#meaningful events

[starcurtain]

Some Speculation on Kaveh’s Father

I actually started this post right after the Parade of Providence event last year, but never got around to finishing it. However, in light of Kaveh still not appearing on a banner, I decided to dust this one off and get it finished, so that I’d have at least a little Kaveh content in my life after being so cruelly denied by Hoyo.

So, without further ado, some stuff about Kaveh’s father I did not see discussed elsewhere but which I think is especially interesting.

1) Kaveh’s father likely first became depressed/disillusioned with humanity after witnessing (or possibly being the victim of) a murder attempt.

Without knowing the full situation and reading all the additional text from the Parade of Providence event, I feel like this might have been easily missed, but the entire “Kaveh’s dad became disillusioned and depressed and retreated to the desert to help people” seems--at first--like it came out of nowhere. He had a lovely family, was the pride of his darshan, and was eager and excited to win the crown to bring it home to his son. Yet theoretically, he did not win the crown (and, in fact, the crown was stolen before the last event and may not have been there during the Avidya Forest fight, so when, as the non-winner, would Kaveh’s father have come into contact with it to encounter Sachin through it in the first place?) Why would Kaveh’s father’s personality take such a massive turn all the sudden? What would drive an excited, happy person to suddenly withdraw from everything he loved and everyone who loved him, if he didn’t actually win the diadem to be influenced by it in the first place?

The event implies there was a trigger:

Huvishka’s friend (who is described as “honest and kind but vulnerable and sensitive”--obviously Kaveh’s father) went into the Avidya Forest with the other contestants, where no one was watching, and we’re not told what happened except that the Akademiya responded to whatever occurred by shutting down the entire competition and banning any sort of events in the future that cause contestants to become so desperate they would “fight to the death.” 

This is a pretty obvious implication that Kaveh’s father either witnessed two other contestants attempt to kill each other or was the victim of an attempted murder himself, which prevented him from winning the competition even though he was the favorite to win by a long-shot. This feat of betrayal, demonstrating the depths to which humanity would sink, likely shook the idealistic world views of a sensitive person such as Kaveh’s father. This brush with death and with humanity’s capacity for evil in the forest would have been the exact trigger needed to make Kaveh’s father particularly vulnerable to Sachin’s message of nihility and despair, leading to the downward spiral that sent Kaveh’s father into the desert.

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2) Sachin may have way more culpability for Kaveh’s father’s death than Kaveh realizes. 

For a while after the event, I was under the impression that Kaveh’s father must have met Sachin’s consciousness through the diadem and that’s where he got the idea to go into the desert. However, something was always a bit odd about the timeline, because...

Sachin was still alive when he gave the Akademiya his estate. This is why no one actually knew/believed he was fully dead, even to the present--because he willed the Akademiya the estate while he was alive and told them he was going to be personally watching over the contestants to award his estate to them if he deemed them worthy successors to himself. 

So did Kaveh’s father run into a fragment of Sachin’s consciousness... or did he run into Sachin himself? The game doesn’t really clarify:

The fact that Sachin’s recording recognized Kaveh’s appearance as familiar makes me think it is much more likely that the consciousness preserved in the diadem already had knowledge of Kaveh’s father at the time it was preserved. Aka, Sachin actually met Kaveh’s father in person. This also makes sense of why, even though the diadem was stolen away during the last event and Kaveh’s father did not win it, he would still know about Sachin and Sachin’s research. (However, as a counterpoint, I guess we could say that the Diadem!Sachin had enough sentience to maybe have its own memory, separate from the real Sachin? And reached out to Kaveh’s father mentally even though he didn’t win the diadem? Maybe?)

Still, there’s one really notable aspect of the timeline that I think is important: Right after the Interdarshan Competition twenty years ago, the one which Kaveh’s father competed in, we know that Sachin went back out to the desert. 

Who else went out to the desert exactly 20 years ago? Kaveh’s father, obviously.

This overlap in the timelines makes it seem very likely that Kaveh’s father, who failed to win the competition because of a murder attempt (and therefore never got the diadem), was nevertheless reached out to by the real Sachin, who saw in Kaveh’s father the kindred disillusioned idealist he was looking for to pass his research torch onto. From this connection, Kaveh’s father was driven to either directly accompany or at least pursue the still living Sachin into the desert. (This works even if we say it was only Sachin’s consciousness he was contacted by--in either case, he would have been driven go to out to the desert to meet the real, temporarily still living Sachin to join his quest to help the desert people.)

Only for Kaveh’s father to meet his end there while trying to aid a caravan that had fallen into trouble. What a tragic coincidence, a completely unpredictable twist of fate.

Or... was it?

How odd, in the same quest that Kaveh’s father’s connection to Sachin is discussed, that we’re given an account of a caravan that appears to have been deliberately sabotaged, where money was taken (from Sachin) and somehow sparked a betrayal, a “trial of human nature” that caused many people to die, with the takeaway being the exact belief Sachin wants to pass on and reinforce in others, that humans are horrific creatures who can only make the world a worse and worse place. 

We know that Sachin’s “research” specifically consisted of doing this exact thing, manipulating situations to test humans’ moral character, conducting trials/experiments on “human nature” to reinforce his belief that humans were fundamentally selfish beings.

(It’s no accident the merchant ledger we receive uses the exact same words as Sachin does, “trial of human nature” and “experiments on human nature.” We’re supposed to assume what happened to the caravan in the note was deliberate sabotage on Sachin’s part, to create a scenario where he could observe the cruelties of humanity.)

Why would the game go out of its way to give us an account of a caravan being deliberately sabotaged and used as an experiment if there was no connection at all between what happened with this caravan and what happened to Kaveh’s father, who was also killed helping a floundering caravan?

It’s just too much of a coincidence to accidental. I think the implications of the ledger Dori gave us and the similarities in the language on that ledger to Sachin’s ideas was supposed to lead the audience to wonder:

Could Kaveh’s father have died in one of Sachin’s final “human nature experiments”? 

Was the caravan Kaveh’s father tried to help one that Sachin deliberately sabotaged, expecting to observe humanity’s selfish, self-preserving nature?

I think there’s enough evidence in the story to suggest that we players are at least supposed to consider this a possibility. (There’s no reason to give us the ledger about the manipulated caravan otherwise.) And if you consider this a possibility, it would mean that Sachin didn’t just indirectly cause Kaveh’s father’s death--he would be the direct cause of Kaveh’s father’s death, an actual murder brought about by Sachin’s beliefs that humanity’s self-centered nature made everyone beyond saving.

This idea transforms Kaveh’s father’s sacrifice into the ultimate rejection of Sachin’s beliefs. This would mean that, even in a situation manipulated to bring out the worst in human beings on purpose, Kaveh’s father gave everything to protect the lives of others, for no gain at all of his own, doing everything he could just to desperately try to make the situation (the world) better.

SO yeah. I’m not saying we have hard evidence here, but I think the quest was trying to lead players to speculate very, very hard on the possibility that Kaveh’s father’s death was no accident.

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3) Finally, a cuter piece of speculation to brighten things up after that despair bomb I just dropped: it’s highly likely that Kaveh’s father had more than one Aranara buddy!

During the Parade of Providence, we hear about an Aranara who learned to read from Kaveh’s father:

However, this is a bit confusing, because later in the event, we hear someone else say that Kaveh’s father taught an Aranara to write specifically when he was a child:

While of course it is possible that Kaveh’s father taught the first Aranara, Arakasyapa, to both read and write, I think there’s also another possible answer here about why Kaveh’s father would separately mention teaching an Aranara to write:

Because there is an entirely different Aranara in the story which was taught to write by a “good Nara” who was a child--Arashakun, from the quest “Courage is the Heart.”

In this sweet little world quest, the Traveler discovers a flower talisman that has been snatched by some hilichurls, and seeks to return it to its rightful owner, a timid and shy Aranara named Arashakun. 

We learn that Arashakun once had a kind-hearted “good Nara” companion who taught him to write (sound familiar?), and who, in order to encourage the poor Aranara, gave him a single flower dubbed “courage.” In describing this child companion, Arashakun specifically states that his companion was no strong warrior like the Traveler’s twin, but instead a gentle, comforting presence who never teased the Aranara.

All of these descriptions line up particularly well with Kaveh’s father, who the game repeatedly describes as vulnerable, kind-hearted, and giving to others.

To drive home the possible connections to Kaveh’s family even further, this quest takes place very, very near to the Palace of Alkazarzaray. 

Although we don’t have any guarantee, I think it is strongly implied that the “good Nara” mentioned by Arashakun is indeed Kaveh’s father, and the “courage of the heart” that he extended to Arashakun as a child is the very same courage, kindness, and generosity that drove him to reach out to the people of the desert, hoping to make a difference in their lives--even at the cost of his own.

The takeaway? Kaveh’s father was a truly good person who aided everyone he came across, from timid Aranara to people whose very lives were in danger. He never meant to leave his family, and especially not his son, but repeatedly fell afoul of the worst humanity had to offer and was driven into a situation in which all he could do was offer his very life to uphold the altruism that was central to his idealism--the same idealism and goodness that Kaveh carries as “courage” in his own heart.

[rudnitskaia]

White Chrysanths for the Swallow

Rocky was waiting for her at the table at the Little Daisy, but this time he was especially eager. Even Ivy had stopped teasing him about the way he lighted up and hummed to himself as he waited for Mau to show up at the door of the café, and just smiled, refilling his coffee whenever it ran out. He almost daydreamed of handing Maura two tickets to tomorrow's musical: of her eyes sparkling, of her taking his hand and telling him he was the best in the world.

But time passed, and Mau wasn't coming.

In those few hours, Rocky had replayed the fantasy in his head hundreds of times, changing the lines and the scenery. At first, imaginary Maura was beaming with happiness, calling him affectionate names, melting in his arms like all those heroines on the stage of a musical theater in the arms of their beloved ones, but every time the fantasy became darker and darker. More disturbing. Mau no longer rejoiced, no longer smiled. Her bright lively figure was becoming more and more dim, and she more often sighed, frowned, did not accept the gift. She asked him to return the tickets, scolded him for wasting his money carelessly, told him some news, one worse than the other, and finally said she didn’t want to see him again. Never again.

It was getting unbearable to sit still, and Rocky abruptly moved away from the table, threw on his coat, and headed for the exit. Maybe a walk would clear his head a little…

“Miss Pepper, I have a very urgent task to attend to. If she shows up on the doorstep, don't let her out of here on any pretext. Lock the doors, board up the windows, show her every fashion magazine you can find, but don't let her leave here until I get back. I'm counting on your wit and exceptional charm.”

The way he looked intently into Ivy's eyes before he left looked almost threatening. He wasn't even aware of the desperation hiding behind that look. But Ivy saw it.

“Don't worry, I'm an expert at this,” she winked at him encouragingly.

The cold air blew across Rocky's face, and he shivered, pulling his scarf over his nose, the same funny skewed scarf Mau had knitted for him last Christmas. Sometimes, like now, Rocky thought he could still smell on it the very same scent of coffee and pastries that wafted from the Venza family's eatery. It didn't help distract him, though. Quite the opposite. After walking a few blocks in an attempt to escape his doubts, he spotted a small flower shop — Rocky's imagination immediately conjured up a lovely picture of Maura cradling a fresh spring bouquet on this cold, cloudy evening and he didn't notice himself stepping over the store’s doorstep. The frail old woman behind the counter put aside the newspaper and immediately chirped, offering him different flowers, and finally convinced him to take a few white chrysanthemums. She tied the flowers with a delicate pink ribbon and also wrapped them tightly in the newspaper she had read before.

“They mustn't be overfrozen. Or they won't last long,” she explained sternly.

Rocky walked back much more briskly. He was warmed by the thought that now he would be able to give Mau not one surprise, but two. Hiding the bouquet from a gust of cold wind, Rocky lowered his gaze to it and pressed the flowers closer to himself… when suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the headline of one of the newspaper articles.

“Shootout at the small Italian eatery Casa di Rondine shocked the residents… a bloody showdown in the neighborhood… occurred on the night… police identified the bodies of two…”

Rocky couldn't remember how he reached the familiar alleyway. How he threw the bouquet to the ground, swung over the barrier tape, and rushed to the entrance — a gaping hole instead of a small blue door. Shards of glass littered the floor, the formerly cozy, cramped hall was a real mess, the furniture was riddled with gunshots. Even the old tabletop radio was now on the floor, shattered to pieces.

“Stop right there!” a panting policeman grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “What the hell are you doing breaking into a crime scene?”

“I… uh…” in his panic Rocky couldn't think straight, but nonetheless he blurted out: “I'm from a newspaper. Wanted to visit the crime scene myself.”

“A lousy reporter you are, then. Your buddies sniffed everything around here a long time ago.”

“I was just hired today and immediately assigned to this very intriguing case. So…”

“There's nothing intriguing about it. This Bianchi guy…”

“Who?”

“The renter, Augusto Bianchi, if that's his real name at all, apparently had a huge debt to pay someone. And for that, he got pinned down. There was a scuffle in the night, at least four assailants. The two guys we found here have a couple priors, but they're not in a condition to tell us who hired them. The amount of such cold cases we have…” the man hummed and passed his hand above his head. “We've already explained it all to your fellow scribblers this morning. And I highly doubt the landlord would want to tell the same story tenth times over to another newspaper weasel. The only thing he's interested in right now is getting money from the insurance company.”

“And the girl?”

“What girl?”

“The waitress. Who worked here. What about her?”

“Considering how much blood there is, they're probably both either in a ditch, scattered in pieces, or feeding fishes somewhere at the bottom of the Mississippi… both father and daughter, if you meant her,” boredly remarked the other officer, who had quietly approached them, lighting a cigarette. “There's nothing for you to do here, boy. Henry's right — there's absolutely nothing of interest in this case. People might have chattered about it in the morning, but the very next day they'll forget all about it. Go home, don't add to our workload. And quit the paper that sent you here. If your editor doesn't realize that news like this must be broken in the heat of the moment, believe me, their business will burn out faster than a short match.”

Rocky tried to get anything else out of them, at least a little bit, to look in the kitchen of the eatery, to slip upstairs to Mau’s and Augusto's apartment, but the policemen were adamant. On unsteady legs he made it to the nearest bench and collapsed on it, staring blankly into the dark November sky. He could have screamed, could have destroyed everything around him on a single painful impulse, but the emptiness that engulfed him was far more frightening.

His silence was more frightening.

Years would pass. Would flow, as before, from night to night. The world won’t notice his loss. The world won't notice any loss at all. In the place of his beloved swallow house, other birds will build a nest. Freckle and Ivy will eventually stop opening that wound with their questions. And one day, perhaps, he will stop gazing into the crowd, hoping to find among the unfamiliar faces the features dear to his heart, and stop flinching when he hears someone say amore mio. He knows how it happens — it was not the first time. All he has to do is smile and everything will work out. It'll wear off, getting back to the way it was. One day.

But the bouquet of chrysanths will still remain rotting on the cold ground.

[fortune-maiden]

More Happily Ever After route ramblings because I like it a lot but also…

Now that I’ve played Cage & Princess + Dragon through all of their variations, it’s a little frustrating how HEA doesn’t really have any meaningful variation for Opportunist.

Which is a shame because I really like how different the Damsel routes that lead to HEA feel

For Paranoid’s ver, you have to deconstruct the damsel and get a paper thin construct that ‘wants to make us happy’ without knowing what that means or having any other thoughts or wants of her own. Smitten can’t accept that and ‘for her sake’ sets out to create a world where she’ll learn happiness and want (and succeeds in a deeply disturbing way)

Meanwhile, the version that leads to Opportunist feels a lot more sinister. You do know what the Damsel wants actually - she wants to leave. She’s been super cooperative and the ideal love interest Smitten believes her to be to this point, but the moment you decide to stay in the cabin after all, she expresses doubt. She doesn’t want what we want in this moment and Smitten can’t accept that. So he hijacks the route to create a ‘better’ world where Princess will have to want what we want…

It almost feels like Opportunist spawned from him in this scenario

[starflungwaddledee]

REALLY want to do some kirbytober but trying to decide exactly how to participate, sorry to be running a little late!

what do we most want to see? no bald/combo option because i want to know the actual preference for something like this!

[qoldenskies]

I managed to speedrun the first two fics of Canary Continuity within a day. And. How could you do this to me.

The greatest, most beautiful, painful, gut-wrenching, heart-shattering paragraphs ever written seem to be found in tmnt angst fics istg.

waow... im glad people have high opinion of my prose (because i do not have high opinion of my prose)

oh wait im supposed to be coy that's like my bit. TEEHEE THANK U FOR ENJOYING

[milkbreadtoast]

The artist list announcement was finally made on twitter so I can say it..!!

IT'S SUCH AN HONOR TO BE PARTICIPATING... I really wish I could go there in person but just the fact that they're letting me participate all the way from overseas is so exciting!! I really wanted to do this bc I love twsb and yeseo sm so I'm so honored to be invited... I think the way fans organize these types of events for their favs/fav works is so amazing!! I wish this kind of thing was common where I live too... I've been working rly hard preparing artwork for this event and I can't wait to share them T///T EVERYONE GET READY TO CELEBRATE THE MOST IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL HOLIDAY NEXT MONTH FEB 22...!!🤎💜

[madgoat212]

guys i do art i promise see see

i need to remember to post art here

[thatqueerbat]

also ive been watching this stream for what. 10, 15 minutes? there are so many shenanigans. everyone is hanging out with eachother.

every time i look up theres a new hermit on the screen, both in game, and irl. they're all together. just hanging out. bugging each other in real life, just as you'd expect.

and im crying. its amazing. its so amazing to see so many hermits all together, especially in person since thats so much harder to manage.

we have such an incredible community of creators and fans, and even though ive seen so little of the streams today, i just know how much fun they're all having. and its all for an amazing cause

im so proud of them. and us. we should be so proud of everything we've accomplished, and will continue to do. hermitcraft is so special

[sycamoretrees]

'Congratulations 🎊'

'Congratulations 🎊'

the identical captions really place these two posts in dialogue huh

[i-gwarth]

I think it's interesting and useful to remember, in light of the recent revelations, that the Witness is not merely a collective of individuals merged into a gestalt being. And it's not a traditional megalomaniacal monster.

It is ideology given form. The Penitent created it out of themselves, detaching their ideas out of people and forming them into an independent thing, in spite of, or rather because of the persistent quiet dissenters and doubters in their ranks. It was made in order to obliderate that dissent, to unify all voices in a singular purpose, even if many were not 100% aboard with all tenets of that purpose.

Do you see it yet?

The Witness is hegemony given form, an absolute unity of purpose. Forceful consensus, imposed. An act of self-mutilation that a group wrought upon itself, to exuviate away dissension and criticism. Like Set Roth said: "This is where absolute certainty leads."

A one-person cult.

[metanarrates]

watched a majora's mask analysis earlier today with my fiancee. my verdict is that I actually really enjoyed the op's interpretations, but that I wished that they talked more about mm's literal level and what one can get from it, rather than talking about those events as if they are strictly metaphor. yes, of course the metaphorical layer of the game is rich to dig into, but it's also such an open-ended and surreal game that it's difficult to nail down every single distinct metaphor that can be derived from its events. which is why I consider it necessary to discuss the way the literal layer presents itself and what sort of motifs and ideas exist there as a baseline before you begin looking at it as metaphor

[askpokepelago]

Moon, Gladion, and Hau’s Silvally playing tug-of-war on the shores of PokePelago

[puppyeared]

Atla live action 😐

[aroaceacacia]

i have a parasocial relationship with everybody who's ever uploaded an MCC vod to archive.org

[genshinchica]

As an autistic player, something I REALLY loved about Golden Apple 2022 was that Fischl’s lesson was not “you should stop pretending you’re a fictional character” and instead “you should embrace this thing that brings you joy and makes others cringe.” There’s something very genuine and loving about how the story was like “no this thing that others find weird is actually a part of yourself and who you are and you don’t have to compromise that for others and there are people who will love you for who you are and happily participate in it with you.”

I feel like it would have been really easy to have Fischl “grow up” and tell her the same thing people often tell autistic kids about their special interests or their behaviors, but instead they chose the surprisingly wholesome and nuanced take which I ❤️ and has left a special place in my heart. I’ve seen people be like “that was an unexpected lesson,” but I hope framing it this way may help people who felt that way about the ending reconsider it.

Fischl means a lot to a lot of trans and autistic players and not having her compromise who she is was really a good service for them!

[fiona-fififi]

The way people sometimes refuse to acknowledge that writing choices that clearly go against established canon should mean something is endlessly frustrating to me. We don't have to agree on the interpretation, but these writing choices SHOULD mean something.

Otherwise, it's shitty writing.