On Paloma's despair

Paloma's decline began during the night with Solena maiming Amaloc. She took the blame onto herself, believing that if she'd just been smarter about talking with Solena, it wouldn't have happened. It simmered until Paloma finally couldn't show her face around her loved ones any longer, leaving Amaloc as prepared as she could leave him when she went back home.

Her visit to Cucali was a last-ditch effort to fix things -- to make things right again. When Cucali not only rebuffed Paloma but called her poisonous, the guilt and despair took root in her mind and made her further believe in her worthlessness. But she wasn't over the despair event horizon, yet.

The Black Watcher was what drove her over that. At first, talking to him, she was convinced that she needed to do something differently -- she'd always been the protected one, so obviously if she was the one /hurt/ for once, things would get better. Right? The Watcher tore that down, and along with it, tore down her already-fragile psyche by twisting events to make things seem like she'd been manipulating everyone. And Paloma, gullible to the end, took it all in like a sucker. It broke her. The only thing which stopped her from ending it all was the memories of her quadrants.

Essentially, when she messaged Ranigi and told him about events, she was testing to see whether the Watcher was right - and callously putting her friends on the line for it, because in the core of herself she'd already taken it to heart that she /was/ poisonous. And if she's poisonous, well, why not play to her strengths? In this instance she was using Ranigi, and rather blatantly at that, though there were still signs that she didn't want him to get involved - signs that the part of her which still believed in her friendships was still trying to influence things. Sadly, she'd already hit her despair event horizon, and she wasn't able to prevent herself from baiting Ranigi into her trap.

When events spiralled out of control, Paloma took that as proof, which will only be cemented when she learns of Ranigi's death. But Paloma doesn't /want/ to believe she's a scorpion, stinging the backs of the people trying to ferry her across water. Part of her can see what her newfound truth is doing to her friends and loved ones, and it's that part of her which is trying to put on a brave face now, trying to ignore what she thinks she truly is in order to smile for her allies.

In the end, the Watcher himself couldn't have broken Paloma, and neither could Cucali. But both of them together, in the wake of a situation Paloma saw as her fault - their reasonings tied together in a terrible swan-song of her psyche. She "knows what she is", now - a homewrecking villain, using her friends and bringing them down into Hell. And it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This has interesting implications for Shadow Paloma. She could go one of two ways -- either Paloma represses her true feelings of friendship and s!Paloma becomes an unexpected /ally/,  or Paloma represses her "true identity" and s!Paloma becomes a much more dangerous villain. If s!Paloma had to take on Paloma's feelings of being the puppeteering bad guy, using everyone around her, well -- that's what she'd begin to do. (Combine with s!Yunato for hilarious results?) If I took the much sadder route of Paloma repressing her own friendship to try and deal with her "truth", though I'd rather it didn't for obvious reasons ie. that would be sad as hell, then s!Paloma would start acting like Paloma normally does -- being friend to the shadows, helping them with their tasks and possibly even seeing eye-to-eye with the players.

TL;DR Paloma's heading STRAIGHT for Stepford Smiler territory. sobs weakly