I find it interesting that out of all the party, Laudna and Orym are following in Ashton's footsteps a bit in hiding things from the party (Orym with the Nana Morri deal, Laudna with her interacting with/talking to Delilah more and more), and I wonder how much of it is the residual impact that Bor'dor's betrayal had on them.
I truly honestly understand what the hell Ashton was thinking in that moment and cannot find myself to be mad at them. When you spend your life in pain already, there is no threat or fear of more. It's all the same, really. Especially when this way you could use it to help the people you love and, finally, make that pain worthwhile.
I fucking LOVE the imagery and the symbolism of Imogen, being unable to catch people to save them, but able to force the harmful things away to minimize damage. Ashton and Orym, using their strength to leap into the air, do strong and weightless maneuvers to grab people and orient them to safety. Imogen unable to catch, unable to save, but able to help by forcing away the threats, using all of that capability and power to bend an unyielding dangerous thing and leave it warped, declawed, where it cant hurt the others anymore.... fucking phenomenal.
cannot stand it when i see posts saying orym could/can only ever have concrete conversations about himself and his feelings with either dorian or ashton or that they're the only people that would understand what he's going through. asides from the Women Just Don't Get It-ness of it all, like:
Something something about how the fandom is both villainizing Ashton/Taliesin and infantizing Fearne/Ashley even though Fearne/Ashley are grown women who did in fact choose to not have the shard and thought it should go to Ashton and said so both in this ep and in 4 sided dive (which some of you would know if you actually watched it)
i do hope this whole thing compels Fearne to start speaking up more about her wants and needs. we can talk about how the Hells don't check up on her as often as they could or should, and I'd agree, but she also rarely advocates for herself or shares what's she's feeling. it makes sense given her lack of experience with everything mortal, but this proves she's not the only one getting hurt by it: what Ashton did was not at all her fault, but if she had told the witches or Orym her fears about taking the shard during their respective conversations, it almost certainly wouldn't have happened!
even in the best of circumstances, the people who care about you can't read your mind (or they can, but they're trying really hard not to in order to respect your privacy.), and the Hells are very very far from the best of circumstances. they're relying on Fearne just as much as she's relying on them, and so the need for better communication extends to her as well. hopefully she can start to put that into practice next time by kicking Ashton's ass.
So I’ve seen lots of debate about this on here and I think this is v interesting. I could see it going kinda any way, and there have been good arguments all around. I’m not entirely sure who I see the shard going to so:
(Reblog to get more votes and widen the pool etc etc you know the deal)
Can we just talk about how perfect it was for Bells Hells to go to Zephrah before heading off to the excavation site? Right at the peak of inter-party tensions, with Ashton and Laudna understandably mixed on saving the Gods for their own merits, FCG pulling hard in the opposite direction, and Imogen dealing with the pull of Predathos' power, Orym took them back to where it all started. A place where squabbles for or against divinity don't matter, where the fight is entirely about keeping Ludinus from doing any more harm. It gave a reminder of what they had already lost. A childhood with a mother. A life with a husband. A world without all the fear and pain created by a single self-aggrandizing zealot. The war has yet to be won, and there are many twists and turns the road may yet take. But returning to Zephrah may have secured the first and most important battle.