#laudna died trying. laudna died confused.

[embrace-your-inner-kid]

I see so many people saying "Imogen would break the world for Laudna" when really she's going to try and save the world for Laudna.

She is not Delilah, she hates Delilah, and that conversation between Imogen and Laudna shows that Laudna doesn't want her to be like Delilah if she dies.

If anything, Laudna is most likely to be like Delilah if anything happened to Imogen. She's the one who's soul is literally intwined with the woman. She's confused and scared, but Delilah's influence is there by no want of her own, and devastation or the thought of it will likely cause her to lean into it.

#heavy stuff #the angst levels are off the charts #imodna #imogen x laudna #imogen temult #laudna #critical role #critical role spoilers

[multifandom-damnation]

Laudna, who died in such a terrible, violent way, waking up confused and afraid and clawing her way out of Whitestone cemetery after her whole family was killed and she was mutilated and put on display and hung from the Sun Tree to taunt some people she had never met, knowing she should not be alive, hearing Delilah's whispers in her head, alone.

Ashton, who died in such a sudden and painful way, seeing the end coming in slow motion as the balcony and the moon got further and further away, landing head-first on the cobblestones and shattering into so many pieces, waking up confused and afraid on an operating table with nobody but Milo Krook, a new friend they didn't know so well and not the person they wanted to see after their family, the Nobodies, abandoned them to die, alone.

Laudna, who died a second time and who's body was treated so tenderly and lovingly and carefully in that time, who's friends travelled across the world and contacted powerful allies from every corner of the world in the hopes of finding some way to save her, and found somebody who could bring her back and fought Delilah for her freedom, waking up back home in Whitestone, surrounded by friends who felt relief and gratitude and love at her return, people who loved her and missed her and was so glad to have her back.

Ashton, who died a second time and who's crumbling body was kicked and spat on and screamed at and abandoned on the cold stone of an unfamiliar place, surrounded by people who once cared for them but now hold nothing but distrust and disdain and disappointment and rage, turning their backs on him the moment they know he's breathing, too angry to even look at him, leaving him to pick himself up and put his own pieces back together and try and find a way to carry on knowing that nothing will ever be the same.

Long ago, on the airship, Ashton told Laudna that he wishes he knew what it felt like to come back to life surrounded by friends instead of being scared and confused and alone. Now they know, and it's probably worse to them than waking up alone.

#critical role #bells hells #ashton greymoore #laudna #wow i made myself sad #i did not watch yesterdays episode on purpose but ive seen spoilers and it breaks my heart #but yeah i was thinking of this and it make me so sad that ashton finally came back to live surround by friends and it was terrible #once again they think laudna got to have the better death experience and this time i think they'd be right #please no hate or discourse on this post i love them both so much and they've both been through a lot but this is ashtons turn #and Ashton was right! i hate to say it but if he died bh wouldn't miss them they'd probably be unsurprised and that breaks my heart

[d3sertdream3r]

I’ve noticed a lot of rancid takes about Taliesin’s characters that are annoying me, so I’m going to rant for a minute. 

Tal has perfected the art of creating paradoxical characters, and I think a lot of people end up getting lost and confused in the layers. This is not a “if you don't get it, you’re dumb” type of thing. It’s just that I wish people would truly ponder his characters and why they’re the way they are because they’re not the stereotypical protagonists that North American entertainment focuses on. They’re not strictly kind and generous, intelligent and charming, or hateful and arrogant. They’re all of the above. 

A lot of western media features characters that are fairly cut and dry and easy to understand. There isn’t a ton of complexity happening, and from what I’ve seen, the majority of the people hating on his characters and role-play style are from areas where they aren't used to Tal’s type of character. They’re not used to characters having multiple characteristics that seem to contradict each other all at once (even though that’s how people are in real life). I’m guessing that’s part of why they don't like them, but who knows. 

Caduceus is the least paradoxical of his characters, which is why I think most people say he’s their favorite of Tal’s characters. He is the personification of a fluffy blanket and a warm hug. What’s not to love?? Percy, Molly/Kingsley, and Ashton on the other hand, are all much rougher around the edges. The point of them is to provide the opposite of comfort for the audience; they're meant to make people a little uncomfortable. They hold up a mirror to the audience and force us to look at the parts of humanity that we try to avoid. Not the pure evil of mankind that Matt’s villains often show, but something even more sad and hard to swallow. 

Audiences tend to like characters that deal with trauma through humor and/or charm. People benefit from these types of characters by laughing at them or lusting over them. There’s nothing wrong with this by any means; that’s all part of the fun of fandom! However, characters that deal with their trauma in ways that are more raw and painful tend to be disliked. 

Percy is filled with constant fear that his past will haunt his future. He is convinced that wherever he goes, the darkness will follow and the pain awaits. He has horrible nightmares and lives with incessant paranoia, yet faces the deadliest monsters, demons, gods, etc with nothing but his wit and a gun. He can't stop inventing, not just to glorify himself but to protect everyone. He’s so many things at once, which is what makes him so real and complex and fascinating. 

Molly/Kingsley’s story is about wondering who you truly are and not meeting expectations of those you care about. Imagine that you’re not the only one comparing yourself to someone else; all your friends are too. You’re trying to figure out what defines you while feeling like everyone you know wants you to be someone else. His story is also filled with questions about nihilism and whether or not anything truly matters, including identity. 

Ashton represents the endless loneliness of abandonment and feeling like no matter what you do, those you love will never care about you as much as you care about them. He pushes people away and acts like he doesn’t have a care in the world while simultaneously doing everything he can to grip onto his friends. He is jealous of Laudna for the way she died because it showed how loved she was, and how sick is that? To be jealous of someone’s death? To try and force someone to admit that they haven’t gotten over their issues because you can’t accept that it’s possible to overcome yours? What's wrong with you? If it’s possible for people to do that, why can't you? What’s wrong with you? Why is it so hard for you when it seems so easy for others? What’s wrong with you? They represent not just the physical, but the emotional chronic pain that most people don’t have to think about every day. 

I have so much more to say about these amazing characters, but that would take an entire novel. They emotionally bleed all over the place. While they can still be lighthearted and humorous at times, they’re often really messy in various ways. But that doesn’t stop them from being so loving and wonderful at the same time! 

TL;DR, Taliesin’s characters are incredible and I’m so grateful that he is willing to play them in such a raw and real way for those of us that aren’t always funny or charming enough about our trauma to make society like us. 

#I had to get this out of my system #It's so long and I cut so much out #TALIESIN JAFFE I LOVE YOU #critical role #percy de rolo #mollymauk tealeaf #kingsley tealeaf #ashton greymoore #look at my lovely little blorbos #taliesin jaffe #his characters are always my favorite

[nellasbookplanet]

I wonder how long it took Laudna to start to enjoy her spookiness after she first died. She views Ira as something of an aspiration, she seemingly has no issue with occassionally losing hair or minor body parts coming lose, she oftentimes deliberately spooks people, she refers to herself as 'fun scary'. And much as she has a tendency to compartmentalize any bad feelings and play at happiness, the delight and almost pride she takes in being spooky strikes me as entirely genuine.

The only times I get the vibe that she isn't delighting in it is when it’s partly happening outside of her control and when she doesn’t really know what's happening (narratively at least; outside of the narrative Marisha actively made the choice to cast, for example, hound of ill omen, but Laudna as a character was clearly rattled by the experience). Once, all of her spookiness must’ve felt like that; waking from the dead, her own body changed and coming apart at the seams, anyone she meets viewing her with fear instead of as a young woman in need of help. She was in control of none of that.

That was, what, 30 years ago? How much time did she spend confused and scared not only of the voice in her head and the powers it brought, but of her own body and what was happening to it? Was it simply time that made her come to embrace her new self, or was it a delibarete choice, an attempt to grab back control by refusing to hate and fear herself?

Or did she wake up almost as a new person from the start, already so far removed from her old self that it was her old body, her living body, that felt strange and alien? That this corpse of a body was her, felt right. Did thinking back to her living self feel like remembering a dream, and if so how odd and scary must it not be to know you used to be someone else, but being unable to really feel what it was like being that person, and trying to do so feels like imagining being a stranger, inhabiting the wrong body?

Alternately, was Laudna always a little weird and spooky and goth, and woke up looking like a corpse and went fuck yeah.

#critical role #cr3 #laudna #nella talks cr

[sofigrace]

i’ve seen a lot of people try to discredit ashton’s “what’s was it like waking up and having them there?” just because milo was there and fixed him, and i wanted to give a bit of context (some canon, some theories) of why it isn't the same.

first, we got confirmation that milo was part of the nobodies, but i don’t think they were IN the nobodies. i mean that i don’t think that they were part of the actual heists. they were the one who got them the jobs and the gadget maker. the one connected to everybody of importance in jrusar maybe. but i think they came to the group way after they formed.

i think the nobodies formed in the greymoore house, or at least in bassuras. i think they knew eachother longer than they knew milo.

so, when ashton wakes up after dying and sees milo there, of course he's glad they are. of course he's thankful they saved him. but he still wonders "why did they leave?"

i think it'd be more useful to explain this by comparing milo and the nobodies to eshteross and bell's hells.

eshteross was an honorary member, beloved by the party, and extremely usaful for their jobs. but he wasn't with them. not completely.

now imagine laudna dying and waking up in eshteross' estate, only him there to tell her what happened. that she died, the party brought her there and then they bailed. her group, her friends, imogen, all gone, with no explanation and no idea where they went.

wouldn't she be confused and resentful even tho eshteross was there for her? wouldn't she wonder why they left too?

#bells hells #critical role #critical role spoilers #ashton greymoore #the nobodies #laudna #sofigrace

[sparring-spirals]

Laudna died confused. Laudna died confused. She walked that line of death for so long, but when it was happening, really happening, Marisha said she was confused-

And before that can resolve, before she can figure it out. It all ends.

It all ends, for Laudna, but the ripples keep going. The floor shifting, the earth cracking, noise and chaos and hurt- Imogen, sobbing, holding her, apologizing over and over, Orym sitting up and seeing her body (seeing another person who died in his stead), everyone shaking, shaking- everyone cracking and trying to find solutions and-

Laudna died confused. But everyone else are the ones left to scramble for answers.

#critical role #cr spoilers #c3e34 #cr liveblogging #laudna #bell's hells #character meta #my meta

[hazelcephalopod]

For anyone confused why the BH are mad at Ashton and feel betrayed it’s because he lied to all of them and almost died -actually did die twice. And because the group does love them, and had to watch them die and suffer for a whole minute*.

Also Laudna has a lot of trauma, from all the bullying, to the being invited to a nice dinner and being brutally murdered, all the abuse from the evil necromancer in her head -probably more the after 2. Having to deal with whatever horrors the past 30 year have brought her. The past few months being just a lot. Healing and recovery are not often linear, and regression happens -especially after being thrust into an intense situation in the place of one of your greatest traumas and the return of your worst abuser.

On short everyone’s really in their emotions because things weren’t properly communicated and then there was unexpected grave danger.

*Meta imo this is compounded watching a player make effectively death saved for ten rounds like I try not too read into things too much but imo it played at least a small role in nailing down the feeling of “why did you do that?! Wtf?! You’re ours! You can’t lie and then die! FFS!!!”

#critical role #Listen this is mostly to people on other sites #Bc I’m tired of trying there I’m just gonna make this #PS: Chet is a petty vengeance creature so he was always gonna react very harsh. #also it took them a minute to realize how Fearne was involved and idk #she tried to tell the group at least. also they did get mad at her too she just left #Chet is too fond of her too be *that* mad imo #and Imogen and FCG were basically running damage control #(Orym [player absent] well have to see when he opens up) #(if he does he Ihhh try to shove that back down idk)

[masterqwertster]

Maybe #17 with Deanna and Orym (maybe with a side of #8 if you're so inclined).

After last night's episode I'm a little obsessed with Deanna's dynamic with Team Issylra. Plus with Aabria drawing parallels between Deanna and Will being the ones to wait for their partners on the other side of the veil to send them back to the living world... I'd love to see these 2 have a heart-to-heart. ❤

8 "I’m so sorry you had to go through that." 17 "It seems like that really rattled you." Yeah, it's kind of a shame they didn't get the chance for some one-on-ones with the guest PCs (I would have loved a shovel talk to FRIDA and some Tired Robit Parent conversations. Fearne and Prism about being non-native to the plane they're currently on. More Deanna with Laudna and/or Ashton on being People Raised from the Dead to a Life in Shambles stuff), but the table was too full and guests can only stick around for so long.

"I'm sorry, but I can't help but ask: you were dead for 200 years? I didn't even know people could be brought back after that long," Orym says, turning to Deanna now seated beside him at the large table.

"Yeah," Deanna answers, shaky smile on her face. "I died. My husband kind of promised to bring me back, and he did after collecting all the resources to do it. Lots and lots of diamonds. A Dawnfather cleric powerful enough to do it. So, you know, it took him a while."

"He must love you very much," Orym comments. He certainly loved Will enough that if it could work, Orym would spend half his life trying to bring him back.

"I guess. I mean, he moved on with his life, got remarried and had a new family, while I was dead. By the time he brought me back, it was obligation more than anything. Barely even stuck around long enough to say, 'Hey! Welcome back!'"

"Oh." That's a tragedy if Orym's ever heard one. To be loved enough to receive such a promise and have it kept, yet it takes so long that you have to wonder why the promise was kept at all when they don't feel the love that initiated that promise. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. I can't imagine bringing someone back just to dump them like that."

"No, no. It wasn't like that. I encouraged him to live his life," Deanna tries to downplay it. But Orym can see the hurt beneath the surface.

"...Wait, you encouraged him?" Orym asks after a moment to process, confused.

"Yeah. See, Dustel, that's my ex-, I guess, husband, became an adventurer to get the money and stuff for my resurrection. So he did the adventurer thing where he dies for a little bit before someone brings him back in a minute or a few days. And I was waiting for him on the other side. Telling him I still loved him, but he still had a life to live. Eternity is a long time, so what's a few centuries, yeah? And it's so peaceful in death." There's something almost wistful in here eyes as she speaks of the afterlife.

And Orym thinks of Will. Of meeting his husband when he was briefly dead. How Will threw him back towards the light of life. The promise from Will to wait for the day Orym stayed dead. ...And the brief flickers of thought he's had about moving on.

"Do you resent that he moved on without you?" Orym asks with morbid curiosity.

"No. I meant it when I told him to live. That means finding joy and love among the pain and grief," Deanna answers, truth in her eyes. "I just don't appreciate being left to struggle alone, hundreds of years after my last memory, when he took the time to bring me back. Like, you want the people you love to find happiness, even if it's not necessarily with you. But also own up to your actions and their consequences! Come on! Couldn't just take me to your new home to get my feet under me. Or send me to our kids! That could work too!"

Orym nods, a little wide-eyed at her vehemence.

Though it's nice to hear that Will probably won't resent him for moving on. After all, he can't bring Will back as he reaches the end of his own life. So as long as their reunion in death has room for anyone Orym might eventually move on with, it should be okay. Probably.

"Sorry. I can get a little passionate," Deanna apologizes, sitting back down from her rant.

"No, you've got every reason to be upset," Orym says. "That's- It's horrible, that he wouldn't make room for you in his life again."

"Thank you. For caring," Deanna says after a moment, a small smile on her face.

"You're welcome."

#MQ&A #MQfic #critical role #orym of the air ashari #deanna leimert #cr spoilers #noticing trauma prompt

[mossbone]

C3E37 and Genre Thoughts

I’m seeing so many theories on the latest episode re: Laudna’s past and the things we saw, and here’s my take. On the last 4-sided dive, Marisha said she based ~Laudna~ as her character’s name based on laudanum, the medication. She chose it because “it sounded a little weird, and hazy...and fucks with your head.”

I believe episode 37 reflected that, on purpose.

With the additional knowledge that her birth name was ~Matilda~ it makes so much sense that she has such a personality-fitting name, because she chose it. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as a lonely child with magic powers she shared a name with Roald Dahl’s famous Matilda who did the same. But then Matilda died, and her narrative, her genre changed. So of course her name did too.

Delilah has been messing with her head and her memories for 30-odd years and episode 37 really showed us exactly what that looks like. The ages jumping around, the town shifting illogically, the purple sparks of our favorite dead girl answering to both names sometimes, the uncertainty of whether or not fighting her worst memories was changing anything, unsure if they were reaching out to her actual spirit all those times...not even knowing if the horrorscape was under the control of Delilah, or Laudna, or Something Else.

In the horror-adjacent novel Harrow the Ninth, there are both real ghosts and personal hallucinations and we never really get closure on which was which for certain scenes. The author goes into a little bit about that being on purpose, because sometimes the horror is in not knowing, and sometimes the horror is in having to rely on people you cannot trust to tell you what’s real, and sometimes it doesn’t matter if the horrors are physically real or not because you are experiencing them and that’s all that matters.

I feel like Matt took a similar approach with this episode, and I see so many people trying to decipher a Fundamental Truth about why Andy called her Matilda but her parents called her Laudna or other inconsistencies that happened. The theories are getting more and more elaborate, and like, that makes sense! Human nature is to solve mysteries! And I could be wrong but I don’t think there is an in-universe concrete reason. Of course people want there to be an answer—it’s terrifying to not understand what’s happening around you. But this was a horror episode! We got to see the characters physically explore the confusion and manipulation going on in Laudna’s head, so I think some things were meant to be nebulous or outright contradictory. Trauma does that to the brain. It makes you remember things wrong, and having the woman who killed you squatting in your mind, filling it with dark powers and shadowy illusions only expounds on that. Which is terrifying! So of course us viewers don’t like that and are trying to find safe logical paths to The Truth. But sometimes The Truth isn’t simple. Sometimes you can’t find the clues to understand what Actually Happened.

This episode, we got an inside look into Laudna’s mind. It was weird, and hazy, and fucked. Like a too-strong dose of laudanum.

#cr3 spoilers #cr3 #laudna cr #critical role #laudna #c3e37 #bells hells #matilda cr #delilah briarwood #critical role campaign 3 #obviously this is just my take and I could be wrong #I also think that each campaign has very different vibes and campaign 2 WAS full of solvable mysteries #it had trails of evidence that lead the party to individuals that could be interrogated under Zone of Truth and then jailed #but like. campaign 3 has much more of gothic horror vibes. #so I think for at least this case of Laudna's mindscape we're in territory that is not only uncharted but CAN'T be charted #because it's a fucked up traumatized necromancied mind and not an ocean #even Delilah seemed unsure of what was true and kept saying somewhat contradictory things

[captainsspnanon]

C3E77 - reaction

...Well then.

So, fun fact! I was watching this with my mom last night, and twitch on the TV kept glitching, so we had to stop right before the sledding scene.

I figured that there would be interesting posts for this episode because of the Delilah stuff.

....

We've now finished the second half. She was in tears, and then had her face covered for the majority of rolls. I won't say she was cursing Taliesin, but she definitely wasn't happy with him! XD She loves Ashton too much to risk losing them.

Personally? I'm excited by the Delilah stuff, as she's taken so much of a back seat so far. However, I'm still really CONFUSED by a lot of it. Why does she suddenly have so much power now? Just because they're in Whitestone? I don't know. I feel like a lot of the Laudna backstory stuff ends up not making sense. How was she tortured by the Briarwoods extensively before being killed and hung? Doesn't that contradict basically everything we know of the canon via pre-show?

Imogen trying to speak to the Dawnfather was a shockingly powerful moment. I love the way that she has taken her interaction with the gods here, it's a very selfish moment but it's also fear and a request ("request"?) for help.

Oh man. What to say about the Ashton scene? I'll be super controversial here, I think he should have died. Pretty much everything Matt said and did made it clear that this is not something that can be done. But Ashley had her reservations, I know. Still, it's hard for me to describe, but there was a level of off-putting during the scene, like Taliesin expected that Matt was just going to make it work without consequence. And in the end, it seems like that's what he got? He's got a new form, is now 'unprecedented', any physical injuries due to falling apart have now got new magma-esque forms, will likely have new powers....

I don't know. It bothered me with him jumping into the lava with the assumption that it basically wouldn't do anything (and it didn't), and this time around...

It's a very personal take, I know.

TRUST ME - my mom was fully wrecked by what was going on, hiding her face worse than Ashley and Liam!

I'm excited to see where things go though, regardless of my feelings about some of it.

#critical role #cr spoilers #bells hells #cr discourse #maybe?

[loquaciousquark]

4-Sided Dive Highlights - Critical Role C3 up to E38 (Nov. 1, 2022)

Good afternoon, all! It's rainy and lovely here and this accursed week is finally over, so let's join Marisha, Sam, Matt, and Taliesin on this week's episode. Matt wins host & intros us from a Laudna-dark-dimension-themed spiel. "Taliesin Jaffe's current character, Ashton, got to argue with Taliesin Jaffe's old character, Percy, giving form to the internal strife between our old egos and the audacity of the now." Omar arrives to be held in the last segment and he remains adorable.

What the Fuck is Up With That? Matt got to be most of VM except for Scanlan, Grog, and Vax. Sam: "Percy is a dick!" Matt says him being in charge of the only source of residuum in the world and watching his weapons stretch across the world has stressed him out. Taliesin was very impressed with Matt's portrayal of both Percy and Delilah and agrees that with Delilah present and Percy as paranoid as he is, it all felt true to form. Matt says with all his trauma Percy would have let Laudna "go" (I think he means "stay dead" in this context). Sam: "Whitestone is a paranoid place."

Matt knew when Orym & Laudna were created that he might have to play C1 characters. He was nervous about it and hoped it wouldn't happen, but as the story leaned that way he knew he'd need to be ready. When they ended the episode going through the Sun Tree, Matt emailed Taliesin and asked him about where Percy would be in the world, his relationship with Keyleth & Whitestone, etc. All the players agreed they did NOT want to play their old characters alongside their new ones: "That would have been SO confusing." Matt knew they were excited about the mystery as well.

Keyleth and Percy are okay. She was distracted and had places to be. "When you're friends for a long time, you can agree a lot of the time and occasionally not agree." Sam: "Are they having an affair?" Everyone else, repulsed: "No!" Marisha: "They wouldn't be having an affair. Vex would be totally in on it, let's be real." Tal: That's true, yeah. She would instigate it, to be honest."

Matt wanted Keyleth to stick around longer, but it was juggling too many characters. Sam says the longer she's onscreen, the higher the likelihood she turns into a fish and dies.

Matt wanted the old characters to be able to help, but wants the new ones to understand they are still small fries & need to find their own solutions.

As son as Vex realized the connection, she was eager to help. Tal likes that Laudna never put it together who Vex was; it makes it almost more cruel.

Percy is very close to Gwendolyn because he sees a lot of his bad qualities in her and is trying to guide them in a better direction.

The Matilda/Laudna confabulation was Matt showing Delilah was having a hard time keeping the illusions together.

She was born Matilda Bradbury and changed her name to Laudna after dying and living alone in the woods for a long time. She was losing touch with who she was. She doesn't hate the name Matilda, but had just become something else.

All three of Marisha's characters have Timeless Body by complete accident. Sam: "Seems like a cry for help." Marisha, aggrieved: "It's really hard being a woman in Hollywood, slowly aging! Let me have this!"

Sam loved the moving buildings. Marisha thought it was crazy seeing them experience her backstory without her being there.

Marisha had a small living room set up in the area where she was watching offscreen. Dani tells us everyone at the table at the end were the same people who were either taken by the Iron Shepherds or who passed away. Fascinating! Scripted!!!!

Sam talks about having never died and left the table as a player. Scanlan was only dead very briefly, and Tary came on right away after Scanlan left the party.

If FCG dies, they'll just put him in neutral and roll him down a hill until he kickstarts again.

The creature Matt created was the Shade of Delilah Briarwood and she was a creature rather than a full PC/NPC.

When Pike said there was a chance Delilah was gone forever, Matt rolled behind the screen and knows himself whether she is dead forever. He refuses to say to preserve the mystery. Tal suggests throwing Laudna in an acid pit to be sure.

Travis is the worst at trying to catch Matt off-guard in revealing secrets. Matt has deliberately "woven an aura of confusion" around what he's told Travis and others to keep from revealing too much.

Pate is a reflavored imp from the Pact of the Chain warlock ability.

If you had to do a one-man show of a piece of media, what would it be? Sam: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. He doesn't love the movie, but he's seen it so many times; Sam reveals he worked on a cruise ship when he was a teenager (!) and saw the same eight movies a thousand times. Bill & Ted, Memphis Belle, Adventures in Babysitting, Glengarry Glen Ross...incredible! Taliesin: SpaceCamp or Young Frankenstein. Marisha: Popeye movie.

Tower of Inquiry! Where did your character's names come from? We've had this question before, huh. "Matilda" came from a rabbit hole in Marisha's research, where she read about young girls who made silk flowers in the late 1800s in factories. They used a popular bright green paint (apparently a difficult color to manufacture) called Scheele's green which turned out to have arsenic in it, and one of the girls who died was called Matilda. FCG's name did in fact come from the article about how freshly cut grass screams. Ashton came from one of Taliesin's friend's names. Greymoore came from Tal's love of Dickensian slightly off-kilter names: Cratchet, Bumble, Greymoore.

Sam & Tal had a 2:1 with Matt prior to the first session, and Tal liked seeing Sam find the voice for FCG. Matt wondered if he should say something to Laura when she came up with the same voice later, but decided not to.

The EXU crew & Travis didn't have 1:1s because they already knew their characters from EXU & C1.

Favorite RP moments so far? Sam loved the dream journey with Imogen & giving couples' advice to the Green Seekers. Taliesin: loves his moments with Laudna & messing with Percy. Matt thought it was so fun to have such a mutual disdain & respect. Marisha: breaking the rock on the airship & all of the one on one conversations with everyone giving advice afterwards.

The Deep Dive! Laudna's mind was an extended skill check. Anything that fit with a heroic moment applied. If Orym hadn't found the tunnel under the house, they would have had to keep going through the forest with more Laudna memories, which would have drained them.

Tal really loved every moment of the Percy interactions & thought Matt did an amazing job. He loves playing Percy & would do it again anytime, but playing against him was satisfying too. He would have kept going for twenty more minutes if he could.

Scanlan would be okay with Laudna: she's weird & he likes weird. "He has a weird kink, but I don't know about the dead thing... You know, I've spent so much time with Scanlan at this point, I'd like to think no, but if I'm being honest..." Scanlan is probably splitting his time between Whitestone & Marquet.

Marisha didn't put any stipulations on Matt in terms of the resurrection ritual: "Whatever happens happens." She was willing to accept it if it went wrong, and Matt reminds us it got real close. She didn't want him to pad rolls. "Natural one..."

Eshteross knew the end was coming for him eventually. He got his affairs in order early & knew BH would be best suited for airship travel in the short term.

Ashton has worked really hard not to think about his parents until the Hishari helm made him face it. "You would be a coward and an idiot to not start figuring it out." He's only consciously & deliberately touched another member of the group for the first time in this last episode because everything hurts.

FCG was shocked by the discovery that he has a soul because suddenly he has a responsibility to it. It's easy to take care of other people when that's your designated role, but when you're forced to take care of yourself too, that's way harder. That FCG dying would be a loss for the world is more pressure. "It's a hard thing for them to swallow especially since they can't digest things."

Block break! Thanks a lot, tumblr. This didn't used to be a thing!

Having her friends fight Delilah for her felt like having your friends take care of you when you're way too drunk: "I didn't want anybody to have to do that."

Tower of Inquiry, Redux: Moments of greatest character impact so far? FCG: the flapping wings of the night. Laudna: dying. Ashton: getting out of the contract & everything that came with it. FCG: getting hooked up with the Changebringer.

Describe two characters stuck in an elevator. Hazel Copperpot & Keyleth are trapped; Hazel refuses to allow the doors to open for 15 minutes while she gets an interview. Nott & Taryon: Nott would think he's very handsome & then become instantly annoyed. Percy & Molly would have a terrible first 30 minutes but then be good friends. Gilmore & Essek: Matt does a little one-man-show where they appreciate each other's styles & comment on Essek's floating.

Sam approaches the Jenga tower with "the energy of a three-year-old." It's truly terrifying. Matt does still have pictures of key rolls on his phone. FCG has a new feature called Shared Exuberance that lets him get a little boost on a friend's natural 20. Cute name!

Post-Break Shenanigans: Hand to Hand Wombat! Our post-break game is a one I've never heard of. Players build a small tower of blocks while covering their eyes. One player is a secret tower saboteur. It's a good thing these rounds are 90 seconds long because this is CHAOTIC. Taliesin is the saboteur and is hilariously obvious about it. Votes are split between Tal & Sam and they all answer three questions at the same time as each other???? Why would you do this to me!!

Laudna is excited and happy to be back & is feeling a bit like a fever dream that she doesn't believe is real.

No way Eshteross could have survived alone. The BH could have maybe helped, but it still would have been close. He was doomed.

Ashton has kept the pain to himself for a long time and didn't know how to share it. Having it reveal in game the way it did was nice.

DON'T AT ME IF ANY OF THESE ARE WRONG, I DID MY BEST.

Game one, round two: wicked wombat wins again! This time Taliesin is clearly identified and eliminated. Victory to the others.

FCG likes that he's gotten to see other people's trauma, but it's been traumatic. He needs to bond with Laudna but is sad it will be so straightforward: "It'll just be like a waiting room. It'll be chips and snacks..."

Game two: Matt is a hideous liar, good Lord. Hilariously, he still wins the game despite being correctly eliminated in the first round.

Delilah was manipulating the shades of Laudna's parents.

FCG likes the Changebringer a lot, but Sam wonders if FCG needs something with more clarity and direction, like Catholicism.

Game three, round one: they get worse as this game goes on with no towers built. Tal is eliminated; I think the saboteur was Sam?

Marisha picked Pact of the Chain solely because she wanted to bring Pate to life.

Sam: "We can't play this game. It's killing me. I haven't touched this many humans in so long." Matt: "Building calluses already?" Sam: "My hand can't take this kind of strain."

Game three, round two: one tower built, no eliminations. Matt is convinced it's Marisha but Sam insists it was Tal.

FINALLY, I WANTED THIS QUESTION HOURS AGO: The thought process behind casting Compulsion on Laudna! Sam: "It was not a very good thought process, though, as Laura instantly shamed me. She was like, 'You know her history and you would do that to Laudna?' and I was like, 'Oh fuck, she's right. That's so stupid!'" Ashton seriously thought about cutting FCG off in the moment but didn't. Sam was just looking for spells that would help physically bring the soul back, and all of his healing spells were worthless. He was trying to avoid using Persuasion since they all know Imogen would be trying that one, and the DC increases every time the same skill is used. Matt talks about other ways to creatively use certain strengths in rituals like this, like Intimidating someone to return, or using Strength to help wake them up.

Taliesin loved Percy's office & would spend as much time there as he could. He wanted to see the streetlamps at night.

Game three, round three. Matt: "I told you it's Marisha!" Sam, desperately: "It is Marisha!!" All pretense is abandoned as she destroys their carefully built towers piece by piece. She was by far the best liar of the bunch! Amazing.

And that's a wrap! Is it Thursday yet?

#critical role #critical role spoilers #4 sided dive #4 sided dive spoilers #long post for ts #the last round of the wombat game is genuinely hilarious #also the wrap up song remains a bop #good job sam #talks machina

[stickandthorn]

Laudna as a character was such a good metaphor for the effects of trauma, especially childhood trauma, and I wish I’d thought about this sooner. (This is very long, so rambling under the cut)

Trauma is oftentimes the source of a character’s strength/power/story in media. This isn’t a bad thing, I’d say, because dramatic, and therefore often traumatic events, make good stories. I don’t disagree with that, or think it should change.

But it’s not a trope that’s reflective of life. Trauma doesn’t give you any sort of strength or superpower. It usually sets you back emotionally and developmentally, and causes debilitating issues potentially for your whole life, especially if it happened while you’re young. It can be overcome to an extent, a very great extent sometimes, but it is something you have to overcome.

Once again, at any time, but especially when you’re young, your energy was so focused on dealing with this ongoing trauma that you didn’t have time for the developments and experiences peers without that roadblock had. Oftentimes, your self discovery and development doesn’t happen till much later in life because of the presence of that trauma.

I feel like Laudna is such a good example of this, both literally, and more in abstract. Delilah is a very literal and very good metaphor for the presence of trauma in your life. It haunts her, it makes her do things she doesn’t want to do, it tells her things to manipulate her, it hurts her relationships with the people she loves.

Take the gnarlrock: Delilah shattering the gnarlorck despite what Laudna wanted, and that hurting their relationship for a time, feels like such a good metaphor for when issues caused by your trauma, whatever they may be, affect your relationships. It wasn’t Laudna’s fault, but at the same time, Imogen was right to feel hurt. Same with melting FCG. Delilah taking over feels just like when you lash out at friends because of trauma, and then later regret it.    Laudna’s personality also felt so true to what it’s like to have that kind of trauma. Developmentally speaking, she was very behind her peers (remember, she’s around 60). She grew up reasonably isolated in a small town, died when she was very young, and then was a social pariah living in the woods alone for years. She feels like she was still discovering herself, honestly sometimes it felt like she’d barely even started. 

Almost everything about her was caught up in her past trauma. So much of her personality was her spookiness, her uncanny presence, of owning this rotting body she was left with. Her love of decorating came from all the abandoned houses she had to live in. She named everything after foods from her last meals. She constantly had to battle Delilah being in her head. Despite being fun loving, she was so firmly, so entirely staked in her past. When Dusk asked her out, all potential other feelings or mistrust of Dusk aside, you could feel that jolt of not being caught up with her peers, of missing these experiences everyone else had had.

But, of course, Imogen wasn’t from her past, and Imogen was very important to her. Imogen was her first relationship with anyone besides the dead lady in her head in years. And Laudna flung every part of herself at that relationship. Unrelentingly supportive, completely devoted, while they did genuinely love each other, it was so clear that Laudna was trying to hold onto this first connection with all her might, and give her the chances at life she never had. It wasn’t the worst relationship by any means, but Laudna’s refusal to acknowledge any flaws in her first person in years is pretty telling of the unhealthy aspects.

And yes, Delilah sometimes gave her warlock abilities. But Laudna was a sorcerer before she was a warlock. She had her own magic. Which’s was subsequently changed by the trauma of Delilah. Even in death, she didn’t think of herself, really, she thought of all these powerful women she’d known, and confusion. 

But it’s not that she was powerless. She was trying to fight Delilah, she was trying to see through her manipulation. She was forming relationships with the rest of the party and making these new friends, she was exploring her life in a way she just hadn’t been able to before. But recovery is slow.

But of course, dnd is random, and then she died. I’m not mad about it, stories will happen as they do and believe PC death should always be on the table. Besides, who knows if she’ll be resurrected in some way. But for now, this is a very sad but good metaphor to look at.

#critical role #cr spoilers #critical role spoilers #laudna #cr meta #long post

[utilitycaster]

I know you've touched on it in the past, and sorry for using your inbox as a sounding board, but as someone who wants to believe Marisha and Laura when they say Laudna and Imogen love each other...I'm a bit disappointed that like...3 or 4 days have gone by in game since Laudna's resurrection and neither has even attempted to make it a point to seek out the other. I could understand if they tried and got spoken over or the plot got in the way, but damn...if someone who I was traveling with and I loved, platonically or romantically, died, id probably make it a point to pull them aside and check on 'em at some point, and the otherside if id died and came back id look to the person I love for comfort.

Hi anon,

So, I am going to answer this as seriously and as respectfully as I can but I do want to note you’ve asked perhaps one of the people in the fandom most skeptical towards this ship; with the least amount of patience just like, in general; among the most willing to get into analyzing fandom response and not just what’s onscreen; and among the louder voices clamoring for more Yios content. So I want to set the expectation that I greatly enjoyed this episode and am a somewhat unsympathetic ear. I am truly honored you wanted me as a sounding board, but also very confused. Unless you want a perspective you know will be very different than yours, in which case, genuinely, mad respect.

(below a cut because this is like a page and a half long)

This was a fast-paced episode that skewed heavily towards logistics, and there were very few opportunities for serious one-on-one conversations of any sort. I also am just guessing here, but I think that Laura is somewhat cognizant of how up front Imogen has been in this campaign in general and specifically (and understandably) during the most recent few episodes, and is trying to be thoughtful about taking up more screen time. Similarly, as Marisha said on this week’s 4-Sided Dive, Laudna feels almost embarrassed at how much work her friends had to go through to bring her back, and is unlikely to ask for more help right now.

Imogen and Laudna’s relationship has always, in my opinion, been marked by their mutual terror of getting too real and actually revealing their feelings to each other; they are, as of yet, wholly unwilling to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known. It feels entirely in character that Imogen’s more than willing to snipe at Ashton or FCG for their good-faith attempts to help Laudna that don’t line up with her own understanding, or to force a potato-based meal on the whole party without even asking Laudna if she’ll be upset by a lobster dinner, but won’t, well, actually ask Laudna if she’ll be upset by a lobster dinner. 

These are two desperately lonely people who found each other and cling to each other, but who cannot have an honest emotional conversation. They apologized for the gnarlrock fight, but never addressed the underlying issues. And with Delilah seemingly gone, there goes that excuse, and if there’s another fight? It’s just going to be between them, and they will need to grapple with it. 

For what it’s worth, I hope they do. I actually would be thrilled to find something that makes me care about Imogen and Laudna as a romantic ship, and I think that if a catalyst (conflict, probably) were to happen to force them both to be even a little honest with each other, it could absolutely blossom into a love both compelling and wonderful. But Laudna’s death is not that thing. They still both see themselves as the protector of the other - in fact that’s likely to have worsened, not improved, what with their respective feelings of guilt -  without ever actually articulating it to each other. They can only talk about their pasts in terms of the immediate actionable items (get rid of Delilah, find your mother). They’ve never, in almost 40 episodes, really talked about how they feel (they've each said more to FCG and Ashton; it's telling that Imogen's greatest moments of honesty are in Imahara Joe's basement in the immediate aftermath of Laudna's death). And without something to force the issue, I think as time goes on it will get harder, rather than easier, because how do you say “hey, Laudna? I hate how my powers make me feel and I’m drowning here and you keep telling me I’m so capable” after 2+ years of tightly smiling and letting it pass? Honestly, it’s telling that the fandom saw Laudna as cheerful in the past, instead of almost manic at times; I suspect Imogen is making this same mistake.

I also know that a significant portion of the fandom is obsessed with this ship, and Laudna has some very…passionate fans, shall we say. But I don’t actually think the cast is terribly obsessed with this ship. Which isn’t to say they do or don’t like it or that it will or won’t happen in canon! But it is to say that the cast is well aware that this is Critical Role and not the Imodna Show. The fandom may forget, but the cast is quite aware that there are five other characters and twenty other one-on-one PC relationships that exist, not to mention that Imogen and Laudna do in fact exist as individuals with lives that do not solely revolve around each other.

I should also for that matter just note that I outright detest the dual and probably intertwined fandom trends of “My ship characters ONLY care about each other and no one else in the party” and “The plot should stop short and everyone should focus on my favorite character,” and here’s the thing: the plot did, in fact, stop mostly short and everyone did focus on Laudna for most of the last four episodes. And to be clear, focusing on bringing back Laudna makes perfect sense, and I'm not saying that you're doing this. But it does mean my patience for “but what about Laudna” is, right now, at something of a nadir. I would like to see the focus shift to other characters for a bit and, as mentioned, I think the cast is also cognizant of that.

The last thing I want to cover is that look, you’re on anon, and I don’t know you, and I am not positioning myself as a paragon of 100% healthy coping mechanisms and radical emotional honesty, and the fact that my favorite characters per campaign have been, respectively, Vex, Fjord, and Ashton is fairly revealing. But: would you reach out to your closest friend after a wildly traumatic and destabilizing event if you explicitly saw yourself as trying to make their life better than yours had been? Would you do this in the wake of a second tragedy with a permanent dead body just before you got on a long distance flight to Math Orc City, after having been tasked to kill your murderer? Or would you perhaps be kind of subdued withdrawn? Because I’d be the latter, and, having been openly frustrated with Laudna in the past, I love Marisha's choice to play Laudna this way and think it feels very real and interesting.

So to sum it all up: if you don’t have Imodna-colored shipping goggles onto which you have glued horse blinders to block out the rest of the party, this episode was great. I think that the choice to neither have Laudna reach out to Imogen, nor Imogen reach out to Laudna, nor for any real Laudna-centric conversations with anyone to have happened yet is very understandable for many in and out of game reasons. (This is already too long so I’m not even going into depth about how Bells Hells is very closed off as a group but: they are and that’s relevant) It’s absolutely valid if you’re disappointed, but I do not share this disappointment, even a little bit.

#answered #Anonymous #critical role spoilers #long post

[grigori77]

Critical Role, Campaign 3 Episode 30

Birdie: "Do you trust me?" Fearne: "I don't know." Birdie: "Good!"

Skirmish crawlers - surprisingly good at skate tricks ...

"What happened?" Matt's honeymoon trauma doesn't provoke sympathy, it seems.

Fist of the Ruiner ... why am I expecting a lot of lowbrow humour to come out of that?

No Wacky Races this time! This is proper Mad Max shit!

Oh shit! Halfling and automaton overboard!

This may be the dumbest shakedown ever ...

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about the bomb. XD oh yeah, this is gonna be fun.

"Matt's doing MAAAAAATH!!" "I know."

"It's got a real gun on it! Look, it's real!" "Pretty sure it's plastic."

Roll for initiative!

Parkour! Orym's pulling a Beau.

The Ire of Mare Christmas! "Yeah, we ruin everything."

For shooting at disadvantage that is evil accuracy ...

Hellish Rebuke!

"No, Matt! The Internet is forgiving." "Too sweet."

Leonidas kick!

Imogen lightning bolts that sniper through the scope like that bit in Saving Private Ryan.

"I wasn't trying to kill them!" "What do you mean? You just disintegrated that guy!"

Wow ... Igniting those charges kinda backfired a bit there. "You decided to base your fantasy on real world shit." "You decided to blow up the bullet."

Hondir: "What's going on?" Boom! Unconscious!

"It's all fun and games until everybody dies."

"So that's the end of your action." " Bonus action, I shoot everyone in the face!"

Taliesin: "I'm gonna rage." Ashley: "AAAAHHH!!!"

Chetney: "I can only get halfway? I'm gonna say ... FUCK YOU!!!"

"He's gonna take two more shots at you, Laudna." "I'm Imogen." "Oh, I'm getting confused between Laura and Laudna." "He's Vax, I'm Vex."

"That's 21 points of acid damage." (several gasps) "Oh, and you're our healer!"

"It's the sweetest thing Fearne has ever done."

Acid damage = FCG passed out like R2-D2 in the dirt.

Laudna pulls a Beetlejuice and dislocates her ruined jaw to assume her FORM OF DREAD!!!

"Gasp! It's a transformer!"

Ah, so Orym only got to be ALMOST a badass ...

"This was humbling." "WAS? It's still going on!"

Both prone on the ground. Orym: "Sucks, huh?" Other guy: "Shut up!"

"You are filled with healing potion and GLASS SHARDS!!!"

While Laura's taking a bathroom break - Chetney: "I healed you!" "She's so ungrateful."

"Good shooting, mama!"

"Are you just adding D6s?" "It's like seasoning." "A little more nutmeg ... a little more nutmeg ..."

Fearne, smiling as she's totally fucking a guy up: "I'm going to take your stuff now."

Sleep spell makes the crawler crash SPECTACULARLY.

Laudna casts Darkness on the crawler as it rolls off. Three minutes later ... a very distant boom ...

Calamity lore dump!

Oooh, spoils! Yay! My, what a BIG GUN ...

Lusciously. Ashley: "That's a good word." Matt: "Thank you."

Don't touch the rocks. Definitely don't let Chetney touch the rocks.

Ollie Calloway. At last ...

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! The Nightmare King returns. Creepy as ever, too. Quite the entrance ...

The Veilscatter Scope.

Laudna's still totally starstruck by Ira. It's adorable.

Ashley nearly has a heart attack over A CUP.

Laudna sees the leylines: "Oh fuck."

The whole campaign hangs on a perception check. Marisha rolls a 7 ...

Ollie's vision ... oof ...

I'm sorry ... Morrigan the Fatestitcher?

So Imogen isn't the only one going through all this crazy Ruidusborn fate craziness, then ...

Sam's flask take #30.

Ashley gets a whisper for insight checking the Nightmare King.

"It's our tiny naked werewolf friend."

Ah, finally, the Crown. Now we get to the meat of the matter.

Awwwwww ... the tale of how Birdie robbed Ollie blind and he fell in love with her.

So Morrie STRETCHED TIME on Fearne and THAT'S why she's so much older.

Liam, take psychic damage for THAT joke, man!

Morrie's a hag, some kind if witchy deal ...

"Was I something you gave for a favour?" Oh Fearne ... now my heart's breaking ...

Chetney works it out ... oh shit ... is that REALLY it?

Imogen looks through the telescope and sees a cage ... "I see a god that can't get out." FUCK.

Damn it ... another bad roll and I feel like we just missed a MAJOR detail ...

Orym takes a look ... NATURAL 20? Seriously? Holy shit ...

The storm parts, there's a CITY on Ruidus --

"And THAT'S where we're gonna call it a night." Everybody LOSES IT.

#critical role #campaign 3 episode 30 #bell's hells #matt mercer #marisha ray #laudna #travis willingham #chetney pock o'pea #laura bailey #imogen temult #liam o'brien #orym of the air ashari #ashley johnson #fearne calloway #sam riegel #fresh cut grass #taliesin jaffe #ashton greymoore

[chainbreaker-thenoisemarine]

You know what I think would be a shock, and thus a potential story?

If Laudna actively pushed Imogen away following her resurrection. Especially if she had been hoping that the others would just press on without her due to the urgency of the apogee solstice approaching. But instead they had wasted valuable time on her, and that they kept making choices about her without considering whether she WANTED to come back. And not only that, but what if she is aware that they saw everything, every single ounce of darkness and trauma that she'd been trying NOT to dwell on or to downplay... and she is not happy about it? It would just be so depressing.

Understandably, she would demand that she takes time to herself. Imogen, of course, doesn't want that and is too protective and thus doesn't want to leave her alone, but the others have to make her see that if she just ignores Laudna's wish to process this on her own, it would only make things worse, as Laudna alone needs to discover how to be herself again.

The struggle would be Imogen actually keeping her distance and not risking whatever they may still have. Oof.

You know Laudna can like, actually do this with the party? Right? She died confused. If anything the reason why Laudna would distance herself is to not be used as a weapon against Imogen, or literally anyone else, ever again. Laudna might have a streak of self-deprecation, especially when doing so to put Imogen on a pedestal, but self-deprecation to that degree is wildly out-of-character for her.

If anything, Laudna would see the effort the Hells went through to get her back and become more attached at the hip to most of them. They went to get her back, and saw all of her trauma, and they still want her at their side despite all of that.

Also, cool assumption with Laudna perhaps not wanting to come back, given that in my previous answer I literally just stated that we have confirmation from Marisha that she's waiting for Laudna to come back.

#chainbreaker answers anon #cr3 spoilers #cr3 #lukewarm take at best anon

[beauregardlionett]

a weight no one else should bear

Orym realized in the middle of their fight that this was beginning to feel familiar. He already knew to stick close to Imogen, to stand in front of her and with her whenever possible because she was easy to hit and easy to knock down. He knew that Ashton was reckless but effective, and that they always kept an eye on those prone to injury. Orym knew that F.C.G. was reliable in keeping the others up and getting them back up.

Dorian and Fearne were an old familiarity, a comfort at his back. And it was surprising to realize how quickly Orym had become accustomed to fighting alongside these newer folks.

Granted, he didn’t trust them with the details - not yet. But he trusted them to stay upright during a fight, to make it through.

(He tried not to trust too much, because the last time he did still stung.)

He was so worried about keeping Imogen safe that Orym forgot to duck. Doused in creepy goo, the rush of drunken, painful fatigue through his veins nearly took Orym to his knees. In his peripheral, the way Laudna stumbled made him realize he wasn’t the only one affected by...whatever this was.

But she pushed through, casting spells and trying to wrench herself free from the sticky spots in the room. Orym trusted her to keep fighting.

And it was chaos, confusion, and wholly disconnected from Orym’s senses for a few moments as the poison chewed through him. He slashed at the creepers, found himself unable to move away from them, and watched Fearne hit the ground. She was up a moment later but the fear still had a clawed choke hold on Orym’s ribs. Dorian reacted before Orym could find the strength to move and Dugger was incinerated in his wake.

Orym drew a shaky breath of relief as Dorian looked around, stunned and gleeful despite the grief. Fearne clambered to her hooves and Orym found enough energy to focus again.

Imogen shouted something over to his left and as he turned to respond, he watched the creepers lunge at her. For a moment, it was not Imogen he saw, but a face Orym tried not to think about. For another moment, it was not him but Dorian, and then Fearne, and then Laudna, and then every other person until it was Bertrand. In a horrible, sickening, flashing moment, Orym had failed every person he thought he could protect. The creepers tore into Imogen’s chest and the spray of blood in the air knocked Orym’s senses into motion.

Ashton shouted over the chattering creepers and their glee, Laudna screamed in a horrific, wailing tone across the room. Dorian had a hand pressed over his mouth like he might be sick.

Orym wrenched himself free of the goo at his feet and somehow made it to Imogen’s side. He didn’t even think about curing the poison in his system as he wrestled through the maniac creepers and shoved his arm between their frenzied claws. There were burns on his arms and his neck from being too close to those creatures when they died. Blood streaked his arms, his fingers, his clothes, and through his hair. But he upended the potion into Imogen’s mouth without hesitation and watched as her chest stuttered on an inhale.

She blinked up at him, alive and in pain, as the creepers pulled back to snarl down at Orym.

It was only because she survived that Orym allowed himself a moment to breathe and find his second wind.

He looked up for the rest of the party and found Dorian, face a little pale but still ready to fight. Relief nearly took Orym to the ground, but his eyes slid past Dorian to find Fearne stalking toward the creepers, her expression stony as she raised one hand at a crate. The ring on her finger glowed and the box moved by itself, Fearne never once looking at it, eyes set on Imogen.

There was a blur of action following that Orym barely remembered through the haze of exhaustion and poison. He might have helped Imogen block one of the creeper’s access points, but he wasn’t sure how effective he really was.

Somewhere in the chaos, there was quiet. Orym found it when Dorian knelt in front of him and settled a worried hand on Orym’s shoulder. It was a peace made whole when Fearne joined them, standing just over Dorian’s shoulder and smiling down at Orym like she wasn’t covered in blood and ooze. The others were doing...something, but Orym could worry about that in a moment. For now, he was okay here, in this pocket of relatively safe reality.

Dorian’s hand cupped beneath Orym’s elbow and raised his right arm for him. Orym looked at the pinched worry furrowing between Dorian’s brows before following his gaze to Orym’s arm. Burns laced up the exposed skin in fractal, frenetic patterns, marred by streaks of blood and ooze and dirt. There were a few distinct claw marks laced over it all as well. It took Orym a moment to register the pain, to remember that he had thrown himself into the fray to save Imogen.

“Here,” Dorian muttered, gaze fixed and determined. “Let me just...”

Orym blinked slowly against the sluggish drag of poison, watching as Dorian wet a rag with his waterskin to clean off the worst of the muck. He realized after Dorian’s hands glowed a pale white-blue - sealing some of the claw marks - against Orym’s skin that they should be saving spells. Just in case.

Instead of saying so, Orym mumbled a quiet thanks. He still felt unsteady, untethered from his limbs. Dorian flashed him a worried look, exchanged quiet words with Fearne, and then stood to his full height.

They eventually left Dugger’s house, and Orym stumbled blearily along with the group, his eyelids feeling like stone each time he blinked. They had barely turn the corner when Fearne was beside Orym, grinning and holding out her hand.

Orym was familiar enough with this routine to know it wasn’t worth fighting or protesting the inevitable. Plus, he was tired.

Fearne didn’t have to say anything to convince him before Orym was taking her hand and letting her help more than usual as he landed on her shoulder. That sequence of events more than anything probably gave Orym away, but it was too late now. Dorian came up beside Fearne, obviously concerned as he reached up and dropped another spell against Orym’s knee.

“‘m fine, Dorian,” Orym mumbled as the street swayed.

“Sure, Orym,” Dorian said, grinning despite the lingering furrow of his brows. “Let us take care of you anyway.”

It had been months since Orym left Zephrah, months since he had allowed anyone to get close enough to care for him like this. Trust was still a tenuous, difficult, and terrifying thing. Orym treated it like a feral animal, waiting for it to bite at any moment. But Dorian healed Orym without hesitation, without expecting anything in return. Fearne - for all her lovely, unpredictable chaos - loved Orym and Dorian so fiercely it was almost overwhelming.

He thought that maybe they could make it easier, to trust and to be cared for again.

Leaning his head against Fearne, careful of the curl of her antler, Orym smiled down at Dorian. A small uptick at the corner of his mouth, but a smile.

“Okay.”

#cr #c3e5 #orym of the air ashari #dorian storm #fearne calloway #dorym #if you squint #writing #my writing #critical role #idk if this makes ANY sense but it does to me so #still just feeling these characters out