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abigail-pent · 3 years

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TLT Theory Redux: Secret Doors and Heists

gather round the fire, children, for I have finished my third reread and I have theories to spin. they are interconnected. they will also take the form of "a listicle, kind of". This is not as tightly written/cited as I hoped it would be, many thanks to tumblr for eating the first version of this post.

THEORY #1: HARROW WAS RIGHT

About what? Probably lots of things, but specifically about the secret door. You remember Harrow's "secret door theory," right? On GTN p. 303, Harrow and Palamedes are having an argument about what is going on in Canaan House. Harrow makes fun of Palamedes' idea that there is such a thing as a Lyctoral megatheorem. Pal lightly mocks Harrow's "secret door" theory, about which she says:

"But all this is more than unsustainable, Sextus. The things they've shown us would be powerful -- would bespeak impossible depth of necromantic ability -- if they were replicable. These experiments all demand a continuous flow of thanergy. They've hidden that source somewhere in the facility, and that's the true prize."

The action picks up pretty quickly after this, and you just sort of forget about Harrow's theory since Pal's theory is so quickly proven correct. It's set up to make you think these theories are competing, but they're not. Harrow and Pal are both right.

Proposition 1: An entrance to the River -- or perhaps the part of the River on the other side of the stoma -- is hidden under Canaan House.

Evidence for Proposition 1:

1A) On GTN p. 191, Teacher says, about Silas siphoning Colum in the facility: "He cannot empty anybody here, lest they become a nest for something else!" This is highly reminiscent of HTN p. 98, when Mercy says: " A Lyctor's body, empty, with its battery intact but nobody in the driver's seat? Do you know what could take up residence? Anything could get inside you -- any horrible or evil or lonely thing, any miserable revenant, or worse." These two places are described very similarly; they may well be the same.

1B) I'm missing the citation, exactly, but I'm pretty sure it's textual that the first time the Lyctors + John ran from RBs, they ran by dropping into the River. Quite possibly from Canaan House itself.

1C) Teacher. We know he hates the water (GTN p. 325), we know he was created for the "sole purpose of safeguarding the place" (GTN p. 373). Of course, the whole place is surrounded by saltwater.

1D) When Ianthe and Cytherea are fighting and Canaan House is disintegrating, "brackish water from the fountain spattered across the floor and trickled into the cracks" (GTN p. 418). It's been well established already that 'brackish' is the word used to refer to River water. It's also the word used to describe the water that emits from Colum's mini stomae when he dies (GTN p. 393). Why is the fountain water brackish when other water in Canaan House -- for example, the pool -- is saltwater? Seems like a clue!

Proposition 2: Whatever is behind the secret door is the source of John's power.

Evidence for Proposition 2:

2A) During the big confrontation with John in HTN (p. 478-479), Augustine's suspicions echo Harrow's from GTN p. 303, when she's describing the secret door theory. He says:

"You've offered us explanations for everything over the years. But -- some of them didn't hold up on examination . . . It was the power I could never get my head around, you know? I follow power back to its source, John. It's the skill you asked me to perfect. And the longer I looked at yours, the less things added up."

Leaving aside for now the fascinating question of why John would ask Augustine to cultivate this skill, he goes on to ask:

"You're God, John. But -- as the Edenites are fond of pointing out -- you were once a man. So whither that transition? Where does your power come from? Even if the Resurrection had been the greatest thanergy bloom ever triggered, it would drain away over time. And then Mercy said to me -- in a moment of true Mercy vileness -- she said, What is God afraid of?"

Proposition 2.1: The source of John's power is not exactly Alecto, but is Alecto-adjacent. Alecto is from the space behind the secret door.

2.1A) Alecto is called a saltwater creature (HTN p. 328).

2.1B) The oldest parts of Canaan House are where the power emanates from (citation needed, but I’m sure it’s there). They are also the parts closest to the sea. As Teacher says (HTN p. 110): "The base of Canaan House dates back to before the Resurrection. We first built upward, to get away from the sea; then we built outward, to strive toward beauty."

2.1C) The Sleeper is identified with Alecto. Like Alecto, she carries a weapon, she sleeps in a coffin, she can’t be killed, and the River bubble crew is warned that the worst and most cataclysmic thing in the world would occur if she were ever to wake up (HTN p. 112, 185). Since the Sleeper is so clearly identified with Alecto, and is also identified as the presence that’s haunting the River bubble version of Canaan House, it suggests the connection between Alecto herself and the physical version of Canaan House.

Proposition 3: John has dammed the River underneath Canaan House by trapping the Earth Resurrection Beast there.

3A) Per HTN p. 43, we know there's one missing RB, since 9-5=4>3.

3B) Abigail thinks something is messed up in the River and it's dammed, and spirits cannot get across. On HTN p. 396-397, she says:

“A spirit can be trapped, trapped as every spirit in the River is trapped . . . I think there is a whole school of necromancy we cannot begin to touch until we acknowledge its existence – I think these centuries of pooh-poohing the idea that there is space beyond the River has stifled entire avenues of spirit magic, and I believe the Fifth House is waning entirely due to us reaching a stultified, complacent stage in our approach . . . Something has gone terribly wrong in the River, Harrow, and I wish you’d find out what.”

She’s describing a dam in the River that traps ghosts there. This is extremely consistent with what Teacher tells Harrow about what’s down in the facility (see 3E).

3C) On GTN p. 213, Cytherea suggests that "something has been lurking [in the Canaan House facility] forever", and when Harrow insists that "[A spirit] cannot sustain itself", Cytherea replies: "But what if one could?" We know that Resurrection Beasts are revenants, and a revenant is a type of spirit; and if any spirit was going to be self-sustaining, it would be an RB.

3D) HTN p. 172: "The card up the sleeve of the revenant, and the Resurrection Beast, is that it can inhabit anything it's got a connection to. Anything thanergetically connected with their death." So what killed Earth? Climate change, plus a massive nuclear fission chain reaction. Historically, early nuclear fission chain reaction tests took place underneath the ground (see, for example, the facility at the University of Chicago). So an underground or underwater facility could very well be thanergetically connected to the death of Earth.

An RB may very well be a continuous source of thanergy; and if this is the case, John may want to kill or neutralize the other RBs to keep other people from rivaling his power. Or better yet: harness the other RBs the same way Earth's RB was harnessed.

3E) On GTN p. 152, Teacher literally tells Harrow that the ten billion are haunting the facility. Harrow says she is “repeating exactly – to the word—what Teacher said to [her]”:

“Down there resides the sum of all necromantic transgression. The unperceivable howl of ten thousand million unfed ghosts who will hear each echoed footstep as defilement. They would not even be satisfied if they tore you apart. The space beyond that door is profoundly haunted in ways I cannot say, and by means you won’t understand; and you may die by violence, or you may simply lose your soul.”

For those of you following along at home: ten thousand million = 10,000 x 1,000,000 = 10,000,000,000 = 10 billion, or the exact number of people who died in the Resurrection. This is of course completely consistent with the Earth RB being down there, somewhere in or under the facility, because the revenant of a planet includes the spirits of every living thing on it when it was murdered.

Proposition 3.1: Alecto is one of the physical anchors for the Earth RB.

3.1A) HTN p. 454: “The only sure way to banish a revenant is to destroy the physical anchor it inhabits before it can escape the shell.” If John’s cavalier is the physical anchor for the Earth Resurrection Beast, which is the source of his power, then this would justify the characterization of Alecto as the “death of the Lord”: if she’s a physical anchor and she is destroyed, then so is the source of John’s power.

3.1B) She was the first Resurrection, and it’s plausible that she would be thanergetically connected to the death of Earth.

3.1C) HTN p. 495: Pyrrha notes that the stoma “must think [John] is a Resurrection Beast.” Which is a super interesting mistake for the stoma to make! But if John’s cavalier is a physical anchor for a RB, this mistake becomes more understandable.

Proposition 4: The other side of the stoma is not a trash space, and John actually can access it. He uses it as a battery for his necromancy. It’s a storage space for RBs, and now I guess for Lyctors too. (this is the most galaxy brain proposition, and evidence is slim)

4A) On HTN p. 340, John says: “It is a portal to the place I cannot touch -- somewhere I don't fully comprehend, where my power and my authority are utterly meaningless.” But this is the kind of shit John lies about on the reg, so take what he says and apply opposite day rules.

4B) if the other side of the stoma is related to the River Beyond, it would be to John’s advantage to keep the Fifth House scholarship from treating the River Beyond seriously (see 3B). If they don’t take it seriously as a branch of scholarship, they can’t learn anything about it, and they can’t let the RBs out from where John is keeping them.

4C) this could be why John condemns soul siphoning (GTN p. 340). If soul siphoning sends the cavalier’s soul to the other side of the stoma, and the power that floods into the empty body is from the other side of the stoma, then soul siphoning threatens John’s monopoly on use of power.

This brings me to Theory #2, born out of a delightful discussion with @mayasaura: the heist in ATN is not going to open the Tomb at all. Instead, it’s going to open the part of the River underneath Canaan House, and the goal is to free the Earth RB. After all, the Tomb has been open for seven years already.

Extant questions:

1) Mercy seemed so sure that the RBs were coming back and targeting Alecto in particular. But Alecto stayed in the Nine Houses, and didn’t get eaten by any RBs, and the Ninth House is still there. So why does Mercy think Alecto is a target, or makes the rest of them into targets? If she was lied to, what is the purpose of this lie?

2) Why does John want Augustine to hone the skill of following power back to its source?

3) If RBs eat Lyctors and both RBs and Lyctors are in the hammer space on the other side of the stoma, then, like… hey Augustine and Ulysses… are you guys ok??

#tlt meta #tlt spoilers #locked tomb spoilers #locked tomb meta #gideon the ninth #gideon the ninth spoilers #harrow the ninth #harrow the ninth spoilers

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redstaratmorning · 3 years

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Headcanons and Musings of Pirate-y And Plunderous Proportions: Astarion Says What

Synopsis: Random musings and ramblings regarding and spawning from the differences between how Astarion says just one word, depending on your choices—“What?” This got very long and touches not only on Astarion’s difference in presentation in aforementioned moment, but also some discussion-thoughts to chuck onto the dashboard regarding some other elements of Astarion’s content thus far in Early Access, and some thoughts to add onto others’ speculations and wonderings (I did not save sources so pardon the lack of proper citation, oops. We’re going informal here anyway.) Spoilers for Chapter 1 BG3 scenes, plot, etc, under the cut in case someone hasn’t filtered out the tags. Trigger warning/content warning: some discussion of heavy topics is mentioned and explored, including starvation, abuse/torture, and trauma. Other topics of note for summarization include speculation on Astarion’s largely unknown as-of-early-access background and a touch of his possible pre-vampire morality leanings, possible mental state/trauma reaction in a couple of scenes, and vague speculation on Larian’s gameplan for Astarion’s arc ending. Gather thy party and venture forward, for here be dragons and lots o’ text, matey! [/stereotypical pirate accent]

“What?” Just that one word, between the goblin party and the tiefling party. If Larian keeps the body language and tone presentation more or less where it’s at now in Early Access, they are worlds apart and delightfully up for interpretation of just what’s going on in our favorite vampire spawn’s head. This won’t be an in-depth post about all the tonal and body language differences, just picking out a few due to personal constraints (ie too broke to buy this game currently.) Edit: And also a lot of other thoughts and ramblings tacked on, lol. On the one hand we have him at the goblin party, where he seems much more superficially comfortable there, knows what’s going on and knows what to expect—it feels like he’s done this kind of scene a hundred times before. The comfort of familiarity. Did Cazador throw “parties”, much like how he “invited” Astarion to dine with him? I wouldn’t be surprised if he mingled at regular dinner parties either before his turning, or perhaps after when he’s ordered to hunt for Cazador’s evening repast. I doubt the goblin party has anything as potentially horrific as what Cazador would have lined up on the nightly basis, which is why Astarion isn’t aggro’d: he’s in a position of power at this party after all, not a powerless one. A conquering hero, as he describes the MC. A Precarious position, as it turns out.

Circling back to that one word though, the way he says “what” in that scene after he propositions the MC and the MC picks the “Maybe. If you say please” line feels like Astarion’s response could be interpreted as pretty abrupt. On guard, perhaps, squaring up, offended, even perhaps lowkey challenging/hostile. Expressing social displeasure and possibly staring down the MC mayhaps? Could be, especially if Astarion’s body language remains as it is rigged now in-scene with that step forward, his shoulders shifting, the lack of a smile, that assessing glare, all combined with that flat tone of voice. The animation could just be temporary and subject to change, but if it does end up as more or less the final version of that moment’s depiction, it’s pretty interesting as a shift. I’d read it as potentially “not actually truly comfortable in this situation, just familiar and numb to it all”, especially when combined with some of his other earlier potential lines at the goblin party, such as the following: Astarion: So, what are we drinking to? Other than a pile of corpses. MC: That’s not funny. Astarion: Oh don’t be so sour - It’s a party. You did what you had to. Don’t be ashamed that you did it well. MC: I wish things had turned out differently. Astarion: And I wish I was drinking out of the skulls of everyone who’s ever wronged me. Life is tough. Although that’s not to say we can’t have a little fun. This supports the whole “has been through his personal hell and has adapted to survive it albeit not unscathed” story Larian seems to be going for with him quite nicely in the little tells and details. A sort of “take what joy you can even amidst the dark situation surrounding us” trauma-induced adaptation, coupled together with actual enjoyment on his part for killing. It’d be easy to say Astarion is moreso in his element at the goblin party, and to a degree he is—it’s one he is well practiced with in his current mindset. Compare now how he acts at the tiefling party—we can all agree he’s not having a good time, our friendly neighborhood vampire sulking in particular over the fact that “there’s a worm in [his] brain, [he’s] surrounded by idiots, and all [he] has to drink is wine that tastes like vinegar.” But the delightful thing is he’s complaining so vividly about it. The wine likely is worse at the tiefling party, seeing as they’re refugees, and the goblins had previously captured a duke whom they likely stole loot from and under orders from Minthara et al stored said goods elsewhere for a later date (likely some of said goods were consumed at the party if it happened. Edit: Shadowheart’s drunk dialogue at the goblin party mentions the goblin’s wine there being good, poor dear. Fascinating hints at her story and character in that scene though.) This is assuming Astarion is drinking wine at the goblin party, of course. He may very well be drinking something red and full-bodied there, just not made from grapes. But even in his complaints and presentation, he seems arguably more relaxed and less on guard compared to his demeanor at the goblin party. Let’s be honest, he doesn’t view goblins as equals or stimulating company judging by his various voice lines expressing his disdain, distrust and overall low opinion of them as vermin among other things. The fact that he’s willing to call the tiefling refugees idiots while in earshot of them? Definitely doesn’t respect them as a group—though he has a less negatively opined line regarding them earlier on if the caged goblin (Sazza) is killed,—which is not surprising given that MC and company at the time of the party just saved them from certain death. Astarion’s reaction however also reads as potentially at ease enough to say what he’s thinking. He’s not going to get murdered for saying so, and there aren’t any punishing power games at play with the refugees and do-gooders he’s found himself surrounded by. There aren’t any hedonistic shenanigans going on and the drinks are terrible, so it’s not an entertaining party for him, but one could make an argument that Astarion might actually be feeling more secure or at least less threatened-as-is/was-his-accepted-ongoing-norm there. Which might mean he’s feeling quite out of place, or even just not...entirely engaged with what’s going on around him and even within him as far as emotional states go. Would he casually pull the same stunt at the goblin party? If you’re a bastard to him, yes, but that’s not in the same emotional vein as his dialogue during the tiefling party at all. Loyalty from the goblins is fickle, the goblins worship the Absolute and those that are chosen by the Absolute—so long as said Chosen remain powerful enough to subjugate them and is in favor. Astarion knows this kind of power structure well: ruling by fear and power. With the tieflings? It’s not superiors-and-subordinates, it’s just...people. People celebrating surviving an event that could’ve very well and most likely would’ve ended in their deaths. Will he get to celebrate like that one day? That could very well be a painful and bleak thing to consider, and not something he wants to contemplate as of yet, based on his dialogue lines that demonstrate his fear of Cazador. How’s he supposed to get lost in the fun and revelry if the wine doesn’t even taste good to him? I don’t know wines, but I’m guessing from what little I do know and what I’ve read of flavor descriptors for wines hyped as good, it might actually be bad wine based on the adjective “sharp” when mixed with the rest of the description if the MC takes a sip. Sharp seems to suggest too many tannins, or maybe improper storage so the wine actually did turn to taste a bit more like vinegar, or maybe not enough sugar in the grapes used, perhaps? To be fair, I do believe there’s a non-conversation line somewhere of Astarion’s regarding solid food tasting terrible to him, but I can’t verify that so a pinch of salt there. Still, if his taste buds are aligned with regular living mortal ones for wine at least, RIP Astarion, he’s stuck with a terrible drink for the foreseeable night. Unless, of course, you know. ;D Compared to the tieflings, the goblins as a whole? As a group they’re a scraped together army of pillagers hungry for destruction and spoils. They don’t have ANY loyalty to you—in addition to being willing to betray you via murder immediately despite working with them when Sazza first brings you back to meet Minthara, there’s also when Minthara potentially opts to try to kill you post-goblin-party. If you persuade her not to, Minthara does mention “do not return to the goblin camp, as far as they were concerned you were destined to die tonight.” This is not a group to get chummy with, obviously. Doesn’t say good things about the Absolute’s followers in general, either, or the Absolute depending on if Minthara’s being honest about the Absolute intending that the MC dies after razing the grove. Minthara could just be lying to serve her own ends and is out to destroy any rivals for the Absolute’s favor, after all, I can’t verify that from dialogue exploration at present. So it’s not surprising that this is not a group Astarion is going to let his guard down around I’m sure, or around an MC that sided with the goblins, because fortunes can shift like the wind in a scene like that, and I think his utter lack of surprise at Minthara trying to kill you all (whether or not the MC had a romp with her) is potentially spawned because he recognizes this fact. He’s been here before, in another time, another place, with different faces, but he’s seen this play before. And the MC is just another face for the same old role of a player in this rat race for power when they side with the goblins, aren’t they? The difference this time though is: will they succeed and make it to the top? Is Astarion betting on the winning horse, or not? Far less reason and far more motivation to not be emotionally invested in anyone or anything around him because it’s survival of the fittest, and the most ruthless will be the ones who win—the MC just reinforced that perspective for Astarion, in slaughtering the tieflings. But Astarion isn’t fully corrupted yet, despite however much Cazador has twisted and tormented him so. Isn’t it fascinating, that the MC, one of the first people Astarion can actually interact with relatively freely without Cazador’s puppeteering influence hanging over him quite so acutely, is someone who might very well and very likely will have a huge impact on how Astarion develops and sees the world? For better or for worse, the MC will shape all the companions’ futures and perspectives it seems, depending on their choices. On a meta note, isn’t that thrillingly fascinating and engaging work by Larian Studios? Bravo, honestly. Continuing, for Astarion this could very well just feel like a better but complimentary and thematically continuous segment of the nightmare that is his existence under Cazador as it goes on: he’s a vampire now, and the world is only ever a power struggle between the strong and the weak, and he knows better than to ever be weak again. Kindness and virtue belonged to Before. Before he died, before he turned, before he was taken. Those are things in stories and fairy tales now, that belong to other people, other places and times, other lives—things that belong to the living, not the undead. Sentimentality, more universally-accepted morality, all of those Good™-aligned or softer feelings can feel like they have no place in his world now, on this darker path. But he knows what they are, not just in theory I think, but also perhaps knowing from memory and experience, however distant and faint. The way he speaks on many occasions has subtext that could very well suggest he wasn’t without a better side through implication and emotion. Which is not to say I think he was a shining paragon of virtue before he died—guessing based off of the dev team’s writing of him so far, I’m expecting nuanced and complex but ultimately very human (or elf if you’re being fantasy-based technical) morality with both merits and flaws, for polarizing opinions in the fandom. That being said, I’m holding off judgment on what kind of person he was before he was turned for now despite reading about pre-early-access, preliminary ideas the dev team had for his background. The reason I’m waiting to see what the dev team puts into the game for his backstory of Before, is because some of his datamined lines could be taken in a couple of different ways, and some of his emotional responses as is currently don’t track as truly Machiavellian or I’d say malevolent in nature for manipulation or otherwise. Granted, not all Evil™ acts stem from intentions to be malevolent. Sometimes people do evil both in-game and in life without really intending to, or recognizing that they do, nor seeing the harm they have caused or will cause (I’m looking at you, Mayrina.) Manipulative yes, but so far it’s looked like it’s for defensive purposes in a world that is out to hurt or kill him if given any opportunity whatsoever. Personally I actually wouldn’t even say he’s been really manipulative at all, but your mileage may vary. He lies because he’s afraid you’re going to murder him for being a vampire, and because he doesn’t want to reveal the cause of two centuries’ worth of trauma to someone he just met and likely can’t predict if they’re emotionally safe for him to interact with. Note: “emotionally safe” does not necessarily denote being sympathetic here, so much as “will their response cause me pain in some fashion?” from Astarion’s point of view, which does not necessarily require the MC to be mean to him though obviously that wouldn’t help. We touch upon why sympathy can hurt later on in this essay. And why would he expect sympathy in the other instance, regarding revealing that he’s a vampire? How often would we not murder strange vampires we just met in DND-worlds? Is that not a common response and practice in Faerun for the most part? They’re on the list of acceptable prey for a monster hunter to be kidnapped and taken to who knows what fate (probably nothing good we’re sure), and who would come rescue them? In all actuality: No one. If he wasn’t a companion he’d easily just be one more random encounter to kill—as he and all the companions are in the right circumstances, *cough cough* like when sacrificing anyone to Boooal *cough.* Astarion’s had little cracked moments where he seems to be showing genuine vulnerability, and I’d say he likely displays real genuine emotion plenty of times, just not all the time. While the vulnerable moments could be a ploy, were he the type to actually be fully acting, I’m disinclined to bet that he’d act in the way he does during those moments if he planned them out or even improvised. It could be a mix of both, where it’s both true but also an act of manipulation. Were it the last option, that would require more exploration of his character in various situations to determine imo. I still doubt that though. I think he’s a little too raw and real in his pain, anger, and aggression to say he’s being malevolently manipulative at the end of the day, at least thus far in chapter one. The MC’s choices may change and influence that, on the Evil™ route. I’ve been following some of the fantastic dash discussions on Astarion’s reaction to when the MC tries to comfort him (because of course I have, I’m here for BG3 content and Astarion content especially, aren’t we all here for the same party in his tag? Also hello fellow Astarion stans! :D I hope everyone’s having a good day), and if some of these datamined lines from Pjenn’s blog post are actually implemented and kept as canonical [link], specifically the ones Astarion says regarding heroes, I do think it ties in very strongly with some of what other folks have said regarding his recoiling reaction. Copy-pasted the potential dialogue lines of interest below: Astarion: Heroes. |said with disgust| Astarion: Heroes had two centuries to save me from my torture, but not one came knocking. Astarion: The strong had two centuries to pluck me from torture, but no one came. No, it was the mind flayers that rescued me. Astarion: I spent centuries as the victim of a corrupt man. It was the mind flayers that plucked me away from that. I very much enjoyed all the takes on Astarion’s potential motivations in his response, and I do want to chuck another idea into the fray that supports the vein of ideas that have him being truly afraid and then angry at the MC in that scene, with the speculation including those possible hero lines above as influence. Specifically, I’d like to bring in an outside comparison to part of Molly Grue’s reaction to seeing the Unicorn from The Last Unicorn animated movie for the first time, transcribed below: The Unicorn: I’m here now. Molly: [Bitter laugh] Oh? And where were you twenty years ago? Ten years ago? Where were you when I was new? When I was one of those innocent, young maidens you always come to? How dare you. How DARE you come to me now, when I am this. [begins to cry, heartbroken] Consider Astarion being shown kindness when he is now away from Cazador, not fully free or safe yet but not currently actively fully suffering Cazador’s torment all up close and personal. Consider that only on that very night before he was snatched up by the mindflayers, which might’ve been anywhere from only a day to a handful of days before this conversation about his nightmare, he was going out to falsely smile and lure some innocent—(“No innocents. You have my word.”)—or perhaps not so innocent, beautiful soul back to Cazador’s mansion to very likely die or be turned. How often must he do so? Is it every night he is ordered to go out and condemn someone else to that unfortunate fate? Do you think Cazador killed them cleanly? Quickly? Why would he, instead of agonizingly grinding out any last traces of sympathy his spawn might have through the guilt that they are the ones who “choose” who suffers and likely dies at Cazador’s hands that night? To give the illusion of choice is one abuse/torture tactic that can be used to break a soul that we see often in games: choose who suffers or dies. Cazador is unquestionably a personality who enjoys the psychological aspect of tormenting his victims, as evidenced by giving Astarion the “choice” to be either flayed or to “dine” on a rotting, dead rat, as well as other mentions of how he puts thought into torturing those around him. Astarion is still so fresh from his torment,—torment that is still technically on-going with the very real threats of resuming once more—he is emotionally bleeding enough arterial blood at the seams to fill a sea. His actions, words, and emotions so often metaphorically smell of blood, and not because he’s a vampire and the traditional role of a vampire being a predator among humanoids ironically enough, but because being a vampire spawn means Cazador. And Cazador means horror. Astarion has survived, yes, and it’s been hell. He’s still in hell, because he isn’t free yet. Not truly. It’s a desperate gasp of air, this taste of freedom, to dream that he could be free of Cazador. Imagine his feelings when he’s now in something like freedom, a reminder of what could be, what his life might’ve and likely was like once upon a time, an uncertain here-and-now where he has the possibility—just a possibility, and an unlikely one at that for most ordinary or less-than-ordinary people, not a certainty—of being free, and he’s just admitted to the horror that is Cazador. Admitted in this moment how much Cazador frightens him, how much just the thought of Cazador frightens him, how much the possibility he might be sent back to his master and having his previous tormented existence resumed truly frightens him. And the MC reaches out in sympathy. In acknowledgement that what Astarion has been through is horrifying. To look at this horror and say it is pain, and terror, and awful, that it isn’t normal. It isn’t something to ignore. It isn’t something to pretend is just everyday same old, same old, to numb and take off the edge as much as one can. That Astarion’s pain and fear aren’t to be sought out for entertainment or at best to be willfully neglected in an act of malice. That stark moment of contrast, like night and day, could bring the pain of two hundred years crashing down inside his head, all compressed into one moment. Feelings he tried so hard to survive through, ignore perhaps, suppress: fear, helplessness, loneliness, misery, anger, sorrow, hatred, pain, anxiety, distress, need. Memories, of so many instances that hurt in that moment and then continued to hurt for so long afterwards. How much must it hurt him, wound him, to lift his head for air and have a perspective outside of his suffering that is sympathetic...but knowing that nobody came to save him. That perhaps, no one ever will, if he loses this so-called freedom and is dragged back under. That those that care, cannot help you. And that those that can help, do not care. Why would anyone help him at this point after all? He’s a vampire spawn. A classically defined monster in the eyes of society, and he knows it. (”I’m not some monster!” / ”At best, I was sure you’d say no. More likely you’d ram a stake through my ribs.”) He must have been truly desperate in his starvation to chance anyone finding out he’s a vampire in the party. Not surprising, he can’t rest at the end of the day like the other companions can. He has to expend extra energy at that point to find food discreetly after fighting all day, and subpar food at that. (”Animal blood tastes like muck.” verification needed, it’s a conversational line in some branch of the morning-after he asks to bite the MC the first time) He’s not eating breakfast, snacks or lunch during the day, and he isn’t guaranteed to find food while hunting in the woods. Game might be scarce, he can be wounded or exhausted after a long day of fighting, and he wasn’t starting out in the peak of health to begin with either. He is a vampire spawn yes and apparently can take down large game such as boars to drain them, but that is a rough existence to condemn anyone to mechanically speaking. He knows what he’s risking, regardless of his int stat. But he takes that risk anyway. The character who is so survival driven, risking a very high likelihood of expulsion at best or death as the much-more-likely worst outcome of this attempt? His bite isn’t painless, and pain can wake a person up readily enough if they aren’t a deep sleeper, and how deep a sleeper are most people when in an uncertain and unfamiliar wilderness, potentially while hungry and cold, with the fretting fear of a agonizing death looming over their head? Even accounting for a lack of mental clarity from hunger and exhaustion and other factors, I find it deeply unlikely that Astarion is unaware of how big a risk he’s taking with the odds are stacked against him, rogue class or not. And even if he’s just thrown out of the group? He’s alone. Vulnerable. A target to be hunted by a much bigger, meaner predator. One that won’t kill him quickly, we can guess. His odds are much lower, on his own. Specifically his odds of not being dragged back to Cazador...assuming the MC doesn’t just turn him over to Gandrel. How terrifying is it to imagine that your suffering will never end, to be told it will never end, and then you are reminded of what it is like to not suffer for a time. To have felt the painful hope that maybe there is a possibility that you could escape an existence of torment...but knowing you very well might not? It is desperately bleak. It is no great leap of the imagination to hear Astarion saying—(or more likely thinking because this would be terribly vulnerable...but he might say something when pushed because he’s so full of sharp edges and bleeding insides still)—something similar to Molly Grue’s line in his own fashion, is it? Astarion: “[Bitterly laughing, mockingly so. As he speaks his tone breaks, an edge of raw, desperate hysteria slipping through, attached to centuries of pain turned to anger] And where were you two hundred years ago? A hundred years ago? Where were you when I still desperately thought in the deepest parts of my heart that someone might come? When I still had hope? Astarion: [his voice turns low and venomous, raising in volume and accusation before finishing with a break on the final word “this”, a tonal admittance of how distraught and self-aware he is of what he’s had to do, of what he’s had to become to survive] How dare you. How DARE you say this to me now, when I am this.” (the above lines are entirely fictional and are not from any in-game, data-mined, or otherwise official source or content) He’s been made to do so many terrible things, even just based off of the few lines we have heard in early access he’s been through so much horror. An hour of torture, a day, a month is so incredibly long. It can have such lasting impact on a person—PTSD, as we know it in this day and age. A year? Five years, ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred? An elf he may be, but from a human perspective...he’s been tortured for lifetimes. Even as an elf, two hundred years is a long time. More than long enough to seriously alter how someone’s brain works—people are both amazingly resilient, but also so incredibly fragile. Cazador has had all this time to play with Astarion’s brain, honestly I find it impressive Astarion has any sense of self left after all this time. That he’s still driven to survive, that he still feels anything at all. (”It doesn’t look broken. But then again, none of us do.”) It doesn’t surprise me that he’s intensely bitter when encountering the “paladins” of Tyr—(ie Anders and company if you know who I mean—and was that a Dragon Age 2 reference? If not that is an amazing coincidence with the whole Anders-Justice-Vengeance-Demon thing there)—if the MC asks something to the tune of “Don’t you wish someone had helped you when you needed it?” Oh. Oh that had to be a painful question for him. Astarion had his basic needs denied and abused, to ask if he wished that someone had helped him when he needed that and more, and no one came? Why was he denied but the paladins get help? Why does he have to be the hero when no one came for him, when no one very well might come for him when he might still very well be in dire straits in the near future? I can see the possible desire to inspire sympathy intended in the question from the MC, but it can be so utterly without sympathy to ask that in some contexts, and in Astarion’s case it is. He was being abused and controlled without any way out—Anders and his cohorts opted into the deal with Zariel for personal reasons, not as far as I know under threat of imminent death, and they are relatively capable of fulfilling their end of the bargain barring their current injuries at the time. They certainly have more freedom of choice than Astarion and other vampire spawn ever did, and they were not being tortured right then and there. Warlocks, referring to Anders and co., might even have the option to get out of deals, a la Wyll’s personal questline hook thus far. Astarion can’t get out of his servitude from Cazador. Cazador holds all the cards, makes all the decisions, has all of the power. To compare Astarion’s situation to his face with that of the “paladins”? I’m surprised he wasn’t spitting fury, honestly. They still have normal elements to their day to day life, despite their devil’s deal. They are not being tormented on the daily—yet. They are not in hell—yet. They can get out. They have the possibility. A possibility Astarion didn’t—until now. And isn’t that the most fucked up thing, that it wasn’t a force of Good™ that saved him, but an even bigger monster than Cazador himself? He was saved—by mindflayers, intending some fate that was likely worse for him than before. Even when the Absolute’s hand begins to be revealed in all this, he is still a pawn among monstrous masters. What heroes there are in the world, won’t come for him. They never did before, and they didn’t now. Heroes are for other people, for realities aside from his own. They are for other people, living Other lives. Not his life. Forces of Good™ swooping in to save the day, to correct the wrongs of the world and to make things Right™ just isn’t his normal. Not anymore, if ever it was. His normal was warped by Cazador a long time ago. Is it a stretch of the imagination that if Cazador twisted “dinner” to be a choice between consuming a rotting, putrid rat corpse or being flayed on a nightly basis, turning “poetry” into the memory of a “sonnet” carved into Astarion’s back with a razor over the course of an entire night full of Astarion’s own pained screams? Is it hard to imagine that Cazador also took pleasure in turning other ordinary situations one might encounter in normal life into nightmare versions as well for Astarion and his other spawn? One illithid mind-power option shows Cazador controlling Astarion by holding his chin, though without any further context. Cazador wouldn’t have had to do more than that to invoke terror, after a certain point in time. It seems highly unlikely the gesture wasn’t followed up with more pain, though. Perhaps in that moment when he speaks of his nightmare in the first conversation and the MC reaches out to him in sympathy...Astarion was reminded of something. Multiple somethings, multiple moments, when Cazador reached out to him oh so casually, and it ended in pain and terror. The way the camera is framed as of the current time in early access, the way he flinches away crying “No!” so quiet and low, his eyes wide and staring just so, how he goes so far as to pull back almost entirely out of frame and the camera slowly pans to follow him? Perhaps that is just a stand-in scene, but as it is, even now, it emphasizes that he is I would argue genuinely afraid, and reflexively responding in what is likely his first opportunity to freely respond to his traumatically induced fear. The first opportunity where he wasn’t supernaturally compelled to do exactly as Cazador ordered him to, the first opportunity where he was likely not going to be tormented further for expressing his fear, for having his main tormentor laugh and delight in his distress. The first instance where he for a split second let his guard down, and didn’t expect to be hurt—until the MC reached for him, echoing possible memories of what happened last time someone (Cazador) did that. It’s not Cazador reaching for him. But...it is not Cazador. He doesn’t have to worry about Cazador hurting him right that second, but...will the MC hurt him, like Cazador did? Will they make it look like they’re going to help him, that he can trust them, and then betray him? (”How can you be so cruel?” / “It [Raphael playing games] reminds me of Cazador, taunting his slaves with hope when he knew the game was rigged.”) But they scared him. They scared him, and perhaps for a moment he was back there, in another time and place, where he knows, where he remembers, vividly, perhaps even recently, what normally would have happened to him. And how dare they make him feel that. (“I can do without reliving that particular night, thank you.” [Nightmare about Cazador dialogue, a separate scene if you miss the insight check from the first post-nightmare camp discussion I believe.]) He’s so raw and upset, both aggressive and defensive when he speaks about his nightmares in quite a few of his lines, asking and waiting to explain just why his nightmares are truly so terrifying, especially in the second-nightmare conversation. The way he speaks there, and in other scenes, makes me very disinclined to interpret him as actively intending evil in general so much as having been shaped to be ruthless through a centuries-long trial by fire that he isn’t free and clear of yet. Based off of how he reacts on more than one occasion, I’m personally inclined to take a leaf from Wyll’s book and say I do think he has more than just potential to be good. “Good™” being relative of course to his situation and undead-life—Astarion has GREAT potential as a character to explore not only what it means to be Evil™ aligned, but also what people on the meta perceive as evil, as well as what prejudices we may carry from that labeling. He is I think very much an excellent walking morality test and ironically a mirror for the player’s character. What kind of person is the MC, in how they treat and interact with him. He is a complicated and morally-entangled character, and it is so very easy to only read him in the here and now within the stark, daylight context of societal’s average norms without looking at the very real, very recent nightmarish Twilight Zone reality he’s lived in that echoes through his words and story thus far. It’s a marvelous bit of echoing reality and real life here by Larian, truth be told: how do you tell people about your life, when it’s been a ceaseless, unending nightmare? With smiles, witticisms, and the occasional polished lie that bleeds out pain, for some folks anyway, including Astarion. He says he’s having more fun at the goblin party, but at the tiefling party? That’s probably the first time he’s been at a normal party where he hasn’t had to obey and fear Cazador’s orders and inevitable torment during or afterwards. That’s the first time in his entire undead existence when he’s been in a social situation like this without being afraid, hurt, or manipulated. It’s not a fun party on its own by his standards, but it is a safe party for him. In a way though, safety can be boring. A luxury, yes, but in this case? For him, boring. And boring...might very well be irritating, in an anxiety-turned-irritation fashion, because he’s not being tormented right this very moment. He should be finding something to enjoy, because in his normal everyday routine? In the day to day that he would expect, that his subconscious expects out of habit? Opportunity for any form of enjoyment must be rare indeed, twisted and tainted by Cazador’s ever looming shadow over every minute of Astarion’s vampiric existence so far. It could be anxiety-inducing, to not seek pleasure or some form of happiness or comfort while there is opportunity for it, in what one perceives as a respite from constant, on-going suffering. (”Why do you insist on exhuming the past?” - when you ask about his past in camp, after you know he’s a vampire. An unpleasant reminder of an unpleasant past, why would he want to dwell on it? He has enough pain to last him multiple lifetimes. Literally.) From the deep, deep depths of prolonged suffering, it can potentially take a great deal more intensity of sensation to feel anything at all, let alone something approaching happiness. (”For the first time in two hundred years, I felt happy.” [presumed Astarion-origin line after drinking from a sleeping companion] / “I feel strong. I feel...happy!” [after MC succeeds in persuading Astarion to stop drinking from their neck after giving him permission to do so.]) This isn’t even taking into consideration how vampirism might have impacted Astarion’s psychology on a metabolic/biochemical level, so to speak. Where Larian goes with that is still to be determined, though my money’s on they give him more a murderous edge and natural inclination—not unlike a Beast-lite version of bloodlust from Vampire: The Masquerade— but still keep his core traits very much human rather than supernaturally-alien/2D-cut-out-monstrous. (Or elvhen, if we’re being fantasy-world-linguistically technical here again.) Touching on the matter of monstrous behavior though...It is a powerfully understated moment of casual cruelty that Larian allows the MC to decide once and once only, if Astarion may also drink from people or only animals. It’s so fitting I don’t believe it to be coincidence that he was a magistrate in his backstory—isn’t the MC passing a judgement too on him, a sentence to change his life for the foreseeable future, possibly forever without realizing or perhaps not caring about the full extent of their actions? And one cannot forget Wyll’s comment about the rat diet. Oh, can you not hear the resonating parallel real life pain from how those ignorant of another’s hurts might unintentionally mock the person and hurt them so? How some might apply their own morality from their own life experiences, without looking at the full extent of the consequences of their actions? A life and perspective that more likely has never been tested under the lash and upon the rack of some of life’s worst possible realities? Even if Wyll and the MC don’t mean to be, it is so very, very cruel. It is beautifully painful, Abdirak and the goddess Loviatar would be proud. (”My mind is finally clear. I feel strong. I feel...happy!”) To be denied not just better food, but the ability to think clearly, to feel well, the actuality of being happy as a norm? It is so very hollow an existence to feel so constantly weak of both body and mind, and oh isn’t it just the richest thing, that an MC might echo Cazador’s choice and power over Astarion thusly? It’s enough to make one laugh an Evil Laugh™ of appreciation at just how unthinkingly, horribly cruel a person can potentially be while playing a Good™ character. This is actually a level of genius on Larian’s part that I wonder how many in the audience will actually look at and appreciate the subtle horror of. The horror that we do this too, in real life, sometimes without ever knowing the seemingly small, far-reaching ripples of harm an unthinking phrase or comment can do when we don’t take another’s reality into consideration—that we don’t know what it is we don’t know. It is a fine piece of storytelling, to offer up a story with so many facets to reflect upon. It’s so beautifully crafted that Astarion speaks and dresses like a noble, that he can so easily be perceived as a person of privilege at first glance should one merely look at some of his surface behaviors and inclinations—remnant trappings of his distant past most likely, from once upon a time. It’s a delightful reveal and subversion that he, I think we can safely say, isn’t that. Perhaps he was, once, but he isn’t at this point in his life, not anymore. Appearances are deceiving, and doesn’t that just tie so nicely right into some of Astarion’s potential themes and behaviors? The lies that crack open as truth and pain come bleeding out from underneath? I do wonder how many of Larian’s audience have known hunger—and not known when the next meal will happen, what it might be, if it will have strings attached? The kind of hunger that follows you everywhere, that roots down into your bones and hollows out a home there forever more? It changes how a person sees things, how they act, how they think, even when they’re removed from being hungry all the time. One doesn’t need to be skin and bones to feel like one is starving constantly,—(I very much enjoy that headcanon just to clarify, I’m not intending to throw shade in any of this or future rambling)—to be kept on a hollow diet of empty calories that are enough to keep your heart pumping, but your body struggles because it doesn’t have the nutrients it needs in the amounts it needs? To feel your mind fog over with exhaustion and blanketed despair, a primal and low level desperation whittled down into a tired and numb, anxious background static from adrenal fatigue? Miscellaneous aches, pains and problems that seem unrelated but in reality, if only you knew, were because your body can’t function the way it should ideally, because you don’t have what you truly need? A very real problem in real life, for far too many people. And oh, the beautiful, casual, so very human monstrousness Larian lets us exercise here, knowing or unknowing. It is such a powerful, understated cluster of ideas. And I think Larian knew—someone on the dev team did their homework on both traditional starvation but also what one might call masked-starvation as no doubt other tumblr folks have also speculated, just based off of what we’ve seen and because of that Happy buff Astarion gets when he uses his Vampiric Bite ability in combat. It fits right into his whole theme of “what makes a monster and what makes a man?” (Sing the bells of Notre Dame~♪) But not necessarily asking that question only of him. Rather, asking it also of the MC. This fits into the game’s whole theme with the tadpoles, the choice of using the power and turning into “Something More Beautiful” as Minthara put it, of taking the darker path, it all fits so very well. I just want to applaud this because it’s not a major story-beat moment. It’s a companion-side-quest moment. It’s going to be for the most part seen as a combat-game-mechanic and head-canon defining moment, deciding if Astarion may feed on people or not. I doubt we’d see Larian actually changing Astarion’s demeanor much in how he delivers lines with a “allowed to drink people blood” code flag, as cool as that might be. It very well could factor into later outcomes but for voice acting I doubt they’ll make an entire second/third/etc set of each line spawning from that one seemingly small choice. It makes me very hopeful that Larian can handle such weighty themes so deftly thus far—we’ll have to wait and see if they can stick the landing once the game is finished, but boy oh boy their nuance and delivery so far is strong as steel and sharp as a double-edged sword right out of the gate. The studio is in a fantastic position to explore and to challenge people’s thoughts and ideas regarding character builds like Astarion’s imo, depending on how the dev team chooses to play it out. Seeing some of Gale and Shadowheart’s dialogue trees from the goblin party, I have high hopes that the dev team will allow a great deal of exploration and flexibility all across the moral spectrums, not only allowing us the option to drag the more seen-as-good-aligned characters down paths of moral corruption,—(note: I’m including Shadowheart in more neutral-ish territory for now but the fact that she seems to feel emotionally ill—guilty, one could say—at the goblin party and is busy trying to get drunk to drown that feeling out suggests to me she Definitely does have a more good-aligned moral compass to a nuanced degree)—but also the chance to drag more seen-as-evil-aligned characters along the path to more traditionally good endings and persuade them to see the benefits of playing nice with others per more classic Good™ societal rules (subjectively speaking ofc.) But Larian is also in a very precarious place too—speaking strictly of just the one character as the focus of this essay, Astarion resonates very easily through that very real fear, pain, anger, bitterness and so many other emotions as a result of what he has survived, is still surviving through, and struggling against: trauma. How bitter indeed would it be should a character—that people with very deep, real pain can relate to—not get at least the option for a well-crafted, hopeful and merciful epilogue? Oh the sympathetic pain that Larian could reap could be pain of the very worst kind, if they condemn him to only death and darkness with bleak endings that lack nuance and care. I’ve seen some posts where people worry about Astarion not potentially having a good ending, with possible unspoken implications that he might be railroaded into betraying the MC. I’d like to say that I think a lot of his subtext, even looking at the instances where he lies and the datamined details of the voice-acting-directions, would run counter to railroading him to only ever betraying the MC. I think straight betrayal is going to run as mostly antithetical to his core themes in a way. He might betray your MC—but it will likely be because the MC betrayed him first in a myriad of small ways, or in a big way. Approval-rating-system based choices are a very real possibility too, separately or as a part of the equation naturally, in addition to your major in-game choices. That would also include the scenario of betrayal through using the tadpole powers enough to be mind-controlled into having no will of his own, much like the other characters, including the MC. I do think we have plenty of good, solid reason to be very hopeful that he will have a possible good continuation—not ending. A continuation where he manages to free himself from Cazador with the help of his companions or perhaps dare he even say friends, manages to begin the process of healing the immediate pains of his trauma and learning how to truly live with all that he’s been through and all that he’s done, to have the possibility of not only living but living both happily and well for the most part? Who knows what else Larian Studios might have in the works for him and the other companions, as well as the MC and the story of Baldur’s Gate 3. But good outcomes for all seems like it very likely could happen, for all of the companions. His wiki page’s summary tagline hook in particular offers up that implied promise from the developers to the audience, I would say, “Astarion prowled the night as a vampire spawn for centuries, serving a sadistic master until he was snatched away. Now he can walk in the light, but can he leave his wicked past behind?” What that promise is, varies from creator to creator. In this case, based on the wording, I would say that potentially implies a satisfyingly well-crafted and engaging story wherein we find out and determine if the answer to that question is yes or no, and in a DND-based RPG full of choices that have an impact on the people and world around you? In a game genre that has a history of multiple, varied endings for your companions based on how you play? That checks out. Larian so far has been handling things admirably well in my opinion, and I’m willing to invest emotionally in this story they’re telling with the trust that they will deliver a good continuation and conclusion. But on the off-chance that somehow Astarion’s endings all turn out painful and tragic on the meta for the fanbase, that the associated intentional or unintentional messages wound and grieve those who recognize and resonate most strongly with the pains he has felt? On that off-chance, in that instance where we are left bereft and disappointed because of what happened to him or any of the companions or the story itself should somehow things go awry, then it would be your right to ask Larian the very same question Astarion asked you once: How can you be so cruel?

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #spoilers #bg3 spoilers #Astarion #character study #long post #very long post #eXtreme rambling ahoy #speculation #congrats if you can read this all #totally understandable if it's too much text tho #it's long enough and rambly enough that it wandered away from the limits I intended #because I have FEELINGS about this gremlin vampire man #cackles madly #maybe the vampire will stop haunting my brain for a bit now #I have other things to do #aside from writing long contemplation pieces #prepare the angst-grapple-hooks crewmates #why yes I'm going to make silly jokes about pirates and sailing and the like #no I do not have any depth to my knowledge base about such things #I just like their hats man #arr #also not looking to make anyone feel bad or invalidate their hcs or opinions #just want good vibes for all #and more cakes for all #metaphorically speaking #the cake is not a lie tho #well #metaphorically it's not a lie

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foolgobi65 · 4 years

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yeh rishtaa kya kehlataa hain

@allegoriesinmediasres asked for: Rama/Sita, travel!AU, friends to lovers, “you confuse me”

as usual, this is completely unedited and thus is probably chock full of grammar errors, bad characterization, and terrible pacing. but! it was fun to write on my end so as always if u want me to rewrite it I’d be glad to lmaoo. it’s super super super cheesy at the end...like the whole third bit is just super cliche but w/e i love cliche romance its all good lol. anyways, i hope you like it at least a little!! thank you so much for the prompt <3 <3 <3

if you’d like to send me an au prompt from this list, please do!!

(title is from a lovely ar rahman song from the movie meenaxi, and also apparently a hindi soap, meaning “what is this relationship called?” )

---

It’s been two weeks since the Raghuvanshi Group put out a notice that nearly brought the Indian manufacturing industry to its knees: Ramachandra, eldest son of Dasaratha Raghuvanshi and anointed heir since his very first breath, has been stripped of his VP positions within the company, his stock options, even his entrance card. The gossip blogs report that Ramachandra has lost access to the family accounts and family property, have posted pictures of the young man once posed to be the next titan of Indian Industry at a local branch of the Bank of India, handing over what is rumoured to be his great-grandfather’s watch as a starting sum so that he can get his own personal account.

Bharata, three years Rama’s junior, is still in the United States working on his MBA: he has not yet been told of his brother’s effective exile from the family, nor of his own subsequent ascension to the position of CEO-in-waiting. Twins Lakshmana and Shatrugana, five years younger, are in London having just begun their undergraduate degrees. It was interesting, people used to say, that of the brothers it was only Rama who stayed in India. Rama who attended every company party and toured factories, solemnly noting down worker complaints on the weekends he could spare from his studies, in all respects the near exact opposite of his father whose four children are the sons of three women.

Four days after the company announced its decision, Ramachandra disappeared from the public eye. It takes ten days, but Janaki eventually tracks down enough public and private conjecture to find him in a housing colony nearly an hour long ride from Ayodhya, the Raghuvanshi family home in the center of the city. The door opens, and Janaki greets the man who can only be Sumantra, Dasaratha’s long-loyal driver who had apparently left the same day as it’s once shining son.

“Hello!” she says, palms folded and motorcycle helmets dangling by their straps from her wrists, “I’m a friend of Ram. Is he at home?”

The door closes almost entirely. “Why would sir be found here,” Janaki hears from the gap, as Sumantra hooks the metal chain that would prevent her from barging in even if she was strong enough to shove aside a man nearly 50 pounds heavier than herself. “He is a very rich man’s son, and I am only a driver.”

Janaki frowns. “No one is ever ‘only’ anything Sumantra-ji, we all do some type of work in order to live, and not one of these jobs is better or worse than another.”

From behind the door, she hears the sharp exhalation that could almost be a snort from someone more given to expressing his own feelings. Janaki was right, then, Ramachandra Raghuvanshi who grew up on one of the most expensive properties in India has sought refuge in a home he could have bought on a moment’s whim only two weeks before. The chain rattles, and the door opens wide.

“Janaki Videha,” Rama says, and suddenly it is four years ago and Janaki is again a student politician stuck in a hospital bed after a bad encounter with the police, flipping through notes meticulously taken by a classmate who insists on anonymity but could only possibly be the lanky, nearly silent boy that everyone knows will one day be one of the richest men in India.

Normally, a person seeing an old acquaintance after a few years would speak their name, then utter some platitude about how long it has been since they last met and invite them inside to catch up. Rama, who is only capable of erudition in front of men his father wants him to impress, conveys the implication that all of these social niceties have been uttered without saying anything but her name. Janaki smiles, takes off her shoes, and walks in.

---

“What are you even doing here?”

Janaki raises an eyebrow, pouring a little more soap into the bucket they were offered to use for clothes washing. It has been a month since Janaki found Rama and told him that she was going on a trip, and that she needed male company to keep her safe. A month since she handed him one of her motorcycle helmets, helped him pack his single spare change of clothes and toothbrush, and directed him to sit behind her and hold on tight so that they might make it to another friend’s village by evening and have a place to spend the night. Together, they have followed the western coastline, trading off who drives when Janaki realizes that not only does Rama have a deft hand at the wheel, but in the proper circumstances can coax thrills out of her old bike that she hadn’t even thought possible.

“What do you mean,” she asks, grabbing his kurta top from the pile of clothes he has slowly gathered from the families he has inadvertently charmed over their travels. He’s standing off to the side, hanging their host family’s saris to dry in order of color, taking the pains to smooth each piece of fabric and making sure none of them touch. In exchange for doing the family’s laundry today, Janaki and Rama are allowed to do their own, an exchange of goods and services that has served them well so far.

“We both know what I mean,” she hears in response. “You’ve just been elected President of the University Student Union, your father is up for election this year, and even if neither of those things were important enough you must have research you should be doing instead of traveling the coastline with the penniless, disgraced son of an industrialist.” His voice is as matter of fact as it always seems to be with him, but Janaki feels an undercurrent of self-hatred at the core of his little speech. Still, she thinks with a faint flush, it’s nice to know that he has kept up with her just as closely as she had him -- though of course it was much easier to find information about Ramachandra Raghuvanshi, always in the papers at exact, two week intervals so as to prevent the creation of scandals to amuse the public with during a news drought.

“I’d call your father a capitalist if I was really embarrassed to be seen with you,” she says back, “and there is more to be ashamed of in becoming rich through exploitation than in being poor through no fault of your own.”

Janaki hands over his kurta, and watches him wring it out one more time with hands stronger than her own. He smiles slightly. “The revolution never stops, does it?”

“No,” she smiles in return. “Not with me, and not, I think, with you either.”

Rama looks away, walking back to the rope to hang up his shirt. “What do you know about me that makes you so confident?” He pursues his lips briefly. “We weren’t even friends, and still you’re here with me.”

Why are you here, Janaki hears go unspoken, why haven’t you abandoned me as well?

When Janaki arrived on campus all starry eyed at 17, she had taken the student body by storm. Blessed with a vibrant personality and the natural pull of a gravity well, she brought people into her orbit effortlessly, rising up the university party ranks within months rather than years of her peers. Academically, she was registered as an economics student, a category the papers said she shared with the Raghuvanshi heir who had created quite the stir when he took his place at an Indian University instead of going abroad. She had been doing quite well, she thought, until the exhaustion after her first collection drive in support of a local workers’ strike fund had caught up to her and she had slept through a full day’s worth of classes. Just when Janaki had been about to call up an acquaintance in their batch she thought might lend her notes, a folder had been slipped underneath her dorm door. Inside, a set of meticulous notes, and a 2 lakh check.

“Isn’t the factory a subsidiary of the Raghuvanshi group?” Janaki’s roommate asked, turning over the check as Janaki flipped through the notes. Thank you for your work, they said at the top. Please let me know if the workers need more.

“Yes,” she had said, “but we can’t tell anyone about this.” For four years she had kept his secret, waiting for his packages whenever she was detained, or ill, or beaten up and could not attend the day’s lectures. More than just a copy of the class outline, Rama’s notes were full of asides, connections, slips of paper clipped with outside citations when he saw something that could be countered, or expanded on. When the party canvassed for funds, her notes would arrive with another check, no demands made in exchange except a humble request to let him know if they ever needed more.

Janaki looks at Rama now, hair growing long to match his new beard. Ramachandra Raghuvanshi had always been clean shaven, hair short and neat and slightly parted to the side in a way every girl instinctively knew must have been how his mother told him would suit. Her eyes soften.

“You used to take notes for me,” she says, “Why?”

His lips turn down just slightly. “It helped me study, to transcribe them again.”

Janaki raises an eyebrow. She remembers that the notes had always focused especially on areas she was known to be weak in, but she lets his half-truth slide. She has a better arrow in her quiver.

“And the money?”

His eyes are trained to the ground. “It wasn’t my money.” Well, certainly the last six weeks have made that much clear. But Janaki did not remember Rama spending exorbitantly in school: his largest expenses seemed to be the checks he sent her.

“We weren’t friends,” Janaki agrees, “But I knew that you were a good man,” Janaki says, “even if you’ve had to hide it from your family your whole life.” She snorts. “And if we weren’t friends then, we certainly are now -- look, I’m washing your underwear right now, and if that isn’t friendship I don’t know what is!”

The joke isn’t really that funny, but suddenly Rama bursts into laughter, loud and deep in a way Janaki doesn’t think she’d ever heard from him in class, on campus, even in the videos posted by the gossip rags online.

“I’ve never had a friend before,” he finally says, and Janaki tries not to show her surprise or the way that makes her hurt on his behalf. “But I would be grateful to be yours.”

Another two months pass, Janaki and Rama journeying up and down and around the west coast. Slowly, Rama starts to gravitate towards the work that he seems suited to do in trade for the day’s food and shelter, and Janaki watches as he seems to blossom in front of her eyes. Every place they drive into, Janaki begins to ask around and invariably there is a person who, more than needing wood split or clothes washed, is in need of a good scribe to write, in English, the details of their grievance against someone with more power than them. Rama listens, and writes, and accompanies men and women to go see a lawyer, or their landlords, and stands behind them speaking in that perfect colonial era British Indian accent he says he picked up at boarding school, making even Janaki squirm when she hears it.

Janaki’s ideology does not allow for her to venerate colonial markers of class, so that squirm must be one of discomfort, rather than, well, --

It has been three months since Janaki and Rama set out on their travels, and time is running out for Janaki who really does have things she has to get back to: a student union to run, a doctorate to work towards, a father’s election campaign to help out with. But everytime Janaki thinks about waking up one morning without seeing him when she turns her head, the pit in her stomach grows larger and more snarled. She doesn’t know how it happened but somehow Rama has gone from acquaintance, to friend, to....to something Janaki can’t even describe beyond simply laying claim to the person at her side. He has become “her” Rama, even though she knows you can’t own a person -- yet Janaki is greedy, and when she watches the small smiles that their trip has coaxed out of his mouth, watches him bargain with their host so that she can eat her favorite vegetable at dinner, watches him finally fall asleep after talking to her for hours into the night and finally look like the youth he is, Janaki knows that she can’t bear to leave.

“Are you angry,” she asks one day, passing him the newspaper cone of roasted peanuts they’ve been trading between themselves while they sit on the sand of an empty beach. There is no need to clarify what he possibly could be angry about.

“No,” he says, taking the cone. “I obey my father’s will.”

From anyone else, Janaki would laugh, but she knows that he speaks the truth as he sees it. The Raghuvanshis raised the perfect scion, a boy right out of those terrible 90s Hindi films who saw their parents as God and venerated at the altar of increased profits. Yet, they chose to throw him like yesterday’s trash -- but no matter, because their loss is Janaki’s gain, and she knows him, knows what makes him happy and sad, and glad and mad.

She knows, for one, that he is angry and that he needs to acknowledge it before she can ask him to come back with her and start over.

“Yes,” she says, “you obeyed quite beautifully. That doesn’t mean you aren’t upset.”

“Don’t -- I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work.”

She turns to look at him, jaw already clenched where usually it would take five times as long to get him to this state. He’s furious. Janaki’s heart aches in sympathy, longing to gather him up in her arms and tell him that it’s alright to be upset, that it would even be right to feel so, to kiss away the furrow in his beautiful brow and brush his curls behind his ear. But that would only make him close up, so instead --

“Don’t what?” she asks.

His entire body tightens, like a screw wound one turn too much. “I’m not upset,” he hisses, eyes flashing. “I’m fine!” Janaki brushes her hand over the one of his currently crushing the newspaper cone. As if burned, he lets go.

Sita sighs. “We don’t have to talk about it, but you’re clearly angry and it really isn’t healthy to keep it all in. There’s no one here at the beach, so I think you should just scream it out and try to move on with your life.” She’s not being entirely truthful, since she really does think he should talk about his family’s sudden and entire abandonment after years of encouraging near insane amounts of familial loyalty and emotional repression, but even this journey started out with a single step.

“You think I should... scream,” Rama says, eyebrow raised in perfect, aristocratic, condescension. Janaki nods.

“Just go out into the surf, scream at the top of your lungs for 20 seconds, and then we can leave no questions asked. I promise.”

“You won’t bring this up again,” he asks as if to confirm the terms of a business deal. Perhaps that’s what this is to him, finally back on familiar territory. Janaki shrugs, ignoring how her heart sinks to think of him seeing her care as nothing more than something to trade in order to keep away.

“For now.” At his frown, she shrugs again, allowing herself to smile a little. “If it looks like you’re struggling in the future, I’m definitely going to ask again.”

For a moment, Rama’s eyes widen in ...shock? Surprise? Was he not expecting for them to remain in each other’s lives? Janaki can’t allow herself to think too hard or long on the subject, especially since Rama has, without a word, risen and walked over to the surf.

He glances once over his shoulder, and Janaki waves in encouragement. He begins to scream.

20 seconds pass, and Janaki really does think he will stop and walk back, brushing off any questions and wandering back into the village they’ve decided to stay in this week. But then 30 pass, then a minute, and suddenly Rama is just screaming, knees falling into the waves and hands coming up to clutch and pull at his hair and Janaki is running as fast as she ever has to crash next to him in the wet sand. She shifts sideways, putting her body perpendicular to his so that her back is not to the waves but she can still look at his face -- he’s still screaming, doesn’t seem to have noticed her body next to his, tears streaming down his face. Janaki’s hands flail, but finally she realizes that she can only rely on the instincts that have led her the past few months to find him, to drag him on the back of her bike, to tell him to scream.

Janaki pulls Rama into her chest, her arms around him as she begins to weep along with him. Every time she tries to grasp the scale of the injustice done to him, she finds that her mind is too small. He was raised with every luxury, but with a conditional love that demanded a machine instead of a man. He’s stopped screaming, but has replaced it with gut wrenching sobs, hoarse from when his throat seems to have finally given out -- Janaki wonders when he last wept.

She loves him, she realizes, pressing an absent kiss into his hair. That’s what this feeling must be.

“You what?”

Oh, Janaki thinks, did I say that aloud?

“Ah,” she hears, “yes you did.” Rama raises his head, both of them still kneeling in the surf, tear tracks glistening down the cheeks he had just shaved at the request of an older lady who offered to house them if only he would look respectable. “Do you mean it?”

Janaki swallows, the pit in her stomach as large as it ever has been. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be -- she was supposed to convince him to come back with her, and then later talk about how she wants to kiss him silly.

“You want me to come back with you?” Oh for--

“Yes,” she says, confident that nothing she thinks now will remain within the privacy of her mind. “I want you to come back with me, and study to become a lawyer, and live with me as we try to make the world a better place.”

Rama’s eyes are wide, and Janaki wonders if she’s ever seen him look so fragile. He sputters.

“Fragile? I don’t look frag--”

Janaki laughs, bringing her hand up to cradle his cheek, right thumb brushing gently against his cheekbone. “Alright?”

Rama swallows, blinking his assent as if he suddenly can’t speak. A minute passes where the only sound is of the ocean waves crashing gently in front of them, water periodically flooding them up to their hips.

Rama clears his throat. “Do...” he takes a breath, “do you really think I could?”

“What,” Janaki asks, “become a lawyer?”

He nods. “Everything. I...” he looks away, and Janaki feels the beginning of euphoria. In his eyes there is fear, but not dread -- he wants what she wants, wants it bad. “My entire life I was trained to bring honor to our family name, to do that by making money and keeping my family members happy. I don’t--” Janaki’s thumb moves from his cheekbone to his lips, before he can say something idiotic like ‘I don’t know how to keep you happy.’ Rama laughs, eyes glistening with hopefully something other than tears.

“But I don’t know! Your needs are so different from the people I grew up with!”

Janaki leans forward until her forehead rests against his and their lips nearly touch. “I love you as you are,” she says, “the things I want, you’ve already given me.”

She can feel his brow crinkle, pressed as it is against hers. “I don’t own anything to give you!”

Janaki laughs: only the hideously rich could think so.

“I’m greedy,” she says, eyes closed as wave after wave of happiness floods her exponentially like the way the water of the high tide touches further and further parts of the land. “I want things that you’ve given no one else -- your grief, and joy, and triumph, and failure. I want to wake up with you, and go to sleep with you, and make breakfast with you, and dinner too. I want--”

Rama bridges the gap, and Janaki says no more. He gasps when they break apart, and a vicious part of her wants to ask if he’d kissed any of the high society women he’d been photographed with like that.

“No,” he laughs, and Janaki feels another thrill to see it. “It wouldn’t have been polite.” He leans back, bringing up his own hands to cup her entire head in his palms, lips curved in a wistful smile. “Everyday you confuse me.”

Janaki bites her lip when he doesn’t continue. “Do you like that?”

He shakes his head, and suddenly the pit comes roaring back. “I think I love it,” he says instead, smiling still. “I think I love you, Janaki.”

His smile widens, almost a full grin now. “My Jaan.”

#ramayana #maya writes #obviously this is just wish fulfillment #but he goes back with her becomes a lawyer #leaves behind the company #eventually probably reconciles with his family #definitely with his poor brothers stuck abroad who don't know wtf is happening #but he never goes back to running hte company esp when hes in love with communist sita #who gleefully talks about her 'class traitor' husband #he takes her last name when they marry eventually #oh i keep calling her sita on instinct instead of janaki #which is a change i made entirely based on how much nicer janaki videha rolled off the tongue than sita videha #its just a slight different but w/e #i still think sita is the prettier and better name tho #also...had to be janaki so that the nickname could be jaan #had to sneak that shit in ok its gold #but yeah he becomes a lawyer specializing in land rights cases vs the state #its all very sexy

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medialit-posting · 3 years

Text

"My stand about Plagiarism, Piracy Bias Media, and the like.."

NEW BLOG CONTENT AHEAD!!!

We are living in a world where almost everything are readily accessible for all of us. We can easily research almost every information we desire and needed, we can download everything on the Internet; movies? games? music? name it! News and media information are readily available online, from journalistic article, news, blogs literally EVERYTHING is on the Internet and available online... Moreover we also have the presence of new and traditional media to satiate our endless needs. However, this usage lf Internet has its pros and cons. Various issues surfaced online, now I am going tp share to you my stand about my stand about Plagiarism, Piracy Bias Media, and the like... which are mostly issues surfaced in the digital world.

MY STAND ABOUT PLAGIARISM...

Plagiarism is known as the theft and dissemination of other people's words and ideas, if a person commits to this kind of crime he or she uses other people's words and ideas as if itvis theirs. Plagiarism is a heinous offence. It normally earns you an F on your work at the university level. Or if your university is stricy enough you're not able to graduate or finish the course that you're currently taking which would cause to give you a bad reputation or worse a bad life. Given that a student can also get thrown out of the institution if he or she plagiarizes repeatedly, one must avoid in doing or committing this kind of offensive violations. The punishments sanctions and the like, varies from the university or institution that you're part with or the violator's.

Why is plagiarism prevalent across universities? Some of them are linked to the way we access information. Don't you know a question answer? Just google it! Just google it! So we are a little like the dogs of Pavlov. The way we study, the same behaviour. In high school, students sometimes don't have ample research skills and instead look at anything online. This googling culture has a negative influence on the self-confidence of students. Students start most assignments by hearing what others have to suggest rather than thinking about themselves. As a business, we have a responsibility to empower students to feel assured that they can be great critical thinkers. Only thus will plagiarism be treated correctly. If a person is caught plagiarizing, his or her reputation is definitely tarnished and that person might lose their work. We all should obey the law just because we are just avoiding ourselves in getting caught. If we value original thought, personal integrity, and scholarly research, then we will naturally want to avoid plagiarism. That’s why it’s important to cite your sources and know how to integrate quotations properly. But if you only aim to be stop being caught, you're in great danger because you need to follow the law already. You would of course want to stop plagiarism if you respect original thinking, personal integrity and scientific evidence. Therefore, it is necessary to quote your sources and to know how to properly incorporate quotes.

Links for pictures :https://copyleaks.com/blog/how-do-plagiarism-detectors-work/

https://sundial.csun.edu/138189/opinions/the-heightened-use-of-plagiarized-essay-services/

Due to what was discussed above, one might think they would never commit to this kind of crime or act (Plagiarism). Unfortunately, to some or most people who commit to this kind of crime they have a lot of reasons. Here are the possible reasons or factors as to why some good workers and students sometimes plagiarize :

Panic of the last minute

Feels of insufficiency

Incomprehension of what plagiarism is

Note slippery

Copying ideas blindly, often in the same order

Work on a job and handing out similar documents

Quotations from the bibliography, but not from the paper

Yet ignorance is no excuse even when plagiarism is unintentional and unintentional. You must quote your own sources and argue.

From the discussion above, now I can conclude that I myself, all of us should stand AGAINST plagiarism. There are a lot of ways to fight and avoid committing such offensive act. We can always paraphrase, put references and include citations or quotations. Together let's stand AGAINST plagiarism and the people who commit such acts.

MY STAND ABOUT PIRACY...

If a person has a limited knowledge, he or she might say thay piracy only happens in the confines of the Earth's ocean. If you're this person then you need help- you have to be aware and be knowledgeable about the fact that piracy doesn't take place in the sea or ocean - it happens everyday in our lives, in business world, media and most especially it happens online. We love free items right? I mean who would want to spend money on things that we can get for free. However, this kind of mentality might lead us to doing illegal activities such as piracy without even knowing it. According to economic times the definition of piracy is that "Piracy refers to the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted content that is then sold at substantially lower prices in the 'grey' market. The ease of access to technology has meant that over the years, piracy has become more rampant. For example, CD writers are available off the shelf at very low prices, making music piracy a simple affair." There have been several regulations to prohibit secrecy. Internationally, piracy laws are strict and punitive in nature in developing countries. It does not gain attention nationally in Asian countries, and more in India too, because of more engaging topics. However, the industry has been involved in stemming red, in particular IT and music industry. These organisations identify music piracy outlets and then carry out police raids. However, there are few convictions and the punishment is not sufficiently harsh to discourage.

Link for the picture https://haulixdaily.com/2019/02/piracy-access-2019

Video pirates, cable piracy and DVD/CD piracy are achieved in several different ways. The film is made by a video-cassette without the correct permission of the right holder - i.e. producer. Video piracy takes place. Film producers also sell video rights to another group, who makes video cassettes for sale or loaning (typically after six weeks of release in theatres). The on sale video cassettes are only intended for home views. Cable piracy applies to illegal cable network transmission of films. Films, in particular new releases, are often seen via cable without the rights holder's permission. Piracy in satellite channels is an unusual occurrence, since they are structured and do not usually screen movies without purchasing right. Music piracy involves the illegal reuse of music cassettes, which flood the market until a new release is released. The sales of music companies hit hard by the influx of pirated compact disks and cassettes, as they are in store at considerably lower prices. In the foreign market there is DVD/VCD piracy of Indian films. The prints sent for film screening abroad are usually pirated at any airport in the Middle East. Prints of DVD/VCD are able to be sent to Pakistan. Such prints can also travel from Pakistan to Nepal and come by land to the country.

link for the picture https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/piracy-survey-illegal-content-muso-1202829757/amp/

From the discussion given above, I conclude that me and you ; all of us should stand against piracy. Although we get to consume media products for a lower price or some are even free we should remember that the people behind these media products worked really hard fro their movies, songs or music etc. to get produced... We should enable and let humanity win against "practicality". Therefore I encourage everyone to stand AGAINST piracy and against the people who continues to commit this kind of crime.

MY STAND ABOUT BIAS MEDIA AND THE LIKE...

As time continues to pass by, our technology continues to get advance. However, the presence of traditional media is still very much alive and kicking as to this industry continues its best to be in the competition. We continue to use simultaneously the media products offered by both new and traditional media... Now the concern is are we really keen enough in making sure that what media products we consume are not biased? How do I stand in this issue and the like (other related issues regarding media bias, piracy and plagiarism.)

According to lumen learning media bias "Media bias is the bias of journalists and news producers in the selection of events and stories that are reported, and how they are covered." addition to thay according to them "The term “media bias” implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article. The direction and degree of media bias in various countries is widely disputed." From this we can say that not all information presented in the media are the information that we have to believe to. We should not let ourselves be spoofed by these journalists, television programmers, broadcasters, writers etc. we should take time to analyze and even fact check the information that we have received. Information that you might have read online, heard on the radio, or even the news you watch on your favourite channel. We should analyze and think if the information or news is biased or not.

link for the picture https://dailybruin.com/2019/05/09/the-quad-media-coverage-skewed-by-biases-of-journalists-american-society

"Practical limitations to media neutrality include the inability of journalists to report all available stories and facts, and the requirement that selected facts be linked into a coherent narrative. Because it is impossible to report everything, selectivity is inevitable. Government influence, including overt and covert censorship, biases the media in some countries, for example North Korea and Burma. Market forces that result in a biased presentation include the ownership of the news source, concentration of media ownership, the selection of staff, the preferences of an intended audience, and pressure from advertisers." (Candela, 2019). This is true and is happening in our country, based on what my teacher have said the a television channel is so biased in reporting, writing and heading of news towards the president and the government in general. She also stated how this channel has been violating laws in paying tax that's why it was forced to shutdown from giving its services. Since, I think highly of my teacher I think she really has a point and one might think that the closure of the said station if for everyone's good. We should not tomerate media bias, just like what happened to a certain news channel we should take action if we can to fight media bias.

link for the picture https://thecord.ca/how-media-bias-effects-reader-perception/

There is an attempt to correct bias; the round table is a method used to prevent bias, in which members of opposing viewpoints comment on an issue. This approach allows different viewpoints to be expressed in the media in principle. The organizer of the report is also responsible, however, for selecting people who really represent the broad opinion, for asking non-detrimental questions and fairly editing and arbitrating their statements. A point/counterpoint may be as unjust as a simple biased article if done carelessly, implying that the losing party has lost its merits.

The disclosure of affiliations which can be viewed as a potential conflict of interest is another tactic used to prevent partialism. This is particularly obvious when a news outlet publishes a story that is important to the news organization or its owners or conglomerates. The laws or regulations regulating stocks and shares typically include this divulgation. Commentators on stock news stories are also compelled in these companies or in their rivals to reveal their ownership interests.

Overall what is my standing towards media bias (piracy and plagiarism) and the like... well just like what I have said in the previous paragraphs together we should stand AGAINST media bias, piracy, plagiarism and the like because it is the right thing to do. We should eradicate toxicity and evil in our world whether its digital or not. It is our jobs as human beings to spread humanity whether it is online or not, we should always consider going against issues like this so that slowly but surely we can change the world the we are currently live on for the future generations and for the betterment of all human beings.

REFERENCES :

https://natureofwriting.com/courses/essay-writing/lessons/doing-research-2/topic/plagiarism/

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-politicalscience/chapter/media-bias/

https://m.economictimes.com/definition/piracy

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bringing-myself-joy · 4 years

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@piakichu I wanted to respond to your response in a fresh post because we started to move away from the topic the op brought up. (For anyone who wishes to read that it is here. It’s just too much to simply summarize.)

Thats definitely true as well. I myself had a big advantage because growing up I always had access to my parent’s healthcare which is pretty good especially when compared to the way other companies treat mental health. And on top of that, I live in NJ so forced conversion therapy was never really a fear for me even with the worse therapists I encountered.

Right now the practice I go to is awesome in lots of different ways. When I started paying for my own bills they were supper helpful and even gave me some pro bono sessions when I had lost my job last year. It’s also one of the more diverse practices I’ve been to, not only with their general staff but with the therapists themselves. And it is absolutely an outlier in the category of mental health care. If I did an exact headcount, the majority of the staff would still probably be white because even if this place was perfect* the overall system is fucked in a way that ends with the majority of its members being white. And when I say majority I mean almost 90%, and each year this trend continues with the new members entering the work force.

So even if the therapist themselves is queer, a white queer person still will never have experiences the same as say a black queer person. And that makes it much harder for the therapy to give that person any benefits at all. The therapist in this example still has all the experiences and biases that come with white privilege making it hard for them to truly understand or sympathize with their client. The client will likely have a difficult time discussing most issues (even if a level of trust is eventually established) because it will always require another level of explanation than it would if their therapist was also black.

And honestly, even and explanation is not good enough. Its likely impossible for a person of color to get the same benefits of therapy that a white person does as long as PoC don’t have the option to pick a doctor who is a PoC as well.

I as a white person will never understand the fear that a black person has to experience while just existing. A few words cannot undo the imbalance of societal power, and no level of imagining will make me able to understand the effects that has on one’s mental health. So how could I possibly give a client the treatment they deserve if I can’t relate to them in that way?

It’s not the same as a therapist treating an abuse victim when they themselves haven’t been abused. If you aren't white in this country your life is fundamentally different than the one the white therapist has had. And this isn’t something that can be taught either, because we’ve already tried that. Cultural sensitivity and general awareness are part of the schooling to become a mental health practitioner, it just doesn't make enough of a difference to be an acceptable solution. Its been shown that white counselors are less likely to actually use these practices than ethnic minority counselors, even when their personal client base is at least 20% made up of PoC.

So what is really needed for improvement is (as with most things in the us right now) is a redesign of the whole system, to allow PoC the same opportunities as white people in the mental healthcare field. And to do that we (white people) have to do our part to be better. Which brings me to the current BLM movement.

I wanted to post this on my mental health blog because white people, even ones who are part of other marginalized groups, have the privilege of getting to being unaware of these kinds of things. And if they are made aware, they have the privilege of forgetting about it, which its not something a PoC gets to do. So, for my followers who are white, please do not forget about this. We can’t allow privilege to blind us to the shit happening around us. Protests have been making a huge difference, we have to keep the movement and the story going even as the news finds other topics to focus on. If you can’t protest, donate. If you can’t donate, share resources and be vocal about your support of our siblings of color. Listen to the voices of color around you.

I know people with mental health issues have a lot of our own personal struggles, but they do not prevent us from helping. There is always something we can do. If you get overwhelmed easily, start small. Pick one thing to focus on, one charity and donate what you can or share it with those around you who can. Or pick a gofundme for a trans PoC or other lgbtq* person trying to reach a donation goal for surgery or safe housing etc.

In addition to this, check on your black friends. Remind you love them and will fight to keep them safe. Call out other white people who use being part of a marginalized community as an excuse not to care or try to help. Black lives must always matter.

Notes/Citations

*I’m sure it has its faults despite all the praise I’m giving it rn, because it doesn't exist in a bubble

**above link takes you to chart showing the diversity of the psychological work force from the American Psychology Association.

***click the above link to be taken to the 2014 article - “Therapist Ethnicity and Treatment Orientation Differences in Multicultural Counseling Competencies” - from us national library of medicine. Def worth giving a read if you have the time.

#op #piakichu #blm and mental health #lgbtq*#mental health community #mental health blog #current events #queer #white silence is violence #therapy #counseling #mental health industry #replies #queer poc #queer white people #white gay #long fuckin post #personal

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evermorehomesick · 4 years

Text

Tips for the New Witch

Being a baby witch is intimidating! Fortunately, you have a whole wealth of knowledge at your disposal from a community of engaged witches. Here's a few things I wish I knew when I first started out.

💫 You don’t need to be religious to be a witch. Witchcraft is not a religion. Sure, lots of witches bring their religion into their craft or serve gods and goddesses. Lots don’t. If you decide to seek assistance or companionship from a deity, follow your intuition and make those connections (safely), but if you’re not feeling it, that’s okay too!

💫 You don’t need to be a woman either. Some of the media we consume favors witches in the form of cisgender white women who dance naked in the moonlight, but that’s not realistic. We come in many genders, colors, sizes, sexual orientations, ages, lifestyles, and abilities. Witchcraft is inclusive - we are all welcome here.

💫 Research relentlessly. There is no ceiling to your learning potential. Read books, follow blogs, join a witchy group chat, track #witchblr. Allow your curiosity and hunger for knowledge to drive you in your journey. If you think you’ve learned everything, you’re not digging deep enough. There will always be more for you to discover.

💫 But think critically. Not every source you find is going to be trustworthy. If you feel that you are receiving information that is dangerous, unethical, or breaking the laws of your region, rule it out. Remember when your teacher wouldn’t accept Wikipedia as a valid citation source? There’s a lot of unreliable sources out there. It’s okay to take what you learn with a grain of salt, especially since it’s for your benefit and personal development. Trust your judgement.

💫 Write things down. Seriously, whether you write in a notebook, in a Microsoft file, or in the sand, document everything. It may feel easy to remember everything when the information gets flowing, but you’ll find that as you gain momentum, you need to look back frequently on what you have been studying. It’s also helpful to have your references easily accessible to you when you begin to create your own spells, rituals, etc.

💫 Have patience. Even if you come from a long line of witches, magick may not always come easily to you, especially when you’re new to the practice. Witchcraft is not easy, it’s a lifestyle that takes time, dedication, and love. If you don’t see immediate results, it does not reflect poorly on you or your abilities - you’re always learning.

💫 Practice a little every day. When you’re a baby witch, it can be really tempting to immerse yourself in the craft immediately. There’s so many activities to try, books to read, blogs to follow. It’s exciting, but also incredibly overwhelming. By doing small tasks daily instead of trying to learn everything at once, you’ll grow more quickly. Pick a task or two to do once a day: practice tying knots, try a tarot spread, learn a new sigil, research a crystal you saw in a shop. This consistent commitment will exercise your infinite capacity for learning.

💫 You don’t have to go broke for your craft. Many witches have taken years to accumulate the tools they use. When you’re starting out, it’s tempting to put down a lump sum for a large amount of supplies, but you don’t need tons of pricey crystals, a huge herb garden, or a tarot deck for every occasion to be a successful witch. Empty spaghetti sauce jars, thrift shop jewelry, playing cards, quartz from a gravel road - these are only a few alternatives we can use in place of otherwise costly resources. Buy that candle or crystal if it really resonates with you, but rest assured that you can still practice your craft without an arsenal of expensive supplies.

💫 Be safe. While witchcraft isn’t as terrifying as some media portrays it to be, that doesn’t mean we don’t face danger. We should always strive to be careful in our work and take steps to ensure our safety. Burning candles, burying offerings, speaking with spirits - these may not feel too scary, but they are dangers and should be treated as such. Always be thoughtful and safe in your practices.

💫 Practice self-care. While we use many tools and outside elements in our work, a lot of our resources come from within ourselves. Casting spells, poring over sigils, astral projecting, reading tarot - it can exhaust you, or even worse, make you sick. If you don’t take care of yourself, you may feel tired, depressed, or listless. You are the single most precious and important element of witchcraft. Be kind to yourself.

💫 There are no rules. You’ll see it a lot: “So-and-so isn’t a real witch because they don’t practice the way you’re supposed to.” Fuck that. Nobody can tell you how to be a witch. A popular spell makes you feel bad or wrong? Don’t cast it! Burning sage for cleansing makes you sick? Find an alternative! Lavender feels more energizing than calming for you? Boom, it's an energy tool now! Do what feels good and right for your practice.

These are only a few tips for your new journey! There's much more for you to learn, so ask questions, practice your craft, and be kind.

Happy witching! ✌🏼

#mine #here comes trouble #baby witch friendly #witchblr

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antoine-roquentin · 5 years

Link

When Megan* discovered that her boyfriend, Sean, had overdosed on heroin in their Neenah, Wisconsin home, she called 911. Paramedics found Sean without a pulse, but were able to save his life. Afterward, Sean, who had been in treatment for substance use disorder, was greeted with a harsh reality—Neenah police were charging him with possession of heroin and marijuana. A few months later, he was charged again with simple possession. Based on these charges, the police sent a notice to Megan’s landlord, warning that their home was about to be declared a “nuisance”—and that, if the tenants made another 911 call, the city would levy fines on the landlord. The landlord, of course, promptly tried to evict Megan and Sean.

Neenah is one of an estimated 2,000 towns and cities in America with a chronic nuisance ordinance (CNO), a local law that encourages or even requires landlords to evict tenants based on minor infractions that the city considers “nuisances.” CNOs (also called “crime-free ordinances”) vary across cities, but generally target a common set of behaviors. The city declares a home a “nuisance” once a threshold number of infractions occur on the property. Infractions are disturbingly easy to rack up. They can include anything from arrests on or near the property to trivial aesthetic complaints like poorly maintaining your front lawn. Most CNOs will label a home a nuisance if it’s the source of what the city deems an “excessive” number of 911 calls. What counts as “excessive”? Some towns define a nuisance as just two or more calls to 911.

When an annoying person on a train talks loudly on their phone, they might get a raised eyebrow or a petty stare—but when a home is labeled a nuisance, the response is considerably worse. CNOs generally require landlords to “abate the nuisance”—that is, make sure there are no more arrests or 911 calls at the home—or else face fines or other penalties. For example, the city of Stoughton, Wisconsin designated a home a “drug nuisance” after charging four residents with simple possession of marijuana. The police urged the landlord to evict the tenants with a five-day notice, warning that if the tenants stayed and were caught with weed again, the city might seize the landlord’s property. Many landlords, including Megan’s, respond by evicting tenants, refusing to renew their leases, or pushing tenants not to call 911 for help. In some extreme cases, cities will actually threaten to criminally prosecute landlords who don’t evict. Even someone with little sympathy for landlords can see how the perverse incentives of nuisance ordinances make eviction proceedings nearly inevitable.

In addition, nuisance ordinances often target the most vulnerable. Domestic violence survivors, for example, are routinely evicted for calling 911 for help. Sociologists Matthew Desmond and Nicol Valdez found that nearly a third of homes labeled a nuisance in Milwaukee, Wisconsin were cited based on domestic violence incidents—and that properties in predominantly Black neighborhoods were more than 2.5 times as likely to receive a nuisance citation as properties in white neighborhoods. When vague laws like nuisance ordinances give police a wide range of discretion, enforcement is often racist. An investigation by the NYCLU (New York Civil Liberties Union) found that Rochester, New York issued nearly five times as many nuisance enforcement actions in areas with the highest concentration of people of color as it did in the whitest parts of town. New research (by your authors) also revealed that cities use chronic nuisance ordinances to evict people because of their disabilities. A mother in Baraboo, Wisconsin was cited after calling the police because her daughter was suicidal. Portland, Oregon labeled a resident’s home a nuisance because the city decided he had too much trash in his yard—even though his patient advocate explained that he couldn’t clean the yard because he was hospitalized for complications related to his disability. Police in Lakewood, Ohio informed a landlord that one of their tenants had called a mobile crisis center, threatening to harm himself. The landlord started eviction proceedings within weeks. A Maplewood, Missouri woman called a crisis hotline because she was suicidal; after the hotline’s volunteers sent police to her home to check on her and transfer her to a hospital, the city sent her a summons to a nuisance enforcement hearing for “generating too many calls for police services.” According to a lawsuit challenging Maplewood’s ordinance, at least 25 percent of the city’s nuisance cases stemmed from “obvious manifestations of disability.”

There isn’t a shred of evidence that chronic nuisance ordinances make towns safer or more orderly. But study after study demonstrates that nuisance ordinances are used to harass people—specifically people of color, domestic violence survivors, and those with disabilities—and push them out of town.

This all happens despite the Fair Housing Act’s clear ban on state and local policies that discriminate on the basis of race, sex, or disability. Because chronic nuisance ordinances hurt people with disabilities and heavily policed Black communities—where people are most likely to be searched or arrested, often for petty crimes—they violate the FHA’s mandate. In 2016, the Department of Housing and Urban Development even warned that cities enforcing nuisance ordinances against domestic violence survivors risked running afoul of the FHA’s ban on sex discrimination.

But the law is one thing—and people’s real experiences are another. Megan, her boyfriend, and other people evicted after overdosing fall into a Fair Housing Act loophole wide enough to fit Ben Carson’s dining set. Today, it’s well understood that substance use disorder is a disease: Federal courts increasingly recognize that people who are in recovery for a substance use disorder have a disability that is protected by civil rights law. But the Fair Housing Act runs counter to the scientific and sociological consensus by specifically and explicitly excluding “current, illegal use of or addiction to a controlled substance” from its protections against disability discrimination. The FHA’s carve-out means that people who are currently using, or who are in recovery but relapse, have virtually no protection from eviction under the federal fair housing law because of their substance use disorder. (Some advocates argue these ordinances still violate the First Amendment.)

With the FHA’s carve-out as cover, cities are even passing more blatant ordinances such as “drug house” laws specifically targeting people who use drugs. Nuisance and drug house laws sometimes encourage eviction based solely on arrests (not even convictions) and inevitably drive highly policed communities of color out of their homes. Although people of all races use and sell drugs at similar rates, Black and Latinx individuals are far more likely to be searched, arrested, and convicted for possession—so they’re far more likely to rack up nuisance points and lose their homes.

Worse still, nuisance ordinances deter people from calling for help when they experience or witness an overdose. An empirical study of nuisance ordinance enforcement against people who had overdosed on drugs found that, in two out of four towns studied, more than one in five properties designated a “nuisance” were the sites of a drug overdose. In a third town, more than forty percent of nuisance designations involved a drug overdose. Overdose deaths generally occur one to three hours after a victim has used drugs, leaving a short window in which to save a victim’s life. Paramedics now have the access and training to routinely administer Naloxone, a medication that reverses an opioid overdose. But if tenants believe they may be evicted if they call 911 for a possible overdose, they may hesitate to call for help until it’s too late—or they might lose their housing, leaving them more vulnerable to overdose than before.

The stakes are literally life or death. More than 70,000 people died of overdoses in 2017. What would you do if your partner overdosed? You’d get help, right? Well, what if you’d already called 911 “one too many times” and risked losing your home? If Megan hadn’t called 911, her boyfriend might be one of those 70,00 deaths—and yet she was rewarded with an eviction. In the middle of an opioid crisis that’s killed more people than guns, car crashes, or the AIDS epidemic, chronic nuisance ordinances force people to make impossible choices. And they’re just one of a hundred tiny ways that cities control populations and undercut health and safety. Because these are local rules, they are ripe for action and change, but it’s something we cannot afford to wait on lest we see the most vulnerable among us pushed even further to the margins and driven from their homes.

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darkestangel1326 · 4 years

Text

Prologue - This was real life. Right?

Hey lovelies. So I know it is likely no one is going to read this but me but I just had to write this anyway. For me. Posting for the same reason! Fic under the “Keep reading” cut, but here’s how I got here:

This all started when I wondered what would happen if MC was a scientist. Or a science grad student. But then I thought, what would be enough to compel a scientist or science grad student to stop their sciencing realistically for any amount of time? Because as my previous PI says, every scientist becomes a mad scientist at least in one point in their careers for their research - this is especially true for grad students.

Then, I just never understood the whole returning a phone excuse Unknown gave MC to lure her into Rika’s apartment. Like MC, with her own phone, is gonna return a phone she doesn’t even have, just because Unknown was persistent? He even says he’s a student in the States who will eventually return home so what was with the urgency to go to find the owner? If he really wanted to return the phone, he could’ve mailed it since he has the address right? We know he does because he sends MC there. It just always bothered me.

Finally, I wanted to slightly self-insert to make the MC (Emme C.) a bit more human so that it even if you couldn’t change her choices, it would still be entertaining. I heavily relied on second person, to help give it the mystic messenger vibe though I’m not sure it works.

This prologue is some character building for Emme C. (Actual name: Emme Cee), brief OC appearances and, for my sanity, this is all taking place in the US. TBH I’m not even sure how deep I want to go with this story. I just know I needed to write it.

So without further ado!

“My biggest fear and why? Hmmm,” you mulled it over and took another sip of your beer, after your lab mates glared at you for an answer.

Or former labmates - you were leaving for grad school in a few weeks so this was kind of your farewell social. Even with your general distaste of beer, even you had to admit this one was really good.

You closed your eyes and sheepishly rubbed your neck. “This is gonna sound weird but a time loop,” you answered hesitantly. “It just makes me uneasy to be stuck in never-ending cycle, replaying the same scenario over and over again with no end in sight.”

“True but we are in academic research!” Marie answered, a teasing lilt to her voice that transformed into a chuckle.

“Yeah you might have to deal with it during your Masters program, especially the thesis stage.” Whitney continued, joining in with a laugh.

“Don’t remind me,” you giggled as you took another sip - a longer sip - of your beer. “But that’s not exactly what I mean either” you persisted, a bit more seriously.

I’m afraid of replaying the same day, the same events, the same interactions over and over again, not knowing why or how to stop it,” you finished more seriously. You took another sip of the fizzy drink and felt your equilibrium teeter a bit.

“You mean like that movie Groundhog Day?” Aurora quietly inserted.

“I haven’t seen that movie but if it’s like what I said, then yes, that’s it,” you answered, your fizzy drink now gone.

“Sorry wait. Why are you afraid of time loops? I think I missed that part. Wouldn’t replaying the same day and seeing how your choices change events be a good thing?” Sally asked. Technically, she was completely right - repeatability was one of the sacred ideals of science after all. Plus, If you really thought about it, you hadn’t actually said why you’re afraid of time loops, just that you are.

“I’m afraid of never moving forward - of never progressing, no matter how hard I try or work. A time loop means, yes, I’ll know what my choices would entail, but not how to escape or what the triggering event for my release could be. I could replay the time period of the same few weeks but for years without knowing how to escape and move on. And, I guess, since it took me so long to even start my Master’s and I felt like I might never be able to, this fear was just born,” you admitted, pouring more beer for yourself.

I mean an actual time loop where every single thing happens the exact same way, down to the underlying rhythm of conversation. And where you can’t escape until you figure out the common problem then fix it. How would you escape it? And what if you mess up, in different ways, forever? Who would want that?!

—————————————————————————

You awoke with a sigh, realizing you had that dream again. Or was it a flashback since this happened a few weeks ago? You shrugged your shoulders and got to work sorting boxes. You were set to start on-campus work in a few weeks so you were just trying to do the bare minimum research wise. Plus, you wanted to really focus on decorating your new apartment and get acquainted with the town since you’d be living there for the next few years.

After a few hours of scrambling and organizing, you sat on the floor (you were still in the process of buying furniture), and looked at your emails.

One in particular caught your attention, so much so that you took off your glasses and rubbed your eyes, almost laughing at such a cartoony response. The subject line of this email was what confused you. It read “missing research paper - need citation”. It was an unfamiliar email, moreover, it was sent to your previous college email, which was linked to your past research publications.

Curious, you bit the inside of your cheek and read the email.

“Dear Emme,

Hope this email finds you well. I am a student from XXX University and have been working on a research project concerning XXX. Your research was one of the most recent and prominent examples as to why this area needs further study, however, I have not been able to access the paper I saved as a bookmark in my web browser. After extensive searching, I have been unable to find the original paper or even one of the articles that referenced it - almost as if the article has completely disappeared from existence! Is there a reason the research article is gone? If not, could you provide me with an idea of where it is and the proper citation for my research article?”

what. whAT. WHAT!?

Your research couldn’t be gone! This didn’t make any sense! Yes it was a few years old, but it couldn’t be gone from the web! There are research papers from the 1960s that are archived and accessible online for goodness sake!

You had to calm down. Take deep breaths. You continued trying to breathe as you pulled out your research flash drive. You looked for the paper on your there and found it, sighing in relief. It grounded you, reminding you that your work did exist. Just as you were set to attach the file and corresponding citation to the email, your internet stopped.

Scratch that, your entire laptop stopped.

You groaned. Yes, this was an older, refurbished model, but it’s been working fine. The screen distorted for a second, as if the extra pixel boxes emphasized the frozen nature of your screen. Before you even had time to process it, your laptop unfroze and you breathed a sigh of relief.

Thank heavens. You had just moved and weren’t sure you could realistically afford a new laptop anytime soon. As you look over your screen, however, your relief shifts to panic.

omg. oMG. OMG!

It’s gone. Your research files. The ones on your laptop and on your flash drive. The email is gone. Before you can refresh the page you get logged out. You can’t even log into your old email account - Error 404 Not Found.

Your heart races. Then, it aches. You worked so hard on those projects. They were part of your scientific fabric and now both were just gone. Your years of work, gone in seconds.

You felt like crying. But you decide not to, at least not until you’re in the shower where the tears can blend in with the cascading liquid as you sing emo music.

For now, you decide a quick walk and some fresh air are what you need, so you grab your keys and head for the mailbox. You’ve only lived in this apartment for a week but you check the mail constantly in an effort to get in the habit rather than because you expect something.

But today, you did get something. A small parcel with no return address. Curious, you take that and the grocery flyers to your apartment and open the package there.

A phone? It’s from the same company as yours, just a slightly older model.

You blink at it, almost telepathically asking it what it’s doing in your mailbox. You decide to turn it in to the mail service and are about to put it back in its envelope when you notice a note.

“Charge me”

“What the hell is going on today?” You mutter as you pull out your charger and plug it into the phone.

You sit on the floor with this new phone in hand and sigh. “Why am I even taking orders from a mysterious note for anyway?”

Just then the screen lights up. There’s no passcode so opening the phone was super easy. The phone’s screen and minimal app selection almost made you think it was new, but the lack of setting it up told you that wasn’t the case. Who would buy this phone and not use it? And why did they send it to you?

There is one app that calls to you, mostly because you’ve never seen it before. And because it was unlike the rest of the default apps on the screen.

RFA? What’s that?

Just then, the screen turns dark and green characters zoom up through the screen. You sucked with all tech but even you knew this reaction was abnormal. You swore you didn’t press the app but seeing the phone continue reacting, you become less confident.

“Hello?”

You stare at the screen. ‘Unknown’ was messaging you.

You respond. Stupidly. Naively. And without thinking about the consequences.

Because this was real life. Right?

What’s the worse that could happen?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m debating taking this next part a few routes...we’ll see what I decide...

If you, by any chance made it all the way down here, can you drop a reblog or something with your thoughts? Was Emme Cee likable? Did the flow make sense? Do you like where this is going? Let me know!

#mystic messenger #mysme #mysme fic prologue #DA writes #This was Real Life. Right?

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