Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20151213162620/@comment-24147441-20151223105904

XDex wrote: Why must so many people assume it's Neo? There's basically only one minute similarity in that an illusion was used. Everything else has no association with Neo... Why? Well because currently she's the only real suspect who is confirmed to be able to play mindgames. She would be the most obvious explanation. Every other suspect is looked at through a speculative lens, really.

The truth is that right now we just don't KNOW the full extent of Neo's abilities. We know that her illusions can physically shatter, but what if this is just another manifestation of her semblance? Look at Weiss -- she can use her glyphs to both distill time AND summon. Perhaps Neo's semblance is similar in that aspect (one semblace, but more than one ability/use). Perhaps her illusions are not just physical -- but also can be projected into an indvidual's mind? She WAS able to give Yang a small headache (of sorts) the first time they fought, just by staring at her. She is obviously able to remotely screw around with people's heads.

That being said, I'm now starting to think that there may be some kind of three-way (or at least two-way) mind manipulation going on. If it turned out that Neo's illusions WERE limited to being physical (which I highly doubt), then I'm willing to bet that perhaps Emerald has the semblance of turning into a doppleganger, Neo has her physical illusions, and Mercury can project illusions through touch. Cuz its possible that Merc's semblance could be based off of the actual properties of Mercury -- namely causing hallucinations (among other things) through touch.

That strange glowing that went on when Yang punched him, I'm starting to wonder whether or not that was him using the last of his aura to activate his semblance. People are suggesting that it was actually his aura being depleted, but I don't know. Throughout the entire tournament we have watched people's aura's being depleted -- and I don't think a single one of them started to glow?

But now that I think about it, if it was Mercury creating these illusions then it wouldn't explain Coco's situation, because when she saw the Yatsuhashi illusion, Merc was supposedly still near him...and if his semblance is only initiated like it was in the last episde...I mean, he did touch Coco, but there was no fancy glowing or sound effects, so I'm reticent to believe that it was his doing.

Anyway, he's sure as heck dedicated to Cinder, that's for sure. She must really be something special if he'd -- quite literally-- take a bullet for her.

TL;DR - I'll put money on either Neo or Mercury. But I'm still pretty confident that its the former.