#imogen temult meta
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imogen meta: "you know you saved my life, right?"
tw//suicidal ideation
i'm so sorry for another meta but this line has been sitting in my brain for DAYS now, and there are a few things about it that are just so striking and so so sad-
for one- it puts imogen's farewell to bertrand into a much greater context.
"i'm glad the noises stopped for you. i'm glad you're at peace."
how long has imogen been longing for that kind of peace? she's been dealing with her powers for a decade, now, and it seems like only in her time with bell's hells has she really been able to get a stronger harness on it.
how many times, has death seemed like the only escape? ever present, ever alluring, in the corner of her mind?
it's a layer that i couldn't quite pick up before, because there was context for what she said, but there also wasn't- but now, with the idea that "i don't know how much longer i would've lasted" at the forefront-
she's had a decade of pain, and ostracization, and voices she can't control, with no sign of reprieve, no sense that it would ever end, and for a long period in her life- with no one to support her.
it's been so obvious for so long, given the angst of imogen's past, but i've struggled to connect the dots of just how deep imogen's pain runs. laura has been dropping clues- her farewell to bertrand, talking about how bad it had gotten during what the fuck is up with that, her mentions of her father- but this was the final piece, to make it all so painfully clear.
these past few years, they've been everything.
because what did imogen have before, really? what reasons did she have to keep going? an absent mother, a distant father, and chronic, overwhelming, agonizing pain and dreams haunting her in her sleep?
who did she have to turn to?
no one, and no glimmer of hope.
and so of course she would be drawn to laudna. her musical thoughts a balm to her aching mind, her cheerful attitude a bright spot in the darkness of imogen's life, her support almost foreign to a young girl who has never had the stability of someone to lean on-
and of course she would be devastated, when that's ripped away from her again, when laudna dies. that hope, that happiness- it's intoxicating, and it's horrible when it's gone, and she's taken back to that place of hurt and anger and fear.
and of course she would do everything to bring laudna back. but it also paints her ritual contribution into a greater context- of course she wouldn't make laudna come back, either. she won't make her return to her home full of trauma, she won't make laudna leave the sweet embrace of death.
because who is she, to deny someone that tranquility, that escape- when she's been tempted by it herself? if laudna needs to go, to not hurt anymore, she'll let her, because she loves laudna so much that she wouldn't ever take that away from her, if that was what she wanted.
(however, if laudna didn't come back, imogen would most certainly struggle. especially since i don't think she's fully processed otohan's attack yet, she's been so determined on giving laudna that choice that she herself has thought about).
but it's also so beautiful- how two lonely, shunned girls could find such light and hope in each other, and find ways to battle back against the world. and it shows such depth to their love, and their devotion to each other.
it's such an intimate thing, to tell someone that they saved your life. and though it wasn't a romantic confession, it's clear that they love each other very, very much.
#imogen temult#cr imogen#imogen meta#imogen temult meta#laudna#imodna#critical role#critical role spoilers#critical role meta#cr spoilers#campaign 3#campaign 3 spoilers
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It’s so interesting that Imogen thought that the lightning marks on her arms grew the more she used her magic. And how the revelation that its the dreams not the power that’s making them grow will change her relationship to her magic and how she uses it. A young Imogen being afraid to embrace her own power, her own magic. A young Imogen thinking she will die if she walks into the storm. Imogen, now, embracing her magic.
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Going to throw my hat into the “Liliana sucks” arena with this piping hot take: She doesn’t really love Imogen.
She loves the idealized version of Imogen she’s built in her head over 25 years of absolutely no contact with her. She loves the innocent little girl that needs her mommy to protect her from the big bad gods. She loves the daughter who will be grateful to her for all the hard decisions she had to make.
Her denial and self-absorption were enough to protect that ideal of her daughter from actual Imogen begging her to reconsider; she could tell herself that Imogen just didn’t understand what was at stake, or why these hard decisions had to be made.
But Imogen finally crossed a line that Liliana couldn’t reconcile with her idealized little girl, and that’s why Liliana broke so dramatically. Her “daughter” is dead, replaced with a hardened adventurer who’s willing to make her own hard decisions, and isn’t going to thank Liliana for the carnage she and Ludinus have left in their wake.
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C1E60 || C3E88
#critical role#criticalroleedit#vex'ahlia#imogen temult#laura bailey#gifs#*#*cr#*parallel#cr1#cr3#vex'ahlia cr#syldor vessar#liliana temult#r: vex x imogen#angst tag#nova shh#cr meta#47m c1e60#3h12m c3e88#laura bailey said it's all about the blood of you mixed into the blood of me whether i like it or not and what does that mean#because it certainly doesn't seem to mean that you love me.#and how can i love you when you were supposed to raise me and protect me and care for me and you didn't#how can i love you when you were supposed to teach me what love is and instead you only taught me hate and loneliness#and why is there a part of me that still desperately hopes that you do love me? that you could bring yourself to love me?#and then the part that makes me go even more batshit crazy: THEY HAVE /MET/ EACH OTHER. THESE TWO WOMEN HAVE M E T#*SCREAMS FOR SEVEN THOUSAND HOURS STRAIGHT*
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I was thinking about that post about redemption I just reblogged, and I think it’s worth pointing out just how difficult and time consuming it would to de-radicalize or “redeem” Lilliana. And I think Essek’s redemption in campaign 2 is actually a really good example of what I’m talking about.
First of all, what the Nein did to redeem Essek was not slowly and politely talk him through why what he did was wrong. They didn’t even know he did anything wrong. What they did was continually reach out to him and give him a support system of friends he did not have before. Notably, friends who he could be comfortable sharing his worldview around: he was an atheist* in a theocratic society who had to hide his worldview in order to have any social, academic, or governmental standing. The mighty nein were probably the first people he could be himself around, and creating a change in his personal life is what led to a change in his ideology. Notably, he did most of the actual deconstructing of his ideology on his own, some before the big betrayal reveal and a lot after. The Nein helped with that directly a little, but the main thing they did was offer him a personal connection he had stakes in, and a people in his life with different world views he hadn’t seen up close before.
This is pretty true to life, in the real world, most people who leave radical or bigoted groups leave at least partially because of a change in their personal life. Even if they do leave because of someone directly challenging their worldview, it’s usually someone they care about who challenges them in a non-aggressive way. It’s still personal.
Secondly, this took a lot of time. I can’t remember exactly how long they spent in the Dynasty, but they befriended Essek over a really long period of in game and out of game time. The cast spent actual real world hours talking pretty much one on one with Essek, and the party spent weeks, maybe even months slowly getting to know him and bringing this support structure into his life. Essek spent even longer actually thinking through and deconstructing on his own. The change in his worldview between the ship and the outpost really shows this, he did a lot of the thinking that led him to change by himself over a lot of time we weren’t there for. They could not have gotten him to actually change his mindset, fully realize what he did was wrong of his own free will, in anything approaching a short amount of time. This was a time consuming process.
All this to say: this is the kind of effort it would take to legitimately de-radicalize Lilliana. She has been in the Vanguard for ~25 years, she most likely joined when she was in her early to mid 20s, and she gave up all personal connections, even her daughter and her husband to join. Not only has her entire ideology been built around this being the right thing to do, her entire personal life is contained within the Vanguard. It’s most likely where she gets any housing or money or really anything from. It is her whole life, and she believes wholeheartedly in it. The level of time and effort it took to get Essek to organically change his mind is most likely the level it would take to get Lilliana to change hers, if not more.
And they don’t have that time. Lilliana is actively doing harm now, she is helping the Vanguard release Predathos right now, they simply do not have the time to redeem her. It sucks, but pragmatically speaking, it is simply not worth the time and effort. Essek gave away the beacons in the past, but also, the Nein did not know he did that for their early friendship. If the Nein had known, they probably would not have put in all the work it took to get him to change. They probably couldn’t have. Lilliana might be able to be redeemed in theory, but so can a lot of people who do very bad things. Focusing on that redemption process is prioritizing Imogen’s complicated feelings over the harsh reality that this is a war, and Lilliana is a key figure in that war doing a great deal of harm. It sucks, but I do think it’s time to move on, and I think Imogen is now leaning that way.
*atheist is a loose term here, it’s hard to be an atheist in a world where gods are proven to exist, but it gets the point across
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okay. i mean this with the utmost affection. but. while imogen and laudna telling each other "im you're anchor. you're my tether" as reassurance about going "dark" or giving into the lure of power is very meaningful and important. it also kind of struck me like. hey wait one of you anchoring the other. fine. possibly-functional. but doesnt BOTH of you tethering to each other risk creation of a spinning centrifugal blur whirling down the road to power.
and like yes yes this isnt an original thought and the proper terminology for this is probably like "dual corruption arc" or in CR "i broke the world for you" yes but. i wanted to share the specific imagery my brain provided for this train of thought, which is roughly:
like. thanks. brain. i guess.
bonus thought that popped up when drawing this:
#critical role#imogen temult#laudna#c3e65#cr spoilers#kinda#sorcery pact#LOOK I CAN ABSOLUTELY WRITE MORE THOUGHTFUL IN DEPTH ANALYSIS OF THIS or i can illustrate this and giggle at it#orbs spin fast. hah.#:)#(once i watch. proper meta is coming. this is both a promise and a threat)#i was partway thru making this post when i lost signal for a while and had to ask someone around me whether centrifugal is the outward forc#and couldnt explain why i was asking#the sacrifices i make for cr......#shitpost#spar speaks#imodna#.....?
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the fact that orym, chetney, and imogen primarily guided the communication exercise gives so much insight into the leadership structure of bell’s hells. even the ways that each of them did it—orym giving rapid fire instruction and adjusting the direction based on response. chetney sticking to one mode (clock system) and being direct and methodical. imogen holding pace with thought and encouraging with every step—keeping emotions calm. granted that’s also the players’ communication styles coming through, but still.
at this point, i would say that they form the base that bell’s hells revolves around. orym as the lookout, as the one on alert both in and out of the party. chetney observing and learning about the environment physically and personally. and imogen guiding decisions by calming emotions.
#critical role#cr spoilers#critical role spoilers#bell’s hells#orym of the air ashari#chetney pock o'pea#imogen temult#cr meta
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Laudna going through a spiral about whether Ashton is a bad person because he wanted the power of both shards and did something stupidly dangerous to do it vs. Laudna deliberately feeding Delilah by using Hunger of the Shadow on Bor'Dor and Willmaster Edmuda.
Absolutely love it. Girl please keep projecting your worst fears about yourself and destructive habits on your friends and get scared of them without ever stepping back and assessing your own actions, it is delicious.
Bonus points that Imogen and Laudna are the biggest enablers of each other and not at all inclined to check each other's negative behaviors. Imogen still has a healthy fear about her powers, though, especially right now.
Meanwhile Laudna is still convinced that Orym is fine and the stable one while no one questions how Orym got Hex or that he's willingly using Ludinus' Quintessence Array to drain Edmuda of her life force. A totally normal stable good guy thing to do. Definitely no nosedive here. Although Laudna is irritated at him for pressuring everyone to keep going and not back down, and that he got the Quintessence Array use and not her. (Because again, she is trying to feed her own need for power.)
Somehow Fearne is the only one who's beginning to think they all might be going too far and getting scared, but they're not really listening to her. She saw her potential to become Dark Fearne and actually reevaluated her life. (Even if she's still a chaos being.)
Bell's Hells are great because they're like NPCs who ended up as the B-Team who keeps happening to be in the right place at the right time to be in the middle of all these events leading to this cataclysmic events that are so much bigger than they are. It's FUN that it's happening faster than they can recon with it and they're getting more and more desperate to not go under in a way that is actually making them go under faster.
They're seeing it in each other but not in themselves. That's the tragedy. They're so desperate to win it doesn't matter at what cost anymore. They're all just competing to see who can sacrifice themselves for the cause first while dragging their enemies down with them. They're going to end up being the monsters someone else has to fight, even though they kept trying to do good and fight the darkness.
#critical role#critical role spoilers#critical role meta#critical role campaign 3#Bell's Hells#Laudna Critical Role#Delilah Briarwood#Orym of the Air Ashari#ashton greymoore#imogen temult#fearne calloway
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I want Imogen to go the absolute fuck OFF at Liliana the next time they meet. I want her to show her mother what Otohan did to Orym, to Fearne, to Laudna, to Chetney, and to FCG.
I want Liliana to grovel because Imogen has grieved more for relationships that have existed for a few months (a few years in Laudna's case) than she has for her own mother.
I want her to finally choose which side she's on.
And I want them to end it once and for all if she chooses wrong.
#give me a “WHERE WERE YOU?!”#“WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?!”#“I CALLED FOR YOU - LIKE I ALWAYS HAVE - AND YOU FAILED ME AGAIN”#“MY FRIENDS HAVE SACRIFICED MORE FOR ME THAN YOU EVER HAVE”#critical role#critical role spoilers#cr spoilers#cr meta#bells hells#imogen temult#liliana temult#orym of the air ashari#fcg#cr fcg#chetney pock o'pea#fearne calloway#cr laudna#otohan thull
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I’m going to preface this by saying that I also got annoyed about a similar phenomenon around my favorite character in C2 (Caleb) so I don’t think this is just an Imogen problem but:
I’m increasingly frustrated with the way a lot of the fandom talks about Imogen and especially how other characters interact with her. There’s a lot of super uncritical “how could you be mean to my poor baby” that crops up even when she might kind of need to hear some hard-to-swallow truths and be questioned.
It ends up creating a fan environment around a character where it seems like some of the most vocal “fans” act like she’s so fragile she needs to be protected from any challenge or hardship or confrontation of her own fears - and what makes this frustrating is that the context of this character is that she’s in a D&D game. Challenge is the thing that will move and progress the character in that medium.
So I’d like to offer an alternative to the framing of that moment with Imogen, Orym, and Laudna I keep seeing. Yes, Orym was blunt, but he wasn’t exactly providing new information, just a reminder of the stakes and their job. “I’m pushing everyone” - I mean, of course! At this stage, why wouldn’t you if people faltered? In contrast I see Laudna’s clinging to soothing and comfort and “you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to” to be a depiction of how sometimes that kind of expression of love isn’t actually helpful and merely allows for continued indecision and stagnation. Imogen may end up disagreeing on a course of action with Orym, sure, but trying to stop her from even considering or engaging with alternatives is a smothering affection also borne of fear that doesn’t allow Imogen agency.
The interesting contrast with Caleb is that it was Nott, his ride or die pal, who was often the one pushing and challenging him to grow. And don’t get me wrong, the similar fandom problem I noted at the top with Caleb absolutely targeted Nott and later very strongly Veth for daring to tell him blunt or uncomfortable truths. But Imogen’s ride or die girl isn’t pushing her, she’s doing the opposite and trying to cocoon her. Which I guess the fandom “protect my poor precious fave” impulse agrees with and doesn’t read as its own kind of interpersonal issue.
Imogen does need to be challenged if only so she can decide, truly, what she wants to achieve out of being on Ruidus and how far she’s willing to go. She’s a deeply conflicted character who has a lot of fascinating conflicting agendas she’s struggling with. If she is never pushed or never pushes herself she may not take the time to actually consider where her personal line is. Someone constantly agreeing with and shielding someone can be a problem in its own right.
#meta#critical role#cr spoilers#imogen temult#don’t make me regret coming out of meta retirement#I will turn this post around and lock reblogs if I have to
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I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but it feels relevant again in light of the most recent episode. Something that’s really fascinating to me about Orym’s grief in comparison to the rest of the hells’ grief is that his is the youngest/most fresh and because of that tends to be the most volatile when it is triggered (aside from FCG, who was two and obviously The Most volatile when triggered.)
As in: prior to the attack on Zephrah, Orym was leading a normal, happy, casual life! with family who loved him and still do! Grief was something that was inflicted upon him via Ludinus’ machinations, whereas with characters like Imogen or Ashton, grief has been the background tapestry of their entire lives. And I think that shows in how the rest of them are largely able to, if not see past completely (Imogen/Laudna/Chetney) then at least temper/direct their vitriol or grief (Ashton/Fearne/Chetney again) to where it is most effective. (There is a glaring reason, for example, that Imogen scolded Orym for the way he reacted to Liliana and not Ashton. Because Ashton’s anger was directed in a way that was ultimately protective of Imogen—most effective—and Orym’s was founded solely in his personal grief.)
He wants Imogen to have her mom and he wants Lilliana to be salvageable for Imogen because he loves Imogen. But his love for the people in his present actively and consistently tend to conflict with the love he has for the people in his past. They are in a constant battle and Orym—he cannot fathom losing either of them.
(Or, to that point, recognize that allowing empathy to take root in him for the enemy isn't losing one of them.)
It is deeply poignant, then, that Orym’s grief is symbolized by both a sword and shield. It is something he wields as a blade when he feels his philosophy being threatened by certain conversational threads (as he believes it is one of the only things he has left of Will and Derrig, and is therefore desperately clinging onto with both bloody hands even if it makes him, occasionally, a hypocrite), but also something he can use in defense of the people he presently loves—if that provocative, blade-grief side of him does not push them—or himself—away first.
(it won’t—he is as loved by the hells as he loves them. he just needs to—as laudna so beautifully said—say and hear it more often.)
#critical role#cr spoilers#bells hells#orym of the air ashari#cr meta#imogen temult#ashton greymoore#liliana temult#this is genuinely completely written in good faith as someone who loves orym#but is also about orym and so will inevitably end up being completely misconstrued and made into discourse. alas#I could talk about how Orym’s unwillingness to allow the hells to actually finish/come to a solid conclusion on Philosophy Talk#is directly connected to one of the largest criticisms of c3 (that they are constantly having these conversations)#all day. alas. engaging with orym’s flaws tends to make people upset#it is ESP prevelant when he walks off after exclaiming ‘they (vangaurd) are NOT right’#which was not only never said but wasn’t even what they were talking about#he even admits as much to imogen like ten minutes later! that he is incapable of viewing it objectively#which is 100% justifiable and understandable but simultaneously does not make his grief alone the most important perspective in the world#also bc i fear ppl will play semantics on my tags yes the line ‘i hope she’s right’ was said but it was from ASHTON#who does not believe they are at all and wasn’t saying they actively WERE right. orym just heard something to latch onto and ran with it#ultimately there is a reason orym only admitted that he was struggling when he had stepped away to talk to dorian#who has not been around and thusly has not changed once n orym's eyes#and it isn't that the hells never check in or care. they do. they have several times over#it is dishonest to say they haven't#the actual reason is that all of this is something He Is Aware Of. he doesn't mention it bc he KNOWS it's hypocritical and selfish#he says as much!#EXHALES. @ MY OWN BRAIN CAN WE THINK ABT MOG AGAIN. FYRA RAI EVEN. FOR ME.#posting this literally at 8 in the morning so I can get my thoughts out of my brain but also attempt to immediately make this post invisibl
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imogen temult: a retrospective
in honor of the new year, here's a meta about our favorite purple haired girl, by looking back at what's transpired in 2022 and what she has ahead of her in 2023:
topics:
imogen, liliana, and gelvaan | imodna trauma | fcg and therapy |
tw//suicidal ideation, trauma, death
imogen, liliana, and gelvaan
let's start with the most glaring recent plot point- and one of the most painful.
liliana working with otohan was something i had started to guess ever since we learned that she was alive.
did i want them to be gay for each other? i mean, yes.
but how devastating for imogen, to learn that the mother she has been looking for her whole life is working with the person responsible for so much of her trauma: otohan haunts her dreams, killed three of her friends, and- there are probably better words for it- but tortured imogen's powers out of her, essentially.
for someone who claims to have left her daughter to protect her- how is keeping her in the dark about otohan any better? how is any of this secrecy helping her more than just telling her what she's discovered?
and it's worse because imogen craves her mother's love. imogen craves to be loved, in general. she wants so desperately to have a parental figure- someone to relinquish responsibility, someone to cry to, someone to ask advice from- and the more i think about her backstory... she's not given much of it, is she?
shunned by her town, abandoned by her mother in childhood only to be abandoned, again, when she rejects imogen's attempts to meet up, estranged from her father...
all the mentor figures in her life- laudna, bertrand, and eshteross- have died. she has seen all of their bodies, she has seen their blood and for bertrand and eshteross- she has seen them walk into the storm.
i can't help but think: imogen loses, and loses, and loses. the world has taken so much from her and it's heartbreaking because people need things to cling on to.
the lord of the rings is a perfect example of this: tolkien made the shire so idyllic, so beautiful, because the hobbits needed something to fight for. something to come home to.
gelvaan might be beautiful but it is not her safe haven.
her ritual contribution proved that. "i don't know how much longer I would have lasted," imogen said, and that, too, is devastating.
the town drove her to at least contemplate suicide, and even in sleep, gelvaan is supposed to be comforting but heralds a storm.
not that places mean everything, in terms of what to fight for, but that would make it easier, wouldn't it? to have somewhere to come home to, at the end of it all, that isn't haunted by dreams of red storms and the memories of how painful life was, there?
imodna trauma
well speaking of how painful life was- laudna's death still haunts imogen (and laudna but that's a different discussion).
in some ways, their distance now reminds me of the rock "breakup" and yet, it's even sadder this time because they're not not talking because they're angry or betrayed- it's because they both are so insistent that the other be okay that they don't allow themselves the grace to admit that they themselves aren't.
imogen is trying so hard to return things back to normal. she doesn't want to talk about her powers, she doesn't want to talk about laudna dying, she doesn't want to think about it.
i think it's because she can't, because if she starts i don't know if she knows how to piece herself together.
i think imogen is afraid to confront the depth of her pain over laudna's death, in particular, because she's afraid of "breaking" again, like otohan broke her.
it's hard to explain: but laudna's death and otohan pushing imogen to a breaking point was more than just what it was. it also creates this extremely unhealthy relationship with dealing with emotions/having an emotional outlet.
because really the only time in canon that imogen has really, truly been able to break down is in times of immense trauma, and against her will- and that caused a dangerous release of power that (in imogen's mind) could very well have been the final blow in all of her friend's deaths.
so now, you have both the physical trauma of losing her friends to otohan, but also this mental block of "if i let myself feel, i will hurt the people i care about."
bell's hells and therapy
and the pain and the stress doesn't ever stop coming, for imogen, and though the group notices, i don't think they really understand her well enough yet to really see that otohan trauma (and imogen might not, either).
now, this is no hate on fcg- but he in particular seems to call out imogen's pain the most, while presenting very surface-level solutions.
"i'll create a safe space," they say, but then they allude to imogen crying a lot and being fragile and then don't actually?? listen??
i think fearne/ashley has done the best at starting difficult conversations with imogen, and has, more than anyone, pushed both imogen and laudna to having hard conversations in the past.
she tried to get imogen to talk about her new ruidius friend and she asks imogen if she thinks she intended the blast, and she really does seem to listen.
but fcg is prone to bringing things up and then using spells/conventional therapy techniques, or what they see as "what SHOULD be done when x boxes are met" without slowing down and really getting everything out of the therapy that is actually important.
(this is no hate to sam i think fcg's perspective is FASCINATING i just don't think it's right for imogen)
#imogen temult meta#imogen temult#imodna#imogen x laudna#laudna x imogen#laudna#critical role#critical role meta#cr spoilers#critical role spoilers#campaign 3#campaign 3 spoilers#bell's hells
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So many thoughts about Imogen initially finding it hard to talk or concentrate on a conversation, Imogen keeping to herself, because of all the thoughts pressing in on her and how much this resonates as someone with sensory issues and anxiety, how much sensory overload overwhelms your ability to function and be social, to speak and to listen.
So many thoughts on Imogen initially going to have such a shift in herself, in the way she interacted with others, in her personality leaving the city, how much being overstimulated, and overwhelmed, and sensory overload changes who you are and how much of yourself you can be.
#critical role#imogen temult#imogen temult meta#imogen meta#4-sided dive#four sided dive#imogen continues to be such a resonate character#i love her so much#i relate to her so deeply#a little sad we didn't get to see such a dramatic shift with her leaving the city#but her deep breath and joy was so meaningful anyway#imogen and invisible illness
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absolutely out of my mind obsessed. OBSESSED. with liliana always saying "he" and, even if we know it's ludinus, never saying his name and obfuscating him with predathos, these two pillars of limitless power & incredible cruelty that chain her, stronger than her, in her own words. how he needs her. how he admires & values & even in some way adores her, and maybe more. how she's pulled ludinus back from the very edge. her trying to change him, and zerxus 1000 years ago trying to change asmodeus and jester trying to change artagan and caleb trying to change essek and the m9 trying to change lucien and opal trying to change lolth, and imogen, trying to change her own mother. this cycle of desperate belief in redemption that can succeed or fail, the coin that hasnt landed on a side yet. how that's freedom for some. how that's a whip, a martinet on the back of the reformer for others. the belief in set fate vs the vanguard belief in changing destiny. generation upon generation of hope & abuse that can so easily become one or the other or both at once for eon upon eon. how the gods who created these mortals who seek any glint of kindness desperately wish, in this moment, for redemption themselves. "to reach a hand down to somebody, they need to be beneath you". but the gods are in the sky. and their saviors are on a lonely planet & lonelier moon, locked together by a cycle of violence & desperation started by them so long ago.
#cr spoilers#critical role#campaign 3#exandria unlimited: calamity#campaign 2#ludinus da'leth#liliana temult#critical role meta#predathos#zerxus ilerez#asmodeus#lolth#opal#essek thelyss#jester lavorre#caleb widogast#artagan#imogen temult#lucien tavelle
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We want to destroy my mother.
(insp by @dadrielle)
#critical role#criticalroleedit#imogen temult#liliana temult#laura bailey#matthew mercer#gifs#*#*cr#cr3#cr spoilers#angst tag#cr meta#nova shh#scheduled#3h12m c3e88#18m c3e12#3h17m c3e42#3h42m c3e51#4h20m c3e51#1h35m c3e49#i think this gifset might be a little bit unfair to liliana from a third party perspective but#i think it's Very Real for imogen. to feel like she reached out so many times and the loyalty there was so fucking flimsy#barely there to begin with and then gone in an instant as everything turned to red mist#thinking about how laura on 4sd a while ago said imogen is so fucking sick of it she's sick of having that hope#her reality is that her mother no longer has any loyalty to her and the pain of thinking she does isn't worth it anymore#:((((#'help me.' 'this is for the best.' breaks my H E A R T :(((((((((#and matt's fucking Smile afterward. speaks a thousand words#thanks rj for the discord message that kicked this off!!!
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Anyway so if you go back and watch Laudna’s breakdown of everything they went through in Issylra, Imogen touches her forehead several times…
Imogen realizes she can’t hear Laudna’s thoughts so she missed that she was in distress. The next time Imogen speaks up she apologizes for not being able to hear her thoughts. She makes it so abundantly clear that she hates everyone’s thoughts but Laudna’s.
You can not tell me those two are not soulmates.
#i don’t need to write the meta because we all know what happens but#ITS JUST SUCH A SPECIFIC DETAIL THAT SHE DOES#LAURA IS SUCH A GOOD IMPROVISER#THE WAY SHE BUILT TO *THE MOMENT*#GAHHHH#imodna#critical role#cr3#cr spoilers#critrole#bells hells#imogen temult#laudna#laura bailey#marisha ray
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