I'm not done talking about q!Baghera. Today I wanna touch on something her mind seems to tune out for her own protection: the Federation's cruelty. Now buckle up folks, given how dark her story is, this is gonna get heavy.
When she first discovered her old room, in her little diary, her past self had written the following: "they made me do things, and I couldn't stop until they were satisfied. They are never satisfied. They just want to make me miserable. They keep plucking my feathers for... a dumb reason."
This is cruel. This is child abuse, and this is torture The entire Federation would deserve to be burnt to the ground ten times over if they did this once. They did this to her every single day.
However, here's the thing: the way child q!Baghera phrases it, it almost looked like the torture was in response to her not behaving like they wanted her to. As if this unjustified abuse was somehow a punishment, something that could be somewhat avoided by her doing things differently.
We may now have an inkling that was not the case. In the "RESULTS: BAGHERA" book that she burned yesterday, we could read the following: "PREVIOUS BEHAVIORAL REPORTS DESCRIBED BAGHERA ENTERING SIMILAR UNRESPONSIVE STATES WHEN EXPOSED TO INTENSE STRESS OR HIGHLY UNPLEASANT STIMULI. HOWEVER DEPENDING ON THE CAUSE OF SAID STRESS IT MAY HAVE BEEN PRECEDED BY ATTEMPTS OF BITING HER CARETAKERS AND OTHER FEDERATION STAFF, WITH OTHER HELPLESS ATTEMPTS AT ESCAPE"
Now I don't know about you, but the way I read this, it means the torture was never a punishment. It was the experiment itself. They were deliberately, or at least knowingly, putting her in situations that could trigger her unresponsive state. How messed up is that?
This is the extend of their cruelty: they created a sentient child, but they never raised her, they never cared for her, they never tried to make her better. She was just an experiment among possibly hundreds of others. An object to poke and prod at to see how it would react. Even knowing this is roleplay, I can't think about this without getting sick to my stomach.
This is where she now knows she comes from. Where any normal child had a family's love and care, she had only the Federation's cruelty. Is it any wonder then that q!Baghera refuses to even acknowledge the torture? That her mind put walls around walls around walls to protect her from that horrific reality? That yesterday she was grasping at straws, hoping that the Federation was not as bad as she thought, in denial about what she suffered at their hands?
I am conflicted about what her burning the book meant, because she also burned all the photos. At first I thought this was just another wall, but I'm not so sure. Her room was not a bad memory, it contained everything she liked. She also didn't burn her diary. Also, she didn't look distressed, she looked angry. Her first thought went to Pomme, her daughter and therefore her family, and then came her ironic realization about the islanders building their own little prisons while trying to escape.
I believe right now she is very hopeless, and she has a lot of trauma to face in the coming days. However, the more I think of it, the more it seems yesterday's ending was not her giving up, but a spark awakening, however small. And maybe, just maybe, that spark is enough to start chipping at the walls. Time will tell.
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