all right, so I will. I do. I do.

Abby | 30s | she/they welcome to critical role brainrot hours. my house is made of dice and homosexuality my ao3 | other fic stuff | sometimes I cosplay | also sometimes I embroider Credit for: dice in header photo icon

[overnighttosunflowers]

Hello!

I’m cairophoenix on ao3, where I currently write a lot of Imodna fic.

Recent & favorites:

I Prefer Girls (62k, 7/? chapters), a 1950s AU and my current WIP. Imogen is closeted, Laudna writes fix-its for lesbian pulps, and the city’s clandestine gay bar is right underneath Imogen’s new apartment. See a book cover by @astoriacolumnstaircase here!

every thought's a possibility (57k, seven chapters, completed), a canon-divergent fake dating fic set after the party separation and a reunion in Rexxentrum. Check out art by @avalencias from Chapter 3 and by @astoriacolumnstaircase from Chapter 6.

Capable, Exalted: A Primary Source History of the Ruidian Solstice (15k one-shot), an epistolary fic that tells Imogen and Laudna's entire story, from pre-campaign to post-campaign, in the form of Laudna's journal entries. Featuring art by @rachandroll throughout.

More below the fold!

and we’ll share my all is a 7k fic set in the Dusk era, featuring a great deal of jealous Imogen, puppetry angst, Pâté as coping mechanism, and Laudna figuring out her feelings. Here is some amazing art that @avalencias did of it!

bittersweet, sly, uncontrollable is 7k of mutually confused pining on the theme of “five times Laudna didn’t access that part of her brain, and one time she did.”

black and all blue is a 3k character study of Imogen’s guilty, self-blaming wrath and the way it explodes outwards.

until the mosses take root in thunder is 6k of Imogen poorly crafting Laudna a Definitely Platonic Engagement Ring. Here is more amazing @avalencias art and here is some incredible @rachandroll art.

the truth must dazzle gradually is a 4.5k fic about Laudna sorting through her feelings for Imogen the night before the solstice, and Pâté helping her figure it all out.

Home, Made is a 6.5k precanon fic about crafting, homesickness, and learning to live together.

dreams of you and mistletoe is a 13k holiday modern AU co-written with @lorrxrai.

Seaside Rendezvous (7k one-shot), a post-finale fic set at during a beach week before Jester’s wedding, while Laudna frantically tries to propose (re-retro-propose?) to Imogen before Imogen can do the same. Light-hearted, silly, fun.

And WAY back in the day I wrote a Sanvers publishing AU called Track Changes and a Lydia/Gigi (Lizzie Bennet Diaries) fic called from the dark with you above, on the off-chance that that’s why you’re here!

[teaboot]

Not pertinent to anything in particular but I do think it's kinda weird that we keep depicting cavemen in media crawling around on all fours covered in dirt with tangled, matted hair, speaking in broken, cobbled-together toddler language when like.

They were us.

Like literally genetically they were US, just like. A while ago.

Like

Would you trust a TV caveman with a baby? Probably not

A real life caveman though??? I think they'd be at least okay at it

[sheilikhal]

This is actually really important and comes up in Anthropology classes all. The. Time.

As long as homo sapiens have existed, we have had the same emotional and mental capacity as you and I do today. You nailed it. They were US. Even Neaderthals existed alongside and had offspring with Homo Sapiens for many thousands of years.

There's much evidence that cavemen would have had complex spoken language, culture (learned information passed down), symbolic interpretation, and I think they most certainly would have been able to handle holding a baby. In fact I have my suspicisions that an ancient homo sapiens mother may be a more present, attentive, and knowledgable mom than I could be today.

Do not let media trick you into believing we are the pinnacle of humanity. Unilinial evolution theory (google it quick I beg) is BUNK, GARBAGE, and the root of so much evil.

We've been human for a long, long time, and we are not inherently better than all those who came before.

[fresne999]

One the most profound experiences of my life was visiting Font de Gaume, which has 12 thousand year old paintings. They use a technique where the horses appeared to run across the wall when seen in flickering firelight. There was a bison the wall staring at us with such attitude, I could practically hear him. I had the most profound feeling of those ancient artists reaching forward to lay their hands on my shoulders. To say, "This was my world." It was a profoundly moving experience.

Some years later, I went to the Orkney islands where we visited a tiny family run museum of artifacts from the chambered tomb at the other end of the farm. They handed me a pestle once held by some neolithci human.They'd worn groves where the thumb and forefinger would be for better grip.

[cymbie8]

One time, in a French history class, my teacher randomly at the end of the class had all of us draw a sketch of a horse. And we were all like ??? Okay???

At the beginning of the next class, my teacher showed us a cave painting of a horse. And then he showed all of our horses, which he had scanned and put into the presentation.

He then pointed out all the ways that our horses looked similar to the prehistoric horse. Same features, drawn from the same angle, etc.

And then he asked us, "Isn't it cool that you draw horses the same way as someone who lived 20,000 years ago?"

Yeah. That stuck with me for a while.

[catgirlthecrazy]

In Spain, there's a cave full of ancient, ice age era drawings of bison and reindeer and other animals of that period... And one small section of chaotic scribbles just a little away from everything else. These scribblesv were so incomprehensible, they were originally just called the 'Panel of Enigmatic Signs'... Until it occurred to someone that drawings only three feet off the ground probably weren't made by adults.

Scientists are now pretty sure the scribbles were made by kids ages 3-6, more or less on their own. The adult cave artists were probably doing what any modern parent might do when they want to keep small children out of their hair for awhile: they gave the kids some drawing tools of their own and a small section of wall to work on, out of the way but still close enough to keep an eye on them, and let them have at it.

What's most charming about the whole thing is the way the cave scribbles look exactly like what you'd find on the wall of a preschool today. Artistic styles vary widely across different times and cultures, but child development is as near to a universal human experience as it gets.

[mikkeneko]

Wisher made detailed 3D scans of the drawings, which helped her understand the uneven pressure applied to the charcoal and the direction the lines were drawn. The team then compared the panel’s composition with age-appropriate artistic efforts by modern children. Kids across cultures go through the same developmental stages, which influence their physical ability to draw, until about the age of 6, Amir notes.

The team compared the ancient art with the developmental stages exhibited by modern children: the furiously scribbled circles and push-pull lines typical of 3-year-olds just learning to control their bodies, for example, or the wobbly, right-angled figures of slightly older kids beginning to master fine motor skills.

Both are apparent in the cave, superimposed on each other as though two or more kids were drawing at once. That’s a clue the Las Monedas marks were likely made by “siblings or a mixed-age play group within the sphere of safety around adults, but also within their own space,” says co-author Felix Riede, an Aarhus archaeologist.

...

Adults at Las Monedas would have been aware of what the kids were doing and presumably had lit fires or torches; without ample firelight the cave is pitch black.

[morwentrouble]

adding the paleolithic child scribble pic & my favorite quotes from the same article linked above:

“They’re experimenting to get to know materials that are important in their world. They’re not trying to draw animals, they’re just trying to break the charcoal.” [...]

The authors say the same combination of developmental psychology and archaeological analysis could be applied to “enigmatic” symbols in other ancient caves. “I hope this makes it easier to identify children’s art in the past,” Wisher says. “Our attention is drawn to figurative art, and we tend to overlook these small scribbles—but I think they exist. And that’s probably thanks to children, bored while mom and dad are making stag drawings.”

[johnanderton]

CRITICAL ROLE Episode 4.31 | Trick of the Light

[rozugold]

Been feeling this over the most inconsequential stuff

[laurbailey]

CRITICAL ROLE: CAMPAIGN 4 Episode 31: Trick of the Light

[cthulhubrain]

an old unfinished dorian storm painting.

never got around to posting it, so here we are.

[juha-art]

Hello and Goodbye

[reineydraws]

hallowed round halsha my beloved ✨️

[chipthekeeper]

Thimble and Occtis + touching

bonus: trying it without Thimble Privileges

[laurbailey]

CRITICAL ROLE: CAMPAIGN 4 Episode 31: Trick of the Light

[mehoymolloy]

Thimble and Julien Roadtrip of Revenge/Inadvertent Bonding, I AM SO EXCITED

The way she said thank you both now and in previous episodes, it's gonna get to the point where she uses that weirdly soft sincere tone of voice and Julien just folds

Thimble always insisting to take watch with Julien at night just so she can stare at his shadow flickering in the light of the campfire

When they fight together holy shit they're both gonna be monsters in combat

Thimble uses her Get Big ability just to fuck with Julien, like she's flitting around Tiny Size being annoying and when he shoos her away and she gets big to trip him (he doesn't go down without taking her with him)

On those late nights they talk about their two different views of the Golden Orchard growing up, especially when they finally get there and see it razed to the ground

I'm not going anywhere concrete with this i am just STOKED

[warcrimesimulator]

[overnighttosunflowers]

If you think about it the imodna slow burn is actually the funniest thing because every second of it is like

Laudna: Imogen I would tear my unbeating heart from my chest and wrap it in my very skin and give it to you if I thought you might want it

Imogen: oh that’s sweet :)

The rest of the Hells: …????

Imogen: time to go stare silently into space with tears pricking at my eyes for 19 minutes because I know she means it platonically and it’s awful for me to want anything else 😔💔

The rest of the Hells: …???¿?????¿?!!!!?????

[overnighttosunflowers]

i’m glad we’re all in agreement. wishing everyone a very Can I Kiss You 2024

[overnighttosunflowers]

If you think about it the imodna slow burn is actually the funniest thing because every second of it is like

Laudna: Imogen I would tear my unbeating heart from my chest and wrap it in my very skin and give it to you if I thought you might want it

Imogen: oh that’s sweet :)

The rest of the Hells: …????

Imogen: time to go stare silently into space with tears pricking at my eyes for 19 minutes because I know she means it platonically and it’s awful for me to want anything else 😔💔

The rest of the Hells: …???¿?????¿?!!!!?????

[overnighttosunflowers]

👯‍♀️ a portrait of solid platonic female friendship courtesy of the epilogue of what doesn’t break 😊🌺💕☺️

Laudna: imogen… you remind me of fields full of flowers in bloom and learning your name is the most precious gift I've ever been given

Imogen: laudna, your mind is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard and all I want is for you to keep being you, next to me

Laudna: I would willingly go into oblivion to keep the memory of your freckles and the smell of your hair perfect forever

Imogen: can I tuck this flower behind your ear?

Laudna: can I brush your knuckle with my finger?

...and then they keep on being Just Friends for two and a half more years :) also btw they’re both blushing the entire conversation. also btw they met an hour ago

[overnighttosunflowers]

if you had told me back in episode one…

[again-and-again-brain-afk]

If someone thought about me like Laudna does about Imogen five seconds after meeting me I also would have been down bad forever like Imogen. (Spoilers for what doesn't break)

"The first thing Laudna saw was lavender hair streaming like a strange road, and Laudna decided then she could be content running forever as long as the path led back to the girl who'd saved her."

"Laudna could survive a millennium of loneliness, but she wasn't sure she could survive being told to leave again. Not by her."

"She resented not being able to say with any eloquence how grateful she was for the woman's intervention, for her kindness, and for the fact she made Laudna think of entire fields of lavender in full bloom."

"Laudna folded the name away like a perfumed letter, like something precious and terribly fragile. Whatever happened next, she knew she would always have this memory, that it would remain pristine even if all others corroded. Even if she was still around a hundred years from now, Laudna would be able to recall, with perfect clarity, every freckle on Imogen's face, and the lavender curls that hung just over her eyes. How she smelled of that flower Laudna had seen here and only here."

"...Laudna already revising that list she'd made of what she could and could not survive. Before, she had thought she would die if Imogen sent her away. Now that felt like a bearable prospect if it meant Imogen would have some peace of mind."

"Nothing was allowed to make Imogen cry. Not while Laudna lived."

"Imogen grinned up at her through a pale fan of lilac lashes, and Laudna thought of what Delilah had said so many weeks ago, that home could be a person too."

"Looking at the other girl then, Laudna understood every version of her would have made that promise, especially if she knew Imogen would beam at her like that."

"But then Imogen's smile grew into something incandescent as the midsummer sun. Warmed by its light, Laudna said in a louder voice, bolder, surer, the empty woods of her heart coming alive again." (Also Laudna finding her voice, her strength, a confidence the second she meets Imogen is just peak 👌)

Also Imogen just like straight up being Laudna's knight in shining armour and just running away from home with a girl she never even spoke with is also very 🏳️‍🌈

"Being around you, I-It's quiet. Like sitting alone in the woods. Like being by myself on a good day."

"As Imogen waited for Laudna's answer, she plucked one of those pink flowers from an adjacent bush before reaching over to gently tuck it behind Laudna's ear." (Like poor Laudna was run out of towns just for her looks and here is Imogen just 🥰 blushing and whatever and I think Laudna doesn't even have her ear cuffs yet and still Imogen is all gooey and stuff).

"'Just be yourself. You don't need to do anything else. I just want you here, that's all. Next to me.' Imogen's smile faltered. "If you want, anyway." (That's all like it's bit everything Laudna wanted, to belong, trying so hard for years to be useful or not herself just to be not sent away and Imogen offers it so simply. Also Imogen Queen behaviour always giving Laudna her autonomy and choice even before she knew everything).

And you tell me they don't figure out they were/are in love with eachother for 2+ years. Like Imogen expecting rejection after Laudna practically thought poetry about Imogen in their first conversation. Like this is their first conversation. They have no chill. No chill at all. Like my dude there isn't even a fell first, fell harder they just both ricocheted right for the bottom. Like that's Hozier level devotion five seconds in. And they saved each other. Like Laudna ready to let the mob do whatever just done with everything but the moment she sees Imogen in danger for protecting her she's ready to fight and Imogen just facing people she knew her whole life and shooting lightning at them for someone she doesn't know.

[dailyimodna]