hey fellow artists I know that we all want to create huge beautiful peices with dynamic poses all the time but sometimes you just gotta draw a guy just kinda standing there. For your mental health I guess.

can you imagine being orym, the night after having your rest interrupted and following fearne to fight some terrifying fey entities and hearing fearne's father say that her protectiveness of her friends is what he plans on testing next, only to wake up the NEXT immediate night in complete darkness while being injured by an unseen force. terrifying concept

Lissen I too just want to press my face into Fearns tig ol biddies. Have some callowmoore wip I’ll probably never finish.

You know, Laudna never did actually apologize to Orym. Not a single "sorry" or "I apologize" out of her mouth. Just the repeated mantra of "I didn't mean to."

Girl, that is not an apology. That is a flimsy ass excuse.

You didn't mean to hit Orym with your spell. Sure. But you did mean to steal from him and feed the stolen goods to the necromancer everyone hates behind everyone's back. You know, secret power acquisition like what you got super pissed at Ashton for doing not even a week ago in-game.

And Laudna knew she was in the wrong. It's why she cast Darkness to try and be sneaky about stealing Ishta. They can't know she betrayed the group's trust if they can't see her do it.

It's just... god, Imogen needs to confront Laudna about listening and giving in to Delilah all the time now. And it has to be Imogen because Laudna doesn't listen to any of the others for stuff like that. Couldn't even follow through on Ashton asking her to apologize for hurting Orym, unintentional as it was.

Don't get me wrong, it's all juicy. But Laudna is deluding herself so hard on being in the right for what she did. And yes, I saw Cooldown and the off-the-bandwagon addict comparison.

Back on my bullshit now that I’m catching up :))

(I'm going to be posting all my CR fanart over here at some point, otherwise it's on my instagram)

quick imogen

Not what I expected coming from John Green

The thing is, since Marisha made it so blatantly clear how fucked up and Delilah-driven her actions were in that scene, every take that defends Laudna's behavior reads as if Delilah herself had written it.

Since people seem to once again be having trouble remembering the order of operations, let me just remind everyone:

The ability Laudna possesses to feed Delilah is Hunger of the Shadow. In the fight with Bor’dor, Laudna used that BEFORE Orym’s head nod. Bor’dor attacked them and her response was to do the thing she knew would give power to Delilah. Matt even makes the sound of Delilah’s heartbeat.

The spell she used after the head nod? Whither and Bloom. The same spell she later attacked Orym with, which isn’t even a warlock spell.

And speaking of the head nod, you want to know what’s it’s prefaced with? ‘Laudna you can do whatever you want.’ And Marisha responds by saying that Laudna is ‘barely present’ because she’s having ptsd flashbacks to all of the times something horrible happened to her and she couldn’t do anything about it. So she kills Bor’dor because it makes her feel in control of the situation.

And yeah, the 4SD where Liam says Orym thought Delilah might come back. Except y’all somehow took that and made it seem like he’s the one who shoved Laudna over the edge when what actually happened is that Laudna flung herself off it because betrayal is triggering to her.

And the sword. The sword which apparently wasn’t triggering enough that Imogen contemplating whether the Vanguard were good guys didn’t cause any reaction. Or for that matter, make her object to Ashton’s ‘this is permission statement.’ But she saw Orym wearing it, got uncomfortable and then all it took was one sentence from Delilah for her to decide to steal it. Delilah, who mutilated her, murdered her, has been possessing her for decades, and who basically held her soul hostage when BH wanted VM to resurrect Laudna. But what Delilah didn’t do? Tell Laudna to steal the sword.

I wasn’t around for campaign 1, but in campaign 2 I definitely noticed a trend that people who were all ‘I love women! Female characters rock!’ would, the second one of their alleged faves did something controversial (or just something they didn’t like) would find a way to shift the onus onto someone else so she could remain blameless. And that is definitely continuing this campaign, and if anything is getting worse (which, not to get into speculation, but I wonder if it’s because all of the female characters this go round are more traditionally feminine than last campaign.)

I think the reason Orym’s been getting raked across the coals so hard by certain parts of the fandom is actually because of this. Because Imogen’s repeatedly gone ‘what if the Vanguard have a point’ and Laudna agrees with everything she says, whereas Orym’s been pretty consistently ‘no, the murder cult that murdered my family are bad guys.’ And well, can’t go around admitting that our faves did something wrong.’

And so we have a situation where Laudna attacks Orym, but somehow that’s Orym’s fault because the possibility of Laudna doing something wrong ruins people’s lesbian cottegecore fantasy. But the thing is, that whole thing was all Laudna. She chose to listen to her first murderer when Delilah said ‘maybe it’s cursed’ and then she chose to blanket the room in magical darkness (sorcerer ability, not warlock) chose to cast an area of effect spell to destroy the thing Orym was using to sheath the sword (sorcerer spell, not warlock) and, upon hurting Orym, chose not to drop said darkness, which meant Orym couldn’t see who attacked him. And when she got caught, she tried to downplay what she did, tried to say that because she didn’t mean to hurt him it didn’t count, refused to apologize for actually hurting him, kept shifting her argument (and even low key got called out on it by Imogen when she asked Laudna why she’s want its power inside her if she thinks it’s so evil.)

There is an alternate universe where Laudna wakes Orym up and they have what probably would have been an intense discussion about the sword (and that might even have been what Marisha was aiming for before Delilah got involved) and THAT truly would have been the ‘both sides are equally right’ scenario, but that’s not what we got. And you can say Orym shouldn’t have taken the sword unilaterally (but somehow Laudna’s allowed to unilaterally steal and absorb it?) or that she’s being manipulated by Delilah, but the fact is that Laudna’s an adult and is responsible for her own decisions. Yes, Delilah is a powerful and malign presence that they all downplayed/ignored, but, to use Marisha’s addiction metaphor, making amends with those you’ve harmed is a part of recovery for a reason. Because ultimately, you are the one who did that. Yes, it does immensely suck for Laudna that she’s been handed the cards she has been, but it’s up to her to make the best play she can.

Wow this got long, but my overall point is that Laudna is a character with her own agency and makes her own decisions (well, Marisha makes them, but at this point y’all should know she’s not conflict averse and is willing to have her characters make controversial character choices). And really, take all that away, what’s left? How much onus can you take from a character before you might as well go look at a painting?

Honestly this is the first conversation between Laudna and Imogen I've actually been interested in for a while. Cause Imogen fully admits she has no idea how to deal with the fact that Laudna's love for her is one of the driving forces behind her giving into Delilah more. Which is kind of fucked up. Telling someone you love that you're actively harming yourself for them is not romantic or even a loving act. It's putting the burden of your issues onto that person because you're stating they are the reason for it. Imogen already has that from her Mom. Two women who claim the terrible things they are doing are for her, something which she never asked for or wanted. It must be an awful feeling to have, and I don't think Laudna has realised what Imogen is starting to. That saying you love each other isn't enough to get past the issues in your relationship. You have to acknowledge and work on them to create a solid foundation.

"It feels a little bit like a betrayal to be happy."

Essek feels the waning trails of magic as the Sending fades, Caleb’s warm-honey voice lingering in his ear as he settles into his pillow. The usual wards are securely set, but it still is difficult to relax in a strange place. He misses Caleb’s arms around him, his soft breathing ruffling Essek’s hair. The bed is too small, but it feels vast and empty.

It had been harder to leave than ever, this time. Home is just a few hundred miles away but it might as well be Catha.

He's stirred up old memories, old guilts and old hurts by answering the Hells' questions, but Caleb trusts them, Keyleth trusts them, and he's trying to be more open. More honest. It's painful, but manageable, and that in itself makes him feel guiltier.

Each person in that room to a one has had part of their life ruined directly or indirectly because of his actions. And yet they didn't even hesitate to absolve him.

Something he's learned on his travels is that there are far more people like the Nein than he ever imagined. Kind. Forgiving. Generous and hopeful. He hopes he can help bring the Hells some measure of peace.

It does no one any good to dwell on his sins, to wallow in his own terrible feelings when he could be doing so much more to try to rectify the damage he caused. So he holds onto Caleb’s sleepy last "I love you" like a talisman against the dark and lets his heart fill with happiness and love.

I'll always love you I just don't know what to do with it I'll always love you I just don't know what to do with it I'll always love you I just don't know what to do with it I'll always love you I just don't know what to do with it I'll always-

Endless Bells Hells