This is the money frog, if you see him you will soon receive money and frogs

Shadowheart

Concept art for Baldur's Gate 3

*Artist Unknown* If you know comment below

“you should be at the club” Brother I should literally be sent to the seaside for my health

Bro absolutely COOKED with this.

If you ever hear the phrase "fascism is aesthetics as politics," that's what this post is talking about.

It's not about being tough on crime, because the absolute toughest most brutal measure you could take against "crime" as a social problem is to alleviate poverty, and increase access to education, healthcare and social mobility.

It's about performing "tough on crime" as an aesthetic by enacting violence against a prop, i.e. minorities and the impoverished, who are fetishized and objectified to represent "crime." They are brutalized as punishment for crime, but never with the purpose of alleviating the problem of crime.

This is why a lot of conservatives and other right wingers can get straight up angry when you suggest things like reform or social measures to reduce crime. They don't want crime to be reduced, they want an eternal war against "crime" because it provides an arena for the righteous to demonstrate virtue by brutalizing their enemies.

It is a bit of a running gag that Shadowheart is an awful Sharran and that is true. Sharrans are sworn to secrecy but the girl is just begging to tell you that she's a Sharran. If you manage to go all of Act 1 without ever finding out her secret, the first thing outta her mouth once you reach the Shadowlandss is "Yo! So, I'm in a death cult and I'm really vibing with this curse rn." She does put on quite the effort not to tell you but oooo does she really want to. Shadowheart has the second most amount of content in this game. The girl is a yapper.

After she reveals herself as a Sharran and you ask her about it, she speaks like she is reading off a script. I always got the impression that she really didn't believe in the things she says, and is only saying the things she believes she is expected to say. She has her moments, but Shadowheart is overall a kind and compassionate person (like, she'll say "Ya, just let them die" and then disapproves when you actually let them die. Or, "it's a waste of our time to save them" and then approves when you save them). The things that she says often directly conflicts what she actually feels, indicating at least to me that the Sharrans did not do a good job at fully restraining her way of thinking and feeling about the world around her. She is told not to trust the world, but she wants to trust you and she repeatedly tells you that she does. The more she trusts you, the more she speaks about herself (something Sharrans aren't supposed to do). Sharrans are not supposed to love or care about those around them, but she does love you and she has a hard time not loving you. The only meaning in life is loss and despair, that pain ultimately means nothing. But Shadowheart needs to find meaning in her pain, otherwise she might give up if she truly gives in to loss and acknowledge that her god is harming her for no reason. And no one wants to believe that there is no reason for what is happening to them, especially if they are suffering.

There are some Sharran things she is good at like thievery, deception, ambushing, assassinations. But considering how bad she is at all the other Sharran stuff, it's pretty telling that her true nature always wins in the end. Almost like the indoctrination didn't take... and that's because it didn't. Well, at least not as effectively as it could have. Shadowheart does not remember her own indoctrination because the memory of it was taken from her. Her mind was repeatedly wiped over the course of 40 years where Viconia had to constantly start over at "Welcome to the Cult" seminar. The thing about indoctrination though is that it relies on persistence and consistency, and Viconia didn't do that. All she really remembers is that her life has always been in the cult, but there is a lot inbetween that is missing.

Every time Shadowheart broke her indoctrination, they just wiped her mind, breaking whatever progress they did make and start over. And every time there was a mind wipe, they tried something new to get the indoctrination to stick. And every time it failed, they just wiped her mind and started over when what they should have done is kept it up, doubled down, and punish. And they did punish, but they didn't keep it up.

By her own admission, Shadowheart's memory was wiped in preparation of the mission to "protect it". Meaning she was an active Sharran (that she remembers being) for only a few months, maybe a year, before being sent off into the world. So this whole Sharran nonsense is still relatively fresh for her and surface level. She also has the divine shock collar attached to her, something Shar uses to "correct" her naughty behavior. Shar is trying to condition her into giving up her humanity. Every time the wound flares up, a brief memory from her childhood is restored to teach a lesson, only for the memory to be taken again. Shadowheart doesn't remember the lesson, only the pain. And these little shocks don't work because she doesn't know why they're happening, and she does try to figure it out. She doesn't know if it's a punishment, a test, or if it is something happening at random. And to me, this is a real point of failure because punishment is effective when the one being punished knows why they are being punished.

As I said earlier, persistence is key to indoctrination. When real life cults do their recruitment missions and community outreach, members often do not go alone and if they do, they are not gone long (they also tend to have much stricter rules about how to socialize when alone). This is so that the members can continue to reinforce their ideas amongst each other, maintaining the indoctrination. Well, all of the other Sharrans on the mission died and Shadowheart was left as the sole survivor. The people who otherwise would have reinforced her conditioning while away from Viconia were no longer there to do it. Not to mention, Shar herself is doing an awful job at enforcing it with her whole silent treatment shtick. This is where Sharrans being secretive is supposed to be useful. If Shadowheart never reveals being a Sharran, the player has less of an opportunity to challenge those views, and the less likely she is to change them. But Shadowheart hasn't been in the cult (from recent memory) long enough for that lesson to truly stick (which is why she's a yappy little yapper). The more someone questions their beliefs, with no source that reinforces that belief, the more likely the indoctrination is to break.

When it comes to the Nightsong, a lot of people believe that affinity is all that it takes to get Shadowheart to reject Shar. Although that is the defining factor, it is a bit more complicated then that. In the background, there is a secret counter called Nightsong points and you can accumulate them by supporting Shadowheart, getting her to trust you, and very very subtly causing her to question her own beliefs. These Nightsong points play a role in Shadowheart's choice and can influence how the ordeal goes down when the choice is left up to her (although the defining factor is still the affinity, the Nightsong points just changes the options available, how Shadowheart responds to you, and how she acts if you don't have high enough affinity). So, in the back ground, the Nightsong points cause her to question Shar and then ultimately rejecting Shar. But you have to be very careful when playing as a Selunite. If you pick any of the unique Selunite options, it will cause Shadowheart to dig in and kill the Nightsong to spite you. The worst possible thing you can say to a cult member is "You're wrong", because it will cause them to double down, which is why Shadowheart is super extra bitchy to a Selunite player and Isobel. There is also a similar counter for her parents where if you go to specific places in the city, it will influence on whether or not she chooses to spare her parents when the choice is left up to her and permanently frees herself from Shar.

If you never really talk to her, if you do not grow her affinity, if you don't get her to challenge her beliefs, what little indoctrination that she does have will stick, making it more likely she goes down the Dark Justiciar path on her own. A path in which she acknowledges that she herself is nothing but a blind follower because it is easier than to accept that she lost everything because she was misled and lied to by the only influence she has ever known. But, considering Shadowheart's romance statistics, most people don't ignore Shadowheart and most people do talk to her a lot. Most people provide her with the support she needs to challenge her beliefs. And it is super easy, because the indoctrination was flimsy at best.

Yeah, Shadowheart is a bad Sharran and her true nature will always prevail. Even when on the Dark Justiciar route, she is still pretty bad. But her being a bad Sharran is partially due to the fact that the Sharrans did a bad job at indoctrinating her in the first place.

Everytime I refresh my feed, the number of Palestinians massacred by Israel today rises.

419 is the most recent number of Palestinians killed in an Israeli large-scale sneak attack that started at 2 in the morning today (March 18). That's over 400 people massacred while they slept. That's more than 400 people killed in less than 24 hours.

She's so fun to draw

I see way too many fics where Caitlyn is cool. Arcane Caitlyn has a conspiracy board on her floor, no friends we see of her age despite being one of the richest people in Piltover, and sucks at making conversation. This is loser erasure and I will not stand for it. In this essay I will—

Peeg

In some other life, perhaps.

Hear me out. Arcane Cyberpunk 2077 AU with Vi as basically V and Caitlyn as basically Regina Jones

Streetkid Vi who grew up around her dad's bar in Haywood. Powder as a baby netrunner who pushes things way too far and brings the wrath of Netwatch and one of the big Corps down on the family. Vi gets swept up in it, thrown into prison on trumped up charges while Powder is disappeared. Gets out after years and gets into boxing to make ends meet and ends up having to take on merc jobs because earnings from the fights aren't covering it. She needs money if she ever hopes to find out what happened to Powder when Netwatch snagged her in the raid that killed the rest of her family.

(Not strictly opposed to putting some kind of bomb in Vi's head, but I don't want to fuck with the relic, I don't need this to be a Johnny Silverhand story)

Caitlyn comes from a Corpo family, for a company that specializes in implants and bio-technology. She was being groomed for Succession before rebelling and enrolling in the NCPD instead, in an extremely naive bid to do good in the city. Unfortunately since "good cop" is an oxymoron, it goes sideways - she ends up in a scandal that involves losing her eye and having a target put on her back. Cassandra intervenes, meaning Caitlyn gets to resign instead of being fired, but it comes with strings - she's forced back into the corporate structure. Humiliated, but not fully broken, Caitlyn turns her efforts to an unauthorized side project, using her position and influence (and a tide of company funds) to conduct research on cyberpsychosis (especially as it relates to her family's implants and the worrying spike of a new street drug that purports to allow users to add more implants with less risk). Eventually she reaches out to an up and coming merc that all her contacts say is both hungry and effective, some pink-haired Streetkid with a face tattoo.

DO YOU SEE THE VISION. DO YOU SEE IT?!