#the thing about dak-wai. and their understanding of themselves and their morality

[eastgaysian]

it's a dak-wai post it got long. freeing it from the limbo of late night drafts

dak-wai's interest in remembering who they were diminishes pretty quickly after killing alfira, to a purely functional level of 'i need to understand what the hell is going on but there's definitely some things i Don't want to know.' after incidents such as 'i tried to remember how this cat knew me and when i came to the cat was dead' followed by Ah shit bhaal's my dad, by the time they're in baldur's gate they just don't want to know fucking anything anymore. and become a little fixated on killing orin and gortash as a way of also killing whoever they used to be, by getting rid of the last people who remember that person. guy who came back wrong but was already wrong in the first place.

i do think they're still pretty recognizable in behavior for people who knew them in the past. apart from the 'i'm not murdering in cold blood i'm doling out justice and enacting vengeance' thing. their interest in women who could/would kill them is the same lol

they've also always had an almost comical level of discomfort in social situations, which are easier to avoid when you're the head of a murder cult and less so when you're a wandering adventurer. they go into most conversations with the intent of getting out of them as soon as possible, speak softly in a very concise way, which combined with their general vibe ends up coming off intimidating (not always intentional). their first instinct is to view people, particularly themself, through the lens of usefulness. so they actually feel more comfortable around people who want something from them (preferably something violent which they view as the only thing they really can do). it takes a minute for them to get genuinely interested in getting to know/befriending other people and attempts to befriend them usually get met with one-word answers and uninterested looks.

they're fixated on self-control, ruthlessly efficient and methodical in accomplishing tasks, but work best when someone else tells them what to do. just with pre-game dak-wai this was usually applied to like, Dad says i gotta do vivisections and murder art while current dak-wai would eventually start gardening as a hobby to supplement their interest in alchemy, buy 20 books about soil acidity and planting seasons, and have a blood feud with weeds and garden pests. < still not totally sure what their canon ending is going to be actually.

so really, though i don't think this is something dak-wai would ever be comfortable thinking about and acknowledging themself, the Fundamental difference between them now and in the past is. getting overcome by The Urge and killing their foster parents -> having literally nothing and no one other than bhaal, orin, and associates who they are resigned to-resent-revere. the only thing they know is doing what their father wants, the only time they ever feel good/they allow themselves to feel good is when they're doing what their father wants, there was never any other option. it's what they were made for. vs getting a do-over in a different place and with different people where it becomes possible to establish their own identity and believe that they can choose who they are, have a value outside of immediate usefulness, and literally just Do other things than kill people. even if they're bad at those other things it's worth trying

also getting a wife (who is also learning how to find beauty in things and accept tenderness). and becoming worsties with gay ass vampire and forming kind of a tacit pact where either they both make each other worse or believe they can both be better

[teratoscope]

Repton

The inside of the dome is a hothouse; your optics fog the moment you cut inside. The ground shifts and gives slightly under your feet. Nothing is paved here, except with what you’re guessing is piles of chipped rubber strewn across a concrete foundation. The whole place feels like you’ve wandered into a nightmare version of a playground; a hopeless tangle of brightly-painted metal and plastic, some entirely abstract and some molded in crude imitation of jungle foliage, weaves around and above you. Featureless black domes break up the terrain, some the size of houses. And then there’s the noise, the inescapable wall of sound this place throws at you. Synthetic insect chirring, the hiss and hum of climate regulators, a distant rumble of turbines and churning coolant somewhere far below, and a repetitive, ear-splitting whoop. Which, you’re realizing, is almost certainly an alarm. Your hosts are well camouflaged against the terrain; bright, many-colored scales gleam under the half-light that catches in the heady atmosphere like insects in amber. They dangle from bars and false branches, then drop to the ground and pace tight circles around you, watching the graphics flit across the inner surface of the dusky orange domes fused over their eyes. Some break formation to get a closer look, then flee back into the labyrinthine reaches above. “Are they supposed to be cute?” says Dak. Weapon racks pop loose from hidden chambers in the floor and out of “trees,” clattering into place. The Reptons rush them, squabbling for the prime pickings before some unseen force goads them to break away and take the next gun down. “You tell me,” you say.

HD 1 MV 180’ climb AC 14 AT bite (d4+1) or by weapon Special network

Network—all Reptons are networked to each other and their devices. Unless their comms are jammed, a Repton soldier always has a precise understanding of their distance relative to their squadmates and all Repton-aligned tech, and can communicate with both. Furthermore, all Reptons have access to their network’s algorithmic assistance. If the Reptons in question are in combat with a target that has fought networked Reptons before, they gain +1 to attack and initiative rolls for every one of these prior encounters (up to 6).

1d6 Repton Weapons

1.     Lance caster. 3d3 kinetic, 90’ range, six-shot clip. Semi-automatic magnetic bolt-thrower. Individual bolts are about as long as a human forearm, brightly colored to stand out for easy recovery and reload. Reptons struggle with tracking ammunition in high-tension situations, and also with aiming; lance casters tend to be assigned to top-percentile fighters.

2.     Buddy gun. 1d4+3 heat, 240’ range, battery exhausts and needs to be re-cranked for 1d3 rounds on a max-damage roll. Onboard AI provides procedurally generated moral support. Weapon of choice for the average Repton grunt.

3.     Bughucker. Xd10 explosive, 400’ range, can house and fire up to three shells at once, dealing damage equal to shells fired. Launches a suicide drone resembling an overfed beetle that chases its target using impenetrable precognitive algorithms. The damage from a successful attack roll with a Bughucker “arrives” 2d3 rounds after the round is actually fired. It takes 1 round to arm and load a shell. The definition of a fire-and-forget weapon.

4.     Mega-cuffs. 2d6 kinetic, melee weapon. Allows an extra 60’ rocket-assisted charge in a straight line as part of an attack. Fuel explodes for 3d6 damage in a 15’ radius on a critical miss (Dex check for half for everyone but the Repton wearing it).

5.     Rad-hoser. 30’ cone, 2d4 Rads (Dex check for half). Sprays goopy, luminescent reactor discharge. Widely used to clear ground for development.

6.     Slough cannon. 60’ cone, 1d8+1 damage from abrasion and hemorrhaging (Con check for half). Damage die implodes each round: roll damage at the top of the round and apply if the damage is less than the damage dealt last round; otherwise the effect ends. Deals no damage to targets in airtight armor. Weapon reaches dangerous operating temperatures; on firing the wielder takes 1d3 heat damage. Fires an expanding cloud of nanoassemblers designed to revert living tissue to uncommitted stem cells and package it for future use.

1d8 Repton Devices

1.     Black cylinder the size of a coffee maker held aloft on a dirty yellow repulsor field. Synthesized voice squawks instructions in decidedly un-reptilian but still unrecognizable language in time with strobes of decorative light piping. Neural-network assisted targeting means that each consecutive missed shot grants a +1 to the next attack made by any Repton. AC 8, hp 12, MV 90’ hover

2.     Modular railgun. Takes three dedicated team members and a full round to assemble, aim & fire, hucks anything that fits in the barrel and can hold a charge for 10d10 kinetic damage in a 600’ straight line (Dex check to dodge). All pieces emblazoned with thorough visual aids that walk the user through the assembly process.

3.     Egg-shaped plastic housing the size of a football with a set of neural interface leads coiled around a magnetic support stand. When wired up, user enters a hypnagogic state for six hours, after which leads detach and user wakes with no memory of their state of unconsciousness. For the subsequent 48 hours, user has instantaneous and entirely subconscious grasp of Repton engineering, will service Repton devices without noticing if their hands are not kept otherwise occupied. Reptons will ignore anyone who sticks close to one of these things, and actively assist a user. Continuous use risks permanent nerve damage.

4.     Short brass rod ending in t-shaped prong. So long as it remains aimed at a single biological target, the target’s sensory faculties are greatly reduced (disadvantage to all tests of perception), and pain, fatigue, and sickness register only as a faint, pleasurable itch (so long as effect is sustained, player has no knowledge of their hit point total and is immune to penalties from distraction/pain/morale).

5.     Repton-sized metal pylon ringed with sturdy levers. Interface panel shows map of local terrain and best-fit route from current location to resource-rich zone. Requires a team of ten Reptons (or three to four reasonably strong humans) to open, revealing opalescent, filigreed structure, like a fossil basket star curled around a flickering, barely perceptible mote of solid black. Upon release, computronium seed begins to unfold and put down roots. Surrounding six-mile radius will become a fully functional and populated Repton habitat within a month.

6.     Amoeboid drone; flexile smart-matter body around hard-framed central storage armatures. Absorbs wounded Reptons and deposits them in “care spheres” where internal limbs mend/foam over wounds and dose the patient with combat amphetamines. One round to recover an incapacitated Repton, 2d3 rounds to redeploy with a rerolled hit die and +4 to hit and damage. MV 120’, AC 10, hp 14.

7.     Mobile terrarium. Looks like a Rainforest Café stapled to the back of a mechanical crab. Reptons stationed in one never flee; they defend their home to the death. “Trees” extrude clone mealworm paste and simulation fruit flesh in narcotic, mildly hallucinogenic, and blue raspberry flavors. Guided by competent but nonverbal AI. Personalities tend to be grudgingly servile to overseers, pleasantly exasperated with crew in a way that should be familiar to any cat owner. MV 90’, AC 16, hp 80

8.     Meta-Rover. Modular all-terrain vehicle, top operable combat speed of 300’/round. Like a pile of motorized, armored bigwheels bolted together into a single day-glo abomination, until it separates into a swarm of single-seaters. Vehicles can hypothetically link indefinitely, but for every unit after the 6th there’s a 1 in 10 chance at the end of each round that the drivers fall catastrophically out of sync and the assemblage spins out.

The Reptons were the first species we encountered in the Contact War, and if it had only ever been them, things might have been different.

The average individual Repton is about as canny as an especially dull chimp in most regards. They’re reasonably talented tool-users, but if you were to raise one from the egg, away from their infrastructure, their at-birth implants, and mainline Repton culture, it would take some serious goading to get them to so much as flint-knap.

And yet as a group, Reptons are deadly. They fight tactically, often making unexpected gambits, and they fight with little regard for their individual well-being. They communicate constantly, though no-one has yet been able to decipher Repton script or spoken language; Repton “writing” features six thousand plus distinct characters and counting and doesn’t seem to have any fixed direction you’re supposed to read it. And their war effort is driven by arms and manufacturing tech that is sometimes leagues ahead of what humanity is capable of, or founded on utterly inscrutable scientific principles, even if the interfaces often seem designed for preschoolers.

But nobody has a clear, substantiated explanation for how they wound up with their tech in the first place. A camp in Freestar One’s strategic research division theorizes that they are the leftovers of a species that lost its evolutionary pressures towards sapience; another argues that they are an uplifted species whose patrons abandoned them, died out, or supervise them from a distance. Stranger explanations exist.

What is known is that their computers are frighteningly powerful and all of their machines talk to each other. Their industrial society is kept afloat purely by the power of their algorithms and the constant influx of resources provided by their ongoing conquest of the planet—the Reptons themselves are merely the hands that authorize and facilitate the intricate automatic processes of invention and fabrication that build their domed cities, develop their food, medicine, entertainment, and weapons, grow and indoctrinate their children, and schedule their lives.

They are vestigial components in a vast machine with no capacity to recognize itself or any part within, operating on the sprawling organic logic of a dream instantiated by engineers lost to time.

Anyone who’s been deployed in Repton territory can attest to the uncanny atmosphere they carry with them. No individual part of a Repton crew behaves like a person. But there is something that emerges in the interplay, as they fumble with their devices and their devices fumble with them, that suggests an intellect inherent to neither. If you watch them from the right distance—not too far, not too close—they resolve into something distressingly like us.

[ccc-sarahjaneseddon]

Week 5

Important information in reading:

“Imagined community”

As he explains, all communities, including nations, are built from a series of ideas and imaginings (Anderson 1991), For example, if I consider myself a “New Zealander.” I am constituting this identity for myself without having necessarily met every other New Zealander,”

“New Zealand Imagined (i.e. by the state, in the mainstream media, etc), and who benefits from these particular imaginings (both culturally and financially)? Nations are commonly thought of as being defined by physical boundaries.

Identity that is based on patriarchal colonosation and inequality, and which precipitate racism and war.

Nationalism is commonly associated with fringe minorities and commonly thought of as representative of “dangerous and powerful passions” and “extraordinary emotions” it is equally common in mainstream western democracy(billing, p5)

As billing goes on to discuss, the idea of the nation-state history is historically recent and difficult to define.

The modern concept of the nation is employed not just to define specific nations, but to support and justify the very idea of nations. 

To justify ‘ultimate sacrifices’ as the cause of nationhood is greater than itself (billing pt11)

“The moral aura of nationalism, is invoked: heads will be nodded, flags will be waved and tanks will roll.” (billing p4) 

Nationalism as something that “occurs there” on the periphery, not “here” in the centre,” for as he argues, it is certainly the constantly “here”(billing p6)

Nationalism applies to an extreme demonstration of loyalty to the nation, it depends upon a banal framework of recognisable symbols and signs that constitute that national identity.

‘banal nationalism’, which he delineates from the common usage of world nationalism by using analogy of a flag: during war, when nationalism is invoked, the flag flies proudly at the forefront of the army. During peacetime it may hang innocuously on the front of a post office(Billing p6) This post office flag is representative of banal nationalism 

Flag flies proudly,

To show the country flag off, this whole flag flying gives me that image of America flags in the sky and also brings me a vision of the BNZ ad we watched in class. The America flag I feel is always shown flying in the sky.

The flag always means the same thing. It means “this nation.” Given this framework of banal nationalism, it is possible

“Kiwi-ness”

Watties brand tomato sauce, the other for Tip Top brand ‘supersoft’ white bread, both refer specifically to New Zealand and New Zealanders through the use of terms like ‘kiwi’ and ‘this country’.  

I have thought about adds in New Zealand who show off ‘the kiwi-ness’ in there ads, and I was thinking Mcdonalds kiwi burger ad does this. Yes it is a kiwi burger but the jingle is all to do with kiwis and what we do best and what we love.

Original lyrics:

"Kiwis love hot pools, rugby balls, McDonald's, snapper schools, world peace, woolly fleece, Ronald and raising beasts.

"Chilly bins, cricket wins, fast skis, golf tees, Silver Ferns, Kauri trees, Kiwiburger love one please... McDonald's Kiwiburger. The classic New Zealand burger.

"Cause we love All Blacks, thermal daks, egg and cheese, walking tracks, beef pattie, marching girls, tomato, lettuce and paua shells.

"Gumboots, ponga shoots, floppy hats, kiwifruits, beetroot, Buzzy Bees, moggy cats, cabbage trees, onions, kakapos, kia oras, cheerios, Jandals, sandals, ketchup, Coromandel's, Swanndris, butterflies, mustard, fishing flies, Hokey Pokey, Māori haka. Kiwiburger, that's our tucker!"

NZ Herald: McDonald's releases diverse new Kiwiburger anthemhttps://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/lifestyle/anika-moa-and-troy-kingi-team-up-for-new-diverse-mcdonaldss-kiwiburger-anthem/ Mon, 20 Jul 2020,

Both use techniques to hail the viewer into regarding themselves in the context of their nation identity. Through direct address of actor to camera (in case of Supersoft) and use the term “You”(as in “watties sauce”)

The word you catches your attention as you imagine yourself as being you, I have never noticed this but now I can understand how ads are trying to catch your attention to be ‘kiwi’

The viewer into the subject positioned of either being a “kiwi” or not being a “kiwi” By attempting to associate the products with what is assumed to be the national character of Aoteroa/New Zealand, the advertisements in fact reproduce, and in so doing constitute, this of the post office.

Banal nationalism can be visually observed in both advertisements as they both have more or less identical settings.

Robin Law (1997), who writes that the popular representation of the New Zealand national character is often strongly linked to the outdoors.

Both Supersoft and Watties sauce reinforce traits by contrasting an essential “kiwi” with an essential representation of another culture.

Ads often show the kiwi-ness through using kiwi stereotypes. For example the whole idea that we play rugby, that all you see is farm land filled with cows and sheep,  we wear gumboots, we have a good summer with bbqs and beaches. The stereotype of farmers in New Zealand was shown in Week 5 lecture, we watched Hilux ads and it was the whole idea that we drive across ruff farmland in gumboots. Also that whole idea of being a “white male.” A example of this mentioned in this reading is “Wattie Sauce” that shows images of children at barbecues with bare feet, the beach and other outdoor settings. Being a kiwi I feel like stereotypes bring that kiwi-ness in ads. 

White, middle aged and casually/rurally dress - Kiwi male is shown applying the aforementioned sauce to a sushi roll while the jingle exclaims that “you’ll never be a kiwi ‘till you love our Watties”

This kind of annoyed me because as mentioned above its “you” focus, that whole representation that makes you buy products just because you live in New Zealand and want you to feel that you have to be “kiwi.” I never noticed this slogan mentioned in their ads untill this was pointed out. And for some reason when reading this I felt annoyed and angry.

Experience of another culture. He is a “kiwi” which means he cannot eat Japanese food as Japanese people might intend him too. Rather, he must “kiwify” it lest in breach his national character.

Contrasted with the assumed national character of the Japanese, which is shown in the commercial to be up-market and highly ritualistic. The Japanese waitress appears in full nation costume’.

This made me question, is this really appropriate? is it appropriate to say that you ain’t kiwi unless you put tomato sauce on another cultural food? In my opinion I feel that it shouldn’t be pushing out the ideal kiwi and making you feel that you have to eat food a certain way to be kiwi. 

According to Tiptop, New Zealanders have been spending all together too much time calling a spade a racist epithet, for playing “cowboys and indigenous Native Americans” (rather than “Indians”), wishing to eat free range eggs(instead of batter) wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle are all regarded as “soft”

Tip Top white bread should be the only soft thing in a New Zealander’s life. ‘Enough is enough, New Zealand,” she tells the camera, as the viewer is called upon to examine whether or not they have strayed far enough from the national character to be considered “soft” or otherwise “not kiwi”

Side-stepped the association of masculinity and “kiwi” by placing a woman in the role of speaking to New Zealand.

New Zealand identity typically excludes woman, meaning woman are either required to place themselves in opposition or assume a masculine role when participating in the framework of national identity. (Law, 1997, pg 6)

Tip Top considered it in their interest to represent a “kiwi” in the form of woman.”

We use that stereotype of a “white male” in ads to focus to the whole idea of being“kiwi.” Tip top has considered to represent a “kiwi” in form of a woman. This shows how they have gone out of the whole idea that New Zealand is represented by males.

The ‘flagging’ of both “is” and “isn’t” part of ‘our’ national identity occurs on a daily basis.

Declare both what “kiwis” should and shouldn’t be, and to sort them from the “not kiwis”

Billig’s supposition is that, regardless if the challenge to the traditional nation posed by postmodernism, there is still plenty of power and there are still plenty of guns.

“Kiwi jobs for kiwi workers”

Where nationalists flaggings are concerned and regarding that advice, readers of this essay and I, I might add, this author, might be inclined to agree. Banal, as billig tells us does not equal benign. 

Reflection

Overall this reading of “A Kiwi At My Table Banal Nationalism and Food Advertising in Aotearoa/New Zealand” by Robyn Kenealy. Has made me aware that food ads are using the whole idea of being “kiwi” and suggests to “you” that you should be kiwi as well. By using the sterotypical ideal kiwi white male, and stereotypical of being kiwi, for example “you’ll never be a kiwi ‘till you love our Watties.” I have felt annoyed that New Zealanders as a nation are sharing the ideal way to be a kiwi for there own company or business. People identify New Zealand as a summer, bbq with friends, farming and other sterotypes of New Zealand that shows the audience of the ads that it is our nation.

Anderson, Benedict. “The origins of nationalism”. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso Books, 2006, 48-59.

Billig, Michael. “Introduction”. Banal Nationalism. Sage Publications, 1995, 1-12.

Kenealy, Robyn. “A “kiwi” at my table”. Unpublished (student essay), n.d.

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/lifestyle/anika-moa-and-troy-kingi-team-up-for-new-diverse-mcdonaldss-kiwiburger-anthem/

NZ Herald: McDonald's releases diverse new Kiwiburger anthemhttps://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/lifestyle/anika-moa-and-troy-kingi-team-up-for-new-diverse-mcdonaldss-kiwiburger-anthem/ Mon, 20 Jul 2020,

[eastgaysian]

ok here's post. thinking again about ascending astarion (i am always thinking about astarion) and the circumstances in which lemming and dak-wai would be able to justify it to themselves.

(ephros is going to treat astarion and everyone else like total shit and get them the worst endings possible without having them die/leave the party. he's my awful male manipulator lizard and he still manages to maintain decent approval with everyone.)

the thing is that while lemming is more consistently and thoughtfully 'good,' dak-wai's much more rigid in their limited moral code of Kill bad people and save innocents so it's basically impossible to change their mind. lemming, however, is susceptible to being manipulated by ill-intentioned beautiful men he is personally attached to.

for dak-wai's canonical series of events, the spawn ambush camp trying to kidnap astarion -> dak-wai immediately assesses cazador as the party's most pressing danger who needs to be killed immediately -> they haven't confronted orin/bhaal yet, so they're projecting a lot of their own fears and expectations onto astarion's confrontation with cazador. when the imprisoned spawn are described as monsters who'll inevitably go mad with bloodlust if set free, dak-wai identifies with that and wants to believe that if the spawn are given a chance they can live their lives peacefully, just like they desperately hope is possible for themself. they've chatted with velioth's skull, the Cycles are not lost on them. talking astarion down is motivated by genuine concern for him and the idea that he'd be becoming cazador, but it's also about them needing to believe that when it's their turn to confront their abusive 'dad' they'll be able to reject him and forge their own path no matter the cost. if it's possible for astarion it's possible for me, recognition of the self through the other (derogatory) (genuinely sympathetic). so in the moment, they would Not be convinced to help with the ritual. if they'd failed to persuade astarion they would've been fucking gutted by him leaving, given up in the bhaalist temple and accepted being his chosen👍

them agreeing to ascend astarion would require events to unfold very differently. they'd have to confront orin without killing gortash first (which they do canonically on account of Really Fucking Hating that guy and also not wanting to endanger halsin's life), then fail to persuade orin not to kill halsin. this would be a plausible course of action for them if they got fixated enough on orin as basically the personification of who they used to be, meaning she needs to be dead immediately. they have a lot of complicated feelings about orin that they're not entirely sure are their 'own' or somehow retained from the past - resentment for the whole attempted murder and viewing her as the symbol of their past self, but also some amount of pity at her desperate desire to become bhaal's chosen when dak-wai understands the role as essentially a puppet. after killing her, they feel a weird combination of guilt and satisfaction about killing someone who they know intellectually was their sister, the person most Like Them, but they don't remember orin being their sister, but they still kind of feel that connection?

and having failed to save halsin because they were so fixated on killing orin which they don't even feel great about, they reach a breaking point and go there was no point in all this. in the end i just played into bhaal's hands anyway, i couldn't stop my friend from being killed, i couldn't stop myself from killing alfira or isobel. i became obsessed with killing orin then had to turn into the slayer to defeat her and that's exactly what bhaal wanted! there's no point in resisting. if i'm determined to stay alive this is the cost i have to accept -> ego death, oathbreaker era, literally just going through the motions and ceases to express any opinions of their own. you want my help to carve the scars on your back into the back of the person who put them there? you got it. point them at who they need to kill and they'll do it. yeah we might as well let the emperor eat orpheus' brain even if this means my wife will divorce/attempt to kill me. their enthusiasm for killing people actually seems to verge on a kind of passive suicidality hoping someone else will manage to kill them. it's bad ❤️

lemming... has a history of being manipulated by beautiful men who are not great people and making excuses for their behavior, much to the dismay of his friends who Always Fucking Hated His Shitty Boyfriend. [the darkest universe is actually one where lemming and ephros coexist and ephros makes him worse by bringing him into faerun's worst unethical toxic polycule.] he personally has a strong moral center, but he holds himself to higher standards than he does others, and especially if they have a strong personal relationship he can be talked into believing they meant well/it's really for the greater good. so the idea of killing six other spawn subjected to the same abuse as astarion doesn't sit well with him, and the idea of killing 7000 spawn who've been trapped, starving, for centuries is just inconceivable. there are children in there.

However. with enough emphasis on the idea that this is a mercy killing of vampire spawn who've suffered for years and would inevitably wreak havoc if released, failed insight check because lemming has Not invested in wisdom, astarion insisting that this is what's best for me, for us, this is how i become free, isn't that what you want? there's definitely a moment where lemming is genuinely torn between what he knows is right and what he thinks astarion wants/needs from him. there's a degree to which he idealizes astarion, and a degree to which he has convinced himself astarion is idealizing him by believing that he is uniquely caring and loyal, when actually lemming is just an overly trusting unexceptional idiot and inevitably people realize he's not that special and find someone better. helping astarion ascend would not only prove that he really loves him, but also make himself truly special/indispensable because it's only with his help and trust that astarion was able to ascend.

at which point i think it would really become a matter of sunk cost fallacy. lemming would not even allow himself to consider that this was a bad idea and he should get the hell out of there. because for him there is a distinct appeal, terrible and unhealthy though it may be, in the idea of being a treasured possession, jealously guarded despite the fact he offers nothing. just because he's wanted. there's security in being a caged bird and all you have to do is sing. if you trust your keeper is it really such a bad deal

[wearing a badge that says Sorry for only talking about my bg3 ocs' relationships with astarion 90% of the time] i can't write the post i was going to anymore. sorry