#this is just how i feel and how i think imogen and laudna could both grow and flourish

[essie-s]

YES! i’m gonna get into unpopular opinion territory here so apologies, but i’ve been marinating this in my head for a bit.

in my opinion, the BEST thing for both their stories would be for imogen’s affections to be unrequited, leading to the two of them achieving a more balanced friendship. this isn’t to stamp on imodna shippers, i have no problems with y’all or the ship. but the reality is that laudna is imogen’s everything. imogen has been so lonely and so neglected her whole life, and suddenly, here’s laudna! the perfect best friend and surrogate sister, auntie, and dare i say, mother figure. imogen gets her safety and her confidence from laudna. laudna is a protector and a caretaker, she showers imogen in love and affirmations and she knows when imogen needs support. this is what imogen has been denied for as long as she can remember, ever since lilliana left. of course she’s going to be dependent on laudna; anyone would be. and of course she’s going to fall deeply in love with laudna; who wouldn’t.

but laudna can’t be everything. she shouldn’t be. laudna has lost her whole world multiple times over. she’s hanging on by a thread, scared of her own existence. so is imogen, in her own fucked up way. they’re both balanced precariously on their own cliffs…and if one of them falls, the other has nothing left to stop them from falling too.

imogen needs to have a support system, not a support person. she deserves to have people in her life who can all help her differently…who can all love her differently. she’s always put her worth into one basket; first her mother, then laudna. the greatest growth she can have is to learn to stand on her own two feet, with many people around her to fall back on should she need it. laudna: her best friend, her sister from another mister. bell’s hells: her family, her crew. and someday down the road, a lover to call her own.

let these two witches heal and grow together, but not as one.

After getting to watch Imogen and Laudna exist as characters without each other, I’m not really looking forward to potentially going back to their codependency sideshow.

[revvethasmythh]

listen, now that everything is said and done i'm going to say something i've been thinking but not outright saying for the past nearly four years. frankly, imogen and laudna's relationship is a pale shadow of caleb and veth's and if you really sit and think about it, it's outright embarrassing for the former party. it's like if you saw a beautiful piece of art and tried to emulate it and then the only thing you managed to jot down that was the same was the basic shape and you never added any color when the color was the most important part. imogen and laudna's relationship is formed out of almost the exact same origins (troubled mage who needs to keep a distance from regular society joins up with monstrous misfit with a traumatic backstory and become each other's most important person while traveling place-to-place because they keep getting into trouble in cities). the difference is, genuinely, how much more colorful and lived in caleb and veth's story feels. they met in a podunk county jail and worked together to break out of the place, stayed together for practical reasons (straight-up survival) and then out of genuine friendship. they were hobos in the woods together. they cuddled on the side of the roads on cold nights together. they were genuinely each other's sole lifeline because they were the type of people no one in the world cared about in a very real, visceral way. they were also con artists, and sam and liam worked together to come up with an entire booklet of different cons they used to survive, which come into play surprisingly often during the campaign (Modern Literature, famously, but also Mother's Love and Money Pot featured).

comparatively, we know next to nothing about what imogen and laudna's lives looked like after leaving gelvaan, and the Incident™️ that sent them running in the first place remains amorphous and random no matter how many times the story is told or whatever extra details get added. the people of gelvaan found laudna to be a generically threatening presence (because of her fun-scary appearance and/or kooky-fun-scary behavior) and picked up their torches and pitchforks to run her out of town. imogen heard her thoughts and found them so beautiful she nearly killed two of the townspeople she grew up with the defend her and then they fled into the night together. and that's it. what did they do for two entire years after that? i don't know! neither do you. they don't appear to have struggled for money like caleb and veth did, there's no reference to hard-living, no real reference to what jobs they took to stay afloat, no mention of the practical realities of living as homeless nomads, no mention of towns and cities they'd visited and how those places impacted them. nothing. empty. no color. how did their relationship develop? also don't know! they seem to have slotted together perfectly as friends with no conflict for years before slotting together perfectly as lovers while batting aside all attempts at conflict later. done and dusted, that's the relationship, and people have the gall to call caleb and veth's successor relationship 'soulmatism' when it doesn't hold a candle to what the original offered.

which was, to be clear, endless complexity. i can't tell you how to define it, and i don't think the character's themselves could define it if they tried. sam went into the campaign intending to lean into a familial relationship and quickly realized that wasn't the vibe, course-corrected into veth having a crush on caleb--something sam has said developed fairly early in the campaign.* liam went into the relationship not intending to care about her nearly as much as he ended up doing, then spent the early campaign eps grappling with just how suddenly important she was to him, to the point that, in the face of her potentially dying in episode 20, liam says to sam, "do you want to make my character turn evil already?"** both were surprised at how tightly their characters clung to each other, and developed a deeply caring, highly insular dynamic where they were suspicious of outsiders and desperately guarded each other. with full retrospect, both went into the relationship intending to use each other (caleb for general usefulness/protection and veth, obviously, hoping caleb could change her back one day), then found such deep and tender care that they became each other's worlds. for a time. until nott became veth and veth had a husband and it sent their relationship into a tailspin because no matter how you frame the relationship, caleb clearly felt his feelings for her and the way they behaved together stepped over the line of how one should act with a married woman. after that, he is terrified of the idea that he might not have a place in her life and works so hard to create opportunities to insinuate himself into her present and future (teleportation spells so she can travel home quickly and still return to the group, making room for her family in the tower so she can stay with him, offering to tutor luc in magic to stay in her life, etc). veth gets her body and her life back but fears returning home will be lackluster compared to what she's experienced with the group, starts falling out of love with her husband, and has intense extra-martial feelings for caleb that are canonical. their relationship morphs and changes constantly throughout the campaign, and the one thing about their dynamic that never changes is how deeply and truly they love each other. you want to talk about soulmatism? them being the two party members with fake names who's real names share aspects of each other ("Bren" and "Brenatto") both from small-town dwendalian empire who's lives have been deeply impacted by meddling of the cerberus assembly (veth's in adulthood, caleb's in childhood) and who's deepest traumas are respectively fire and water does the trick for me.

so why is one so popular and the other, particularly as a romantic ship, very much is not? it would be obtuse of me not to immediately point to the fact that imogen and laudna are two pretty, skinny white women who claim to have deliciously little agency in their own stories and provide a blank enough canvas that the relationship can be whatever you want it to be. there's a reason there's so many AU fics for them, after all. caleb and veth on the other hand would center first a relationship between the handsome white fandom-popular sadboi and *checks notes* a self-described ugly, unfeminine goblin with deep neuroses and later a short, fat brown woman who also happens to be a young mother from a small country town. popular fandom, tragically, will almost always turn away from dealing with complexity of the latter for the empty calories of the former regardless of the quality gap between the two. if anything, watching the popularity of imogen and laudna's relationship has cemented my opinion that if veth had been different (either a man or a generically attractive white woman or someone more conventionally pretty just in general), widobrave would have been a massively popular ship, and i think it would have been regardless of veth's marriage. people can forgive a lot to write about their two generically attractive favorites getting together. they're a lot less forgiving for an ugly goblin or a fat, brown young mother, though.

tldr: reject modernity, embrace tradition. ship widobrave

*Talks Machina for C2E88, VOD no longer available, but a paraphrase of the quote can be found here **(2:09:30 on the YouTube VOD).

[burr-ell]

re: bh never having faced consequences, what are some moments/things they've done you think there should've been consequences for? i'm asking because i've realized these past couple episodes that i also fear they won't face any consequences for this, but i haven't been able to pinpoint why i feel that way yet

I don't think the answer is that they've done things that demand consequences so much as it is that a lot of elements of this campaign just don't coalesce or feel like they matter. Things feel important and relevant and cool in the moment and then don't get any kind of followup, nor do they have a meaningful impact on the characters. So much of this story falls to the wayside with no followup, if it doesn't have the wind taken out of it altogether.

A lot of plot points wind up mattering more to the fandom than they do to the characters—even good arcs, like the events of the party split arc, don't seem to have left much of an impact. There are fans who still bring up Hearthdell as a point against the gods or Vasselheim, but Bell's Hells have barely mentioned it if at all since episode 65. Laudna derides it as a "pissant town" with "pissant squabbles" and is far less interested in the village and its people than she is in her own trauma and feelings about the Titans. Ashton only brings up what happened there because they're still sore about being judged by an angel. There's still a chance that they call out Vasselheim's leadership for the whole mess, but at no point during Ashton's rant to the Exandrian Accord did they ever reference the blatant encroachment and attempt at a land grab. Molaesmyr fares little better; Chetney is the only character who ever brings it up, and when he does it's in the context of rattling Ludinus personally—a point that only he ever presses, even though Imogen and Fearne were also there. The fandom has been debating off and on about how much the nature of Predathos itself can be linked to Molaesmyr's destruction, but nothing has canonically explained it one way or the other, in part because the rest of the Hells just aren't interested.

It's also that lack of interest that leads to major NPC villains that are almost completely irrelevant to the story. It does not ultimately matter that one of Ludinus's generals is Otohan Thull or that the Malleus Key was defended by Ozo Cruth. The audience doesn't really know who they are, and they don't know because the party had no reason to care and didn't try to get one. Matt has indicated that there's a story to Otohan that will likely be revealed in a campaign wrap-up, and the same is probably true for Ozo, but in the actual story, all they are to the audience is a couple of overtuned stat blocks with swords, and the characters they killed might as well have been gutted by a pit fiend for all it mattered. About the only death that has any narrative resonance is FCG's, and it feels less like they sacrificed themself to kill Otohan and more like the story had to lose an interesting and engaging character to get rid of Otohan.

Even returning antagonists don't escape; both Ludinus Da'leth and Delilah Briarwood, important villains from their original campaigns, have been done a great deal of disservice in this one. Ludinus peaked in episode 51; his gambit with Vax and Keyleth was great, but the longer he got to keep monologuing, in a campaign already full of talking in circles about the same issue, the more insufferable he became. Even his death, karmic as it was, is cheapened by the almost-immediate implication that he's got a way to come back, which might make sense mechanically but is utterly exhausting narratively. Delilah, on the other hand, could have been replaced by an original character and nothing of value would have been lost; there's potential in an undead warlock whose patron is their own murderer, but any of the emotional juice of that story is outweighed both by how tiresome the pacing is and how overreliant it is on maudlin imagery and nostalgia for the original Briarwood arc. We don't learn about why Delilah is here or what her specific goals are until episode 77, 40 episodes after the party confronted her directly and gave her an opportunity to explain herself that she did not take. The corruption arc, again, had potential, but fizzled out as soon as a level 20 wizard dropped the soul anchor solution into their laps, with little actual impact on Laudna herself.

The actual player characters have, for the most part, barely substantively changed. Chetney has solved the mechanical problem of not being able to control his werewolf transformations and he does push big red buttons when no one else will, but he isn't really moving anywhere as a character. Laudna continues to do everything in her power to bounce back to the old kooky fun-scary bit from episode 1 every time anything interesting happens to her. FCG did actually have a great arc with an incredibly heartfelt and moving conclusion, but is no longer a meaningful part of the narrative and the party's grief over their death was not given the space to breathe that it warranted. Fearne has matured a bit over the course of the campaign but is still largely just as aimless and go-with-the-flow as she was in the beginning. Imogen, at the very least, started to take something close to an actual stance on the gods and what to do about Predathos, but every time she has to make a choice, she continues to ask someone else what she should do and then hem and haw when she's told it's her decision. Orym has finally let himself lean on someone else, but has otherwise remained static. Ashton had a very promising arc after failing to absorb the shard, but has since regressed into doing the exact thing they called themself out for doing: looking for someone to blame and wanting to feel like they were robbed. Moments like Shardgate and Swordgate, which in any other campaign would have been major watersheds, have become functionally irrelevant for all the impact they've had on the actual characters.

The elephant in the room here, of course, is Imogen and Laudna's relationship, which has been a millstone around the campaign's neck from the beginning. Shippers have accused critics of being motivated by bigotry, but the arguments deconstructing it are ultimately rooted in this very same issue: nothing that happens to them truly seems to matter. This is intertwined with the issues with Delilah, because every time Imogen and Laudna actually run into any sort of conflict or difficulty, it has something to do with that plot thread: Delilah broke the gnarlrock; Delilah was reawakened when Laudna killed Bor'dor and Laudna was extremely upset and traumatized about it; and Delilah was the one Laudna was listening to when she tried to steal and absorb Otohan's sword. All of those conflicts fizzled out as soon as the immediate surface issue was resolved: Imogen dropped the gnarlrock issue entirely; Imogen kissed Laudna and insisted that she couldn't be a bad person for killing Bor'dor, and Laudna completely dropped the subject; and Imogen, as soon as Delilah was sealed in the soul anchor, immediately took Laudna back after less than a day of mild distance and they went off to have makeup sex. It feels less like their love is so strong it can overcome any conflict and more like they retreat to the same way their relationship was before as soon as they possibly can. Even starting a romance doesn't seem to materially change anything.

There's no interest in unpacking anything that could cause a problem, either. Laudna canonically has no issue with Imogen floating the idea of siding with the Vanguard, even though it was a Vanguard general who killed Laudna in the street to get to Imogen; in fact, she refuses to take a hard stance for or against Imogen joining Predathos because she doesn't want to "hold Imogen back from her destiny". Prior to Laudna attempting to take the sword, Imogen told her explicitly "if you need [Delilah], then that's my answer"—and then instead of addressing that, Imogen blames herself for Laudna giving into Delilah by wondering if she should have given into her own toxic influence so at least Laudna wouldn't be alone. At no point have they ever had a difficult conversation about any of their underlying issues, like the actual material harm Laudna has done to herself or others or the fact that both Imogen and Laudna have repeatedly tossed aside their actual needs in favor of maintaining their status quo of unending support and presence in each other's lives. They both just attribute responsibility to someone or something else and continue to swear that they'll always be there for one another—just like every other conversation they've ever had. There's no challenge and no movement, not from them or from anyone else; nothing has ever upset the idea that this story could be anything less than idyllic, no matter the increasing evidence to the contrary.

A common refrain for a very long time, and perhaps one still around in some circles, was a desire for Character A and Character B to "finally talk", and not without reason. In previous campaigns, A and B probably would have talked. This, however, is a campaign centering on profoundly incurious characters with a narrative that is disinterested in those characters becoming genuinely invested in its setting or each other beyond a bare surface level. Of course they won't face any consequences for releasing Predathos when they didn't need to, nor will they face consequences for not communicating their incredibly risky and contentious plan ahead of time. Why would they? It won't matter. Nothing in this story matters, and that's the entire problem.

[shorthaltsjester]

no but i really can’t stop thinking about like. the intricacies of a sending spell. the fact that liliana tells imogen she loves her but doesn’t tell imogen she trusts her. the fact that relvin doesn’t say he loves imogen but does tell her he thinks of her often, he misses her, and he hopes she’s happy (and suspects she is, given how she was in gelvaan). and the fact that imogen is so filled with love in all the complicated and imperfect ways that she would have to be with the examples set out for her. my head is in my hands about the fact that though imogen is a homebody type, she was a wanderin’ spirit in gelvaan because gelvaan was never going to be a place she could stay with her powers and those people (as made clear by imogen’s attestation that she wouldn’t have lasted if laudna hadn’t come along) and the fact that we know relvin did in fact, to imogen’s words, do his best trying to mitigate the relationship between her and the town. even after she’d left, it’s clarified that relvin tried to limit the rumours that grew about what imogen did in her exit, despite the violence of it that imogen admits to.

there’s just something about the contrast of the two sendings that is really punching me in the chest in terms of like. something with the temults that i find especially compelling is the kind of . idealizing that can come when you have a distant parent, especially when the contrasting closer parent is obvious in their imperfection. because i think what’s compelling about the liliana and imogen dynamic is that, on both sides, what they’re each reaching for is an idea; imogen for the saviour from her dreams that told her to run and liliana for the toddler from her past that she set off to save. what’s compelling about relvin and imogen is the exact opposite; they’ve both seen too much of the other, imogen facing the realization that all children have eventually about their parent’s humanity, pushed to 11 because she can hear his thoughts. but i think the sending spells speak to the reality that, though the relvin relationship is certainly the one with the most obvious ache, it’s an ache comprised of presence and grief for an actual relationship that has devolved, versus the one with liliana which was never truly there, and is more melancholia for something they do not have.

the messages relayed between imogen and liliana literally say “i love you” but they’re also the update messages of a soldier conveying her perhaps ill-given trust to a potential turncoat. with relvin’s message, though he doesn’t say i love you, there’s a history to the relationship they have inherent in the contents of the message and the words imogen initiates it with. speaking to her father, imogen can say the words “thank you for doing your best” and feel the truth of them, but she does not extend that to her mother. and like. that’s It for me. that’s the deliciousness of relvin and liliana and imogen. that relvin stayed and was imperfect but there, and the reality is what stains and strains imogen’s relation to him now, but that liliana left and maintained the perfection of Protective Mother in imogen’s dreams, and the reality coming into conflict with the dream — where liliana is protective mother but for a daughter that’s as imagined as imogen’s dead mother was — is what both gives imogen hope and keeps her from committing entirely to any idea of who her mother actually is. the temults can be something so awful and wonderful and human and monstrous actually.

[vexing-imogen]

Now that Critical Role has dropped an entire album, and not just an EP, I thought I’d do a short & sweet review. Nothing crazy, no ratings or anything, just for fun

Overall Impressions: it’s a fun, if incredibly niche, holiday album. They know their audience, and they’re playing directly to them. I feel like they struck a good balance between parodies and original compositions. I love that each cast member got their own song, even those that may not be as confident in their singing. The ballads really stand out, and end up being 3 of my top 4 songs

Track 1: Winter’s Crest Welcome (spoken word by Matt Mercer): a nice little intro/lore dump. I think it’s cool that Winter’s Crest is going international (likely thanks to Taste of Tal’Dorei lbr)

Track 2: Winter’s Crest Festival Time (Matt Mercer as Pumat Sol): when I tell you this song has been in my head for weeks. Fun and catchy and a little silly. Matt sounds great even in a goofy character voice. The bridge where he’s in (I think) four part harmony with himself? Wild

Track 3: Silent Mind (Laura Bailey as Imogen Temult): my favorite song off the album, to the surprise of absolutely no one. I knew Laura could sing, but goddamn. Chills

Track 4: Naughty & Nice (Sam Riegel as Scanlan Shorthalt): Sam has such a great voice for a jazzy, sexy song like this. And they really nailed the vibe, I knew it was a Scanlan song immediately

Track 5: Nothin’ Under the Tree (Taliesin Jaffe as Ashton Greymoore): this song rocks, pun fully intended. I never knew I needed a Christmas song I could headbang to until now. And Taliesin sounds fantastic. I fucking love it

Track 6: O Mighty Nein (Liam O’Brien as Caleb Widogast): oh, Liam, my heart. This song is so sweet and beautiful, and I was almost in tears by the end

Track 7: Twelve Days of Grogmas (Travis Willingham as Grog, feat. Ashley Johnson as Pike): it’s fun, it’s stupid, it’s catchy as hell. Another earworm that’s been in my head since it dropped. It is so perfectly Grog, and Pike’s little asides are the icing on the cake

Track 8: Cold Inside (Marisha Ray as Laudna, feat. Matt Mercer as Pate, Sam Riegel as FCG, Travis Willingham as Chetney, and Laura Bailey as Imogen): knowing that Marisha is likely the cast member that is least confident in their singing abilities, I’m so glad she did this song. Laudna is the perfect vehicle too, her character voice is more distinct than Keyleth or Beau, and she has a flair for the dramatic that Marisha can really lean into without worrying about how she sounds. For a song that people were advertising as an Imodna song, I wasn’t expecting it to be so funny. I think my favorite bit was the deadpan “I think that’s just arson, Chetney”. And then Imogen coming in at the end, you can just hear the eye roll and the fond smile

Track 9: Winter Anymore (Ashley Johnson as Yasha Nydoorin): this song is so achingly tender and yearning. Ashley has such a gorgeous voice, I’m in awe. I was initially unsure if she was singing as Yasha or Pike, but I love that the lyrics could apply to both. I love that despite the overall sadness of the song, there’s still an air of hope

Track 10: Deck the Bear (Liam O’Brien as Vax’ildan and Laura Bailey as Vex’ahlia, feat. the rest of the cast as Vox Machina and Matt Mercer as Trinket): another silly, goofy one, though admittedly this one is my least favorite from the album. I do like the ensemble song, and Matt’s bear noises are incredible as always (will he ever feature in a song not in a character voice? spoiler alert: yes lol)

Track 11: It’s Critmas (Critical Role cast as themselves): yet another earworm. This was tied with Silent Mind for my favorite song from the EP, and it’s still definitively in the top 4. Again, I love the ensemble, and everyone getting their moment. It’s catchy, it’s fun. It’s Critmas

[rucksackmentality]

List of the truths shared in Nana Morri's Honesty trial (C3E79):

Imogen: I am genuinely scared to meet my mom again.

Laudna: Deep down inside, both Delilah and I want the shard...Fearne should have it, but I don't know anymore what's my opinion or desires or feelings, or hers.

Imogen: I love Laudna deeply but I'm disgusted at the thought of Delilah looking at us all the time.

Orym: I'm super lonely all the time, especially at night. It doesn’t matter if I'm bunking with one of you guys.

FCG: Sometimes I pity some of you because you have beating hearts and opportunities and you don’t do enough with them...Chetney, you have so much love to give and it doesn't seem like you're interested in anything other than wood! There's people out there who you could love and experiences you could share with someone else, but all you care about is wood!

Orym: I've always kind of laughed it off but I guess I do kind of wonder if Chetney is my dad.

Ashton: I am the reason that the Jiana Hexum robbery went fucking wrong, and the reason why I got thrown out of a fucking window.

Fearne: I feel like we’re very ill-equipped for this job and we're going to fail at saving the world. (Laudna: Honestly that's probably true, I'm right there with you.)

Chetney: While wood may be the superior material to metal, I do fear that, with the dwindling interest in it, that children will find my toys - and thereby myself - obsolete every year I grow older.

FCG: I think it's something buried deep down in my circuitry, but every time I hurt or kill something - it feels really good. It makes me sort of relax a little bit and some of my stress goes away.

Imogen: I know we're supposed to save the gods, but I've tried talking to them my whole life and none of them would ever respond. I think I'm tainted. I dont know if I want to save gods that don't love me.

Laudna: You know we could rip-cord out of [saving the world] at any moment...right? And sometimes I fantasize about it all the time.

Fearne: I sometimes do stuff to you guys while you're sleeping - not weird stuff, I just like to look at you closely...and maybe like, twiddle your hair or braid it. Nothing bad!

Ashton: Whenever it starts to get quiet, I start worrying that one of us - most of us - are going to end up killing another one of us accidentally...I have panicked thinking about when one you kills another one of us.

Orym: I have all the faith in the world in you guys...and I have also spent time thinking of how to neutralize each of you.

FCG: I kinda worry that I put all my eggs in the Changebringer basket and she might betray us all. I had a really weird conversation with her and I think she's just out for herself and she might not really care about me - but what if she does? And I'm saying horrible things?

Imogen: Fearne, I was really disappointed in you for running away from your power. You should take the shard!

Orym: I really miss Dorian, and sometimes I think that's okay, and sometimes I think it isn't.

Ashton: I feel fucking worse that I just fucked up Fearne's life way more than mine and I should've died instead of that happening.

Chetney: I grew up in the Bramblewood outside of Westruun, and when I was a kid, I came back from learning how to make toys and found that my whole family had left. All they left behind were toys. They ran when Errevon the Rimelord was running across the plains, and so I'm kind of afraid of dragons. And I had five siblings - Alabaster, Pepper, Sugarplum, Hermey, and Chad - and I was so mad that they left I never looked for any of them, and now I'm pretty sure they're dead. So I think any family I have is just gonna look for a reason to leave me. That's why I don't get attached to anybody.

[sassy-cass-16]

Oh god I promised myself no bell’s hells meta until c3 ends but my brain is turning the “can she be trusted?” line over and over like chicken at the shawarma shop. because there are layers to that.

more under the cut because i let this run away from me:

so first off, there's the obvious: dorian initially seems to start to address the whole group, everyone who's left in the inn room, but turns and just locks eyes with orym when he asks. orym, who of everyone has the most reason to be biased against laudna right now. orym, who just got into a fight with laudna over the sword that killed both of them and orym's husband and father-in-law. that's who dorian thinks to ask, because he trusts orym not to let his judgment be clouded.

dorian first saw orym again after months of being separated, like, three days ago, and despite how much orym has visibly changed in those months, dorian doesn't hesitate to believe that orym will still be objective. he trusts that orym will be the one to look at this situation and tell him the truth.

because dorian has experience with orym telling him the truth. dorian knows firsthand how willing orym is to shuck his personal feelings in favour of what's true. dorian just saw what he could have become, had orym not stepped in to stop him taking the circlet of barbed vision. he owes the fact that he's alive and beholden to no gods to orym's willingness to be rational and objective in a situation involving a powerful magical item. by his own admission, "i wouldn't be here without you."

so of course dorian trusts him right now.

and there's something to the exclusion of the others, with that. dorian doesn't look to fearne and orym, although that would make sense because he's known the two of them the longest. he doesn't look to chetney, who's proven to be able to get a handle on this with the scream needle compromise. he doesn't look to ashton, who's been extremely levelheaded through this whole mess. he looks at orym, exclusively. he is asking orym, exclusively. not the group, although everyone decides to jump in to answer and then imogen comes through the window to complicate the matter. just orym.

dorian is the kind of person with a lot of potential for darkness in him. he hides it well because he's also deeply kind and friendly, but it's always been there. he's just been through something massively traumatic, and that was after the original circlet conflict back in exu prime. he had his alignment forcibly changed from good to neutral. but even after all he's gone though, orym's alignment is still good.

as much as orym doesn't want to be a leader and prefers to be a protector and follower, he does very well in situations where he takes on an amount of responsibility. when he's in some level of control over a situation, he takes to it naturally. he's a very good babysitter to his gaggle of weirdos. the "can she be trusted?" might have been an attempt on dorian's part to give orym a bit more control here. to reassure him that regardless of anyone else's feelings—regardless of how laudna's reaction might have affected him—orym deserves to be trusted, and he can make a decision that dorian will trust.

back in exu and all the way into early c3, dorian and orym slotted into a sort of parental position in their groups. watching over the crownkeepers' clothes when they went skinny dipping in exu. orym repeatedly steering everybody away from bad ideas. matt even described dorian leaving dariax in zephrah in 4sd as "dad just going out to get cigarettes." there's always been that underlying sense of "we are two of a pair" with dorian and orym. not to say that either of them don't see the others as adults, but they do have that rapport of being the babysitters in the gaggle of weirdos.

that kind of bond is just part of their dynamic. but especially in light of what's been happening while they were separated, and then what happened between them earlier that evening, "can she be trusted?" is a reminder of that bond. orym's been lonely, by his own admission, and one of the secrets he divulged at nana morri's was "i really miss dorian." he broke down crying during his last message through the sending stone, and then again on the bench not a few hours before this whole incident went down.

dorian came to comfort him. he flat-out said to orym's face "i'm here now." he reminded orym that he needs to rely on other people, that he can't always be the one saving everybody else. he gave orym the room to not be the strong one, and told him he has that room because dorian's there to support him. they can be two of a pair again.

he knows orym's been feeling like he can't do anything, like he had to resort to what he stopped dorian from doing with the circlet. and so dorian both gives him a choice to make, something to do, and shows him that he still trusts him unconditionally. "can she be trusted?" also means "i trust you" and "i'm here with you" and "this is how we've always been."

we know from liam in 4sd that orym has feelings for dorian that he's not sure are reciprocated. but even regardless of the romantic element here, dorian and orym have always had a partnership. they have always been two of a pair. the sequence of events leading to "can she be trusted?" is a perfect microcosm of he relationship between the two of them. it's just incredible.

[distant--shadow]

Imogen stirs

"Honey, did you say somethin'?" she blearily whispers. 

"I'm sorry, were you sleeping?" 

"No, I was just thinkin'."

"With your eyes closed?" 

"With ma eyes closed." Imogen turns over her shoulder and kisses Laudna on the end of her permanently broken nose. "What were you laughin' about?" 

Laudna's focus darts to where her hand had grasped for energy unattainable to her. 

"I was thinking about my arms popping out of their sockets after trying to wrangle Fearne." 

Imogen stifles her laugh, her dimples drawing in shadows. 

"There is a lot of her." 

she quiets as from a few feet away, Fearne gently snores. 

the scoff Imogen's throat gives is affectionate, a reverberation of rumble travelled between them sympathetic and synchronised.

"mm." Laudna shortly hums. She can't disagree. 

She returns her hand to lay ontop of Imogen's upturned, though it is hard for her eyes to ignore the only source of light in the room, despite her dark vision. 

Imogen's fingers thread between her own; squeeze tentatively, questioningly. 

Laudna's head is rested over Imogen's shoulder, sunken into the crook of her neck, her soft lilac hair pillowing her white castle ruin cheek

their line of sight can't be too dissimilar, surely Imogen can't ignore the spectral tightrope illuminating between herself and the faun. 

(Laudna hadn't done a good job of making it across the one over the river.)

Imogen can most likely feel it, even if her eyes are closed. 

Thinking. 

How much of that is her own? 

The gold of her circlet a juxtaposition of hot flesh meeting cold, a flux permanently balanced between their two body tempratures. 

"You have said before, that we're a lot..." 

"We are, but we wouldn't be us if we weren't. It's what makes us right, it's why we work." the hush to Imogen's voice doesn't dampen its affection. 

Laudna props herself up on her left elbow, right arm still draped over Imogen but now her head hovering over the other woman's, their hair a mass of wiry blacks and wavy lilacs covering the pillow

Laudna wonders how the two would look braided, 

of seafoam green-

"And Fearne?" 

Imogen's brow furrows.

Fearne? 

Imogen opens their mental connection to excuse the third woman from their conversation. 

The two of you…

Imogen's cheeks flush, imperceptible to anyone else within their nook or the neighbouring-nook ‘rooms’ (Laudna would know easily how to make a room of them), despite their sleeping, despite Orym’s perception. He can't see in the dark. He can't get to know everything. And Chet-

well, he'd probably argue he could smell the blood anyhow.

I am not jealous. I do not envy your posistion. I am glad you have someone-

Laudna, what you talkin’ about? I have you. 

You have both of us, and I really am thankful for that.

both- Imogen mirrors, a slightly confused crinkle still on her brow and a rosy flush under the peach fuzz. Laudna is inherently enamoured by it. 

I will always stand by the belief - my belief - that you should do what you want and you alone, but I am thankful-

Laudna leans down and kisses Imogen on her forehead just to right of the jewel embellishing her circlet; her lips feel the skin rise, in relief or surprise, maybe both, maybe something else. 

I am thankful that you are not alone in this, I am thankful that you have someone to share it with-

her grip tightens around Imogen’s, and she extends their arms by the hand from out of the confines of their bed roll, running just parralel to the tether between Imogen and Fearne. 

-and the ‘thing’ I should be directing that thanks towards is Fearne; because I certainly don't like the idea of directing it towards anyone or anything else that's involved. 

Imogen's lips part as if they mean to form words, but only a long and slightly shaken exhale departs from between them. 

No, certainly no thanks to her mother, nor Fearne’s father, not the gods, or their predator. 

Don't stunt yourself, don't close yourself off. What connects us is what gives us power. 

[kerosene-in-a-blender]

One thing I've noticed playing around in the fan spaces for both Critical Role and Dragon Age the past few months is that Warden Antoine and Laudna have strikingly similar personal narratives but Antoine's is handled much more effectively than Laudna's is despite him only appearing in two short stories and in a secondary role in a video game versus Laudna being a main character in a long form D&D actual play and a novel.

Both were commoners living normal lives until a event outside of either's control resulted in them, effectively or in actuality, dying young. Both got a second chance by way of becoming something other than what they were, but that also has something wrong about it. Both cope by leaning into a cheerful optimism that seems to outside observers incongruous with their circumstances and what they are. Both spent a length of time traveling with the woman they would eventually fall in love with. Both consider the relationship they developed with her to be a bright spot in their second life.

But where I think Antoine (and by extension his relationship with Evka) works and Laudna (and by extension her relationship with Imogen) falls flat is that Antoine's emotional response to everything that happened to him is a driving narrative force for him in a way it just isn't for Laudna, and that Antoine more actively participates in his own narrative than Laudna does. For the first point, that Antoine is struggling to adjust to being a Grey Warden and actually feels a great deal of resentment at how limited that life is underneath all his cheerfulness is a major aspect of his character arc in "Hunger", his and Evka's short story Tevinter Nights. And this character beat is carried through into Dragon Age: The Veilguard, where in the codex "Letters for After the Calling" where Antoine admits that whatever else being a Warden is, this life gave him Evka, with the implication that becoming a Warden was worth it for the chance to be with her. With Laudna, she was initially conceived of by Marisha as a character who was completely over her trauma from what happened to her in the past, though as Campaign 3 went on, it became increasingly clear that that was not true. But Marisha's attempts to pivot and actually address and unpack this aspect of her character ultimately resulted either in no arc (Laudna's violent and defensive response to even perceived betrayal) or an arc so truncated and lacking in internal narrative thrust as to be unsatisfying (her brief use of Delilah as a metaphor for addiction; the resulting conflict with Imogen that rapidly fizzled into nothing).

For the second point, Antoine got Blighted in the first place because he chose to act a distraction after Darkspawn attacked the country estate he was working at in order to allow the other servants to escape, whereas Laudna went to a feast held by the couple ruling her town, not knowing she had been randomly selected to die as a warning to Vox Machina. And while Evka made him the offer of surviving the Blight by becoming a Grey Warden, it was Antoine's choice to accept it, whereas Laudna's undeath simply happened with no input from her due to her being a Shadow Sorcerer. Antoine being a narrative agent in circumstances where Laudna is passively pulled along by outside narrative forces also extends to their relationships. Laudna displayed zero inclination to pursue a romantic relationship with Imogen prior to the latter asking to kiss her (to the point of calling Imogen her sister just episodes prior), and even once they got together, only ever passively went along with whatever Imogen wanted and suggested for the relationship. Notably the conflict between her and Imogen over Delilah and her influence on Laudna was precipitated entirely by Imogen's hesitancy to be with someone who could attack a friend in his sleep at Delilah's urging, and promptly ended once Imogen fault secure in that no longer being an issue. Antoine meanwhile, proposes marriage to Evka in their short story "Won't Know When", and helps her work through her own hesitance in embracing that kind of commitment due to the inherent danger of being a Warden and the perpetual ticking clock that this the Calling.

Much has been said about the missed opportunity that is Campaign 3 and Laudna as a character in specific, and the fact that Antoine does a lot of the same things and more effectively in less time proves that, had the work been done, Laudna could have been a great character, but since it never was, she remains a great disappointment.

[ittybittyremy]

bells hells' points about the archheart conversation (c3e108)

I organized everyone's points so that it would be easier to analyze them

This may look a little messy so sorry in advance

Note: I am only including the conversation and not anything afterwards (i.e. Braius' interaction with Asmodeus)

Conversation starts at 3:19:30 on Beacon

Chetney

Reminds the team that there is another god who has a similar opinion to the Archheart

Reminds the group that the last bit of the lock on Predathos shared a similarity with the Divine Gate. He wonders if they break down the gate, would it pull the pin on Predathos, keeping them back for a bit. And if that was the case, it could be fair game

Agrees with Orym's “I don’t know that we need to decide that we have to throw the switch instead of him when we at least have a chance to cut off his hand before he pulls it”

Asks Imogen and Fearne “I’m not Ruidusborn, so it’s not really up to me. How do you feel about the notion that one of you or both of you could be asked to be a vessel? Where are you? How are you feeling about that?”

Says “I don't know” at Imogen's “but there’s no way I’m more powerful than some of the Exaltants up there already”

Thinks it’s crazy that the gods could see BH as their last ditch effort

Says “right” (Regarding Braius’ “At the end of the day, whoever succeeds, whoever has power, whoever accomplishes their goals, they can make things right. You have to win first”)

“The weird part is all these different parties have the same goal, to push the reset button, to grab the reins. We all have different perspectives. The Unseelie want the chance to do it and wipe the slate but they want to be in charge. Ludinus, same thing, but he wants to be in charge. I’m not saying we’re wrong. I think we’re better, but we’re really no different.”

“I was asking if he had talked to Ludinus or done this before, like a catalyst, like a voice in your ear. I don’t know”

Feels like they’re having their strings pulled

Thinks that they should talk to the Matron because “conversations are important. Everything breaks down when people don’t talk.”

Laudna

“I really liked [the Archheart]”

“The other scary thing is if he’s sending Ruidusborn to their deaths, is he testing the boundary or are they testing who’s powerful enough to possibly take Predathos into them?”

Agrees with Dorian's view that releasing Predathos is inevitable but wanting to be there when it happens

Mentions that the Matron may be the one that has similar ideas to the Archheart

Wonders if Ludinus will be successful in broadcasting the gods destroying Aeor

Thinks there’s a chance that the gods strike back if the broadcast is released as there powers wanes

Reminds the group that Archheart said “a second Calamity”

Reminds Imogen that she’s very capable when she says “but there’s no way I’m more powerful than some of the Exaltants up there already”

Thinks that “being Ruidusborn doesn’t necesarily gives them godlike or god eater powers…”

“If it’s not [Imogen’s] mother, it’s probably one of the two of you. And that makes my stomach turn”

Doesn't think the gods are a monolith

“We’re the worst. Like just kind of in general, like we are a bunch of fuck-ups. We’re kind of the worst. Strangely, I think that’s the quality that everyone sees in us that makes us the best for this job” (Regarding Orym saying that the gods could see BH as their last ditch effort)

Agree’s with Chetney's “I think we’re better, but we’re really no different [from the others who want to release Predathos]"

“We learn more everyday. We’re still on this journey. No decisions have been made. We’re not speaking in absolutions.”

Thinks the RQ ”has a reason to take all of this very personally more so than any of the others”

Dorian

Thinks that Predathos being released is inevitable. He would rather be there when it happens

“Cowards are often honest” (about the Archheart)

Wonders if there’s a chance that the gods strike back if the broadcast is released as there powers wanes

Nods at Orym’s “Ludinus is at the end of the road no matter what.”

“Faith’s a hard thing to let go of” (regarding Imogen’s “but a lot of people on this world depend on [the gods]”)

“It’s hard to believe but there is real evil in the world. I’ve seen it. Not everything deserves a second chance… But maybe you’re right, I wish you were. I wish the world were the way you saw it but it’s got to be done, but that’s not a chance I’m willing to take either” (in regards to Fearne saying that Predathos potentially being good)

“I think Predathos is a weapon. Do we want to have the power to wield it? I don’t know. But I trust us more than anyone”

“It was so ugly the way we did [the mission], but we did do what we came here for.”

Asks Chetney if he thinks “we’re getting our strings pulled”

“I think (the Raven Queen) is motivated by fear as well. I would imagine if you could see the future, the one future you couldn’t see is the future where the gods come to an end.” (Going under the assumption the she can see the future)

Braius

He saw the deal as the vessel “being” Predathos

Makes an affirming sound at Orym’s “it can end at job one, if you do it successfully”

Doesn’t think they went to far with the mission. “We’re on a mission to save the world. Some stuff is going to happen. It’s all in service of a greater good”

“At the end of the day, whoever succeeds, whoever has power, whoever accomplishes their goals, they can make things right. You have to win first”

Fearne

“The deal is that we would [release Predathos]”

Thinks most of the world believes in the gods

“What about the other gods? What if they have different ideas?”

Wonders if we should get the opinions of other gods

Thinks the Archheart seemed tired

Doesn’t answer Chetney’s question about how she feels about potentially being a vessel

“I mean, listen, If it’s something that’s got to be done. It’s got to be done. Personally, I think- I don’t know, I think if something is captured up there, this Predathos. Does it make us any better that we’re keeping him caged up just to save other people and other things?”

“What if [Predathos] just want[s] to go back and be with his family?”

Agrees with Dorian's “Not everything deserves a second chance.” (regarding Predathos)

Strongly agrees with Imogen’s “What the Archheart is trying to convince us to do is the exact same thing that everyone else is trying to do.”

Imogen

“[The Archheart] made some really amazing points”

“Do we really want to follow?”

The deal is that we would still wake up Predathos. That’s the deal they want; wake up Predathos.”

She highlights that the people who believe in the gods wouldn’t get what they want

“The Archheart made it pretty clear that taking Predathos would be [deadly]”

Thinks the Archheart seemed tired

Agree with Ashton’s “I do think that most scenarios in this current situation lead to just the worst that we can imagine”

Agrees with Orym’s “Ludinus is at the end of the road no matter what.”

“I haven’t really thought about it yet, Chet. I’ve been of the notion that I don’t want to let Predathos free. I know so many people disagree with what the gods do, and so many in our group do. But a lot of people on this world depend on them. To throw that all away seems callous.” (When Chetney asked about how she feels about potentially being a vessel)

Wonders if they went to far with the mission

Agree with Dorian’s “Faith’s a hard thing to let go of”

“It’s not like, you know, their faith would be shattered because they don’t know. Their faith would be shattered because their gods abandoned them. Their gods would have run away from them in their time of need when all of their Ruidians or Reilorans are destroying their lands and demons from the depths are breaking through portals. I don’t know what will happen, to Orym’s point. So I don’t know how I feel about back that play up. But I think if it’s going to happen, if it has to happen, if there’s no stopping it, if it comes down to it and he’s coming out, then I would gladly step up and at least try. But there’s no way I’m more powerful than some of the Exaltants up there already”

“I think us (Fearne and Imogen) combined, there might be some hope”

Wonders if Predathos could be like Gloamglut. “He’s just young”

"Well, I kind of sensed him. He wants to eat” (Regarding Fearne wondering if Predathos just wants to go back to his family)

Thinks that they should talk to the Matron of Ravens to see what she has to say

Agrees with Dorian’s “It was so ugly the way we did [the mission], but we did do what we came here for.”

“What the Archheart is trying to convince us to do is the exact same thing that everyone else is trying to do.”

Wonders if the RQ knew her champions would become the catalyst for the key

Orym

“We’ve yet to see one thing that proves to us what will happen after that thing is let loose. We’ve had people tell us it will be fine, we’ve had people tell us it would be destructive. We’ve had a god tell us to fight. We’ve had a god tell us to burn it all to the ground.”

He wouldn’t risk it because he doesn’t think anyone, including Ludinus, knows what will happen when Predathos is let free

Disagrees with Dorian statement of “I think it’s coming, one way or the other, and I’d rather be there when it does”

Highlights that they’re making a play for Ludinus because taking Predathos on would be deadly

Acknowledges that the gods may have different ideas

“It’s a big coin toss, guys”

Agrees with Dorian’s “There’s no one I trust more than us”

Thinks that “Ludinus is at the end of the road no matter what.”

“I don’t know that we need to decide that we have to throw the switch instead of [Ludinus] when we at least have a chance to cut off his hand before he pulls it”

Thinks that it can/could end with cutting Ludinus’ hand before he pulls the switch “if you do it successfully”

“There’s nothing saying that you have to flip that switch and turn reality upside down. None of you can tell me what will happen if one our friends does what Ludinus wants to do. None of you have any evidence, proof. Intuition doesn’t cut it. Your gut does not cut it. You are putting the population of this world at risk. So I hope you are all fucking sure at the end of the road. I’ll be there to get you there. I’ll stand by your side. I will do my damnedest to keep you all alive. But don’t let it be a coin toss or ‘let’s see what happens,’ because you just don’t know”

“I also just over the last months have the feeling that we’re walking some line and that’s why so many of them are paying attention to us. Maybe they see us as a last ditch effort”

“It is, but it’s uncanny.”(Replying to Chetney’s “it’s crazy” that they’re the gods’ last ditch effort)

“No one said it was going to be easy” (Regarding Imogen asking if they went too far with the mission)

Ashton

“It’s a deal I can get behind”

“Everyone gets what they want”

Does not think most of the world believes in the gods, just “a lot” of them do

“They get to live” (In response to Fearne talking about other gods having other ideas)

They trust Archheart the most (of all the gods) because “he’s the only one who had clear misgivings. Everyone else was hand wringing. He was the only one who was actually - He was the only one with a big picture”

Trusts Archheart because he sees them as a coward. He thinks cowards are honest

“Big coin” (when Orym says that it’s “a big coin toss”)

Feels that they would know if Ludinus was broadcasting the Gods vs Aeor already

“I do think that most scenarios in this current situation lead to just the worst that we can imagine”

Says the they trust Imogen and Fearne (after Laudna reminds Ashton of the potential second Calamity)

Thinks that “it should be us”

Agrees with Orym’s “Ludinus is at the end of the road no matter what.”

“Job one. [Ludinus] doesn’t touch the switch” (Regarding Orym's “I don’t know that we need to decide that we have to throw the switch instead of [Ludinus] when we at least have a chance to cut off his hand before he pulls it”)

Responds to Orym’s “don’t let it be a coin toss” (Regarding releasing Predathos) with “Well, then we’re very lucky that we no longer have anyone who believes and puts their faith in a coin toss” and leaves

[stormisamoth]

yapping about c3e120 (spoilers)

I know I say it every week but I just can't get over how fucking epic these maps look

suddenly hit with the desire to draw ashton third wheeling imodna movie date

the look of relief on Robbie's face after orym escapes being eaten 🥰

dorian embracing the fact that he's royalty and a badass despite how afraid and insecure he feels I'm so proud of my boy

holy shit a seventhnintheighth level spell

over 170 damage is actually insane

oh fuck fearne is unconscious

oh fuck nat 1 on the death save oh fuck

imogen convincing braius to heal fearne by showing him her titty. close enough welcome back vex and scanlan.

aw that laudna painting is gorgeous

oh fuck both dorian and braius down

LIAM DONT SAY THAT DONT START BEING ALL IM GLAD WE HAD A RELATIONSHIP BEFORE THE END HES NOT GONNA DIE DONT MAKE ME CRY

fuck now Imogen's down

fuck I think this is the roughest final fight they've had, like 3 down and almost all their healers gone. like I think fearne is the only one with healing left

man this fight is STRESSFUL I feel like at least one of them isn't coming out alive

fuck the amount of fear orym is probably feeling at potentially losing another partner to this fight

NOT HIS CAL TO HEAL UP DORIAN MIRORING HIS SENDING TO REUNITE WITH HIM AFTER FCG DIED I AM CRYING

FUCK AND NOW ORYM IS DOWN

fuck that is half the party down holy shit

STRESSED

not fearne rolling a 1 again on the death saves

genuinely this could be a tpk and I will cry

Travis and Laura such a beautiful relationship

FUCK YEAH METEOR SWARM

Abubakar coming in clutch

oh shit they gonna get smote

I love how bitchy the hells are in face of authority I love it so much

fuck that was such an insane episode

[deramin2]

Absolutely love that Marisha was probably going to make a tamer choice, but Matt saw the perfect opportunity to push her as a Delilah, and really feed Laudna's paranoia. I think that really pushed her over the edge and Marisha fully ran with it.

And Liam really thought through what he knew (this was Laudna and she's being manipulated by Delilah but not intentionally hurting Orym), vs. what Orym knew (something he couldn't see attacked him in his sleep and he needs to defend himself from it because he had no idea what it's intentions were and has every reason to assume it's trying to kill all of them). Honestly Orym remained pretty defensive overall. Love that they both learned into how much both of them felt totally justified and like they were defending the party from harmful corrupting influence.

———

I'm someone with mental health problems that cause intrusive thoughts that can make me feel so absolutely certain that I'm justified in viewing other people as being intentionally harmful and lash out at them. In the moment it feels completely justified and righteous and a truth other people need to hear even though they'll resist it. I try really, really hard to resist expressing those thoughts. I try to remind myself I will end up regretting it and pushing people away permanently who (justifiably) won't put up with that treatment.

But sometimes it's so strong or I'm so triggered by the awfulness around me and despair that it escapes me. It feels like everyone else is lying to justify evil and I'm sick of it. Consequences be damned. It feels protective of other vulnerable people. And then I lash out and say things I regret and get yelled and blocked or dropped or otherwise lose people in my life and get more and more isolated. And feel like they're totally justified because really it's me who's the evil monster and need to be isolated for other prep people's protection because I can't be trusted and can't be better. I don't even want anyone too comfort me or love me because they don't deserve to be hurt by me eventually. (I'm not saying that's actually true, but that's how I feel and it feels very real to me while it's happening.)

———

Marisha absolutely nailed that depiction. In an ongoing way but particularly in CR C3 E95. And I love that it came right off the joyous mania of the shopping spree for and crafting season where they were all bonding and making plans for the future and letting off steam. But then she was triggered and all of that didn't matter. Off anything the strength of those emotions was a pendulum whose momentum helped her distress swing harder in the other direction.

She was triggered, and Delilah was a second layer of intrusive thoughts that made her feel so sure of her feelings and actions. 100% justified as Marisha said. And she would have been totally justified in just waking Orym up and having a conversation about the sword and at least putting it in the Bag of Holding overnight until they could make a long term decision. I think that's what Marisha was planning to do until Delilah showed up. She wasn't justified in hurting Orym in a unilateral decision that she should feed the sword to Delilah. Her thoughts were very real to get but not based on facts. Whatever her intentions she hurt Orym and avoided apologizing.

And I loved how Imogen pushed back this time. So often she's enabled Laudna because she loves her wants to comfort her. But this time I think she saw that's not what Laudna needs. She needs someone to check her and keep her from escalating. She's feeling complicated feelings right now because she loves Laudna, but she hates Delilah and what Delilah is getting Laudna to do. Like the partner of an addict who loves them, but hates what the substance is doing to them and how they're acting to feed that addiction. I can't wait to see how that plays out in the future.

The whole thing was incredibly real representation to me. This is an incredibly triggering situation that they're all in and they're all crumbling in the face of it. Chetney and Orym both made deals with Nana Mori. Chetney for fame, Orym for power. Ashton secretly took the fire primordial shard and nearly killed themselves in front of Fearne and then the other others. Imogen tried to flip her mom on the cult that's indoctrinated her for decades. FCG did blow himself up. Fearne was lured away by her shitbag sperm donor in the night so he could try to kill her and have a copy take her place. Dorian watched Lolth's crown take over Opal, his brother die, and his friends scattered. Laudna is feeding Delilah's power. None of them are okay and they're all being totally reckless. They're both bonding over their recklessness and being pushed apart by it. Can't wait to see what happens next.

[wayhaughtn7]

I did not interpret Imogen’s line about the cottage as breakup, I think it was the furthest thing from it.

Laudna is so convinced she’s a dead end for Imogen, so worthless and unworthy of love, that she’s been willingly giving herself over to the woman who murdered her because all she cares about is protecting Imogen and she doesn’t think she’s capable of that without Delilah. Which means she’s been actively making the possibility of her not having that future more probable by giving Delilah more power. So even though Laudna brought up them having a cottage, she doesn’t really believe it will happen and honestly, she even seemed to believe that Imogen didn’t really think it was possible which is why she seemed so broken after Imogen said it, she finally realized that Imogen did see that future as possible for them and now doesn’t. She seems to have finally realized that her disregard for her life and her future has hurt Imogen in a way she never wanted to. I honestly don’t think Laudna truly realized just how much Imogen loves her before this conversation or truly grasped how much her dying hurt Imogen.

Imogen on the other hand has never seen Laudna as a dead end, she looks at Laudna and sees everything good that has happened to her, it’s why she was so broken by Laudna’s death. Imogen desperately wants that future to be real and she has been using it as her motivation for every choice she makes, even her decision to not give in to Predathos and now she’s realized that Laudna doesn’t see that future as possible and she’s just so heartbroken by that realization. Which is part of why Imogen feels like she helped push Laudna into the place she is now with all their talks about using Delilah and she feels that she unintentionally helped reinforce Laudna’s low self worth to the point that now Laudna won’t even fight for them. It was essentially a realization for Imogen, and a heartbreaking one, but it’s not her giving up on them or Laudna.

I think they both needed these realizations for their relationship to have the possibility of a future. Imogen needed to realize that Laudna is willing to give up everything to protect her so that Imogen could actively work to undo some of the damage Delilah has done to Laudna so that Laudna wants to fight for that future. Laudna needed to realize that Imogen truly believed that future she talked about would happen to start even considering wanting to get rid of Delilah. I was pleasantly surprised that Laudna actually seemed more open to the possibility of getting rid of Delilah and having a life afterwards and that maybe hurting Orym and unintentionally hurting Imogen was her rock bottom. I honestly can’t wait to see where they go as a couple now because I think they might actually fight FOR their relationship more ferociously now, which will also mean Delilah will fight for control of Laudna harder. The angst is gonna be amazing.

[utilitycaster]

On the heels of your critique of C3's pacing and the sludginess of it all—something I have been contemplating lately is how the perceived need (certainly ICly and seemingly OOCly) for BH to move at a breakneck speed from event to event has had an effect on inter-party discussions and bonding that I find really pretty tragic. I can't help but wonder, would we be dealing with the indecision and rehashed circular debates we're seeing now if the party had been able to take the downtime they needed to really get to know themselves and each other, and to better define what's important to them? I often see people expressing frustration about how badly certain characters "need to TALK to each other!!!" but to date, I just don't know if the pace of the campaign has created many opportunities for that. And that's the thing I miss the most about the previous campaigns, just having more breathing room to let the characters and their relationships develop organically. I dunno. Increasingly I feel like these are interconnected issues.

I think I've talked about this before so I don't want to get too in the weeds but: yes. I think at this point Matt is like...making space deliberately for them to talk in-game, but at this point the party has spent so long not really talking and we're so late in the game that no one really takes him up on it or when they do it's the old Gods Debate again.

I really think the problem is once again what I've been saying for like, well over a year now. I don't think the cast was given as much direction as they were for campaign 2, nor was the campaign deliberately tailored to this party, so it has always been ill-fitting. Even some of the pre-planned elements have fallen flat (I have innumerable reservations about the Laudna book, but I do want to read it if only because I still could tell you basically nothing about her and Imogen's time together pre-campaign - it's one incident in Gelvaan, helping Zhudanna one time in Jrusar which wasn't even pre-planned but rather their "session zero", and apparently they saw someone with boob tassels one time). Things like Ashton and Imogen's relationships with the gods feel tacked on after Taliesin and Laura realized that having some sort of pre-existing opinion on the gods was in fact deeply relevant to this campaign; I do genuinely want an answer from both of them of whether "I had prayed to the gods and they never answered" existed in their backstories more than 5 minutes before it came up in game because I'd bet good money it was "no, I threw that in on the fly." So you have characters that are a little more broadly sketched, which would normally be fine (I mean, I don't think most of Vox Machina in the original birthday party one-shot had a terribly deep backstory to start), except for the fact that they never had to take watch, they had a patron giving them jobs and a generous stipend from the start of episode 2 until his demise in episode 38, and both Imogen and Laudna; and FCG and Ashton already had apartments in the city so no one needed to bunk up with anyone they didn't already know. The party did not need to take watches; they did not need to decide on a direction; and they didn't have to learn to resolve conflicts and make choices as a collective group. And yes, the pace has been pretty breakneck throughout, so there wasn't space early on for the cast to feel out their characters and what motivated them and how they'd act. I think the first time I saw a large number of people in the fandom going "MAKE A FUCKING DECISION ALREADY I DON'T CARE WHICH ONE" was with the party doing a similar endless handwringing about Dusk in episode 29, and I don't think they've really gotten better. Like, I do think episode 29 is already on the late side anyway, even for a long-running campaign with a lot of wiggle-room; for a long-running campaign with some very specific plot beats planned, this really needed to be done in character creation.

So now that there is more room to debrief and talk, because in-character they're still on a deadline and the world's been ending all campaign, and because that groundwork wasn't laid, they don't talk about anything except the task at hand. Like...I think a defense I've seen of this campaign is that it's about a group of people who really aren't suited for what has been laid before them, but the problem is that's kind of every D&D campaign that starts from a low level and this is a particularly weak example thereof. Vox Machina didn't show up ready to kill dragons nor Vecna, and the Mighty Nein are still Wildemount's best kept secret; both of them grew into their current hypercompetence. Bells Hells don't really belong to their story, nor does it to them, so yeah, hard to talk within that framework.

[willowbirds]

Imogen for the character asks? :3

Okay! Lets go!

First impression

I was immediately intrigued by her psychic abilities, especially considering that there hasn’t been a character like her before in the CR universe. There have been psychic powers before, but a character who actively has her mind reading active means that she is the first psychic character within the lore and I at first assumed that she was the Exandrian version of a Kalashtar.

Impression now

Oh she is so much more than the Exandrian version of a Kalashtar. She is my blorbo. My silly gal. My skrunkly that I’ve hit with my autism beam! I am always so excited whenever she gets new powers and abilities and I am hyped to see her Form of Havoc in action!

Favorite moment(s)

How do I decide? There’s her dream sequences, when she lightning bolted Laudna’s tree prison, her 33 deception roll! But there’s also her goofier moments. Like that time she fell down a flight of stairs or that moment in the lift down to mines way back in the early episodes. But honestly my favourite moments are her sweet and simple interactions with the other Hells. They range from genuine moments of venerability to chaotic shenanigans that make me laugh every time I think about them. It’s just so hard to pick with Imogen.

Idea for a story

*waves at all of my fics* They are basically all her!

Unpopular opinion (I don’t know if this is unpopular, but I’ve seen some meh takes on her so this might as well be unpopular)

Imogen is probably one of the best characters Laura Bailey has made story wise. Everyone talks about how Jester is Laura’s best, and I do agree she seems very comfortable in that character and that’s always important, but story wise Imogen is so intriguing. Her connection to the moon and her powers that keep growing leads to an uncertain story for her and that makes her so good! She has grown so much from that shy horse girl that struggled to be in crowds, and now she’s off saving the world despite what everyone says. She could have easily turned evil, but she hasn’t, and that is absolutely amazing to me!

Favourite relationship

Imogen and Ashton don’t get nearly enough screen time together and that is frankly a crime. Their dynamic is so good, with them both getting on each other’s nerves while also being there to reassure the other or snap some sense back into them. I also feel like there’s the unspoken connection of both of them having powers that they don’t fully understand. Imogen’s ever growing powers that could burst at the seams at any moment and Ashton’s dunimancy that he didn’t even have a name for until recently. They are probably also the youngest in the group in terms of years. They’re just two Marqet kids that now have to save the world even though they don’t properly understand themselves.

Favorite headcanon

That Imogen’s marks are sensitive to the touch. Often they normally tingle under someone’s touch, but someone’s touch actually burns after she has a nightmare and they sting profusely if she breaks the skin around or on them. The only person whose touch doesn’t do this is Laudna’s because of how cold her skin is and after a nightmare it’s a huge relief to Imogen. I also headcanon that she has a mark along her spine. (Same thing above applies here). I might do a fic fully exploring this headcanon at some point.

[randoimago]

Hi! A little while ago you got a request for Orym and a reader who is really awkward but is really trying to be friends. Could you please do the same prompt but with Ashton, Fearne, Laudna and Imogen? Thank you!!

Fandom: Critical Role

Character(s): Ashton, Fearne, Imogen, Laudna

Note(s): Here you go!!

Ashton

Making friends isn't his thing. He's hotheaded and blunt and just doesn't care about many things. Caring is hard and most things he cares about end up breaking so he doesn't like adding people to the list.

The stares you give him and fidgeting you do makes him fidget and start overthinking. He'll bluntly make a comment about you "taking a picture, it'll last longer". He just assumed you were staring cause he's weird looking (something that he doesn't take offense to because it's true).

But you aren't completely scared off by him and so he decides to talk because that's something normal people do. Honestly finds it hilarious that you'd want to be friends with him, but whatever. Ashton ends up mad at himself that he adds you to his list later.

Fearne

Fearne sees you staring and looking like you want to say something, so she's already in your space. Like Ashton, she assumes you're staring for a reason. Unlike Ashton, she thinks you're staring because she's hot.

Fearne talks to you, being playful and asking what your deal is. And then she learns that you're trying to figure out how to be her friend.

She's very touched by your words and finds it adorable. But she's Fearne and she can't help saying, "Why would I want to be your friend?" Before laughing it off and saying "Just kidding." She actually means the just kidding this time.

Imogen

She's used to the stares and uncomfortable vibes other people have around her. She's honestly tempted to open her mind to hear what you're thinking, but also doesn't know if she should in case it is more negativity. Eventually gives in and listens to your surface thoughts.

Imogen feels bad as she hears you contemplate how to talk to her and seem cool. She thought you were thinking bad about her, but you're just wanting to be friends.

Thing is, Imogen can be awkward with approaching people too. But she still does, giving a small "Hi." and then trying to figure out what to do. Should she compliment your shirt? Talk about the weather? You're both just awkward together, she's tempted to bring her extrovert friend into the mix.

Laudna

Laudna is pretty much the same way. She's so awkward, but that's not going to stop her from making friends!

Will introduce her dead rat to you. Will show you the fun/scary dolls she has. Ooh maybe you'll like to hear a joke! It's a classic from Whitestone. A real tree-t (treat), if you will.

And she wants to hear all about your hobbies too. You don't even get to be quiet or reserved as she is in your space trying to become friends. She just hopes you don't notice her quick glances to Imogen to make sure she's getting a thumbs up that she's doing a good job.