#fight back laudna

[alliekitaguchi]

spoilers for c3 95

i have to admit that i was getting so frustrated with the hells after the laudna/orym fight because:

they awoke in magical darkness, knowing laudna cast it, which means that she was cognizant enough to have the forethought to hide from him and the rest of them, should they wake up to see what she was doing (because she knew they would try and stop her)

they saw her on the ceiling, running from orym

they saw orym defending himself from her (and yes, orym hurt her too, but as soon as he saw that it was her, he switched to defense)

they saw her use mage hand to grab the sword

they saw orym disarm her to get it away from her

they tried to speak with her and orym both to figure out what was going on and watched her snag the sword AGAIN

they watched her repeatedly open windows and doors, looking for a quick exit

they watched her speak to orym as if he was a piece of dirt beneath her boots

they know laudna has had issues with control, especially after ashton's debacle in whitestone

they listened to her be unable to give a single viable reason for why SHE should take the sword instead of him, just that she wanted to absorb it's power (historically never a good thing to hear from ANYONE)

and they still were like, "we trust you, laudna."

like, i love the hells, and i LOVED this scene because it was so beautifully juicy, but c'mon now. laudna's all charisma and deception, and they were being manipulated by her AND THEY KNEW IT and they still defended her. thank god chet and dorian stepped in for orym's defense, because everyone else just sat around in uncomfortable silence and let it go on.

i know they love laudna and i know they need all hands on deck, but she is literally a powderkeg about to erupt and that shit needs to be dealt with before this happens again and she seriously hurts someone.

i want there to be consequences for this.

i want laudna to get the same repercussions that ashton did. i want her to have to beg for forgiveness, to realize that she fucked up and broke everyone's (especially orym's) trust. i want her to have to apologize to all of them and i want her to realize that she's been lying to them and herself.

(and more importantly, i want to see her be rid of delilah once and for all)

[nellasbookplanet]

I'm still thinking about Laudna and how, as she starts breaking down and the jagged pieces show more and more, earlier aspects of her characterization take a new, kind of horrifying shape.

Laudna was never upset - in fact, the idea seemingly never occurred to her - about Imogen voicing the opinion that maybe the Vanguard was right, even after they murdered Laudna right in front of her. She has never, as far as we have seen, actively sought a way to be rid of Delilah, or to grow her magic in ways that don’t involve Delilah. She talks about a fear of holding Imogen back, encourages Imogen to move on once Laudna is gone. She represses negative emotions but at the same time her joy in life is genuine and overflowing, not a mask.

It all builds a picture of someone who isn't only undead in terms of game mechanics, but who genuinely doesn’t really see herself as alive. Laudna sees herself as living on borrowed time. Marisha has spoken of her as someone who has lived through trauma and moved past it; I believe she means that not in the sense that she's unbothered by her trauma - we have seen she’s not - but that it in a sense doesn’t matter to her. She’s already dead. There’s no point in healing, or seeking a solution or cure, only in finding as much joy as she can in every little thing until the darkness catches up with her. When she regressed in Whitestone post shard incident, there were mentions of her not fully remembering her early days as an undead. She was unstable, not fully sure of what was real and what wasn’t, maintaining her sliver of sanity by talking to the evil necromancer in her mind and an anthropomorphized dead rat. She was likely treated by locals like some scary monster because she largely acted like one. She was a hollow one in every sense of the word. Then she met Imogen, someone who not only wasn’t scared of her and saw her as human, but who understood her struggle; I suspect this genuine human connection was what brought her out of nearly three decades of hollowness.

And in that, she has made Imogen her purpose where before she had none. If the Vanguard is Imogen's destiny, then it doesn’t matter that they killed Laudna because Laudna was a lost cause even before Otohan killed her. Exandria and Laudna both were hollow before Imogen, because she had no real connections, and so now Imogen is all that matters. If Imogen wants to fight Predathos, Laudna will fight. If Imogen wants to leave the struggle and go live in a cottage, Laudna would go with her. If she wants to join Predathos, Laudna would help her. If Imogen died, Laudna would sacrifice Exandria and the gods and the remains of her own soul to get her back.

[danwhobrowses]

For anyone else who is gonna struggle surviving the next 3 weeks with the angsty and tense situation of Callowmoore here's a few things from the last 2 episodes that I feel were underrated and will assist in trying to keep me sane/emotionally stable: - Matching messed up hands built for holding - Fearne nervously playing with her hair as she approaches Ashton - Ashton wanted Fearne to be either the last thing they saw if they died or the first thing they saw when they succeeded - Fearne's admittance corroborates Ashley's 4SD revelation that Fearne is in love with someone in the party but doesn't know how to process the emotions - Fearne wanted Ashton to be happy, while Ashton wanted to feel whole so they would be worthy of the Hells - Ashton twice tried to lead a search for Fearne, and instantly clocking onto Chetney saying he followed Fearne - Fearne making herself look as radiant as possible before giving Ashton the cold shoulder - Ashton only rose to Chetney's provocations until he said 'You hurt Fearne' Use how you will

[criticalbeauregard]

thinking about imogen saying “right when i wasn’t with you, you went back to her” about laudna “reawakening” delilah during the party split… and remembering back when laudna died how imogen immediately sent to delilah and told her that she would do anything delilah said to get laudna back

[dumpster-fire-sapphic-failgirl]

There were a lot of excellent and heartbreaking lines in the emotional moments of E69

and Liam O’Brian is truly a monster (pos)

but the exchange that just absolutely broke me was

Orym to Will: “I’ll see you soon”

Fearne: “But not too soon!”

combined with all the little touches, the casual physical contact and the deliberate (as players) almost unconscious (as characters) affection

and like, i don’t ship it, because Orym is dedicated mlm and honestly i think Fearne is gray aro, but they’ve def got one of the deepest connections of the Hells (and yes, that includes my prime ship of sapphic tethers)

it’s a real platonic soul mates vibe

[britcision]

Ngl I suspect every single person who thinks VM wouldn’t want to res Laudna either hasn’t seen the first campaign at all, or hasn’t for a really long time

The fucking Guilt Patrol?

The same guys who Never let Keyleth live down accidentally killing a kid before they ever recorded the show?

They were fucking wrecked by how many innocent people were killed retaking Whitestone

The whole point of the Sun Tree was to horrify them with the representation of what the Briarwoods would do to Vox Machina, and that they killed innocent people to do it

Put a chance to restore the life of someone they failed in the hands of Professional Guilt Magnet Keyleth of the Air Ashari?

An extra way to flip Delilah off from beyond the grave by giving Laudna back her agency?

The people who EXPLICITLY KNOW Delilah is a necromancer and actual dead corpses are actually her most useful resource?

Nah, slam some Pelor up in there, lets consecrate this bitch while we’re at it and pee on Delilah’s grave

(Matt said that putting Laudna’s body in stasis prevented something from happening to it For A Reason)

Like yeah Vox Machina fucking hate Delilah Briarwood but it’s not like LAUDNA likes her either and they’re not going to blame the young woman THEY GOT KILLED when they can just go to the astral plane or wherever she is and kick Delilah’s ass directly

If nothing else, Laudna’s an excellent distraction while they hunt her down

[aeruthien]

I really hope that if when Laudna comes back, her and Imogen's relationship grows worse before it gets better.

Give me Laudna "the worst thing has already happened to me" pretending that she is fine. There, resurrected again, no big deal right? Not affected at all. Isn't it funny Paté, look there is your namesake and the tree they hung me from, any way let's move on!

Give me Imogen who maybe has been the most honest about her feelings in these moments of grief, telling Laudna that she can control her powers, no problem, look how strong she is! Of course she believes in herself, don't you see?

Give me denial on both ends, them forcing themselves to get back to the way it was before.

Except that is impossible.

So how do you move on after that?

[big-moon-little-moon]

Ashton "No one gets left behind" Greymoore

C3E34 / C3E59

[daisychainsandbowties]

How are you holding up with the new intro drop?

i am literally not holding up. at all

[yashley]

imogen was insane for this!!!!!!!!!!

[mockingmolly]

Man, the contrast of M9 getting Molly back in the form of Kingsley, versus BH potentially getting Laudna back in the form of Matilda? With tm9, Kingsley was quite possibly the kindest way they could have gotten any semblance of their friend back. It had been a year without him and none of his friends existed as he would have remembered them anymore, and he would have been faced with the struggle of trying to find his place in their group again, coming back a contrast to the person they built him up as while he was dead.

And furthermore, he came back into a time of newly-won peace, after they had managed to defeat the threats that had been building up since his death. They got him back specifically because of their success, and gave this fresh-memoried person a world ahead of them to reclaim themself the way molly never truly had. But Matilda? If the soul they pluck from the afterlife is the girl who died and stayed dead on the tree, instead of the one who spent 30 years living in the aftermath of it, they’re essentially dragging up a girl who has long-since been at rest, to thrust her into the deep end of the biggest threat any of them have ever faced, and inevitably expecting her to be able to swim and keep up. A girl who died without having any grasp of her powers, nor life experience beyond what she knew at the outskirts of the briarwood’s rule. Plucked up and dropped into a group of strangers who are dealing with some pretty intense grief, and the weight of the world on their shoulders. 

Laudna has, of course, gone through a lot. There’s no reality in which she isn’t deeply fucked up by what happened before, upon, and after this second death. Reckoning with the sudden loss of Delilah over her shoulders and what it means for her going forward is going to be a journey, but she’ll have her family by her side through all of it. She’ll have the knowledge she’s gained through 30 years of unliving and a grasp on what’s at stake in the world she’s coming back to. The world she seems to want to come back to, as shaken as she is.

If the soul they reach out to is Matilda, there’s no guarantee that anything they could say will appeal to a stranger that’s been dead and at rest for decades. And even if they do, i can’t help but feel like uprooting and forcing a soul they don’t know into a life/burden they have no way out of is also one of the crueler outcomes in all of this.

[nellasbookplanet]

Okay but I'm going a bit insane about the growing disconnect of "maybe we're meant to harness it"/"maybe we're meant to fight it". They both thought they were on the same page when they said it, when actually they were on polar opposite ends of the same spectrum. Imogen meant "I never plan to give in to this power even if part of me wants to, I will continue fighting it, but it’s a comfort knowing there’s someone who understands the temptation and who I know won't judge and will still love me and understand if I ultimately fail and give in". Meanwhile to Laudna it meant "I've been in this struggle for longer than I can remember and I don’t know if I can do it much longer. I don’t know if I want to. I don’t know if I even should, or if giving in would be better for all of us because I'm a lost cause. You understand this about me and won't judge as I inevitably am doomed by the narrative, and you won't demand of me that I fight an inherent part of myself, even if it’s destroying me". And Imogen is finally catching on to this disconnect, is realizing that to Laudna their connection isn’t just understanding but an excuse, not too different from Lilliana. And, desperate of losing Laudna to power just like she did her mother, she says, 'if you let me go, I'm gone', meanwhile Laudna is going 'all I can do for you is die and let you go to lift you up' and both of them are going 'why are you so upset about this. i love you'.

[thymeofarrival]

this journey through the spirit realm makes getting laudna back feel so much more real. a regular resurrection wouldn’t have been “cheap” to start with but this makes it feel even less so. there are real consequences here and they have to fight to get her back and they’re Going To. they’ll go through hell and all her worst memories because laudna is important to them and they’re going to Get Her Back

[c-estmabiologie]

after everything

[crystal-lillies]

Also like, next time the Bells Hells gang has a moment of like oh what have the gods ever done for us, what good are they??

Well gee, without godly power y'all wouldn't have gotten Laudna back with Pike (or anyone) so there's one, Chetney receiving spiritual aid from the Wildmother in his werewolf form, Orym "the gods are watching!!" getting a special blessing from the Wildmother as well, and that's just off the top of my head from the point where I started watching the campaign.

Ashton and Orym laying down the hard truths always are amazing but if they stopped to think at the very least like, without divine power, Laudna would have stayed dead, that's gotta mean something in the favor of the gods to them right?

Just rewatching the Monster Werewolf Chetney fight again and the Resurrection of Laudna again makes me feel like, huh did y'all forget that??? 🤣 even if it was months irl time those are some pretty big moments

And yeah context and emotional tensions running high. It's just. Djdkgd I want to cradle their heads gently and softly shake them while calmly explaining that selfish beings everyone godly or mortal may be, they have definitely all benefitted and would be unwise to forget that.

But then also yes, the actual Predathos psychic magic cult gang are just people doing awful things to other people and are being shitty in general and that's more than enough of a reason to stop them. And Otohan literally killed half of them gleefully with no remorse. And Ludinus is a bastard they saw feeblemind an already terrified Professor Sumal before their eyes.

[mediacrushin]

Critical role spoilers. Have not seen the episode yet [as is tradition, I spoil myself friday then watch the vod on Monday for full context], but what I will say from what I've seen:

No matter how next episode goes, resurrection, pass or fail, because the possibility of failure is tragically still there even after everything they went through... because luck can be a bitch. No matter what, this time Laudna knows she is loved. This time her friends, her family, busted down the doors of death, waded through shades of her past, banged on windows and assured her again and again that their intent was to get her home, to protect her and help her when things got scary. She got a moment with Imogen [platonic or romantically] her person, who again, without fail told her they were there to bring her home, asked her to keep fighting, and insisted that they were all here for her, that she was not fighting alone this time. And they fought and they gave it everything and they fucking blasted the witch who had tormented her for 30 odd years and freed her from that fucking tree...

Whatever happens next session, Laudna is loved. She has friends, family, that cares for her. She'll either be returned to them, or she'll pass properly this time, knowing she was loved that much.

And as an audience that's all I could have asked for, either way.