherwise reacted unexpectedly, but definitely that there’s more going on behind the scenes, especially with the possibility of a mortal Nanook being the culprit all along and Aha just took the fall, as part of this “totally Aha’s fault” campaign.
“We were still negotiating last time, but this time, Ena already became you. It's a shame, my friend! But I must say Ena makes you look even *better.*”
*Aha comments on Ena passing a “baton” to Xipe, right after they emphasize giving their “die” or “ball” to “Akivili” and submitting to their will/skill… which are good circus prop metaphors for the former’s authoritative domination and collective order, and the latter’s multi-faceted quality and inflated whimsy, but more importantly, all that is to say…
…did Aha want Elation to be subsumed into Trailblaze? Was Aha willing or even eager to end their Aeonhood to become one with Akivili? We joke about headcanoning the eldritch “third thing,” but crazy how it’s at least somewhat canon: It really doesn’t get more intimate than consummate merging into a unified theory when it comes to abstract embodiments / conceptual manifestations like Aeons.
anyhow i digress. It’s hard to put my finger on, but there’s this recurring theme that Elation sets the stage and guides the game Trailblaze plays—repeated hints that Aha resides backstage and works behind the scenes tampering with the simulation to ensure Trailblazer’s story a critical success, helping the unrealized protagonist revitalize Akivili’s path.
unbound, liminal, and omnipresent, much like The Fool itself, there were already signs of the Elation everywhere, even more so now—the instrumental role the Fools play in Jarilo-VI and Penacony, Phantylia fight background laugh, Amphoreus alt accounts, fake Nous speculation, 4th wall breaks / aether editing / imagenesis rebirth as Elation abilities. Trailblazer probably has Aha to thank for the spectacle of feeling like the protagonist.
the fact that SU!Aha (a) recognizes and is elated by the protag, and (b) realize they’re in a game right off the bat no matter what iteration, how many reboots or edits, implies they’re intrinsically programmed to entertain the simulation—that it’s the very essence of their being to receive.
now, did Aha break their Aeonic rule / Elation representation to mourn Akivili—are they sorta conceptually starcrossed? Or much like the age-old tale between a trickster god / self-aware character and a straight man / playable protagonist, are they actually sorta cosmic soulmates, divine counterparts, part of each other’s raison d’etre and primum mobile, two sides of the same game?
especially with Sunday’s interpretation of Yao Guang’s riddle—that Aha laughs, not because the god gets a schadenfreude rise out of a crying baby’s fall (though the reductiveness is funny), but because a real being has entered the empty theater, set to “grow up and defeat” them, alongside the eerie silence and locked paths—the mechanical stars / stubborn Aeons and nihilistic pursuits / absurd Paths—they dislike so much.
the nuances explored of the “shadow” of Elation this version—mourning, tragedy, sorrow, gloom, tears, grief, fear, pain, sense, gravity, original, ego death / self loss—I wonder what they will reveal of the Aeons’ relationship that even the special program joked as being “intimate.”
i think what i’m getting at with all this is that there’s a sense that Akivili is like the dimension of time to Aha’s dimensions of space (especially with all the rendering/headspace themes of Planarcadia), as the active and receptive components of human consciousness, as a reflection of “the universe experiencing itself.”
i think their Paths are epistemologically intertwined, and that they’re deeply linked at a fundamental level, if that counts for the “secret third thing” lmao, which is my favorite kinda relationship.
they quite literally parented the plot: “Yes, this is the legendary place where the Astral Express restarted its journey. May Akivili watch over us, just as Aha bestowed THEIR blessing upon this arcadia.”
idk man tl;dr: ahavili real, and all the crumbs we knew are so much more than they seemed at planar first glance and i am so here for the “ride” and “die” heh
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