#she thinks imogen will go in to greatness after laudna has given up everything to help get her there

[nellasbookplanet]

Okay but I'm going a bit insane about the growing disconnect of "maybe we're meant to harness it"/"maybe we're meant to fight it". They both thought they were on the same page when they said it, when actually they were on polar opposite ends of the same spectrum. Imogen meant "I never plan to give in to this power even if part of me wants to, I will continue fighting it, but it’s a comfort knowing there’s someone who understands the temptation and who I know won't judge and will still love me and understand if I ultimately fail and give in". Meanwhile to Laudna it meant "I've been in this struggle for longer than I can remember and I don’t know if I can do it much longer. I don’t know if I want to. I don’t know if I even should, or if giving in would be better for all of us because I'm a lost cause. You understand this about me and won't judge as I inevitably am doomed by the narrative, and you won't demand of me that I fight an inherent part of myself, even if it’s destroying me". And Imogen is finally catching on to this disconnect, is realizing that to Laudna their connection isn’t just understanding but an excuse, not too different from Lilliana. And, desperate of losing Laudna to power just like she did her mother, she says, 'if you let me go, I'm gone', meanwhile Laudna is going 'all I can do for you is die and let you go to lift you up' and both of them are going 'why are you so upset about this. i love you'.

[sparring-spirals]

You know, my takeaway from Imogen in the last episode actually went a bit differently. She approaches Orym and Laudna about what they think of the whole thing almost as if she's asking permission to be uncertain. And the Hells try to reassure her, and confirm that they're doing what they have to, but no one ever actually asks how she's doing, how she feels about it (maybe they did and I missed it). It's one thing to do what you have to, but Imogen may be feeling a bit alone right now.

I mean, if it helps, that entire last post was specifically in reaction to the conversation directly after the encounter with Liliana- the tone of the interaction and conversations between then and the conversations at the end of the episode are, I think, drastically different.

That said, while I agree that Imogen is no doubt feeling burdens and choices weigh down for a whole host of reasons, and is probably feeling isolated in it- I don't think they're at a juncture where asking her how she's doing, or how she's feeling, more than they already have been- would help, or even be what Imogen is seeking out.

(I'm also not sure that, at a certain point. Its a fair thing to ask of them, especially given well. Ongoing events. Recent worries. I think they try, anyway- Laudna does explicitly ask- but there is so much weighing on them as well).

They have asked Imogen, how she's doing, as things got worse and worse and more personal, and generally gotten "No im. Fine." which I recall mostly because I've enjoyed making memes about BH going "hey are you ok" and Imogen, clearly Not great, going "Im FINE what why do you even ask whaaat". Within the conversation with Laudna itself! There's a "how are you feeling", and Imogen says "Good" and "You don't have to lie to me" then "No this is terrible" and a laugh because- the world is ending! the world is ending. none of them are fine. its all bad.

I think what both Laudna and Orym try to do in their conversations- try to reassure, meet her where she's at, answer her questions and offer their own support for whatever she chooses. Is its own form of kindness, that registers that uncertainty in her and tries to provide help for that, in particular. And I don't think Imogen is the kind of person to not be cognizant of that. It is a form of care, I think, and moreso when the world is ending, and everyone is their own version of wrecked and fighting through it, and there are no shortage of questions.

I think Imogen probably does feel a little alone, isolated, right now, and I also doubt that further inquiry into her mental state or her emotions would alleviate that particular sensation.

But seeing that doubt, that fear, that worry, and offering: My love and meaning has not been irreparably tainted by this, no. I'm not worried about you. Try not to beat yourself up. You have this choice. Its yours. Whatever you choose, I am with you.

It's not fixing everything, because I don't think anything can. but on the list of things to do, in situations like this- its not nothing. Far from it.

[darkdisrepair]

c3e36 - vox machina and the lady of whitestone

in this week's meta, we break down the appearances of FOUR (four!!!) members of vox machina in campaign 3, five if you count trinket, and what makes them all so different, and how this episode was, in a great, beautiful way, a love letter to vex'ahlia.

now, originally, i think we all probably thought that keyleth would be at the center of all of this, as she naturally has the best connection with bell's hells and orym. i anticipated her being a strong advocate for laudna because of her perspective and relationship with orym- and didn't really see her pushing the "we owe her because of the sun tree" angle as hard as other vm characters would have.

but also, it makes so much sense for matt to call keyleth away. this stops her from becoming too much of bell's hells' advocate and benefactor than she already is, as orym's leader.

not to mention the fact that whitestone is, ultimately, vex's and percy's and pike's, and playing keyleth in a space that really isn't hers and not her authority is an awkward power balance for sure. and it's hard enough playing multiple de rolos and pike in the same episode.

though i did love the beautiful nods to her, that we did get- her cloak trailing beauty everywhere she walked was such a great touch. and her rambling awkwardness while spouting all of the things she was dealing with? perfection.

that being said: 1. i think keyleth the most difficult impersonation. 2. our lady pike trickfoot is just such a light every time she appears. plus, it was nice to see her again, and see how comfortable matt was playing her.

i think pike was a necessary appearance. you need a little bit of a brighter character (in the happiness sense) to balance out just how Edgy both of the de Rolo parents can be, and without keyleth, pike is the perfect balance to them.

that being said.

at the end of all this, the most beautiful part of the storytelling in this episode was vex.

was it also amazing to see percy? yes, but, to quote my friend, "i forgot vox machina are condescending assholes," and percy is no different [lovingly].

his reactions, while completely justified given his history and the future he's built for himself and his people, was also just that.

but vex?

this was so much a love letter to her, and her journey with grief, and her journey with everything that happened in campaign 1.

laudna died for her. she died and was mutilated to look like her. and watching bell's hells grieve for this woman, and despite the danger doing everything in her power to help them? going against percy, spending thousands of gold and diamonds?

how could she not.

in the end, it was never a debate, was it? what vex's perspective would be?

if she could spend all the money in the world to get her brother back, don't you think she would? don't you think that she sees herself in bell's hells, in the grief written all over their faces?

fix him, she can remember grog shouting. and sobbing over her husband's body. and waking up cold and shivering on the floor of the raven queen's temple.

and after all that, how could she say no?

and what makes her different form percy? there's the obvious, that laudna was her representation on the sun tree. but at the core- her heart is so good.

all her money tendencies was because she worried that she couldn't care for everyone in her life. all of her standoffishness was because she couldn't bear feeling like she was losing her brother to keyleth.

and she has lost so much. she lost the person who was her world (percy has lost people, too, but there's something still so visceral about her loss that still sticks with me even now).

she is so perceptive.

how could she not see the desperation on their faces? the heavy burden on imogen's shoulders?

the feathers in her hair are black.

not teal.

and i think that was all the clues that we needed to know that vex would never let whitestone abandon laudna.

[utilitycaster]

I find it interesting that people see Ashton and Laudna and are like "They must be in pain all the time and are suffering" because Ashton and Laudna have the physical scars of their suffering. They are sympathetic to them. But they do not afford the same sympathy to Imogen, who is also suffering. It's not visible with her, so therefore, even though she has to actively repress other peoples thoughts and doesn't really get much sleep, she be fine Fine and therefore is OK. When she is very much Not Fine and Not Ok, just practiced at having to deal with it every damn day (at least, that's how I have interpreted Laura's RP. Please correct me if I am wrong).

I think you are correct about Laura's RP - it's quite obvious that Imogen struggles a lot with her powers. While I haven't seen it as much lately, there was also a lot of focus early on about Ashton, with a lot of headcanons regarding disability that I haven't seen as much lately - possibly because there's been nothing confirmed in canon - and it's true that the character design probably contributed to that.

Here's the thing though: early on? People loved focusing on poor Imogen and her headaches and how tiring it is for her to be around people and oh won't Laudna kiss it better...until Imogen got mad at Laudna. (And, to a lesser extent, when Imogen got mad at FCG, because that set off an alarm that Imogen was going to be played as a person with feelings and thoughts who might deviate from the set plan they had in their head for her).

I think a lot of people have decided who their favorite character is, and they pick that for all kinds of reasons. The problem is many of those people then say "my favorite character is correct, all the time, and here's the character who should be their romantic partner, and whether or not I have any scrap of sympathy for other characters is entirely conditional on whether they are worshiping the ground on which my favorite character walks and only serving my favorite character's story." Design doesn't enter into it. Backstory gets thrown out the window. In the end, that is their only motivator.

I realize how incredibly cynical this sounds but I have, on some level, done the math. I've spent all day saying "ok, so you're saying a warlock who has undergone severe trauma may have made made a pact under circumstances in which they could not freely give consent, and they have complicated feelings about this, and you are citing that as your reasoning for why they are the most sympathetic person here. Cool. So where's your meta about how hard things were for Fjord?" And notably, no one has taken me up on it, because they don't have it, because the facts don't matter. And it's not limited to that; I've been using Fjord as an example both because he often got a very raw deal from the fandom and because of the very obvious warlock parallels, but like, people were mad that time was spent on Keyleth's Aramente (because they didn't like Keyleth), or that the Mighty Nein didn't drop everything to take Caleb to Duasad Keef (a person only revealed at the time in the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount).

If it the reason were that Imogen doesn't have physical markers of her pain (which...in and of itself is not a great way to be given the sheer number of not-readily-apparent mental and chronic illnesses that do not have clear visible indicators), then you'd think the response to Imogen, you know, literally waking up gasping and crying from nightmares would serve the same purpose as a physical scar, and that would be taken into account. But it's not. Because it's not about who's experienced pain or trauma, visible or no. It's barely connected to what's happening onscreen after the first few episodes when they imprint on this character like a baby chick who sends dumb anon messages. It's "she is disagreeing with Laudna and pulling focus from Laudna and therefore she is bad."

Here is the thing in the end: the post I made that kicked this all off ended with a follows: "these [Imogen and Laudna] are two fully realized people with feelings and priorities of their own." And people found that inherently invalidating, because they are threatened by the idea that Imogen is a fully realized character with feelings and priorities of her own, because then she can be a fully realized character with priorities separate from Laudna's. She can be a character with feelings that are not positive towards Laudna. She can be a character who gets angry at Laudna. And they hate that, and it's that simple.