#the exact same concept people are obsessed with (rightly) in the liliana & imogen dynamic?

[revvethasmythh]

gotta say, I think the framing of Imogen's childhood as one lacking in all parental love and care because Liliana wasn't there is something that strikes me as both highly unlikely and as a far less interesting way of reading Imogen's early life with her father. If things were always as chilly and distant between them as they were after Imogen's powers developed, then there isn't much change in their relationship at all. But if we acknowledge that in her childhood she had a largely normal, functional, and loving relationship with her father, their estrangement after her powers becomes all the more heart wrenching. Yes, he's emotionally reserved and "was never the master of parental affection," as Matt said, but he's dependable. He cares for her, with actions over words. He's her dad and he's there for her entire childhood, making dinner for her, working to take care of her, teaching her how to ride, bandaging her up when she gets hurt.

Then the powers come. The night terrors that sound familiar to him, this terrifying pain that she's in, the way he doesn't actually know what's wrong with her because Liliana didn't know and she'd barely told him these powers so much as existed before she left him. Being close to Imogen hurts her and it also means she can root around in his head--so he puts distance between them. And that hurts like hell for a kid, to have their father pull away from them like that even though it's more comfortable, physically, that way. A gulf forms. Trust shatters. Their relationship deteriorates and deteriorates. More time passes--eight years of this--and they're further away from each other than they ever have been. Neither of them go into town or talk to people all that much because Imogen doesn't want to hear what people are thinking or deal with the pain of it and Relvin doesn't want to bring home what other townsfolk have said that she might be able to skim off him.

That's shattering for both of them. And so, so, so much more tragic than if there was never care or love between them to begin with. It hurts so much because it used to be so much better than this. There was a comfortable familial love between them before, and now it just feels like empty air

#seen this come up quite a few times lately around some platforms and it's like #why would anyone think there was NO love in imogen's early life? #THERE WAS #and isn't loving someone yet still doing something that hurts them because you think it's better that way #(such as relvin not telling her about liliana and pulling away and all this distance so she won't got after the same thing liliana did) #the exact same concept people are obsessed with (rightly) in the liliana & imogen dynamic? #seems like a familial trend imo #relvin temult #imogen temult