Imogen not really knowing what’s happening as she casts Fly and her just doing it to save a friend without knowing what’s going on is so fucking cool
mechanically, all she did was cast Fly. It’s a 3rd level spell, she has access to 3rd level slots, that’s all she did. but the Aberrant Mind sorcerer gets an ability at 14th level that essentially allows them to fly at will (as long as they have enough sorcery points left).
so Laura flavoring Imogen’s casting of Fly this way effectively implies that Imogen really doesn’tknow what’s going on, because she’s tapping into a power she doesn’t yet know how to use out of desperation and panic because a friend is falling to his death. Laura used the expenditure of a 3rd-level spell to represent Imogen’s power extending beyond her current means, to represent that Imogen’s impulse to save her friend was powerful enough to reach into some unknown space to pull through abilities she won’t learn to control for months.
If I had a nickel for every time an Air Ashari character on Critical Role cast Gust while in the middle of a thousand foot fall in order to try and avoid getting hit by obstacles on the way down, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s only happened twice so far.
obsessing over the body movements laura/imogen is doing after laudna says “just be careful of the moments where you can no longer separate yourself from it”, whilst imogen is saying she doesn’t think it’s doing anything, up until laudna says the “do you think it might be providing more harm than good” line. that is a woman obsessed
no no listen her body language during that whole part??? the silent I’m lying so much right now, not to you but to myself??? fucking incredible, and also an absolute master class
people saying imodna is a sunken ship after last night’s events… au contraire my friends, au fucking contraire. they’ve been stuck in this limbo of meaning so much to each other and caring deeply and pinning a lot each in their own way for like two years (allegedly). nothing was gonna happen between them unless something like this took place. unless they were forced to confront why this betrayal hurts so much and why losing the other’s trust and being the cause of pain is so devastating. unless they are forced to have difficult conversations and see the other’s flaws and work towards a healthier bond and a deeper understanding of each other and themselves. still loving each other because but now also loving each other despite
Imogen at the end of the episode though: from the start Imogen has been defined by her desire to understand these dreams, maybe to stop them, but most of all to solve them. She’s looking for answers. That’s her quest. She was in Jrusar for research, she continued to pursue it in the Heartmoor Hamlet, she’s interested in Yios now…but on some level she’s also grasping at straws, and has been for a long time. She’s going to try anything that helps, she’s going to be drawn to weird inexplicable magic items because they make about as much sense as anything else. The shard of rock felt comforting, and explicitly like another option, and what Imogen desperately wants is options rather than just being caught in the same endless storm where the choices are “run, and this will just happen again”, or “walk into it, which you are fairly sure will kill you.”
So to have someone who may have been the first person ever to have heard about these dreams and said “yeah, let’s figure this out” instead of treating her like she was weird or crazy take that possibility away? “You lied” is a testament to the immense amount of control Imogen is showing here. From her perspective this is perhaps the greatest possible betrayal she could have: someone cutting off a potential solution for the problem that plagues her life, after she said she wouldn’t. It doesn’t matter that Laudna didn’t mean to do it or that there’s a chance this might be better for Imogen in the long run, given what we know about the rock - what matters is that the rock is gone and there has to be someone to blame.
And at least until she’s had some time to cool off I don’t see the truth helping. Imogen is also defined by immense self-control that she needs to exercise nearly all the time to prevent her from being overwhelmed or learning things about other people that would harm her or harm them. “I couldn’t control it” is the truth. That doesn’t mean it necessarily is going to feel any better, and while the loss is still raw, there’s a real chance it will feel worse.
You can clearly tell who did and didn’t watch Carmilla based on all the First Kill critiques. Oh the monsters have bad cgi? On Carmilla we didn’t even get to see the monsters. Oh the scenes are shot from weird angles? On Carmilla we got one angle and never questioned why everyone was conveniently standing on one side of the room. Oh the plot is rushed and bad? On Carmilla all of the plot was entirely off screen and you know what? We loved every second of it
