#A&U

[overnighttosunflowers]

I've been thinking a lot about that interaction between Laudna and Orym in episode 102. How it starts with Orym saying "I'm so sorry that the world is moving so fast that we couldn't take the time to help you."

There's a certainty to that framing that is very typical of Orym. Not "I'm sorry the world is moving so fast that we didn't take the time to help you." They couldn't take the time. The mission comes first, second, and third until they've seen it through. 

Now, it's hardly a revolutionary observation that Orym's worldview comes from a particular combination of military training, survivor's guilt, and calcified grief that is ultimately self-destructive. It's also not a revolutionary observation that the party has not quite realized this, or not in so many words. They tend to treat his perspective as the only one unshakeable by personal failing. Later in that conversation in 102, Laudna even tells Orym that if someone needed to "finish the job, put me down," she'd wanted it to be him, because she knows he has the ability to do what's right.

His friends think of him as the only one who isn't a powder keg waiting to go off, but it has gone off, with Orym secretly and self-destructively pledging himself to Nana Morri in order to keep his friends alive. Betraying his friends' trust in favor of the mission. And in the end it didn't accomplish anything.

I think of Orym as someone who holds multiple truths at once. First and foremost there's a soldier's truth, the grim relentlessness that's all that keeps him going sometimes. But we've seen Orym be soft, too. He's gentle. He loves his friends. It's there underneath the grim layers of suppression. We saw it more early campaign. I don't think that he was lying in 49 when he told Imogen that he wasn't worried about her just hours after conspiring with Fearne to take her out if necessary. I think he wanted so, so badly to discount that soldier POV and buy all the way into trusting Imogen. But he couldn't. And I don't know if he was able to reconcile that. I think he genuinely believed both. Liam has said that before the events of this campaign reactivated Orym's trauma, he was legitimately on a path to healing his grief. I think that a healthier Orym would have been able to set down the soldier's truth to simply trust Imogen.

But that's not where the campaign took us. At the Malleus Key in episode 51, Orym collected a locket from a dead Vanguard soldier to remind himself that the enemy are still human. And then after Bor'dor died, in episode 63, he dropped it. Locking in on that soldier's truth. Making that deal with Morri. Not letting his friends stop and rest when they need it badly. Pressuring Imogen to give in to Predathos on the moon so that they could learn more.  

There's a grim run of episodes where Orym is stuck like that, prioritizing his soldier's truth and suppressing the part of him that is his heart. Now, I'm not someone who needs to always feel warmly towards a character or agree with their choices to appreciate their depth and role in the story, and I respect what Liam was doing there. The willingness of the CR cast to have their characters make messy and unpopular choices is one of the things I appreciate most about the show, and one of the things that leads us to the richest and most meaningful moments of character arc resolution. 

But that's where I've been frustrated with Orym: by and large, resolution has not been coming. He's been driving deeper and deeper into his traumatized worldview, clinging to it and stubbornly refusing to hear challenges to it. Repeatedly shutting down arguments by mentioning his dead family. I get it, and I feel for him, and I don't know how else Liam could be playing it given the story that Orym is in and the character that he is—not least a soldier whose training tells him never to question the mission. But, god, I'm ready for the growth. Ready for the story to prod Orym in directions that change. Ideally a shift towards a healthier perspective, but even hitting such a low that the Hells can't help but recognize that Orym's rigid morality is as destructive as it is sustaining. That will make them push back on him.

Because telling Orym he's the good one reinforces his worst instincts, increases the pressure he puts on himself, makes him double down. What he needs is someone to push back. He needs that increasingly brittle sense of his own lens as morally superior and righteous to shatter. 

And I am so, so excited for it to happen—because we're starting to see it starting to crack, just a little. In episode 92, he acknowledged to Imogen that his lens is a lens and not simple objective truth, and even implied it's one he wishes he knew how to set down: 

And now, when Laudna tells him he knows best of all how to do what's right, he admits it again: not a lot of his choices have panned out.

And it's true. They haven't. And I hope he keeps on saying it.

I'm glad to have Dorian back and on a revenge quest against the gods, because Orym trusts Dorian and Dorian is not going to let him sit unchallenged in his own convictions the way the rest of the Hells have been. I'm excited to see more of Braius, who not only disagrees with Orym about the Primes, but also doesn't have the same vested interest as the rest of the party in seeing Orym as good. I hope they both push back on him. I hope it unsettles him and confuses him and breaks his worldview and soldier identity enough that when the pieces come back together, instead of scarring over a second time, they can simply finally heal.

[arttuff]

slowly learning how to use ms paint again

[pup-pee]

read through my unposted kart hcs

[mourninglamby]

will you ever turn cwilbur into your own oc? i hate the cc so much but i miss your ccrimeboys art

hi. idk how to answer this. each attempt I’ve tried either lacked nuance in a way that made me sound insane and speculative, or so overly careful that it looks like a huge obfuscation ..

I’m sorry if this is unclear but I’m gonna try again. bottom line is that their dynamic hit way closer to home than I knew back in 2021/2022, and now that I know more about myself, I don’t think I could publicly post fanart of c!crimeboys anymore. Not in the way I used to. It feels too real. To Me.

A lot of their issues are too intrinsic to rewrite, and I wouldn’t even want to tbh. And idk if I’d be comfortable writing or drawing him like that when it so closely coincides with real life.

[starrysharks]

wip marina.......

[opens-up-4-nobody]

My half of an art trade with @narusasuart :-]

[giftedeath]

surprise is such a good episode for the vampire crowd like it rly takes the season one, half - baked soul lore of ' its a demon and it takes ur body but ur not really the human version of yourself thats dead ' and sort of puts that idea in a box and shakes it up bc the judge's first words to spike and dru are "u two stink of humanity u share AFFECTION 🥺 and jealousy" but then meets angelus and is like oh yeah .. there's not a spec of humanity on this one and to me .. to me ... that's just chefs kiss like what makes them different ? and like its LOVE 🥺

[cheriboms]

doctober day 23: nostalgia

fact: doc has a saxophone in his garage in both 1955 and 1985, with seemingly no ties to his scientific pursuits. hypothesis: theres some sentimental reason, maybe he played (plays?) it as a hobby since and/or prior to 1955...? conclusion: they def had at least one jam session

[[ proof of my claims >:0 ]]

[vegaseatsass]

NONJINPHEE NATION, RISE!!

[pinkcadavart]

Ok this is just a shitass concept doodle but can u see my vision....................

[daistea]

My husband and I both tend to hyper focus. His special interests are guitar pedals and amps, and he bought a new amp the other day and he’s really excited and talking nonstop about it. And at some point he just looks at me and says, “This is my Mithrun.”

[eddiegirls]

.

[tojisun]

aizawa n his pirate eye fuck i need this man biblically

[tepli-mravenci]

Oh to have the time and energy (and equipment) to make multihour video essays about extremely niche topics

[gootube]

pathetic don't mix with apathetic ....

[melovrs]

once i move into my new house i'm immediately making an akaashi cardboard cutout