#imogen laudna and fearne are my blorbos

[orionsgirdle]

read some (what I consider to be) bad takes about the laudna/imogen conversation and now I have to get into it.

here's the thing: laudna has on several occasions shown a callous disregard for the life and well-being of people she's not close to. does that disregard stem from the lack of value she places on her own life? yeah maybe probably. what's the big deal about death? she's died before and it was fine. everyone she knew from her youth is dead. it happens. she's never expressed the need to save people or to be good. it's a moral ambiguity that she shares with imogen and fearne. i think (setting aside the merchandizing potential of three witches) imogen, laudna, and fearne are connected by the shared knowledge that this is who they are. they care about protecting their own...and that's it.

it's so fundamentally different from how ashton and orym view the world and their place in it. ashton, having experienced death and abandonment, is invested in making sure that no one else has to feel that kind of pain. they will ignore their own physical pain and carry laudna's dead body on their back from city to city because she will not be left behind like he was. orym grew up in zephrah under keyleth's leadership so of course he cares about being a force for good in the world. i could go on about these two because there's so much good shit here, but i guess in a simplistic way on an alignment chart ashton and orym would fall on the good side of the spectrum while imogen, laudna and fearne are more chaotic (i'm leaving chetney out of this cuz i just can't get a solid beat on him).

all of this to say that when laudna says her and imogen's relationship "transcends words", and she'll support her no matter what, i don't see that as just a desperate bid to hold onto to someone because you are afraid of being alone. she understands the impulse to make a pact with less than savory individuals if it means safety or a chance to have a peaceful life. did one of these crazy cultists murder her? yeah, but she's voluntarily made a pact with her own murderer before.

for laudna, who had her agency taken away so violently, the ability to choose your life's path is sacred. it's the best she can come up with in the pro column for keeping the gods around. that they give mortals the ability to choose when they could so easily exert more control. so of course she will give imogen the chance to choose her own path, even if it means the rest of the world will burn.

and finally, that conversation was not just about do we think this cult has a point? they all know they're going on a suicide mission, with less than half a hope of succeeding. with the plan to drop a skyship (the only substantial thing they own) on the malleus key and hope that that works. when imogen asks, "we want this, right?" she's asking whether they are prepared to die to save the gods. and my girl imogen is problematic as fuck but i get the urge to run away and hide from her problems with her best-friend-life-partner-wife.

[amihyperfixatingagain]

This week on what the hell is going on with Bell’s Hells it’s…. Calamity 2.0?!??

The party has been split and I’m freaking out a little not gonna lie. Are Caleb and Beau ok? Keyleth? VAX??? It’s fine. Everything is fine….

[towards-toramunda]

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)

[dadrielle]

Time for another batch of bujo doodles, I think.

[utilitycaster]

I'm a little confused. A lot of critters say that the gods have it out for Laudna specifically, and I can't find where that idea comes from? Like the closest thing I found is that she's a Hollow One and things that affect undead are usually holy/divine. But that doesn't mean that the gods hate Laudna or that Laudna's suffering is because of the gods, right? (I'm a little scared of those Laudna stans tbh)

If I had to guess where it comes from, it, like the similarly inaccurate statements people make about Ruidusborn, comes from the longstanding tendency by the uncreative, dull, and whiny to make their blorbo the most wronged little lamb who ever lived.

Clerics mechanically get Turn Undead as an ability, which affects Laudna, because she is undead. I do want to point out that Marisha specifically chose to make Laudna more undead than Hollow Ones typically are mechanically, ie, our boy Jumanji Costco would be fine in the face of Turn Undead; and that area of effect abilities such as turn undead are not what I'd consider "targeted", ie, if Imogen were to cast Reverse Gravity in an area containing other members of Bells Hells, and they became affected by the spell, I would not say this was Predathos having it out for Bells Hells specifically. I'd also note that a spell that literally creates undead, Animate Dead, is a general cleric spell. A loyal level 5 cleric of the Dawnfather has the capacity to have a pet zombie. Is this the greatest use of their abilities, probably not, and will their god provide them with consequences, possibly, but it sure is a thing they can do, so I think the gods on the whole are really up in the air re the whole undead thing. I also think that we need to acknowledge that within the text, at this point Laudna's met four divine champions, two of them have quite literally contributed to her continued undeath in significant ways, and the other two of whom have been like "yeah we are on the same side, politics, strange bedfellows, etc, etc, I'm frankly way more interested in Fearne."

One can argue Laudna's suffering is because of the god Vecna, though as a point of order the main portions of her initial suffering occurred prior to him achieving godhood, so really, it was the lich (undead) Vecna and the necromancer (currently undead) Delilah Briarwood who seem to be largely at fault. Undead are merely a classification of entity. Just as using Turn Undead against a horde of undead may result in Laudna being turned as well, if one were to cast Moonbeam on some hostile shapeshifter, Chetney would also be affected. As Gilmore as played by Aabria said, power is simply power; intent comes from the wielder. Someone could use Turn Undead specifically against Laudna; someone could also use powers from the gods to heal, buff, or resurrect her. I doubt the Raven Queen is like, jazzed and hype about Laudna, but her specific tenet is "Undeath is an atrocity. Death is too good a punishment for those who pervert the rightful transition of the soul" and Delilah seems to be the one causing the soul transition perversions.

I suppose one could argue Laudna's suffering is the result of the gods in the same way that if I were injured by a window box air conditioner falling five stories onto my foot, while both gravity and the fact my parents decided to have children contributed significantly to this moment, no one who was not embarrassingly unserious and extremely fucking stupid would put these things forth as the culprit in this hypothetical.

Do not be afraid of the Laudna stans. Either they're lovely people who just really like Laudna and are talking about her character arc or making art or something and agree this is a terrible take, or they are, as said, embarassingly unserious, extremely fucking stupid, uncreative, dull, and whiny. I can provide tips to avoid them or to annoy them as you wish but like, is it even worth bothering with the latter.

[dathen]

Okay actual Blorbo Wrapped for 2023 (in attempted chronological order) (focusing on new/particularly more intense than usual blorbos for brevity’s sake)

Professor Aronnax, Conseil, Ned Land, Captain Nemo (20k Leagues under the Sea) (yes I need to name every single one)

Sherlock Holmes

Cassandra Sithe (my TTRPG character)

Victor Frankenstein

Xenk (DnD movie)

Mina Harker

Maruki (Persona 5 Royal)

The Spot (Across the Spiderverse)

Major Hob, Chirp Featherfowl (ACOFAF)

Cui Buqu, Pei Jingzhe (Peerless)

Ballister Boldheart (Nimona movie)

Sissel, Yomiel (Ghost Trick)

Arlo Black, Howard Margrove (Candela Obscura)

Nona, Camilla (The Locked Tomb)

Walter Hartright (The Woman in White)

The Fix, Imelda Pulse (Mentopolis)

Laudna, Fearne, Imogen (Critical Role)

Zulf (Bastion)

Resh’an (Sea of Stars)

Arthur Holmwood

Inspector Lestrade (Granada Holmes)

Rocky, Ryland Grace (Project Hail Mary)

Otto von Chriek (The Truth)

Oscar (Malevolent)

Blorbo-in-laws include Asterion (BG3), Basil Hallward (Dorian Gray), all of Helen’s danmei faves, and Varney the Vampire.

Jesper and Inej from Six of Crows are blorbos-in-process.

[lunalikestowriteanddraw]

So I’m near the end of episode 8 of campaign 3, and fuck I’m already starting to get a favorite

But so far… (more under cut)

Chetney is fucking hilarious, I love him

I love that FCG can just…hold liquids without any real consequence (at least for now, idk). Like Liam put it: “last campaign you had a flask, now you ARE the flask”. Also, he’s just super sweet I love him. Idk how Sam went from Absolute Bastard to Traumatized Mother to Best Robot in the span of 3 campaigns, but I love all of his characters the same (for their own reasons)

I am very quickly becoming REALLY fond of Dorian. I don’t wanna jump to conclusions, but…I’m fairly certain he’s going to be one of my faves, if not my blorbo of the campaign. He’s just a funky little guy, I love him.

Laudna intrigues me, with her ties to Whitestone and the Briarwoods. I know that all will be expanded upon fairly soon, but still.

I like Ashton, he’s cool

Fearne is so unhinged I love her. She just deadass asks people “yo, can I have this?” With like the sweetest smile, and if they say no, she usually tries to steal it anyway. She’s great.

Still no real opinion on Imogen and Orym. They’re not bad characters, but I’m fairly certain that their characters don’t get to really shine until later on. For right now, they’re just kinda…there.

[willowbirds]

fearnie :)

I’m going to assume this is for that character ask thing. If it isn’t? Well you’re about to get infodumped my lovely Anon! (This is what happens when you ask about my blorbos)

First impression

Absolutely loved the Ashley got to play full time in a campaign, and was really excited to see what she had in store for Fearne especially since I hadn’t watched EXU: Prime.

Impression now

I am SO GLAD Fearne is the character Ashley is playing full time! There are so many intercity to her character and she has now live a life of a mortal and not a fey. It is so interesting how this world has affected her. For better or for worse.

Favorite moment(s)

Similar to Imogen, I don’t know how I would choose. Fearne has so many funny moments that they tend to outshine her more soft or serious ones. For humorous, probably when she found out that Imogen was afraid of heights and started swaying the cart whenever they were on it. For serious, I absolutely loved her most recent speech. Honestly take any of her more serious moments and I will probably say it’s my favourite.

Idea for a story

Well there is currently my Cyberpunk fic I’m working on and even though I don’t go too in depth with this version of Fearne, I still explore her a lot more. Even though I absolutely adore her, she is quite hard to write for me. I do have an idea where both Fearne and Imogen were raised by Nana Morri, but that will have to be explored at a later date.

Unpopular opinion (Again, I don’t know if this is unpopular, but I’m gonna say it anyway)

Okay! This is gonna be long. People need to stop acting like Fearne (and by extension, Ashley) has no agency. People keep saying how the rest of the party forces things on her and believe she hasn’t made her own decisions which is completely untrue. The shard incident comes to mind where people thought that Ashton (by extension, Taliesin) forced Fearne/Ashley to give him the shard even though BOTH PLAYERS said in a 4-Sided Dive that they thought the shard was supposed to go to Ashton. This then leads to some people thinking that Fearne was forced to take the shard because Fearne was adamant on not taking it but got worn down and gave in. Again, Ashley thought it was supposed to go to Ashton so she played Fearne as not wanting to take it because she didn’t want to steal Ashton’s backstory thing. She eventually took it because she thought, might as well, and look how excited she was to get that new sheet! If she had no agency she wouldn’t be playing with this group, and if she felt like the wasn’t making her own choices she would let them know off screen BECAUSE THEY ARE ADULTS THAT HAVE PLAYED TOGETHER FOR A DECADE!! I’ve been thinking about this ever since I saw people saying that the cast is forcing monogamy on Fearne. Tal was clearly on board with the idea of Braius asking out Ashton and Braius asked if Fearne and Ashton were a thing because he sees the world in Black and White (According to Sam on 4SD) and there for likely views the world in monogamy. LEST WE FORGET THAT LAURA BAILEY PITCHED THE WITCH THRUPLE AT A COMIC CON PANEL HERSELF!!

TL;DR: Stop saying that a grown woman doesn’t have agency over her own character.

Favourite relationship

Imogen and Fearne honestly. Their shared connection to ruidus aside, these two care about each other so damn much. I know I ship them (and since Laura pitched the Witch Thruple I think she does too) but I think currently in canon they see each other as sisters. Again, mentioning the serious moments that I love with Fearne, the amount of protectiveness she has for Imogen is only beat by Laudna. The fact that she gets nervous when the Nightmare King says that Imogen is special and asks what they would do to her if they got her, the way she casts earth bind on her while she’s in her dream because she doesn’t want her to go away, her scream of desperation as she tries to wake her up, Ollie’s vision of seeing an older Fearne reaching towards a burning red light (I know it’s not an Imogearne moment, BUT IF YOU SQWINT-). Anyway, Imogearne for life :)

(This is not to diminish any of her other relationships. They are all so important to Fearne’s character, but my witchy shipper brain took over)

Favourite headcanon

If you’ve seen my blog then you might be aware of my Blue Blooded Fey headcanon. This is obviously my favourite, but I’ll add a few others for funsies.

Blue blood, ambidextrous, tooth gap, small fangs, glowing ember tipped ears (after she got the shard), warm to the touch (even warmer after getting the shard)

[pawthorn]

Oh fucking calm down literally nobody is saying that with actual seriousness 🙄

Listen.

Maybe it’s a mistake to look through the character tags, but that’s where I find a lot of art and gifs and new blorbo enjoyers to follow.

This week I saw multiple people calling Ashton selfish and saying how justified they were for hating the character. This was in the Ashton character tag.

Last episode, I saw people saying how hurtful and rude and misleading Ashton was for saying Fearne was like a sister. Again, in the character tag.

Before that, Ashton got hate for how they relate to Laudna or how they talk to Imogen, but people gush over them when they’re in-favor of pretty much any popular ship.

This isn’t unique to Ashton by any means, but it’s a pattern. I can’t know people’s intentions other than what they put out there, so I’m reacting to what I see.

And if I feel like pointing that out on my own blog in a properly tagged post, I’m gonna do that.

But don’t worry. I won’t complain on people’s posts or send them annoying anons or anything. I wouldn’t do that.

[allmyshipsarequeer]

I'm gonna make one of these for all of my blorbos and ships cuz I have that power now

[alloutofgoddesses]

C3 E50 - It’s the middle of the semester so I have no free time ever and I’m reconsidering all of my life choices leading to this moment

Gale!

Fun fact I tried watching this last night and only got about an hour and half in when I realised I was way too tired and distracted so I turned it off

Jester I miss you

NOPE vibes

Why is Liam so little

Off topic but anybody else have a grey cat? I have a nearly 11 month old grey feline and I would love to know if they’re all Like This or if mines a special (basket) case

Aahhhhhhhh oh my god I’m so happy for Imogen

Planning is an essential part of DND but guess what. I am not paying attention to a whole lot of it unless I myself am planning

RIP Silver Sun? I don’t understand why this is necessary oops

Travis bud when was the last time you got your eyes checked

Fly in studio AGAIN (why are there so many flies in the Critical Role studio)

Miss your merk

…and I guess I’m done with my tea now thanks Hermes

Gnome sinkholes

Also there’s no way they’re coming back with a better ship lol

Laura please don’t do math problems

Keyleth I love you

Nothing bad is going to happen, this plan will go as expected

Awww Fearne gave Ashton a forehead kiss

Shout out to Travis for continuing to wear the sweat bands

Oh boy oh boy

I love seeing Travis “Aabria was only scared of me” Willingham in his element

My tummy feels weird lol… idk why this isn’t very high stakes at all

Hello who are you

Scary Laura scary Laura

Okay but how “high up” is Lilliana for that to work

Oof buddies

Oh hey I own those sweatpants

Just filibuster, that’ll stop the apocalypse from happening

Don’t look at your wife like that Matt

Oh no - I feel like it’s a bad idea to run

Does Travis need the sweatbands because I think I do

WEREWOLF TIMEEEW

OH THAT’S VERY BIG

Get em Laudna

How much attention do we think this combat is drawing. Also who’s hiding in the tent

Casual Lizzo ref

Bye Ashton

The warder is gonna die via electrocution!

Is it Otohan or her mom

AH SHIT I WAS RIGHT ABOUT SOMEONE BEING IN THE TENT

Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute

Fingers crossed fingers crossed this is a blorbo from our shows

This has to be someone very dexterous

That’s monk shit right that has to be monk shit

THATS EXPOSITOR BEAUREGARD LIONETT

Me too Liam

Ashley I love you - try your absolute damndest please

That’s my second favourite Critical Role lesbian!!!!!!

ASHLEY SHE IS SO HOT

That’s Beau!!

THAT’S MY BABYGIRL

ME TOO LIAM!!!!!!

Multi-campaign crossover!!!!!!!!!

ME TOO DANI

In the words of Liam AND Aabria, what’s sexier than wizards? NOTHING

Oh Caleb is so respectful I love hims

Yeah you have baby

Probably Beau 😬

I would love to see Beau and Caleb in Vasselheim

Hey it’s her!

Very excited for the people who woke up Devexian to meet FCG honestly

Awww where’s the rest of the Mighty Nein

- Who didn’t make it out? I would like to know Caleb

When is Chet gonna become small again. I feel like it’s gonna make Beau laugh

Ashton has been silent the entire time 🧐

Ashton bby speak up ask questionssss

Which of his romantic partners is he referring to

Oh shit third wizard?

Yeah Travis the meta levels are out of this world

There’s Ashton hi buddy

Ajshshsjaj BEAU

I want Ashton and Beau to be passive aggressive together PLEASE

Be careful with that fourth wall it doesn’t look super stable right now

Okay but I would prefer if we move forward with the full team here

Desperately want Beau and Caleb to meet FCG

[THEY] XANDIS IS THEY REMEMBER PRONOUNS MARISHA

Ah goddammit. See y’all next week

[lessthanimpressedlesbian]

Uhm, ma’am, you’re one of my favorite fic writers!!! Don’t make me have to throw down 😩

3, 28, and 29!!

Vivid! That's only because you get to see the shit I haven't posted yet. Also, I'm pretty sure I could take you in a fight

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

Probably Bitter! I really pushed myself with that fic, and it felt good to get it all out. I'm also very proud of the comments on that fic. It really solidified for me that I can write fics for other people without fear that I won't be able to deliver. It's also always fun putting Imogen through the wringer.

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

I haven't posted it yet, but my favorite work I've written is the one that follows Missteps. You've already read it, but I'm really looking forward to the scene that convinced me to actually go through with writing and posting that fic! My goal is to finish writing all of it before the year ends. It's my most ambitious work, and it's already at 13k words! I just love torturing my two blorbos. Once I'm done with Imogen, it'll be Laudna's turn.

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

So this is a missing scene I couldn't finish for Missteps! You've given me some great feedback, but I decided to cut it and come back to it some other time. It just didn't fit the tone of my series.

Fearne cocks her head to the side, her eyes curious and almost hungry. “Is that why you want to sleep with that other woman? Because you’re really horny after having blue balls for two years?”

“I never actually said I would be sleepin’ with her,” Imogen points out defensively, ignoring her other question entirely. “You suggested that.” 

The Faun’s eyes widen in shock, her hand coming to rest daintily atop her chest. “I don’t remember it happening that way at all.” She winks when Imogen groans in frustration, her smile turning into a smirk. “But you didn’t answer my other question.”

I really enjoyed Fearne relentlessly teasing Imogen! I tried so hard to work this scene in, but I just couldn't find a way to connect it. We'll see when I finally make it into something more!

Thank you for the ask friend!!

[xiaofiaan]

i want to roll molly up in a little ball and then Punt Him

[lara-has-a-tablet]

my blorbo, orym of the air ashari...

white periwinkle for luck in marriage, comfort in loss, and nostalgia. nigella for love and the symbol of the bonds that bind people together. baptisia for protection

bh x flowers series:

imogen || laudna || dusk || FCG || chetney || ashton || orym || fearne || dorian

[out-there-so-it-isnt-just-me]

Musings on the CR C3 x EP33 (or I’ve discovered colors and I’m having fun)

First of all: *horrid eldritch screeching and rolling around in all the tension and sadness like it’s a fire I can put out with stop drop and roll*

Second of all: Excellent episode. We know that Matt likes to keep it real with stakes (given his rules for Revivify and other such spells) and that the cast enjoys the stakes he gives them (they’re all actors I feel by the career they chosen they probably on some level enjoy getting to feel the spectrum of emotions good and bad).

He said that they’ve discussed their limits and that he checks in with them to make sure they’re getting what they want and need from the encounter. People need to lay off Matt. People get mad if he “pulls his punches” and they get more mad if he lets two PCs die and suddenly he’s “responsible for their mental health” you can’t have it both ways heathens.

And if your mental health is that fragile you need more help than escapism via critical role can provide and you can’t be mad at them for any psychic damage you took from this episode. I’m not saying you’re not allowed to be hurt by what happens we care about these characters but you can’t take it out on anyone from CR. There’s no wrong and right way to play DnD if everyone’s having a good time (or like a consensually bad time).

I know they’ve monetized this to a crazy extent (but I’m fully willing to participate in that look at the dagger dagger dagger hoodie dang) but I think it’s still their game ultimately and we shouldn’t dictate anything just because they’ve allowed it to be ours as well. They’re under a lot of pressure leave ‘em alone.

Boring irl stuff aside. I have some screaming to do. My blorbos.

FIRST OF ALL: Orrym my love. I’m so devastated about this boy. He’s one of my faves (as all Liam’s character are). Also he’s the one who holds onto their one collective braincell and Imogen can’t take that responsibility all the time. She’s not built that way. She just (literally?) blew up because someone tried to kill Laudna. Both Orrym and Imogen have that aspect of them that just goes absolutely feral when someone hurts their loved ones but Orrym notably doesn’t have strange moon powers so he’s got a limited destruction radius.

Im also especially sad because of how long Liam has been setting up this character. He planted so many seeds for so long and to have the harvest cut short like this is saddening. Also now I’ll never get my Dorian, Dariax, and Orrym polycule I was secretly dreaming about in my head.

Between Fearne and Orrym I’d really like for Orrym’s death to be reversed. Not only because of the potential romance and how much I love the character but I really do want Orrym’s plot resolved. Fearne’s tied into Ruidus nonsense but Imogen’s carrying that subplot and Fearne was a just subsidiary of the moon nonsense. I feel like Orrym’s motivations are just…more needed for the story. Also again he holds the brain cell. Ashton could hold it but he refuses to. Imogen tries to hold it but it slips right out of her grasp into the responsible half longs hands. He’s just the backbone of this compaign in my mind.

However my fear is that Liam loves pain. He loves causing it and marinating in it. Like he released that special Vax in the afterlife playlist (why? So I could hurt? Sadistic bastard). Plus, the way he played Vax during Dalen’s closet? DEVASTATING.

Also I’m not sure if Liam would vibe with both characters coming back to life since that’s backtracking on a lot of consequences and I’m not sure Ashely’s willing to give up playing Fearne considering how much she’s had fun playing feral fey goat. She’s had some of the best lines too (I hope you learned to love…jazz).

Either way I feel this calls for a Robbie reappearance. What are the odds that both the permanent characters from the Exandria Unlimited run got offed. Incredible. There’s probably gonna be at least one reversal and he needs to be there for the ritual. ( love confession, lo-ve con-fes-sion)

I’m so curious about what Orrym was gonna say into the stone (love confession, LOVE CONFESSION). You know it was gonna be something that would just absolutely haunt your every waking moment for the next few months.

Also for Sam’s sake I hope he gets to revivify Orrym. I’m pretty sure it was established in the episode that he has enough spell slots to do one revivify. I can still remember how utterly devastated Sam was when he realized he couldn’t save Vax as Scanlan and I know it’s campaigns later but I really can’t imagine FCG (Sam) having the opportunity to retroactively that mistake and not doing it. Like I’m not sure it makes sense for FCG to fix Orrym instead of Fearne (although I think FCG is also aware who possess the group brain cell) but I know it makes sense for Sam to being back Liam’s character.

Side note, shout out to all the *gay* that was in this episode. I loved Beau and Yasha as the first PC lesbian couple (my heart ever belongs to Allura and Kima I love them so much) but the chemistry between Laudna and Imogen is so much more believable. Also I love their dynamic to pieces. They are so terribly codependent . It’s very feral queer of Imogen to go nuclear because someone is about to touch your (future) girlfriend with intent to harm her and I mean that only as a compliment. And again whatever was going to happen with Liam and the sending stone was *mwah* chef’s kiss.

Like this episode ripped my heart out and stomped all over it but I had a great time. And if something doesn’t go the way I want it that’s what living vicariously through fanfiction is for.

LASTLY congrats to to Taliesin for making it out of the mid 30s episode in campaign 3 without his character perma-dying

My condolences to Travis for the same reason.

That is all.

[utilitycaster]

not to be all “only i like my blorbo correctly”, but i’m fully convinced that certain people would hate Imogen as a character if they actually engaged with her outside of “conventionally attractive sadgirl that’s one half of an aesthetically pleasing queer ship”. fully believe that if she looked like Chetney or Ashton or even Fearne, and didn’t come with a prepackaged ship, people would be forced to look at her as the complex, unique loose cannon that she is

Hey anon, I agree with much of this and I hope you don't mind if I go on what might be one of my weirder tangents/theories but this has been percolating for a few weeks and I think I've cracked the secret to one of the more toxic segments of the fandom.

I definitely think that if Imogen were not a woman, a lot of people would hate her (granted, a different group of people who hate her now would probably like her more if she were a man, because misogyny is extremely extant outside of the bubble, and even a little bit within the bubble, that is Tumblr). However, they'd be fine if she looked like Fearne...but many wouldn't be fine if she were also played by Ashley. Or yeah, if she weren't easily shipped with Marisha's character.

Here's the deal. When I and a number of other people were like "oh hey! Imogen is not really taking other people's feelings into consideration and is being rather insensitive about the Ruby Vanguard, given that they've killed half the party, particularly since she's literally known Laudna like 10 times longer than she's know her mother was alive" the attitude was "wow, you hate Imogen, you hate women, you're so unfair" and yet now, at a table that is half women (and a group of characters that literally has only one man) everyone who thought I hate Imogen and how if she were a man everyone would care is now literally just mostly ignoring her (and honestly like, everything) and instead constantly whining about how they miss Laudna. Which is frankly weak as hell, like, anyone who's loved Pike or Yasha is like "oh you must be new here", and at least people talking about Travis being missing during the gap between Bertrand's death and Chetney's arrival were making good memes. But I digress.

My theory, which I do admit is the most tin-foil hat I think I've gone, comes from some polls I've seen circulating complaining about queerbaiting in past shows, and also my recent interest in Glee as ground zero of really horrible fandom behaviors (thanks to people who have provided insight into that!) Anyway. I recently learned that apparently Quinn and Rachel was a really popular ship, for reasons I cannot, for the sake of what little decorum and kindness I am maintaining here, speculate on. Setting aside that this is not queerbaiting and it's wildly inappropriate and damaging to say it was, given that this show was full of queer characters and Quinn was shown hooking up with a woman, this has in fact clicked into place for me why people constantly ship Marisha and Laura's characters despite chemistry that is inconsistent at best and tepid on average. It's not terribly hard to draw lines from Quinn to Vex and Rachel to Keyleth, especially if you consider how fanon tends to handle these archetypes. Then they transferred this to just Laura and Marisha's characters in general, and here we are, and man if it hasn't gotten even more flavorless with every transfer.

So anyway yeah a lot of people really don't like Imogen much as a character unless they can project onto her, but because she's half of The Ship, they also will not tolerate any exploration of her flaws that could threaten The Ship and so they need to remove her agency and blame it on various rocks instead of Imogen being cranky and impatient as a person (like, again, if you want to interpret her powers as chronic pain, why are you not allowed to grant her the same complexity as Ashton, who is also cranky and impulsive?) But really the kicker is that if Marisha isn't physically onscreen, they start acting like a cat you locked out of the bathroom and simultaneously forget they're supposed to care about or enjoy Imogen as an individual.