#unfortunate bc engaging with it? kind of cringe. but fortunate bc wow imodna 💜🖤

[astralleywright]

i mean i wouldn't consider disliking imodna and disliking imogen as equivalent of course. and i don't even think it's a thing of people disliking imogen, bc sometimes you express your love for a character by not shutting up about what you think is wrong with them. but like, it tracks that a lot of the people who see imodna as empty and lacking real connection are the same ones who focus near exclusively on the harm (both real and imagined) that imogen causes others, to the point of seeming deeply disinterested in the harm she’s experienced herself and viewing any acknowledgement of it and its influence on her actions as coddling her.

like if i thought that the takeaway of imogen's story was that she does the things she does because she's selfish and manipulative, as opposed to indecisive and insecure and angry at the world, i would also see her and laudna's relationship as festering with unspoken resentments, stagnant instead of stabilizing. of course imodna doesn't make sense if you brush off the years of isolation and ostracization imogen faced as inessential to her character, and even more so if you think it was justified or largely her fault. because then the core thing that connects her and laudna - finding someone like them for the first time after years of excrutiating loneliness, and being not just accepted but loved for the same things that made them monstrous in the eyes of everyone else - is rendered meaningless.