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#PARADISAEAS

within every building, made with pride.. the architect, is trapped inside., bleeding paint, a shattered heart – that's what makes a work of art.a selective KAVEH from genshin impact, as loved by mikasa.i'll fight for control, but the right way takes a toll. and still at the end of it all.. i can't escape my fate, the writing's on the wall.

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NOTES

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RELATIONSHIPS:

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biography

NAME.	kaveh
ALIASES.	light of kshahrewar, kavvy (by faranak), kshahrewar. exclusive: hayati, habibi (alhaitham, dependent)
AGE.	27/28 in main verse.
SPECIES.	human (vision wielder)
BIRTHDAY.	birthday
GENDER.	male (he/him)
ORIENTATION.	homo-demiromantic/sexual
LOCATION.	sumeru, teyvat
OCCUPATON.	architect

&

i was always ashamed to take. so i gave. it was not a virtue. it was a disguise.anaïs nin.

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EXPLORATION

content warning:  alcohol, substance addiction, mental illness, mentions of s/icide and s/h.
proceed at your own discretion.from what we can discern, kaveh's father died when kaveh was quite young, and he asked his father to enter the interdarshan championship so he could see the diadem. an innocent ask, but kaveh's father doesn't end up winning, and it drives him into a depressed state from which kaveh has to watch. this in itself is the beginning of the cultivation of guilt in kaveh with regards to his father, blaming his own desire to see the diadem for how his father becomes. this is only further strengthened when in a trip to the desert, kaveh's father dies. in conjunction with the lead up, kaveh immediately thinks its his fault that his father died. we learn in the interdarshan championship event that he died evacuating everybody from the quicksand, but i believe that this could easily have been s*icide. with the way his mental state was following the championship and leading up to the trip, i think he could've gotten out, but chose not to. and i think kaveh may have known this to some degree as well, which is why the guilt only gets stronger.to rub salt in the wound, kaveh's mother falls into a deep depression after the loss of his father, and kaveh has to grow up to take care of both of them. for a long while after his death, kaveh's mother would've been as much as a corpse, and there's no doubt that seeing what his father looked like in kaveh's hangout, kaveh would be a sore reminder. however, kaveh discusses his mother to quite a large extent in several branches of his hangout. an argument i see a lot of people make is that kaveh and faranak would harbour resentment since faranak "abandoned" him. but that isn't true at all. kaveh does not hold ill will to his mother moving to fontaine, and in fact actively encouraged her to find happiness. when discussing this, he mentions that he hasn't reached out, presumably in return to her letters, because he doesn't want to intrude on her new life. these both suggest once more that kaveh believes he is the problem, and a burden. we also know that faranak eventually pulled herself together, as kaveh tells us she did her best as a single mother and he's grateful to her. yes, in a sense, perhaps she did abandon him to grow up a bit, but her leaving for fontaine happened after she raised him and kaveh encouraged her. if anything, their lack of communication and distant relationship are perpetrated by kaveh himself in his notion he has to absolve himself of guilt by giving to others. in this regard, he considers removing himself from his mother's life giving to her.this already establishes that kaveh is self destructive, which the rest of his character stories depict. even at the akademiya, kaveh burns with a passion for his art, so much so he'd be known as light of the kshahrewar. during his time there, he meets and becomes best friends with alhaitham, who contradicts him in every way. regardless of opinions on romantic context, they cultivated an incredibly special bond while there that was destroyed by their thesis fight over their ideals. this affects kaveh more than he realises, because his ideals are inherently good natured, bright but self destructive, unsustainable. without his closest friend, i don't doubt there was a spiral, and the stronger desire to stick to those ideals regardless of what happens. as an artist, he is oppressed in sumeru in the sense that the nation values academic knowledge. his feeling of uselessness in the sense of being able to keep anything he loves and his stance in society would be coupled with his passion to give a sense that he must give all of himself to this art to have made something worthwhile and prove himself.this is the mindset with which he starts constructing the palace of alcazarzaray. an architectural marvel that rivals anything in sumeru - there's nothing to be prouder of.except the original site was destroyed by the withering despite warnings, leaving him with little to no budget to continue. but again, that desire to prove himself worthy persists, and he goes way over budget to complete it. he's giving and giving and giving himself away to create the palace, all alone, giving blood sweat and tears. this is excellently demonstrated in the visuals and lyrics of will stetson's fansong 'writing on the wall', specifically about this and that time period. during this time, kaveh also receives his dendro vision after trying to make his father's favourite dish, and smashing it in emotional turmoil to reveal the vision. by the time the palace is finished, yes, the marble and building bear his touch, and it is truly incredible, but he is left in millions of mora in debt, and having to sell anything he had left including his childhood house. to him, at least in the moment, it's worth it. is this not what he wanted? wanted to create and be remembered for?it is just as alhaitham had told him, breaking his own reality he'd created to deal with it. he's burned himself entirely for one building. too bright, taking his own light away. he takes to the tavern to drown his miseries, and ends up forming an addiction. regrettably, a lot of what kaveh does needs to be viewed through the lens of an addict, both in alcohol and in his own idea of self destruction. at this point, so much has gone wrong in his life, but if we are looking truly at it, a lot of it is kaveh's fault because of that inability to engage in self preservation. he didn't need to build over the withering zone, because it's a horrible idea, but he did because he had no regard for the danger, just the art. he pays the price. and again with the budget - had he dropped the project for financial stability, he'd be fine. but again, he didn't care, giving himself to the art he's been dreaming of even as a child. and now, he has the consequences of all this self destruction, and he deals with it by numbing the pain in alcohol. a coping mechanism that is again, destructive. i really do believe that at this point, kaveh would not have cared if he died, and if he carried on much longer, he would've.but as we know, alhaitham finds kaveh in the tavern, and we know that he's told nobody, but kaveh ends up saying everything anyways because as much as they hate it, they know each other best even after all these years. alhaitham offers his spare key, a wound, for a house meant for them that only ever saw one after the research project. and kaveh takes it because where else does he have to go? and perhaps, because it's alhaitham who's offering.so alhaitham saves him from one fatality, and yet we see time and again that kaveh, consciously or not, sabotages himself regardless. he doesn't know how to exist any other way and especially after his guilt isn't absolved, only grows, especially with alhaitham letting him stay. we always hear kaveh call it alhaitham's house, and his teapot lines say that he finds a house and a home to be different. in kaveh's birthday letter, though, kaveh calls it home, and says we when mentioning trying coffee beans. this implies that he's at least found some degree of the stability he searches for constantly, with a man who has seen him at all points of his life.but kaveh still wracks up tabs at the tavern trying to drown out his own miseries, takes on commissions he knows don't follow his own passions for architecture and an abundance of them, overworks and neglects himself. he almost can't take anything without feeling guilty.what i loved most about the interdarshan championship event, unironically, was the exploration of kaveh's character and lore with his own ties to it prior. in this, we see kaveh's habits in full view. he's willing to gamble away his own winnings in the first two rounds because he was working with faruzan, and would feel guilty if he took points. in the second round, when talking to him in the desert, kaveh quite literally tells us, casually, that he passed out in the middle of the desert. he doesn't dwell on it at all, and give his food and water to desert foxes without hesitation, constantly not doing anything in his own benefit. talking to layla in the same round, she tells us that kaveh seems to be all joyful outside, but there's just nothing inside. like constant sorrow. this for me is the final topping on the cake in asserting that kaveh is in fact clinically depressed and was written that way.the third round however is even more significant. kaveh manages to get the diadem, and he feels sick, only to have the ghost of sachin emerge from the diadem and speak of his wealth and losing faith in mankind. the ghost entrusts this wealth to kaveh, who immediately breaks the diadem in response and refuses it despite the mora easily being able to clear his debt. kaveh couldn't live with himself if he'd taken it for himself because that is an inherently selfish action, and coupled with the fact that he tells sachin his money should go to the people in need, proves the decision is not only based on his ideals which he commits to, but also driven by a need to absolve guilt. his wording makes it clear he doesn't consider himself a person in need. once again, in favour of ideals but also putting others before himself, he creates a problem for himself with which he has to deal with. after that, despite clearly not being fine, when asked by tighnari, he insists they shouldn't worry, and when alhaitham gives him a compliment with regards to upholding his ideals, he refuses it, not because it's alhaitham but because he won't hear it.despite this, he technically wins the championship and gets himself a tcg card. his first instinct is to give it to cyno, knowing how much his friend likes the game, despite how much it'd be valued at. he even protests against cyno paying for it. he can't take this kind of pedestal out of guilt. we see it time and time again that this is a pattern with kaveh.his desire to rid himself of his own sense of guilt alongside his passion as an artist in a nation which has no place for art puts him in situations in which he develops habits of responding to them in self sabotaging ways. i'm probably missing a few, but the idea is there. the reason i love kaveh so much as a character is because he's an incredibly good depiction of a character who is self destructive in an environment where he doesn't have to be, and as a depiction of depression, burnout, alcoholism, and an otherwise detailed exploration of many issues.

IN DEPTH LOOK AT PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORSin game, this is where kaveh stands in his life. however, obviously, my portrayal extends and tweaks this timeline based on headcanons with other characters. at any given time, his most common verses are having entered a romantic relationship with alhaitham, which causes a slow but steady improvement in his habits with alhaitham being able to actually counter them to a degree, such as alcohol. in this manner, kaveh learns to be loved not just by alhaitham but by others around him, which he obviously still struggles with, believing he is undeserving. there's obviously a lot of pretext to that shift but the idea is kaveh finding the strength in stability and learning to deal with the guilt so it isn't such a prominent player in his relationships (i.e reaching out to faranak). obviously, this is not linear, and kaveh dips back into old habits, but it's an idealistic portrayal of kaveh slowly getting himself together again.that being said, i've explained and given reasons + examples as to why i portray kaveh as having chronic depression, and in game already tells us he's an insomniac. however, i also portray him as being au-adhd and having borderline personality disorder.personality disorders have three separate clusters, and cluster b is most applicable here. cluster b personality disorders involve dramatic and erratic behaviours. people with these types of conditions display intense, unstable emotions and impulsive behaviours, which are strongly displayed in kaveh. i headcanon and incorporate kaveh as having borderline personality disorder. people with bpd experience extreme mood fluctuations, instability in interpersonal relationships and impulsivity. they have an intense fear of abandonment and have trouble regulating their emotions, especially anger. they also tend to show impulsive and dangerous behaviours.breaking it down, people with bpd can have unstable self image and experience a constant sense of guilt. this is in line with kaveh, and they may also change their self image drastically. we don't see this as strongly, since he's extremely committed to his ideals. however, people with bpd are also prone to sabotaging their own progress, which we see time and again. they experience sudden changes in how they feel about others, themselves and the world around them. kaveh is incredibly emotional, quick to bring emotions into an argument and subject to have them change rapidly, which we've seen in both his hangout and the event. this ties in somewhat to the anger management issues - people with bpd often experience anger viscerally and express it with biting sarcasm, angry tirades, or bitterness, which we see consistently when kaveh talks to people, especially if challenging something he believes in. he also frequently engages in reckless behaviour, as seen with his withering zone decision as well as his alcohol abuse. many people with bpd experience feeling unfulfilled or empty, which we see kaveh feel after the palace and in his subsequent attempts to fill it afterwards.to this degree, i'm unsure about the facet of abandonment, however, i do believe that kaveh does have a fear of abandonment rooted in the series of his father's death, his mother's departure, and the thesis fight. some people may feel intense fear or anger and try to keep their loved ones from leaving, but kaveh falls closer to the set which pushes people away so their perceived rejection will hurt less. they may also experience periods of dissociation, of which kaveh may fall into the derealisation/depersonalisation style. and of course, kaveh engages in self destructive behaviours constantly. i believe he briefly engaged in visible forms of s/h, before his neglect of himself and his destructive cycles seem to become the prevalent manifestation of s/h. these all subsequently affect the stability of his relationships.these are enough for me at least to conclude he could very well have bpd, and portray him as such. another unrelated thing he may have developed is a disorganised attachment style, in which there's a chaotic pattern of both desiring closeness and pushing people away, as well as some anxious attachment, with a desire for intimacy and potential anxiety within relationships.then, i want to discuss that i believe or at least headcanon kaveh to be au-adhd. autism and adhd in adults have many overlapping symptoms, and much like alhaitham, i believe many of these traits in his character are overlooked because he's high-functioning. he excelled in school and can get by largely on a day to day basis in his own life, and even if it's technically a transitional period, he still has a job. both asd and adhd most commonly begin to manifest in childhood, and these disorders can be extremely disruptive to a person's life. on top of his childhood, it would make sense that in conjunction with the akademiya and an accelerated growing up, by the time we meet him in game he is able to take them more in stride. these disruptions are very much present but he has at least adapted to them. furthermore, as someone with adhd, i recognise a lot of my own patterns in him. adhd, especially in adults, can include trouble coping with stress, a low frustration tolerance, impulsiveness, excessive activity/restlessness, mood swings, constantly starting new tasks and never completing them. his character stories and actions consistently imply many of these, as well as leaving room to interpret potential habits when unable to keep still. this also links up with most adhd going back to childhood, especially in his hangout line about just pulling another all nighter, implying he has done this often.there is a large overlap in symptoms of asd and adhd in adults which include emotional outbursts, a constant need to move, a tendency to crowd personal space, trouble reading social cues and difficulty making decisions. right off the bat, we can identify many of these traits through our interactions with him in his hangout quest and the interdarshan event. furthermore, common symptoms of asd include anxiety about social situations, trouble maintaining friendships, taking things literally, difficulty expressing feelings, noticing details or patterns that other people don't, performing repetitive movements (stimming), having textural preferences, and difficulty understanding what others are thinking and feeling. collei's voiceline about kaveh, while fond, demonstrates that kaveh has difficulty reading the situation or cues, not noticing that his talk about his roommate didn't match the situation nor was he able to read the room and interpret that. he clearly has difficulty expressing his own feelings, but more often than not, he masks. masking is a manner in which some autistic people, consciously or not, try to mirror more neurotypical behaviours to blend in to society. these can happen in many situations, formal or informal, and some examples include suppressions of stimming, copying or mirroring facial expressions or behaviours of others, or creating and practicing responses preemptively. it makes it exhausting to be in social situations. we see kaveh do it on a larger scale in the sense that he has to conform to the academic focus of sumeru as a person enamoured with the arts, but this also likely in turn means that to do so he feels it necessary to suppress his own behaviours for this sake. kaveh uses his hands a lot when he talks, especially when emotional, and that kind of expression might be reduced to fidgeting so as to not draw attention to himself. i could talk more about it, but we'd be here for a while.as such, with this as my analysis, these are the elements i incorporate into my portrayal. i ask that you respect this interpretation, and if you want to have a discussion, sure! i simply choose to portray him this way as i feel it is close to canon.

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