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weeb-polls-with-pip · 1 year ago

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Autistic Anime Boys Prelims - Propaganda Division - Group 2

Propaganda:

Kyouya -

"what's there to say? you know him. you love him. vote kyoya."

Rinnosuke -

"Rinnosuke Morichika lives in an overly-cluttered curio shop, and has a special interest in making magical inventions. Since he doesn’t live in a modern setting— but a pocket dimension slightly disconnected to the outside world— whenever a modern item shows up in his shop via spiriting away, he can obsess over it for extended periods of time. He is quite blunt without realizing it, even to people he cares for. He also has a special ability to generally understand the name and use of any item he touches (though this backfires sometimes, he thought a Gameboy was a doomsday device once)."

Fuuta -

"okay look theres so many fucking signs hes autistic. he cannot tell tone and often doesn't know how to react to stuff which is a major point in his character id say. he was asked if he remembered his victim's name (hes a murderer. oops!) and his response was something along the lines of "Of course I do. I saw it everywhere." because he did not understand that they wanted to know what it was since it wasnt directly stated. im convinced that hoodies are a comfort object of his because i genuinely have not seen him without one except for one time. also hes canonically a chronically online twitter user. also he gets really passionate about his interests. also not really related but everyone in the fandom agrees hes transgender but no one can agree on what way. ive seen every single gender hc for this dude. vote kajiyama fuuta for this sopping wet poor little meow meow of a man."

Hansum -

"He's just a very odd and strange lad, can't remember names well, is an alien (mild spoiler), he's very popular, obsessed with Doritos and becomes their mascot, just refers to everyone as humans which is a mood, and is completely socially oblivious."

Miyuki -

"Relatable neurodivergent-Gifted Child syndromeTM case with all the superiority-inferiority complex that results. A chronic show-off and scheming strategist with a lowkey hopeless romantic dramatic aspect to him, silly cool and pathetic in a very hilarious way. Shirogane has a trademark glare purely thanks to his eyebags as he runs on coffee everyday having to support his family with multiple jobs in addition to class, on top of student council president duties. He's kind and an obsessive perfectionist who fills his entire wall with the weirdest motivational posters. Shirogane is very devoted to his love. He likes penguins (Kaguya and him is peak asd4asd and bi4bi btw)."

Kirito -

"He's autistic and bisexual as hell, and there's a good bit of trans coding in him 🥺

Autism coding: Bro's literally got a sword and swordfighting hyperfixation where, despite playing a game that focuses around guns, he still chooses to use a sword!! We also see him completely missing Asuna's flirting at first (he tells her she could have just checked her friendlist to make sure he was alive, in response to her tracking him down to see him)

Bi coding: Dual wielding swords is literally a euphemism in Japan for bisexuality; and Kirito initially tries to hide the fact he can dual wield out of fear of how the people he's close to will view him (and once he reveals it to them and they accept it, he begins to be more open about it.) Also in the Underworld arc he becomes very close with Eugeo to the point of living with him (and sharing a bed on occasion), and there are several parallels between Eugeo and Asuna, and they're so gay for each other that despite the anime having only a toned down version of it, they're still very affectionate (Also of note is that Eugeo is the only guy in SAO canon to consistently have a 'laying in bed with Kirito' talk CG in the spinoff games) (There's more but it's spoilers and this is a shortened version)

Trans coding: Kirito is very trans coded in the light novel (which shows Kirito's thoughts in much greater detail than the anime) Aincrad arc reveals that Kirito explicitly Does Not Like his real face, and dislikes how feminine it looks (he mentions that its led to him and his cousin being mistaken for sisters) And in Phantom Bullet arc, he's visibly uncomfortable at being mistaken for a girl due to his avatar's appearance, and in response to being misgendered he briefly panics and checks to make sure his chest flat (at least in the anime adaptation) 🏳️‍⚧️"

Shirou -

"Has one goal in life and ignores almost everything in favor of trying to fulfil that goal."

Keith -

"Speaks in a way that is seen as weird and has mannerisms others think is funny. He struggles with not being taken seriously by others because of this and many of the things others say goes over his head. He struggles to connect with other people because of these things. His entire arc in the second film is about him deciding that the people who don't accept him for who he is aren't worth it and that he's going to continue being himself."

Junpei -

"for other fans of this series, I know the more obvious representation here may be Luou, Junpei is So Good. his special interest is ballet and he has so many hangups involving how his family sees him and how other boys his age interpret him to the point that his idea of masculinity is extremely narrow and he enforces social rules on himself to mask and keep people from realizing that he loves something that Isn't Manly. he misinterprets social cues and takes things literally, like assuming that when Miyako asked him to dance with her she meant Right This Minute rather than as a pair in the studio. for some reason the point where he cuts his hair super short to prove his devotion to ballet is also sticking with me, I think maybe it's the combination of the way it's normal for boys/men in Japan to do that, yet Junpei didn't realize that kind of attitude/action didn't suit ballet at all? he wasn't aware that the context was completely different. Junpei also doesn't act or pretend very well, he's gotta put his whole entire ass into his roles, which he then proceeds to get TOO into and cause a lot of trouble, without giving too much away! he's really relatable to me as someone who's socially anxious but very skilled at masking, and seeing him become more comfortable with himself and start to show how he really feels is so inspiring to me."

Kazuma -

"He may be (wildly) misguided but his intentions are good kinda! He’s just the Guy of all time idk how to explain it."

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ye-olde-sodor · 2 years ago

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Dream Canon Seasons and Episodes Pt 1 (Very long post)

So remember how I said the Dream Canon au was meant to be my take on a Thomas series? Well, here are the episodes! Seasons 1-5, with 50 episodes! I didn't expect this to be this long so I'm going to have to split this into two parts lol. This au is a mix of the RWS canon and the TV series canon, so keep that in mind. I'm also not too familiar with RWs canon, so if I get something wrong please let me know!

Season 1, 1981 (TL;DR Thomas goes to a Railway show)

Museum Piece: Thomas is invited to represent the NWR at York for the National Railway Muesum's Railway show. Seeing as how the railway is in a financial bind thanks to the long-delayed Beeching acts and other issues, He is sent there right away. In his rush to get there, he crashes into a crossing gate and has to get to the show another way.

Not the Ticket: A lorry is sent to take Thomas to York. While Thomas tries to tell him where to go, the arrogant Lorry insists that he knows the way. After hours of traveling, they stop at the wrong station and the driver runs of to call for directions, completely ignoring Thomas and his crew. After receiving a parking ticket, the driver finally gets Thomas to York.

Country Folk: Thomas's crew, Keith and Charlie, stay at a nearby hotel for the event. While there, they run into the crews of other famous engines, and they all become quick friends. They chat about the Flying Scotsman's tour to America, and how they're worried that he may never return. Keith recalls that Gordon is worried sick, and fears for his brother's safety. Mallard's crew, however, are confident in Scotsman's return.

Trouble on the Line: As Thomas is being repaired, he meets Green Arrow. The two become friends, and when the repairs are finished, they set out to start their first day together. All is well until a bag is thrown onto the tracks. Thomas breaks rapidly, and the sudden steam frightens a child. His furious mother complains to the manager, but Thomas is even more upset when his breaks are damaged. He is sent back for a quick repair.

Mallard and Thomas: While chatting with the Duchess of Hamilton before his Railtour with Green Arrow, Mallard arrives and gets into an argument with the two of them. Thomas disagrees with the engine hierarchy, while Mallard has a reverence for it. See "Know your Place" post here.

Thomas and the Railtour: A heavy rainstorm delays the Railtour. Once it clears, Thomas and Green Arrow double head the train. On the return run, Thomas warns Green Arrow of a section of corroded line up ahead, preventing a serious accident. Buses arrive to take the passengers home, and the two friends return to the sheds. Later, Thomas receives a special plaque from the National Railway Museum, making him an honorary member for his quick thinking.

Things that go Bump: Thomas meets two diesels named Paxton and Sidney, two older brothers to Diesel. Being big fans of the Railway Series, they ask him if he can show them some tips on shunting. He happily agrees, but while doing so accidently shoves the trucks too hard. They derail, and crash into Mallard, damaging his front. Thinking quickly, Paxton and Sidney make up a story about the trucks being from a runaway train. It works, and Thomas makes two more friends.

Ghost Stories: When a power outage takes out the shed lights, Thomas, Paton, Sidney, and Green Arrow all share their favorite ghost stories. Thomas told a tale of an engine who blew himself up in a failed attempt at revenge. Paxton told a tale about a haunted storage shed that housed horrors beyond comprehension. Sidney told a tale of a half steam, half diesel engine that went mad from its sheer power. The winner was obviously Green Arrow, who recalled a story of an old steelworks that traps engines to keep it running forever.

Rocky Rails: Green Arrow is called to help Thomas after an accident. Thomas only has minor damages, but only because he was a quick thinker. If he wasn't, he and his crew would've likely had much more severe, possibly lethal injuries. An officer states that the trucks are to blame for pushing Thomas, but they're not sentient. This raises suspicions for both engines, but they can't prove anything strange. They do, however, share the same feelings with Paxton and Sidney, who also suspect that something is wrong.

The Road Home: Thomas gets ready to leave back to Sodor. He says goodbye to all of his new friends, and heads for Tidmouth. Before he does though, he runs into Mallard again. He informs Thomas that he's been thinking of acquiring the island from Sir Topham Hatt and wants to save it from its financial burden…and from itself. Mallard explains again that Sodor is a lawless land, and that only he can save it from ruin. Thomas gets offended by this, and rushes back home to get away from him. After days of traveling, he finally arrives home, and is greeted by a massive "Welcome Home" party.

Season 2, 1982 (TL;DR Mallard launches his Master Plan)

Shake that Feeling: While Thomas' attendance at the show did help with publicity, the railway still suffers from the Beeching acts. Sir Stephen Topham Hatt the Third begins to question if he's a failure to his ancestors. Edward insists that he isn't and sets off to prove it with a survey. This backfires however, as many of the island's residents are displeased with how Stephen runs the railway and how the buses are much better. Edward decides not to show him this.

Family Ties: Gordon finally gets word about Scott...but is horrified to discover that the Americans sent one of Scott's trailing wheels to Doncaster. He screams in rage and agony over the loss of his last living brother, and the nation mourns the loss with him. All of Britain holds a memorial service and a National Day of Mourning. Mallard, after attending the funeral, leaves to get Scott's will in order. This angers Gordon beyond comprehension, and storms off back to the island.

The Good Old Days: A flashback episode that highlights Gordon's best moments with Scott. From when they were first built to the Great Railway Show of 1970, where Gordon beat Scott and reached 102 MPH. In 1979, Scott announced his tour to America, and set sail that same year. We cut back to Scott's funeral, and the outraged Gordon thundering down the line. As he goes into his shed, he looks around at the memorabilia scattered around it, and his eyes land on a family photo of him, Scott, and two of his older siblings. He breaks down even more as a storm surges on.

Gordon's Goods: Gordon refuses to pull the express and will only pull goods trains and shunting jobs. He can't go near the Mainland, not after the disrespect from Mallard. That, and because it reminds him so much of Scott. Reluctantly, Topham agrees to it, and has Diesel 10 pull the express in the meantime. He takes his first goods train without any major incidents but makes many mistakes. Sir Topham Hatt orders Edward to help refresh his memory.

Confusion and Delay: Word of Gordon's replacement spread rapidly through the island. Edward does his best to console his friend and helps him refresh himself with shunting and pulling goods. He helps Gordon through his loss by relating it to the loss of Boco, who disappeared and was presumed dead. Meanwhile, Mallard meets with Diesel 10 on the Mainland. While Mallard didn't plan for Gordon to be replaced, he uses this to his advantage. He tells 10 that he is responsible for him getting the express. This is just the beginning for him, a mere taste of what he has planned. He can give 10 whatever he wants so long as he goes along with his plans. 10 agrees to this despite his better judgement, and so Mallard takes 10 to his private shed to fill him in.

Confidence and Departures: That night, D/10 and two of Mallard's henchmen, Baz and Bernie Swindel, work to look for incriminating documents from Hatt's office. He was told by Mallard that there were rumors that most of the Sodor engines were illegally obtained and wants to see if it's true. When the men can't find the documents, they fear that they're at the Hatt's house. Just when they're about to leave, one of them catches glimpse of a hidden compartment under Hatt's desk. Opening it reveals multiple hidden documents, proving the myth. They leave the papers and quickly flee and head back to Mallard.

Ring around the Rosie: Rosie is working at Vickerstown to cover Diesel, who's engine recently failed. As she's working, she overhears D/10 talking to Mallard. The two are discussing what they found, and Mallard is ecstatic. Now, when Mallard gets the police to search the office, they can find that evidence and can use it against Hatt. Rosie doesn't understand what they're talking about, but she knows that Topham is in trouble, so she tries to flee to warn him. She's spotted by Mallard, and he yells at the other diesels in the yard to stop her. They do so and trap her in a shed. Mallard orders them to not let her go and continues with his plan.

Pockets full of Posies: The Police receive word from an anonymous tip that Topham Hatt has been handing out forged documents and committing tax fraud, so they get a warrant to investigate the claim. While they don't find the tax fraud, they do find the hidden compartment with the secret documents. They arrest him and bring him before a court. The court finds him and the Hatt Administration guilty of their business practices and the theft of several engines. As part of a plea deal, Hatt escapes jail time, but he's given a large fine and is ordered to either return the stolen engines or pay for compensation.

Ashes, Ashes: Topham is oust as controller due to the controversy, and has to pay the fine on his own, placing him on the verge of bankruptcy. He refuses to let the engines he saved be scrap, so he pays the compensations he owns. The island is enraged by this, the engines moreso then the humans. Before BR can pick their own controller, Mallard arrives to make a suggestion. He wishes to purchase the island and wants to modernize it in accordance with BR's standards. BR allows the purchase, as they wish to see Sodor modernized as well. After this, he orders for Rosie to be released, and cruelly tells her that he's already won.

We all Fall Down: The news of Mallard's purchase immediately horrifies the engines, especially Thomas. Arguments over the issue start, but Thomas remains silent. Before anyone can do anything else, Mallard arrives with the Vickarstown Diesels. He announces the new controller and the "Renovation" project that will see many improvements to the island. The malicious diesels smirk and smile at this while the more friendly ones look nervous, causing the steam engines to feel uneasy. Gordon, even more enraged, demands to know what Mallard is planning. He responds by saying he's going to help the island and wants to fix it and leaves it at that. He tells everyone to get some rest for tomorrow, as it will be a very busy few years.

Season 3 1983 (TL;DR Mallard the Master Manipulator)

First Impressions: The new controller, a man named John Skiff, arrives to give the engines their jobs. James is given a passenger job, while Henry is to pull goods trains as usual. Thomas is to go to Tidmouth to serve as a Pilot engine. He argues about his branch line jobs, to which John states that it is now Diesel's branch line. The sheds are stunned at this, and Thomas tries to argue further, but John shuts him up and threatens to take him to Mallard if he continues to argue. When the sheds fall quiet again, he lists off the rest of the jobs. Percy is to go to Diesel's branch line, Edward is to remain in the sheds for "reasons", James is to go to Tidmouth to test run a passenger train, and Gordon is to be taken to the works to be cleaned and repainted. The engines go to do their jobs, with all of them having mixed feelings about it all.

Percy and Diesel: When Percy gets to Farquar, he sees Diesel and Toby discussing the sudden changes. Percy joins in and tells them that Thomas is equally upset about it as they are, and Diesel agrees with him. He never wanted Thomas' line or his jobs; he was happy with what he had. Now he's worried Thomas would hate him for this. Percy and Toby don't want to admit it, but he's right. Thomas has been known for being possessive of his jobs due to the competition he faced on his past railway. His jealousy and need for job stability was practically built into him! They comfort Diesel as best as they can, and the three friends head out to do their jobs.

The Red Rocket: While James is happy to be back on passenger lines, he hates that it came to the expense of everyone else. After his run, he runs into Mallard, and decides to talk to him. He states that he's honored that such a glorious engine like him is in charge, but he feels as though his friends are being overlooked. Mallard responds by saying that their time will come, but for now, James is the star of the show. He's the most important right now, as he is the brand-new tourist attraction, The Red Rocket. By playing into James' low self-esteem, Mallard gets him to go along with his plans and to "enjoy himself" with the special. Even when James agrees to it, he can't help but feel dirty about it.

Henry and the Bear: Henry is struggling to keep up with all of his extra jobs, so Bear offers to help him. Mallard sees this and decides to let Bear help Henry. The two work in near perfect sync and are able to get the trains on time and were ahead of Mallard's schedule. Henry is grateful for the help, and the two form a partnership. Mallard takes Henry aside and tells him that he can't rely on others for his jobs forever. He can accept help for now, but he expects him to improve and to get better at his job. After all, Henry is the strongest here, isn't he? Or is he still that weak and sickly engine? Maybe Bear should take his place instead. Henry, not wanting to be compared to his old self, strives to do better, to be better, then any diesel on this island!

Edward's Dog Days: Edward is nervous that he's finally being scrapped, replaced, or worse...placed in a static display at a museum. He nearly jumps off the tracks at the thought of it. John finds Edward literally shaking in place when he's arrived to tell him that he's getting overhauled. Once he explains this to Edward, he finally settles down and starts to think reasonably. He has been overdue for an overhaul for some time now. Little does he know that Mallard is planning to sell Edward to a museum owner on the Mainland. After all, Edward is over 100 years old, and has no place on this new modern railway unless he's in a display case! (Disclaimer, Mallard is completely unaware that Percy is older than Edward lmao. He lets the others stay since he needs steam engines for his heritage lines and tourist trains later on). Edward is sent away to Crewe to get his overhaul the next day.

Toby's Troubles: Toby is worried about what might happen to Henrietta and the other coaches. Diesel senses that something is off with Toby, so he asks him what's bothering him. When he does, him and Diesel devise a plan to save them. In the event that Mallard does plan to replace them, Toby and Diesel will bring the coaches to Toby's old line to keep them safe. If that place fails, then they'll take them to a hidden shed on the Mainland. While this helps calms Toby, he still fears for his safety and the safety of his friends. He decides to spend as much time as he can with Henrietta and his friends as much as he can, nearly forfeiting his work. Mallard takes notice of this and plans to have Toby and his coach scrapped in secret.

Percy's New Friends: Percy finds himself working with inexperienced Mainland diesels as more and more stem engines are being displaced from their normal jobs. He gets nervous about this and demands to know what exactly Mallard is planning. Mallard states that he wants to protect the older steam engines from harm by placing them on new Heritage lines. Percy asks if he means new Heritage lines on the island, or on a different railway. Mallard states that it all depends on how well they perform. But this shouldn't be a problem for the Percy. The one-of-a-kind Percy. The splendid little Percy who can take charge when called to action. Surely he can prove himself, can't he? Percy, now terrified for his safety, strives to prove himself to Mallard, and starts to help the Mainland diesels and befriend as many as he can.

Gordon's Day Off: Gordon is at the works getting a visual overhaul. He's showered in water, covered in facial lotions and makeup, had his paint completely redone. He hates every minute of it. Just then, Mallard arrives to see Gordon. He's ecstatic to see Gordon in his new "Shooting Star" Livery and can't wait for the smoke deflectors to arrive. Gordon is confused by what he means, and Mallard explains that he ordered Gordon some custom smoke deflectors for him to match his livery, and they should be here soon. Before Gordon can object to it, he's cut off by Mallard, who states that he's going to have Gordon take a new excusive, very expensive, VIP tourist train that has state of the art luxuries and newly renovated coaches. The train will be fit for the queen herself! Surely Gordon wouldn't want to upset her royal highness? Or even Scott's legacy? Again, before Gordon can call out his hypocrisy, he bids Gordon farewell as he has other matters to attend to. Gordon fumes as he leaves, before he is pampered by the workers again.

Thomas and Duck: Thomas is furious at the whole situation. He's also mad at the diesels for taking the majority of the jobs. He sulks about it as he sees Duck in the station. He's here to teach Thomas how to be a "proper" Station Pilot, as it's been years since he was one. Mallard is standing by and is watching the two of them closely. As Duck is teaching Thomas, he explains that he should be honored to be working for an engine like Mallard, as it's the right thing for an engine to do. Enraged that Duck would just blindly follow Mallard causes him to lose his temper with both Duck and Mallard. He berates the two engines, Mallard more so than Duck, and while doing so derails and causes a fire. Duck and his crew quickly take control of the situation and puts out the fire using the water from Thomas's boiler. Mallard is impressed with Duck's quick thinking, and reassigns Duck to be the station Pilot, and orders Thomas to be taken to the sheds. He'll have a word with him later.

Thomas and Mallard: Mallard arrives at Tidmoth sheds, where he finds a beaten up Thomas all alone. He explains that Thomas' protests and attitude have gone on for long enough. Not only has he disrespected his authority, but now he's caused a fire at Tidmouth by throwing a temper tantrum! Thomas stands his ground, saying that Mallard is nothing but a tyrant, but Mallard is unimpressed. He tells him that he will be sent to Mallard's Camp on the Mainland until he decides to be useful again. Thomas, seeing that he's already in trouble, throws caution to the wind and calls Mallard out on everything. The argument with Duchess, the purchase of the island, the modernization plans (that were weakly disguised as a restoration project), and for completely uprooting their lives and what the island stood for. He even lands a few hits on Mallard's buffers! Even more enraged, the two fight until Henry returns to the sheds. Mallard orders Henry to take Thomas to Crewe and to keep him there.

Season 4 1984 ( TL;DR oh no it's the Orwell year. You know what that means-)

Reunion: Thomas and Henry arrive at Crewe, where they bump into a wheelless Edward. The three of them catch up and explain what has happened and what Mallard has been doing. Edward tells Henry that he has to pass the word onto the others about what happened to Thomas. Henry agrees but says that he'll have to play it smart as Mallard will try to stop him. He leaves for Sodor, but not before he says goodbye to the father and son duo. Thomas promises that he'll be back when he can, and Edward assures him that he'll be back as soon as his wheels are reattached.

Tying Up Loose Ends: When Henry returns, he isn't performing as well as he should, mainly due to everything that has happened. Mallard sees this and he uses this as an excuse to get rid of him as he sees him as a threat to his plans. He knows that by sending Henry and Thomas to Crewe, they would've swapped information with Edward. Henry has become a liability to his plans. He orders for Henry to be sent away to "That" Steelworks on the Mainland on the grounds that he needs to hone his skills more. Henry tries to protest, but he's quickly towed away by a loyal Spamcan.

Home Away from Home: As Henry is being towed to The Steelworks, he passes by Mallard's camp and decides to check in on Thomas. Spamcan has to take a break anyways, so they make a stop there. When the two meet, Thomas is ecstatic to see him again, but gets worried when Henry says where he's going. He tells Henry that no one escapes from there. Henry promises to get out of there and to come back for him and Edward. After staying overnight, Spamcan and Herny set out, but not before Henry tells Thomas to stay strong. Thomas affirms this, saying that Mallard can't scare him into listening, and he tells Henry the same.

The Hottest Place in Town: Henry arrives at the Steelworks, and Spamcan drops him off. He welcomes Henry to "his new home" and speeds off. As Henry enters, he sees hundreds of engines, old and new, working in the yard and in the building. He meets the owners, Frankie and Hurricane, and they explain that they save and preserve engines and put them to work. They become part of the family, so to speak. They like to challenge the engines to better themselves (something that Henry loves to do) while keeping them safe. Henry is excited by this, but remembers Thomas' warning, so he stays cautious. They show him around the place and introduce him to some of his new coworkers, such as Lexi, Theo, Merlin, and Beresford the onsite crane. They show him to his shed and say that he'll start work in the morning.

Old Ties: As Henry begins working at the Steelworks, he can't help but feel unnerved by how overly happy and friendly everyone is. So far he likes the challenge but feels that they're a bit harsh with the limited breaks. He quickly runs into even more friendly faces…and some familiar ones. 87546, or Vic as he's now called, has completely changed from when he was last seen. Henry also runs into 98462, a rude engine who was sold years ago. Both engines had become overly friendly, optimistic, and passive in a creepy turn of events. Henry finds the transformations in the engines odd and disturbing and begins to wonder if the same could happing to him.

Familiar Faces: Henry's fears of the Steelworks become valid when he re-discovers Boco, an engine who was presumed dead after a long absence. He too is overly optimistic like the others, and can't imagine leaving the Steelworks despite his worn out condition. Henry confronts Frankie about this, and she conforms that this tends to happen with engines that stay here for so long. Henry informs her that Boco was stolen from the NWR, and that they must return him. She says that they knew that, as they were the ones that stole him. They lock Henry into the Steelworks and announce to everyone that they have a new "Steel Brother" in the family, and everyone cheers. Henry realizes that he needs to form a plan to get him and Boco out of here.

Worn Out Places: Henry tries to convince Boco that they need to escape to Sodor, but he hasn't had much luck. Boco is treated as an equal here. Unlike on Sodor, all of the steam engines here treat him well, not just a handful of them. Henry argues that he has friends over on Sodor that miss him, especially Edward and the Bee twins. It's the mention of Edward that gets Boco to help Henry. They plan to use a flatbed as a battering ram to open the gates and to run to Sodor. When night falls, they see that the gates have more security than usual, and so they have to plan their escape another night.

Runaways: After weeks of being trapped, Henry finally sees his chance at getting out. He grabs a flatbed, has Boco coupled up behind him, and they prepare for the escape. They ram the gates and quickly head off as an alarm goes off. Boco spies three of the Steelworkers tailing them, so Henry takes a risk and turns sharply. The plan works, and one of the diesels derails and traps the other two. Henry and Boco hide out in a siding until morning, and they head to Sodor. Boco insists that they tell someone about the Steelworks, and while Henry agrees, he explains that they have to help the island before they can help anyone else. The episode ends with Frankie and Hurricane contacting UK authorities to report two dangerous engines on the run, and that they must be returned to their steelworks for "everyone's safety". They offer a cash prize to anyone who can catch them and return them.

Home Stretch: When Henry and Boco near Sodor, the police recognize them as the criminals that Frankie and Hurricane described and go to arrest them. Boco tries to explain the situation, but Henry gets the two of them away from the station. As he's running away, two mainland diesels try to trap them, but they fail spectacularly. The pair go back to the station at night, and quickly rush over the bridge to Sodor. Instead of going to the sheds, they hide in Henry's forest until things can calm down.

A Mile in my Shoes: Word of Henry and Boco being wanted engines spreads through the Uk and Sodor. Gordon is completely flabbergasted that Boco is still alive, as well as everyone else. He's also more concerned with Henry and what they could have possibly done to gain a warrant. Gordon, being the smart engine he is, figures out that they must've gone against Mallard and BR somehow. He goes to Henry's forest to be alone with his thoughts, only to bump into Henry and Boco. They explain what happened and Gordon is outraged by what Mallard and the Steelworks had done. He vows to keep them a secret, and vows to get the Island back from Mallard. Before they can object to the plan, Gordon runs off, leaving them behind. Without much choice, they stay in place.

Season 5 1985 (TL;DR Gordon starts a riot)

The Friend of My Enemy: Gordon sets out to get as much info on how Mallard is running the island as possible. He asks the workmen, who refer to the diesels who work for him. He confronts them about Mallard and, to his dismay, finds Diesel 10 defending him. Topham's bias towards the diesels was obvious, so when Mallard promised them proper care and respect, they supported him. He's kept his promise, and so they'll keep their end of the deal. Gordon, feeling betrayed by his friend, asks if he can at least tell him how Mallard runs the island. 10 refuses to do so, in fear of Gordon sabotaging Mallard's plans. Feeling even more betrayed, Gordon argues that Mallard's methods are causing harm to his friends. 10 takes this the wrong way and gets aggressive with him, damaging his buffers. Gordon storms off, leaving both former friends hurt in more ways than one.

James and Gordon: After Gordon's buffers are repaired, he runs into James in his new "Red Rocket" livery similar to the Duchess of Hamilton's. Gordon argues that they shouldn't be bullied by Mallard and should be helping Topham get his railway back. James argues that they've been doing great since Mallard took charge, and even if they could, they don't know how to help Hatt. Stumpt, Gordon and James decide that the only way to beat Mallard is to play his game and learn as much as they can about his plans. Then, when the home is right, form a team that's willing to stand up against him...and Gordon knows exactly who to recruit.

The Enemy of my Friend: In secret, Gordon recruits Bear and Diesel into his plan, While James recruits Toby and Emily. When James tries to recruit Percy, he refuses, saying that going against Mallard is ridiculous, and that they should absolutely not, under any circumstances, sneak around John Skiff's office at 3 am next to the abandoned shed at Tidmouth. James thanks Percy for the info and passes it to Gordon. While he's shocked that he would know such a thing, the team takes the info and plans to use it in the future.

Edward the Museum Piece Pt 1: Edward is finally finished and is told that he'll be sent to Darlington Railway Centre and Museum. Edward panics and insists that there's been a mistake, but two diesels come to take him away. For the entire trip, Edward sobs and is heartbroken that he'll never see his family again. His crying finally causes one of the drivers to snap, and as they stop at a station, he wraps a large cloth over his face for the rest of the journey. They arrive to the museum in the morning, and they remove the cloth. As Edward is shunted into the museum, he looks at the various exhibits that house old parts of engines, a model railway of what he could only assume was Stockton & Darlington Railway, and a fake station. Soon he's rolled onto a large shed in the middle of the room with 5 other engines.

Edward the Museum Piece Pt2: The engines welcome Edward to their fleet and introduce themselves. There's Derwent the clever 0-6-0, Dean the impressionable 2-4-0, Bolt the bold 0-8-0, Gasglow the timid BR class 37, and Finally, there's No. 1, who is a replica that convinced everyone (and himself) that he's the original. They welcome Edward to their Fleet and encourage him to "relax and get rid of all his sorrows". Afterall, he doesn't have to do anything here! Just smile and answer questions from the tourists! It's the perfect Paradice! No work, no workplace drama, and they're properly maintained and cleaned! Sure, they've been out of service for so long that they've forgotten their pasts, but they like it here more than their old place anyways! Edward screams internally.

Percy and The Diesels: Percy is quickly rising the ranks in the Diesel hierarchy, mainly due to his kind nature towards them. This catches D/10's interest, and he challenges Percy for leadership of the Vickarstown Fleet. Percy won the Popular vote and the shunting contest, but 10 won the strength and speed contests. In order to break the tie, a fight is to be held. Diesel tries to get Percy to forfeit, but he insists that he's got this. True to his word, Percy uses his size and clever thinking to his advantage and wins by tricking 10 into derailing, ending the fight. 10 declares him the winner and congratulates him, much to everyone's surprise. Later, Percy takes his place as the new leader, and starts his own master plan and agenda.

The Indignity: Gordon and D/10 run into each other again. With the two of them more levelheaded this time, Gordon again tries to convince him that Mallard is only doing more harm then good. Mallard is only using the Diesels as a tool, and once he has what he wants, he'll abandon them. He also tells 10 that he's regressing back into his past self. 10 ignores this and explains that, while he does agree with him to some degree, Mallard treats the diesels with respect and helps them right away. Gordon agrees that Hatt was biased, but he would've fixed it had he been told about it. The two fail to rekindle the friendship, and Gordon sets off to gather his team to start his strike. 10, meanwhile, gathers supplies for Percy's plan.

Viva La Retaliation Pt 1: Gordon confronts Mallard about his actions by beginning a strike. Himself, James, Toby, Bear, Diesel, and Emily declare a strike at Tidmouth, and demand an audience with Mallard. He arrives, and each of the engines list their demands. Mallard promptly ignores this and orders for everyone to return to their work or they'll be sent away. The engines stand their ground, but after John calls in for D/10 and others to send them to the scrap yard, the strike falls apart. Gordon tells his friends to stand down for their own sake.

Viva La Retaliation Pt 2: After the failure of Gordon's strike, Mallard determines that his judgement is too clouded by grief to make the best decisions for himself and others. He orders for the others to return to their work and to wait for their punishments. He then orders for 10 to deliver Gordon to his camp on the Mainland immediately. Gordon tries to resist being taken away, but this only proves Mallard's point to the public. 10 eventually couples up to him and drags him to the Mainland.

Double Stab: While on their way to Mallard's camp, 10 finally realizes that Gordon was right. Not just about Mallard but about himself. He tells Gordon everything he knows about Mallard's plan (Henry's journey, Edward's placement in the museum, and Thomas in Mallard's camp), and explains that Percy is planning a full-scale revolution with the help of the diesels. He explains that Percy promised to give the diesels the same benefits from Mallard but better, and that he'll keep Hatt in line if they help him get back in office. Gordon has a hard time believing it, but he'll take what he can get. They arrive at the camp at midnight and (awkwardly) wish each other good luck.

#ttte dc au #ttte #ttte au #good grief this is long #ttte thomas #ttte edward #ttte henry #ttte gordon #ttte james #ttte percy #ttte toby #ttte duck #ttte diesel #ttte diesel 10 #ttte bear #ttte mallard #ttte emily #John skiff is sailor John btw #idk if Baz and Bernie have last names so I just came up with my own lol

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tgarnsl · 3 years ago

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🌹🌺🌹

From a post-canon Flight of the Heron fic that needs reworking:

—

“Are you attempting to put Ardroy to the torch, or do the lights in the windows serve some other purpose?” asked Keith Windham, water still streaming from his cloak and hat and pooling on the floor. “Hell and damnation, but it is a miserable night out there!”

Ewen rose from his seat and crossed the room to take Keith’s hands in his. Frozen they were, as cold as ice, and Ewen chafed them lightly between his own warm hands. A soft, fond smile appeared on Keith’s face as he did so.

“I thought to guide you home,” said Ewen, and the smile deepened.

“I thank you for it,” Keith said. “Though I cannot help but wonder if Miss Cameron had a hand in this — I half expected to stumble into you on the track down from the mountain.”

Ewen frowned, displeased as ever to find himself known so well by another. “And I suppose you did not consider spending the night in Coire Daraich?” he asked.

“Not with you awaiting me here,” said Keith softly, catching Ewen’s hands in his. “To tell truth, I had already left Coire Daraich when the storm came over me. I might have made it back in time had Dàna not thrown a shoe — I was forced to dismount and lead her for the rest of the way, with only my lantern for light. Why—” he teased, “Were you troubled by my absence?”

Ewen grasped Keith by the shoulders and kissed him, uncaring of Keith’s cold lips and nose. He could not tell Keith of the secret fear that had gripped him: the fear that somewhere up on the high ridge Keith lay injured and alone, with no one to come to his aid. But it was not Meall na h-Eilde that blotted out his vision for a moment — it was white sands, stretching away as far as the eye could see.

“Ardroy,” said Keith. “Ewen!” He grasped Ewen by the forearm. “Steady on, man.”

Ewen gave a shaky laugh. “Forgive me, Windham,” he said, shaking his head. “I fear the past weighs upon me most heavily tonight.”

Keith caught Ewen’s face between his cold hands. “There is nothing to forgive, mo leannan,” he said gently. “The past has left scars on us all.” Some scars more material than others, thought Ewen, but he dared not give it voice; Keith did not need to be troubled by such things too.

#fic meme #poor Ewen is having a time of it #the flight of the heron

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ladyloveandjustice · 5 years ago

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Belated Spring 2020 Anime Overview: My Next Life as Villainess

For the Spring 2020 anime season, I mostly watched continuations of shows I was already into. The one new show I did pick up was My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! follows Katerina Claes, a spoiled young noble girl deviously scheming to win the heart of a prince- oh wait, never mind, she hit her head and remembered her past life! Turns out she’s an eighteen year old Japanese otaku chick who died and got reincarnated as the villainess in her favorite otome game.

If you don’t feel like reading the wiki article, an otome game is basically a female- targeted dating sim where you play as a blank slate main character and date a bunch of pretty boys (and sometimes girls, but usually only if you go outside the mainstream ones), unlocking their backstories and collecting all the romantic endings.

Having played this game, Katarina is well aware that the Villainess character- who constantly tries to interfere with the game’s heroine and whichever boy she’s pursuing- is either exiled or killed in all of the games endings. And now she IS that villainess, living in the world of the game and all its characters! Does that mean she’s doomed to a horrible fate? What’s a girl to do?

Well, if you’re Katarina, what you do is be supportive and kind to the people around you and in doing so accidentally get every single character in the game to fall in love with you. And yes, this includes all the boys the heroine is supposed to date, the other female romantic rivals the heroine is faced with and the game’s heroine herself.

That’s right, we finally got us some bisexual romantic comedy hijinx last anime season, my friends! My Next Life as a Villainess was the delightful little show I really escaped into during these anxious pandemic times . All these girls casually falling in love with Katarina without it being treated as ‘weird’ was what particularly drew me to this show and warmed my gay little heart to see. It was honestly the perfect fluffy, low stress watch during these high stress times.

Anime has long been oversaturated with ‘harem’ stories- where a usually unwitting protagonist somehow gets a bevy of beauties in love with them- but it’s still unfortunately really unusual to see bisexual harems, especially ones with a girl at the center, so right away there’s a big draw to this story that helps it stick out from the rest. (And worry not, the story is largely focused on Katarina having fun with these pals-who-are-not-so-secretly-in-love-with-her, rather than having a ton the dubious shenanigans you see in more sexually charged tales.)

Harem protoganists also famously tend to have the personality of potatoes, being so painfully bland it’s unclear why so many people would fall in love with them in the first place. But that definitely not the case for Katarina. She’s brash, ridiculous, kind and INCREDIBLY dense, and that for a pretty dynamic combination in this setting! She does genuinely come off as a fun person to be around. Unlike a lot of modern isekai shows, she doesn’t stumble into having incredible magic powers or skills, so her compassion is genuinely her greatest strength and what saves the day and wins hearts time and time again.

Katarina’s five brain cells doing their weekly check-in

(The moment she won my heart was when she responded to a tragic Frozen style situation with her friend locking himself away from people because he believed his magic was dangerous by taking an axe to his door. My kinda girl!)

The premise also allows for some plausible built-in reasons for the characters to take such special notice of Katarina- having been raised in a different world, she isn’t beholden to all the social rules, class divisions and noble family drama all the other kids in this very specific midevial-esque fantasy world are so embroiled in. This combined with her naturally earnest, accepting and straightfoward nature means she’s able to cross boundaries and reach out to them in a way they aren’t accustomed to. She was significant in each character’s life because she genuinely was the first to show them acceptance and affection without pretense, if only because she isn’t even aware there was supposed to be a pretense.

Katarina’s focus on trying not to die and her fear she’s going to meet the same fate as the villainess in the game also at least gives some kind of a basis to her comical obliviousness to everyone being in love with her. She assumes that everyone has to be into Maria (the heroine) and terrified of her because that’s how the game GOES okay, that’s CANON! Of course, this logic stretches thin as time goes on and it would be abundantly clear to most people that things have diverged greatly from the game’s storyline, but the show makes it clear that Katarina’s determined, one track mind is as much a gift as a curse.

Her bullheadedness when it comes to picking up how everyone REALLY feels about her is an intentional gag on the show’s part and even her love interests are well aware of what a colossal dumbass she is and not afraid to point it out!

My Next Life as a Villainess isn’t without its flaws, and the personalities/backstories of some of the ‘love interests’ Katarina gathers may be a stumbling block on some- mostly the male ones. Geordo, “the black hearted prince” has a bit of the “ possessive shoujo bad boy” archetype about him, and though he’s far from the worst that genre of love interest has to offer (there’s not much bad he can get up to due to Katarina’s obliviousness, the lighthearted nature of the show, and his rivals constantly getting in his way), the way he refuses to break Katarina and his engagement off despite her repeatedly asking him to, as well as some of his lines here and there, are definitely NOT cute.

Keith is Katarina’s adopted brother, but clearly has a thing for her too. On one hand, they only first met when they were nine and he fell for her pretty immediately. On the other hand, he still refers to her as “sister” constantly which is kinda eesh.

The other two guys are all right- Nicol’s big thing is he’s inexpressive and doesn’t talk much which, considering show doesn’t spend much time inside his head, doesn’t make him a very interesting character in the ensemble (maybe he comes across better in the novels) but there’s nothing wrong with him. Alan is undoubtedly the Best Boy in my book. He’s another common trope- rambunctious and competitive with Katarina but clearly soft for her- but he’s done well and they have a lot of cute moments together.

I find the girl love interests to be a much more interesting group overall, though this may be my obvious bias talking. Sophia has the strongest connection to Katarina, their backstories being intertwined in a surprising and touching way (I’m told in the novels her affection for Katarina was treated as more platonic, but the anime definitely plays it up as having romantic elements). Maria’s original role as the game’s heroine puts her in the most interesting position (and would make her the most narratively satisfying choice of love interest, if the show was actually interested in choosing). And while Mary is comically tenacious in her pursuit of Katarina, she’s doesn’t ever act ‘sinister’ or overstep boundaries in the way Geordo does, her “scheming” only really amounting to straightforwardly asking if Katarina wants to ditch her fiance and run away with her.

As I mentioned, one thing that really contributes to My Next Life as a Villainess being a relaxing watch is that the queer characters are treated with casual acceptance. Mary in particular isn’t subtle about her crush on Katarina, but nobody bats an eye at her and she’s completely open and comfortable with herself too. The observing maid notes that the girls are in love with Katarina with the same bland affect as when she notes she notes the guys are. And while the social practices of the nobles are pretty heteronormative- girls are always engaged in arranged marriages to guys, the guys are expected to dance with the girls (something Mary complains about!)- there’s apparently a booming queer romance novel industry that inspires our young wlw.

Katarina, having grown up in a different world, seems to be the one most prone to heteronormativity of her group. She never really considers that a girl would ever fall in love with her, but is also never hostile to the idea. It’s telling that when Mary very clearly indicates her desired romantic partner would be a girl, Katarina’s the only one that gets tripped up and has to walk back her assumption that Mary would be talking about a guy.

Mary LAYING DOWN THE LAW

Also, Katarina has SEVERAL “she’s so cute! My heart is beating faster!” moments with the other girls, on par in frequency with her moments with the guys. This strongly hints she’s an oblivious bisexual disaster.

So, My Next Life as Villainess is a fun, frothy watch and the rare positive example of silly wish-fufillment that’s inclusive to a wlw audience. But is the actual plot good, or remotely complex? The answer to that is no, the plot is fairly predictable and one definitely shouldn’t got into this story expecting a deep examination of the nature of fate or anything like that.There’s no real explanation of big reason as to why why Katarina was reborn into this game world and so on.

The antagonist that does eventually emerge plays off otome game tropes a bit, but ultimately isn’t that interesting or built up all that well. . The attempts at drama the show makes towards the end fall a little flat, especially since it tends to rely on very-late-in-the-game-exposition-dumps (dark magic isn’t even MENTIONED as existing in this world until like, the second to last episode where it becomes relevant and we get a vague infodump explaining its mechanics). The conflict honestly almost feels shoehorned in and the climax is pretty standard and doesn’t really utilize the big cast of characters all that well

But in the end, that’s okay! The show makes it abundantly clear from the beginning it’s not here to be Deep, but to be some silly fun. And it really fulfills that purpose well, from it’s catchy, peppy theme tune to its consistently warm tone. It MAY get repetitive at times for some, and I do have some quibbles- like how I found the childhood segments to be some of the shows best material and wish we could have stayed in that section for a bit instead of rushing through it, how I wish Katarina had kept her cute little scar, etc- but overall, it was definitely the soothing balm I needed during a very rough time and I absolutely recommend it if you’re looking for a chill, feel-good watch.

And hey, a second season’s supposed to be on the way too, so there’s something to potentially look forward to!

#my next life as a villainess #my next life as a villianess all routes lead to doom #destruction flag otome #otome gemu no hametsu furagu shika nai akuyaku reijo ni tensei shiteshimatta #anime overview #katarina claes #catarina claes #my reviews #spring 2020 anime

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f-117-nighthawk · 4 years ago

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Playlist Update Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

Part 2! Here lies Endless War, Dystopian Fiction, and Filaments. EW hasn’t changed much, DF has a bit and it's all INFECTED's fault, and Filaments has more than three songs finally. My explanations for these aren't quite as fleshed out (partially bc there's less in my head to flesh out with and partially because these aren't nearly as set in playdough as the main playlist. more like set in syrup)

Part One

In chronological order:

Endless War

Dark Matter is here because it always is, twining through everything else.

(Don’t stop, don’t think, don’t look back/You’re a bolt of lightning in the sky now/Don’t stop, don’t think, don’t look back/I’ve pulled you in, nowhere to hide now)

I Am the One links into Eater of Worlds as sort of the aftermath, sort of during Apocalypse 1992. Our Fifth General has her realization about [REDACTED] far, far before Team Voltron does because she’s there in the thick of it during Through Apocalypse Skies.

(I am the one/I hold the dreams from fallen heroes)

(We are gods, we are monsters/We create to devour/Not for love but for power/What’s a life worth in the end?)

(From the caves beneath Dundee/Ancient hermit arrives/A messenger to the war in the stars/Korviliath is nigh!)

The Truth Beneath the Rose is from the perspective of our last (and first) Blade in the aftermath of Through Apocalypse Skies, as she realizes just what she helped create. Also… kinda connects to a song in the main playlist, but not very obviously.

(Blinded to see the cruelty of the beast/It is the darker side of me/The veil of my dreams deceived that I have seen/Forgive me for what I have been, forgive me my sins!)

Raise Your Banner is The Fifth General’s newfound resolve as she starts collecting allies against Zarkon’s empire.

(Wake up/I’m defying you, seeing right through you, once I believed in you/Wake up/Feel what’s coming deep within we all know)

Obey is a bit of a weird one. It’s in the same vein as You Keep What You Kill in the main playlist, but it’s more specifically about the creation of the first Druids and how Haggar uses them against the Fifth General and her team.

(Obey, we're gonna show you how to behave/Obey, it's nicer when you can't see the chains)

Silver Moonlight is cracks forming in The Fifth General’s new set of alliances and her desperate and occasionally rash attempts to get them to believe in her goal. Not just the main one to take down the empire, but the one that will allow them to do that.

(I’m impatient, but it’s colors that I need/Too many shades of grey, I cannot breathe/The dreams I have ain’t tainted, I need you to believe/The only way to make them real, oh)

Endless War is the title track, connected to Holy Ground and I’d Rather Burn as a specific event but also sort of encompassing the Fifth General’s motivations throughout the series. She’s “hunting a miracle” that is also those colors from Silver Moonlight, and then the end of Endless War kicks in with Holy Ground, and the Fifth General’s final stand in I’d Rather Burn.

('Cause you’re fighting an endless war/Hunting a miracle/And when you reach out for the stars/They just cut you down/…/Is it worth dying for?/Or are you blinded by, blinded by it all?)

(You got inside my head, I want you out/'Cause I’ve been betrayed on holy ground)

(Won’t let you take my soul away/I’d rather go to the stake/I’d rather burn)

Empty Eyes is [long spoiler beep]. (and yes! I found it on Spotify finally!)

(I don’t know where I’m going/In search for answers/I don’t know who I’m fighting/I stand with empty eyes/You’re like a ghost within me/Who’s draining my life/It’s like my soul is see-through/Right through my empty eyes)

Dystopian Fiction

Dark Matter is on here because title track, but also it does end up with effects. Especially by the end… and of course, the Thing that is Wrong With Earth.

(Don’t stop, don’t think/Move up, don’t blink now/On your knees pray for rain/Don’t breathe when you take your aim)

The Human Condition is the Éskhayklos manifesto. A warning of the end times. The condemnation of the parasites. The reveal of the only cure. The final extinction cycle. Also their new image song, as Cross the Line got moved.

(We have the cure for the disease/Locked down inside us/When all is dead, then we will see/We are the virus)

INFECTED is the Éskhayklos’s slow, well, infection of the Sol Federation, and their descent into full-blown terrorism. (And yes, I know the actual lyrics have ‘he’. Shhhhhh. It’s a STARSET song, it’s about a Shirogane, even if it’s sort of from Cascade’s POV)

(Here's a challenge for all mankind/The preacher man is warning of the end times/The weatherman agrees but she don't know/So she's got to go now)

Who Will Save You Now here is about Sam, and the aftermath of Here to Save You, in addition to its referenced role in the main playlist.

(Alone with this vision/Alone and blind/Go tell the world I’m still alive)

Codebreaker is Adam’s song! But here it’s also in conjunction with Cross the Line as the final Éskhayklos mission before...

(Codebreaker can’t you find/Can you read between the lines of code?/Tell me all that you know/How far down the hole does it all go)

(Cross the line, redefine, break away unbent, unafraid/Together we stand in the dark/Seeking the light and what is right, together we cross the line/Our journey will come to an end and then our human cause will be/Justified)

The Day the Earth Collapsed

(How much time has been elapsed/Since the day the earth collapsed?)

Dystopian Fiction is the title track for this part. With the events of The Day the Earth Collapsed, the Garrison and our heroes on Earth are at their lowest point. It really is a piece of dystopian fiction, between [spoiler] and [spoiler]. They’re fighting for something that, at that point, must seem like ‘superstition.’ And also: “Nobody can shoot me down, not just yet” is about Adam bc Fuck Canon. Even if he does, technically, get shot down.

(I’m a dead man/In the wasteland/I’m a soldier fighting for superstition/Under searchlights/In the long nights/We’ve been written like dystopian fiction)

World on Fire and The Reckoning are the two of their subset that make it over here because they’re the two that happen before the result of This is a Call can come to fruition, and are more focused on our Earth heroes anyway.

(Sent by forces beyond salvation/There can be not one sensation)

(We’re all alone, walking in twilight/The night has been long and so many have fallen/Feel no remorse, light will be breaking/Our freedom is worth it all)

Filaments

Filaments is still in flux but does have way more solid than it did. Like, you know, most of an ending. I just don’t really know how they get from A to B yet.

Dark Matter is here because, well. A) Title track, B) yes, it still has effects. It’s the overarching theme, after all. Filaments sort of has a subtitle itself, which is ‘The Undoing,’ after the other part of the lyric that the subtitle of the main playlist comes from. It’s about undoing a past mistake (that wasn’t obviously a mistake until much later) and reconciling the events of Your World Will Fail.

(I am the keeper/I am the secret/I am the answer/I am the end)

Filaments is the title track of this part. It’s… a little hard to explain without giving away the entire plot but it’s about the connections between different parts of the universe, and some fall-out of Cosmic Vertigo and Louder Than Words.

(These glowing filaments/Conducting this enchanting/Sarcophagus that’s holding us)

Starlight is, again, Adashi song, and this time the happy part

(Don’t leave me lost here forever/I need your starlight and pull me through/Bring me back to you)

Carry Me Home is its eponymous fic.

(Carry me home to the morning light/carry me home before you wave me goodbye/Oh, carry me home…)

And then we get to the new part. Know that stuff in Carry Me Home about “The record skip that only [Keith and Krolia] can remember”? Yeah, Prognosis is a huge step to figuring that out.

(How long is the body beholden?/How long 'til we run out of road?/Deep down in the black of the ocean/Fading from the glow)

The timey-wimey ball gets tossed around more in Blackstar. Partially due to [REDACTED] and a certain terrorist’s reemergence, but also due to Prognosis-related stuff

(They'll let you try/To reverse everything/Don't waste your time/Sing Hallelujah 'cause you can't change anything)

Eon straight-up plays Calvinball with the timey-wimey ball and gets the Paladins stuck in a groundhog-day situation, and the only way out? Isn’t good.

(If time's a song, I won't wait for its reprise/I am done wishing farewells and goodbyes)

The Art of War and Centigrade are the beginning of the end. The Art of War is Cascade finally showing his true colors, and the Sol Federation not having a good time. Centigrade is the other side of it, Team Voltron having a realization of just what they’re going to need to do.

(I can remember all the days of violence/I can remember all the days they fought for rights/When men united all by fear and interest/I mustered them with hopeful promises I've broken)

(What did you hope to find adrift and lost in time?/Is this the end ready to begin?/It's time to escape the fate of destruction, excavating within until salvation/No longer pretend the future's a lie from a past you cannot hide)

The Future is Now and A Theater of Dimensions are. Well. You’ll see. It’s a little hard to pick a lyric from AToD, I'll say that much.

(They said there was no way/But they forgot the black hole in the sky/Yesterday is nothing/I have half a life to rewrite)

(I’ve seen our freedom in the mist of time/The old signs I’ll follow and the day of relief will be yours and mine)

And then there’s Afterlife. Fitting to end on a UtA song, after everything, especially since The Immortal has repeatedly throughout DM been a metaphor for Voltron. Also fitting that it’s this one, considering the parallels between the end of The Immortal’s story and Filaments

(But with such power, think how you could rule/Hold to your promise to watch over those in despair/Why would you choose to serve when you could be master of all?/Be true to your honour and fight for a world that is fair!/Out of shadow, out of darkness, welcome to the light/As the day shines boldly over night/Follow me to finally be who you are inside/Open wide, embrace the afterlife)

#i am dark matter; your road to ruin #long post #at least this time was only an hour and a half?#dm playlists

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doomedandstoned · 4 years ago

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Chatting with Austin’s Shitbag

~Doomed & Stoned Interviews~

By Shawn Gibson

In his never ending quest to find the filthiest bands from around the world, Shawn Gibson brings us face-to-face, virtually speaking, with frontman Keith Young from Austin, Texas trio SHITBAG. The band dishes out a harsh blend of crust, grindcore, hardcore, and sludge, a sound you may already be acquanted with if you've heard their new EP Burden on Transylvanian Recordings. (Editor)

SHITBAG - BURDEN by SHITBAG

So why are you a Shitbag? What's the name all about?

I guess when I came up with the name, the thought was that Shitbag was a person I didn't want to be and I lived in fear of becoming. It's a catchy two syllable band name. (laughs)

Oh very catchy!

Half of it's just taking the piss right?

Oh yeah.

People think it's great or they think it's really fucking stupid.

I love the name Shitbag. It grabs your attention. It is so fitting for your style of music, the sludge-grind duo.

Definitely. The idea was to get a very dirty sound from the start. The name stuck with me. You can tell from some of our earlier releases to hone the sound but you can see that it's falling into place. I think we were zeroing in on the sound on the album we put out last year.

Which was 'Furnace,' right?

Correct.

Your latest release 'Burden' is out now.

Yes, that's now through Transylvanian Records.

Awesome, they are a good label! I have definitely heard of them and have some of their artists' music. So is 'Burden' your third release?

I guess it's our fourth, if you count the first EP. We don't really push that one out anymore.

Furnace by Shitbag

'Furnace' is a really good album! I think I bought all your digital albums on Bandcamp.

Oh, thank you.

I definitely fell in love with the sound! "Emasculator" is a great sludge song from the record Can you tell me a little about that one?

It is about castration. The riff was a fun thing I kind of threw out there. I told Eli our drummer this is in 4/4 and he said" it is absolutely not, I can try to play along to it anyways." As usual, he did. the different pieces kind of fell into place. The bass guitar always stuck out to me on that one. The speed of the song and the mix we got on those recordings allows the bass to shine through I think. Also, I think that might be one of my favorite vocal performances off of Furnace as well.

Who all is in the band and what roles do they have?

So I play guitar and vocals. Eli Deitz plays drums and Eric Prescott plays bass.

I would say 'Burden' sounds heavier than 'Furnace.' Can you tell me about your guitars and the set up you use for writing and recording?

Oh, sure!

What are you using to get that Shitbag sound?

So first off I think it's worth noting that we recorded Burden at a different location and we had more power at our fingertips. The guitars definitely did get beefed up. For the first two releases I had been playing a Randall RH 150 with a Randall 150 amp head. It gets this really nasty distortion right out of the box, you don't need a distortion pedal, which is pretty convenient. It wasn't reliable at high volumes. That was becoming a problem more and more playing alongside Eric, as he was playing an "O-R something" Orange head and also running that through an HM2 and some fuzz stuff in front of it, as well. He gets a very loud, snarling bass tone.

He's covering the low end, but there's an intersection where the guitars and bass compete when we are playing live. So I needed something that I could crank up just to keep up. The Randall wasn't cutting it. May of last year I purchased a Sunn Coliseum 880. That was great but I needed to beef up my cabinet setup. Before I had been playing out of a Laney 4x12 with two different Celestion speakers and an old Marshall 2x15. The Celestion speakers are just not cut out for running something like a Coliseum880. At 4 ohms I think it's already at 230 watts.

Oh, wow!

That is when I moved up to a Worshipper 4x12. It's an Intown establishment, and some good friends of mine run it. They got me a new cabinet in 8 to 12 weeks. Kinda crazy to think about from what I heard from Dillon at Worshipper they had good business during the pandemic.

That is great! I love to hear that everyone's keeping up the practicing at home.

Yeah, It definitely has a silver lining. I got a 4x 12 and I'm trying to remember what speakers are in it. My technical knowledge of that stuff is a little limited, I'll be honest. I went with Dillon's recommendation. I told him what I was using currently, this is what I want out of it. I already have a 2x15 cabinet so I don't need a whole shit ton of low end power coming out of the 4x12. He kind of went with something that had the right profile and could handle 320 watts. After that was the matter of finding a distortion pedal, because Sunn Coliseums don't really have a built in distortion the way a Randall does. For a while I was a really great distortion pedal that does all kinds of great stuff the Earthquaker device's grey channel.

It has six different clipping presets, clipping diodes, and you can do just about everything from straight up gain to kind of a fuzzy effect to full-on Moss clipping diode, which does the whole balls to the wall heavy metal thing. Great diversity on that pedal but it wasn't quite hitting the right spots. I went to a Boss HM2 and was very reluctant to do so because I know everyone does those. I ran that with a Graph equalizer like I would any distortion pedal. I made it not sound like I'm playing in tuned riffs. That's my equipment set up and how it evolved from Furnace to Burden.

Awesome, thank you. Something that attracted me to Shitbag's music is the sludge is the jelly and the grind is the peanut butter that makes this great Shitbag sandwich. There are moments in your music that it is as thick as swamp mud, then the next it's firing out like bullets out of an AR-15!

Hell, yeah!

Cordycep by Shitbag

With that being said you have a song like "New Day" that's grind as fuck, clocking in at a minute long, just blasting through! Then you have songs like "Rogue Furnace" that's right up the sludge/doom alley clocking in at 15-minutes, 20-seconds. Shitbag has a really great balance between different styles in your music.

Well, thank you!

What bands influenced Shitbag's music?

Yeah, so I think the time I was getting into sludge and doom in my college days and I came across Primitive Man.

Oh, yeah!

I grew up listening to death metal and shit like that.

Me too!

The way they threw that together with just oppressive doom sound. It was something I had never heard before. I instantly heard that and said"this is the future." I don't want to shit on anything but Black Sabbath has been around 50 years and that sound has been around 50 years.

Newer and current bands are still using that sound, yeah.

Maybe I shouldn't disparage it, right? Even the stuff I'm drawing influence from is 30 years old now. Maybe I shouldn't say it that way. I think it's a matter of pervasiveness rather than how old something is. There are a lot of bands in the sludge/doom canon that are like, "Black Sabbath, hell yeah!"

You can find lots of music that was coming out of the death and grindcore scene in the '80s, '90s, and 2000s that had very slow, lurching oppressive moods. To me, it's not so much a matter of the notes that are being played or the rhythms, it's the atmosphere. So yes Primitive Man, God Flesh, they are a big one. I'm a big fan of Assuck, Dystopia, and Grief. Then a lot of older death metal shit, too. Napalm Death, Eric and Eli loved Entombed. Full Of Hell is tight as shit, too!

Yes they are! By chance have you heard of Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire?

Oh yeah, yeah.

I thought you might, being they were before Primitive Man. Great shit, as well!

Every band of theirs that the members of Primitive Man have been in that I have checked out, I have been very much into.

Vermin Womb, Many Blessings...

John put out an album with a death metal band called Black Curse last year that I thought was fucking phenominal!

I'll have to check that out! I like just about everything across the board, personally.

You are mentioning that we're striking this blend, we are not even playing the same genre through the whole EP. It's kind of like there's moments where it's one thing then there's moments where it's another. I think the more important thing is that it sounds like a cohesive thing. I hope we manage to do that.

You do! Shitbag has it's own sound that is unique to you guys!

Well, thank you!

I stumbled upon Shitbag's music on Bandcamp on Fathers Day. I saw the song title "Fathers and Sons" off of Burden and thought, "That's no coincidence -- I need to check this band out!" I was wondering if you can tell me a little about that track?

The song is about grappling with father and son relationships that are, I don't want to say estranged but you know trying at times. That was something that was a really big deal for me over the past year and a half, cause my mother passed away at the end of 2019.

I am sorry to hear that!

Thank you. When you have a death in the family like that, there is a lot of time for reflection that comes about. That's where the concept came about. I would not say that it's entirely autobiographical, there is definitely some exaggeration in there. We had the music for the song written and we couldn't figure what to write the lyrics about. I was just spitballing ideas and concepts to Eli. That was the one he said, "Yeah, I'm not really a fan of this draught but this is the concept to go with. Keep going with this."

Historically, I think I have been a weak lyricist. I would not call myself good by any means. We definitely made that part of the writing more collaborative process. Like the music has always been with us. We ironed out the words with each other so it felt a lot better. We came out with something more polished.

I understand completely.

A little graciousness opens yourself up. I think it's true with lyrics, as well. You probably don't have people say that to you very often, I imagine. I think it's especially true with lyrics when you're trying to make something that's personal and vulnerable. Having someone say, "Hey I would word that differently!" YOU MOTHERFUCKER!

Exactly. (laughs)

Take a step back from the initial knee-jerk response and just let it sit. You can really go places with that. I think lyrics are different just because people are not accustomed to making themselves vulnerable in that way.

What bands from Austin and surrounding areas that are heavy and you love to see them play or play with?

Let's see... Zyclops, really fucking great! There's bands like Glassing, Inhalants, Portrayal Of Guilt.

Yep, familiar with them.

There's a band called Godshell, they are new. I saw them play at a house show in North Austin in a living room full of people younger than myself. A crowd that was young enough to make me feel old. They played an outstanding fucking show! Those guys are rad live! There's also Metal Abortion, who is a pretty fun noise core band that Shitbag has played with a couple times. They put on a hell of a show and they have some crazy fucking records, too!

We have had the pleasure of playing many great shows with Desist on account of Shitbag and Desist being the two "Austin sludge" bands. Lucas is an outstanding vocalist and an even better human being. I don't know if Desist has been active through the pandemic but word is they have shit in the works. Another band forming a major constellation in the Austin shit-verse is the crusty blackened thrash outfit Vacha. Every show we've played with them was a fucking barn buner. I have nothing but love for all those dudes! Special shout out to Carlos for his God-like endurance behind the kit.

What makes Shitbag laugh? What's funny to you guys?

Oh, man. Eli and I have decided that a good way to get around when I bring a riff and don't know the time signature, is that we count everything in one. There 's no more time signature.That's a fairly recent joke. There are times at practice instead of playing a Shitbag riff with the distortion and everything balls out, I will go to the clean channel and push on the wah pedal and play with a funky staccato thing.

Hell yeah!

I think everyone else finds it annoying.

I have always enjoyed when the one guy in the band during practice either gets funky or jazzy, one of the two.

There is also something that Eli does that is fucking histarical. He never warns me he's going to do it. We will be in the middle of a song in the intense parts of the song he slips in the ba-dum tiss like a joke was told. When he nails it it's really a special thing.

Well, Keith that is all I have for you. Thank you again for your time!

Thank you very much, Shawn! The cassettes are available through Transylvania Recordings and Bandcamp. They are up for pre-order. I am not sure when those pre-orders will be in. There are some delays.

Several bands and labels having a tough time with vinyl getting pressed and shipping, too.

If you order the cassette you will get it eventually. I hope there is new music to announce in the near future.

We hope so, too!

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#D&S Interviews #Shitbag #Austin #Texas #doom patrol #sludge #metal #punk rock #Shawn Gibson #Transylvanian Recordings

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sol1056 · 7 years ago

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if you promise peaches, deliver peaches.

After S7, the asks have been piling up. A few examples:

I was so confused in ep4 when Acxa disappeared, I thought she’d stuck with the team after ep3 and maybe I just missed the scene where she left, but others have brought that up, too.

Funny how the majority of the problems in s7 are because they tried to force BP Keith to the detriment of the story, and ironically, Keith's story, too.

I thought Lance’s family reunion would be much more emotional and be a part of his arc, since he was the most homesick, but then they gave that to Hunk?

Shiro got tossed aside in the most ableist, racist, and homophobic way, and Allura could have had a cool storyline mixing her paladinship and her castle storyline with a new altean mecha, instead of Shiro becoming a bad Allura 2.0 and Keith becoming a bad Shiro 2.0.

Srsly tho, am I the only one who finds it extremely bothering that in writing Allura and Lance they don't bother to show Allura coming to view Lance in a romantic light after her breakup?

Why even bother in S6 to make such a big deal of Shiro/Kuron saying his dream is to be a paladin over and over? Until he was revealed a clone some of us thought he was Shiro, so it's even harder to accept Shiro not being BP anymore.

The EPs seem to be so stuck in their initial idea and salty they couldn’t do it exactly as they want that they just ignore the story itself?

The EPs have spoken of being determined to get the VLD gig out of fear it’d be given to someone who'd wreck the story. That's understandable, but we're talking about a 78-episode, six-season, space opera mecha series. This genre practically demands a sprawling world and a massive cast, and it's far beyond the scope of anything either JDS or LM have ever helmed on their own.

My guess is that JDS and LM didn’t realize the enormity of what they were taking on, or they (and their bosses) seriously underestimated the degree to which they were wholly unprepared.

Behind the cut: what I meant when I said these EPs are not storytellers.

I’m not surprised the EPs over-estimated their skill, really. People will look at a creative process like art –- where you often start young, practice daily, maybe study it formally, apprentice or intern (especially in animation), and gradually work your way up -- and they see the effort. They know it wasn’t an overnight thing.

Too often, the very same people won’t accord that respect to the art of storytelling. It’s treated like divine inspiration, something that just happens. We’ve been hearing and reading and watching stories all our lives; how hard can it be to do it ourselves?

It’s goddamn hard, is what it is. I would love to tell you otherwise, but that’s the truth. You can rock your dialogue but you gotta track character goals, too. Complicated backstories only get you so far if you don’t understand how to modulate tension. You can have a great premise but you still gotta resolve the damn thing. A story has a hundred moving parts; scale up to a space opera’s necessary levels of epic and we’re talking exponentially more.

In my experience, the hardest part of storytelling — not the technical aspects of writing, but the art of storytelling — is holding the shape of the story in your head. The entire thing, all at once. You have to, if you’re to see how a choice at this point will echo down the line, or a motif laid here should reflect there, how the theme shifts but stays true from start to end, how these secondary arcs weave together to undergird the main arc.

I’d say a lot of what we learn in our first few novels is how to see — and hold —the story’s shape in our head. I’m not talking dialogue or voice acting or choreography. I’m talking about the overall shape, the vision and theme it establishes, evolves, and eventually resolves.

If we cannot, we will find our stories promise peaches and deliver pine cones.

Looking back, there are too many clues --- almost all given by the EPs themselves --- that they didn't have the experience to do this story justice. What they did have was a certainty that their vision was the best, an inability to deviate from that one story they'd devised, and a continual low-grade frustration at being held back.

Let's go back to the beginning. S1 starts a little rocky (to be expected as a team finds its groove), but S2 builds on S1 quite deftly. It’s not perfect, but in a storytelling sense, it’s the strongest season, and it's much too self-assured to be a beginner’s. It moves swiftly but steadily to a pivotal midpoint, and from there snowballs gracefully into its finale; it balances nuanced characterization with plot movement, and its opening promises bear fruit by the end.

In those earliest interviews and panels, the EPs are often casually vague about basic details, like character ages or relationships. At least twice their answers change, giving the impression they hadn't known and had needed to confirm with someone else. Generally, though, they're low-key and hopeful, possibly leaning on the borrowed confidence of that other storyteller’s influence.

By S3/S4, their tone shifts to a peculiar kind of non-ownership. They joke about having no idea what's going on, tossing out guesses as though they'd be the last to know. They offer head canons, rather than insight. They wear their frustration openly, alluding to the story they'd wanted, chafing at what had been decided for them.

As the story moved into the split-seasons, it's clear that whomever lent that guiding hand in S1/S2 was no longer present. Someone else’s fingerprints are on S3, and my guess is it’s mostly Hedrick, at least on the script-level. The word choices change, the cadences change, the beats change. From S3 on, VLD has all the hallmarks of a muddy vision.

You can see that in the story’s shape. It holds together, but barely. It darts forward, then sideways, then treads water for a bit. It’s erratically paced, dropping plot points and introducing new ones, only to drop those as well. It can’t settle on a driving antagonist, and when it finally does, it can't keep the antagonist’s goal consistent. It sacrifices nuance for one-note characterization, and shoves most substantiative character growth off-screen.

This continues to S6, which generally continues the focus on plot coupons over character goals, exposition at the cost of emotional beats, and neglecting established characters to introduce left-field swerves in the guise of plot twists. On the plus side, it does manage to rally enough to end its multi-season prevarication, and put to bed questions hanging around since late S3.

It's worth noting that both EPs have only a single writing credit each, for the pilot three-parter. That makes it doubly striking that JDS chose to write the Black Paladins episode. After the season aired, JDS complained in passing about rewrites on his episode. If that seems odd, remember that an EP has final approval on every script. If it bothered him to have his ideas rejected in favor of keeping Shiro, it must've burned to have his writing choices countermanded.

From the timing and the episode credits, this must've been around when Tim Hedrick left the team --- and the EPs took full ownership.

It shows in their post-S6 interviews. Gone are the ambiguous expressions or vague promises of doing their best. Their wording is declarative: what Kuron had been, what Shiro would be, the resolution of Shiro’s illness, the nature of Shiro’s past relationship. None is equivocated, nor couched as head canons. They’ve taken control of the narrative, and their interpretation is now the deciding one.

This change was important enough to them that they had to make sure we’re aware. There’s simply no other reason to tell us S7 had been written in its entirety, let alone tell us the original outcome. Nor is there any other reason to tell us they petitioned for — and got — permission to rewrite.

When I look at S7 with my writer’s hat on, everything tells me this is where the brakes came off. With Hedrick’s departure, there was no one left but the EPs themselves to steer the story. By whatever means, for whatever reason, VLD went from a crafted vision, to a conflicted one, to none at all.

Set aside the larger controversies for a moment, and just think about the shape of S7. It’s almost three seasons in one: the first part skips from event to event, then abruptly timeskips to reset the entire playing field. That second part in turn is divided from the last half by a two-parter that halts momentum for an overlong flashback with an entirely new cast, followed by a finale that mostly backseats its protagonists in favor of letting that new cast dominate.

There’s a common pattern in the way beginner writers react to critique, and I see that all over the EPs’s responses, from the beginning. It’s only grown worse since S6. They can’t quite juggle the story they think they’re telling versus the story they’re actually telling.

I’ve had these conversations too many times to count. I ask, how did this character get from here to there? The newbie storyteller is quick to explain, usually in great detail. I ask, but then why did this happen? The more I dig, the greater the chance the newbie will get angry that I don’t seem to be reading the story they’re so obviously telling. If I keep pushing, they’ll get defensive.

They’ll confidently assure me this is exactly the story they’d intended to tell, and if I don’t like it, that’s my problem. (They may not be able to hold the shape in their head, but they’ve probably already taken to heart the adage that one must stay true to one’s ‘artistic’ vision. The part about listening to critique even when it’s uncomfortable… that takes a bit longer to learn.)

My reaction almost always boils down to: you’re telling me this amazing story, but that’s not the story you’ve actually written.

Sometimes the best description of the shape of a newbie’s story is that of a house after a tornado’s swept through: the front door is on the chimney, the roof is half-off, and the windows are shattered in the front yard. Most of the pieces are there, but it’s all so jumbled the newbie storyteller can’t see what’s missing. They can’t hold the shape of the story in their head, so even when they know here’s where something goes, they’re too overwhelmed to remember the door they need is still on the chimney.

An epic story is no cakewalk, and boy do I give credit for that effort, but it’s one thing to learn by noodling in a fandom on AO3. It’s quite another to do it at the scale of a television series, let alone one with the expected scope of a space opera spanning galaxies. This is not the place to learn as you go.

Here’s why the shape of the story — and holding that in your head — is so important.

Think of a story’s resolution like a fresh peach. You want the reader to bite into the peach as the culmination of everything the story has been, from start to end. But you don’t get a peach by planting pine trees. You must start with the proper seeds, and make sure what grows is a peach tree, such that your final act bears the right fruit.

I touched on this before with the promise of the premise. Themes, backstories, world-building, and motifs are facets of the seeds planted in the first act. Everything you need to resolve the story must be present when the story begins; that’s where your premise lies, and your promises are made.

Through the entire second act, the tree must grow. The storyteller’s task is to trim as needed, bind this to that, shore up the roots, add water and nurture: this is where the theme expands, the foreshadowing laid, the questions reveal answers that lead to further questions, narrowing the outcome, each outlining the tree’s shape in sharper detail.

By the time the story turns the corner into the third act, the readers should be reasonably certain they’re going to get a peach tree. This is not a bad thing! You want them looking forward to plucking the peach and enjoying it. You want everything planted at story-beginning to come to fruition, at story-end.

That is why you must hold the shape — the vision — in your head, always checking against where you began and where you plan to end. You cannot throw out the entire tree at the end of the second act and start over; if you ignore the fruit your story is producing and insist on serving up pine cones, you’re going to have confused and possibly angry readers.

You promised them peaches, damn it.

The story is now midway through the third act. Everything planted in the previous seasons must now be coming to fruition… but it won’t. The EPs are openly (even proudly) reversing course on everything that’s come before. That means directly violating every motif, every thematic element, every bit of foreshadowing in word, image, or sound.

And at the same time, the story’s scope is simply too vast, and they haven’t the experience to juggle all the thousands of moving parts. The result is the most slapdash season, yet. Characters simply drop out of sight, only to reappear again with no warning. Themes and motifs built up over so many episodes are tossed aside as if they mean nothing.

The hand-to-hand fights are visually striking — the EPs’ strengths are in storyboarding, after all — but emotionally hollow, bereft of dialogue that could finally give us closure. Characters that would’ve once spoken openly with each other barely exchange a word; character-distinct dialogue is uttered by someone else, as though the VAs mixed up the scripts in the recording booth.

To achieve the emotional heft required for a meaningful resolution, there must be echoes of the story’s beginning. But when the beginning is negated—underscored by a timeskip that resets the entire playing field—there’s nothing to refer back to. The events now are happening in a void, divorced from the themes and motifs that created the emotional context in the first place.

This is by design; the EPs’ vision has never matched with the story as it was told to this point. They can’t go back, so they’ve rebooted. Once with the timeskip, and again with a two-parter episode that introduces new characters that can be entirely their own. Compared to the protagonists, these secondary characters have been lavished with attention to the point of overload: full names, backstories, designs. All of of that, and the time required to introduce them is to the detriment of the actual protagonists.

Whatever story VLD ostensibly set out to tell, that story is gone, now.

This is no longer a matter of losing track of the story, such that the promised peaches have transmuted into pine trees. We passed that point somewhere in S6. The EPs have burnt down the orchard to plant new seeds, while doing their best to ignore the charred stump of the story we'd been promised.

I would've preferred peaches, myself. That was the story I was promised, and that was the fruit I expected from everything I saw onscreen. But now?

I hope you like carrots.

#vld #voltron #storytelling #analysis #sol thinks about stuff

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goldstonegolem64 · 6 years ago

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Hope returns Book 1 Chapter 34 Vanguard part 2 Halberd and Wardog

A twenty minutes before the colossus appeared

Beauregard was flying the ship at top speed as La-Sai had jumped into the one of the defensive terminal in the bridge and activated the disk shape turret ands started firing on the squadron

“ OK Beau what's the plan here?”

“ Well we use a wormhole to get out of here but there is one problem” Beau said as he sharply turn the castile of lion to avoid an ion cannon blast

“And what Is that?” La-sai asked

“ I can’t make wormholes” Beau said

“ Oh That's not good” La-Sai said

“ Yeah I know. Hey Coran How are the Flux Generator Plates doing?” Beau asked as a screen appeared in the bridge showing Coran as he slipped in and out of view

“ We can jump about two to three more times before any of the plates break “ Coran said as he spited out of sight again

“ OK then. to the rest of the crew how long till any of you get to the bridge most importantly Allura?” Beau Asked over the comms as he started redirecting his bodies to other defensive terminals through the ship.

“I’m almost to the bridge” Allura said as she Shay and Nyma were booking it towards bridge

“ were almost there as well” Adam and Shiro said in unison

“ i m here “ hunk said has he ran into the bridge

“it will take Me and Keith a little bit because we don’t now how to get ou” the ship started to shake followed by lance and Keith yelling in surprise and the sound of water splashing around and bodies hitting the floor “ Never mind “ Lance groaned

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JQ820nUujk

In the quintessence rejuvenation chamber Zarkon and Haggar stood there watching as the castle of lions was running away from them again.

Haggar looked towards zarkon . “ Lord Zarkon do you wish to send the twins now before they have a chance to escape” She asked

Zarkon ponder this for a moment “ Sent Quinn he is more level head then his sister but keep her on stand by just in case he doesn't his own against the Valkyrie “ ZArkon said

“ Alright my lord “ Haggar replied then she turned on her commas “ Quinn get to your mech and Harley stay behind and be ready to back him up in case he gets into trouble.” Haggar ordered

“ Yes lady Haggar” Harley said

“ As you command Lady Haggar” Quinn said he looked over to his sister “ looks like i’m up to bat “ Quinn said

“ just stay alive out there brother” Harley said as she started walking towards a pod as she walked towards hers

“ i will try but remember what mother said” Quinn said

“ Never make promise you can't keep. Just try your all i have left “ Harley said

Quinn quietly noded to his sister as he and her climbed their re pod that a loud him to control the his mech called nemesis A-1 beta or as he called it The halbird. It was small them the other four but that was the point it was made to fight voltron in a one on one do to it’s smaller size and speed it would easily be able to dodge any attack that voltron or valkyrie would use against him.But ever if he was build to handle both of them. He he would prefer to fight voltron over then valkyrie to it being the base of what he was going to be piloting and after seeing what it could do to a squadron of warships inthe reports he would rather fight the slower bulker mech that had five people piloting it that could start arguing if stressed enough compare to the faster smaller one that had one guy who would not stop until he was dead no matter how stressed he got .But thats where is sister would come in if he ran in to it he thought as the both pod were slowly being lower out of the room and into the hanger that held held the halberd.

As for Harley she was lowered into the hanger that held the nemesis A-2 bate or as she called it war dog. It was the biggest of the four and it was armored to the teeth with twin rail guns on it’s shoulders it’s top two hands held two blades one was a sword that looked like a nail the other was a war hammer as the lower two could grab either to massive chain belted slug throwers, two more rail cannons, two corrosive gas throwers and another blade and an Axe.it also had to missile Silo on it’s back that could replace the shoulder canons and if all that fail the ion core that powered the wardog could self destruct and the power from that explosion could destroy a planet .But The downside to all this was It’s armor it was heavy duty made to withstand a fall from orbit or the surface of a star but do to that the war dog was super slow and a massive target either of the two enemy mechs but they would have to get passed everything she had and her brother.

Haggar watched a screen as watched as the two pods each holding a different twin were load into the mechs. She turn her attention towards another screen that showed how the synchronisation between mech and pilot. She watch how the synchronisation screen intently as it showed how fast the twins had synined with their mechs . As she watched she thought back to her first mech she had made with the gladiator Myzax and how fast he was beaten because of his hated toward the black paladin. Then she thought about project beholder. it was made by mutating a lizard like beast it was built to handle multiple target at once but it was defeated as well do to do votron gaining a new weapon and then there was prorok a failure from the start . each one of them failed and made voltron and the valkyrie stronger. But she didn't care about those failure because with each one she gained new information that she could use to made the next mech she would create would be able to handle what every those two would throw at it.

As she thought this both wardog and the halberd were fully charged and started to leave their hangers. A smile creeped across her face as she though how Voltron and the valkyrie would handle the twi and what new information she would get from this encounter.

In the living room of the prometheus jay was asleep on the couch with Fitz sleeping next to him. He felt at peace until he heard Val’s voice in the back of his mind

“My pilot something is on it’s way here “ Val said worried

Jay started to stir from his slumber as he did he could hear the sounds of explosions from outside of the hanger. “ Ok let me guess we were found by central command again and were about to jump again” he guess as he gently moved Fitz’s head off his shoulder and got up from the couch and start to walk out of the living room and into the hanger

“ Your are right about that but I’m picking up two new energy signatures and one is staying close to central command and the other is coming towards us at breakneck speed. it’s right on top of us.” Val said

Jay looked towards the hanger’s enters and time seemingly slowed down as he watched as a mechanized giffin the size of the black lion and Val in her dragon mod fly by the enters. An just as quickly as it appeared it flow out of sight. Jay felt a chill run down his spine as he run back into the Prometheus to get his Bayard and a shirt

in the bridge

“ Coran how long till we can make a jump” Allura said as a screen appeared show Coran

“ Right about now” Coran said as a new wormhole appeared a half a mile away as it appeared Jay’s voice came over the intercoms with a little bit of fear in his voice “guy’s we’ve got trouble.” Everyone has was confessed by this until the ship started shaking

“ What was that?” Adam asked

“Barrier integrity at 96 .” Beau said the ship shack again “ barrier integrity at 82%”

“ What is hitting us” Allura asked as she fired the castle’s thrusters to the limit

“ Don’t know give me a second to find out” Pidge said as she rapidly tapped away at the console she was sitting at. “Got it” Pidge said as the castle of lions entered the wormhole. A new screen appeared at the front of the bridge and showed a silver blur flying around the ship every so often fire a bolt of plasma flow out and the ship shouk again

“ 72 %”

“ Should we go out there to fight it?” Kieth asked Allura a little consurend

“ 69%″

“ Not until were out of the wormhole. Because if that thing hits you you’ll might be thrown out of into a random part of space.” Allura said

“ 60%”

“ Then what do we do just let it hit us ?” Lance asked

“ 55%”

“ We Wait a few more seconds” Allura said as the castle of lions exited the wormhole

a few seconds before exiting the wormhole

in the halberd Quinn was having the time of his life as he flow around and fired upon the castle of lions. He felt like he was back home racing with his father and aunt. it was a feeling of true bless as he flew the halberd as he flew a warning appeared on his screen telling that he was about to exit the wormhole. He readied the tracking beacon that was build in to the halberd. HE stopped firing and braced for where ever he was going to end up. As both the halberd and the castle of lions exited the wormhole . As he exited the wormhole he found himself in the middle of a swirling dust vortex

“ Ok time turn on the beacon” Quinn told himself as he started to turn on the beacon but he notice that there was no signal coming from it. “ Well it looks like i need to get out of here before i can call in the cavalry. “ Quinn said he looked around the vortex and saw an opening at the top and started to move toward it .But before he could moving toward the vortex’s exit a warning appeared in front of his screen warning him of an oncoming attack. He turned towards the castle of lions and saw a huge beam soaring towards him quickly dodge the particle beam that would have seriously damaged him if he didn’t dodge that hit. but only seconds after the beam disapped hundreds of smaller plasma bolts flow towards him and bolted toward the exit at the Halberd top speed . As he was flying away from the onslaught of plasma bolts and dodge another particle beam another. But after a few seconds the bolts stopped flying passed him and then a another warning appeared telling him about an object flying toward him at faster then he was flying towards him. the moment it was right on top of him i went passed him he looked to see what it was in front of him and saw a huge metal woman facing him as it flow backward it’s spaer in one hand and a staff with a small glowing ball at the top of it in the other.

Quinn quickly fired a few shots at it. the first three shots were batted away by the valkyrie‘s spear. the next two shots were blocked by the wings as they closed around the valkyrie and for a brief second the valkyrie stopped. Quinn saw that as his opportunity to get passed them and in doing so He pushed the halberds thruster beyond their limits as he rocket toward the exit of the vortex

“ Ok that was close but as long as i keep a good distance i can get of he-” quinn was cut off by several warning signs of oncoming objects

in the cockpit of the valkyrie

“ there is no way in hell your getting away from me birdy ” Jay yelled as he launched a energy ball straight at his fleeing as the ball flow Jay pointed the spear and fire three bolts to follow the ball. “ val put that counter into are speed “ He ordered

“ on it my pilot “ Val replied as a green aura appeared around the valkyrie. it rocket toward the fleeing mech

Quinn saw the oncoming attacks an dodge the ball of energy. it soared passed him but the bolts Were much fast then the ball and his only option was to test out that counter Lady haggar told him about. He quickly turned the Halberd around and closed the wings around him and blocked the three bolts . a smile crept across his face as diverted that power to the halberd’s speed and turned it back around and started flying away twins as fast as before

Jay and Val looked on dumbstruck as their target just straight up copied one of their abilities “ this is bad. “ JAy said as opened a com channel to the castle

In the bridge of the castle of lions.

Shiro was taking to matt over the ships comms

“ How are the plates holding up ?” Shiro asked

“ Not good one more jump and were going to be stuck there with no way of escape” Matt SAid as Coran slide behind him

“ Okay then but when can we jump again.” Allura asked

“ Well we need to let the plates cool down which will take a few minutes.” Matt replied as coran slide back into view.

“but what if the galra find us?” Keith asked

“ We would still need to let the plates cool down because i don’t know what will happen if the plates brake mid wormhole jump.” Matt replied as he remembered what happened to ships that had their warp engines explode while in warp space.

“ Alright keep us posted “ Shiro said

“ will do and Hunk “ MAtt said

“ Yeah what is it?” Hunk asked

“ Those cookies you make earlier today have small cases of skulltrite in them.So they can be used in one jump before they break. So thanks for that “ Matt replied

“ Your welcome” Hunk replied

“ Alright then Jay how's it going with dispatching of this new robeast?” Shiro asked

“ UH not Good turns out this thing is just like the valkyrie in more ways than one. See as it just counted my shots and gained a speed boost from it So i think will need to jump as soon as possible if i can’t destroy it in time “ Jay said

“ Do you need Assistants?” Shiro asked

“ Yessss” Jay replied

“ Alright team suit up and get to your lions “ Shiro said

Jay and val pov

“ How the hell is this thing faster than us?” JAy said as he slammed his bayard into the slot and turned it

“well are speed boost was smaller than others before and it had a head start on us “ val replied as both the spear and the staff disappeared. and what took their place was the bow. Val pulled back the bows string and an energy arrow appeared . She head on to it letting it charge up to full power and to let her target systems lock onto their target .then she release it the Arrow anit soared across space

Quinn’s pov

“ Just a few more seconds and were out of here “ He said as he was getting closer to the vortex’s exit. He could see that the tracking beacons signal was getting stronger the closer he got. The another warning appeared on his screen again. Quinn groaned “ What is it this time “ He looked at the screen to see that he had something flying towards him in a straight line . He move to the side to avoid it. But as he did the object moved with him. “ Quiznak i’ve been locked on to” He looked the halberd side to side trying to shake off the thing flying towards him. As he did this he noticed that his speed was decreasing and was ever targeting him was closing distant. “Shit Shit Shit i’ve come too far to die here “ He growled as he stopped trying to shack of the incoming object and just straight gunned it out of the vortex.as he did the tracking beacons signal was no longer being block and he heard his sister voice over the comms “ Found brother were on are way” a smile creeped across Quinn’s face only to stop as the energy arrow slam right into the Halberds back exploding on contact leaving the Halberd powerless

The valkyrie moved slow closer to the seemingly lifeless mech.the bow disappeared and the spear reappeared they used the tip of the spear to pock it. the mech slowly started to float away from them. Not moving at all

“ my pilot why are you not destroying that thing?” Val asked

“ Sorry i’m just thinking that if we bring this thing back to the ship maybe we can reverse engineer this thing and get another mech that Adam could pilot. So he can stop using my house all the time. “ Jay said as he was about to summon up the whip. But before he was doing this Val whipped round and her making a growling sound that Jay had never heard before. “ Hey buddy what’s wrong?” Jay asked worried

“ there coming get ready for it” VAl said as two warships appeared followed by a few more then more and after each one appeared fighters started to pour out of them.After the last ship appeared Galre central command appeared behind all of the warships . Jay felt fear run down his spine as he looked appone the monolithic fortress. As he stared at it his comms came on

“ Jay were on are way n-” Shiro was cut off by Jay as he yelled

“No fall back fall back to castle and get ready to aaAAaaaaHhhhh” he was cut of by something impacting the back of the valkyrie’s head followed by two more impacts to the lower back . Jay whipped the valkyrie around and swung the spear for the spear to be caught in the hand of a mechanical woman that was in the place of the griffin once stood.This new foe looked like Val in her human form but with one thing that was different and that was the face of a harlequin mask with a painted on smile. Then jay saw that someone was trying to contact him. He hesitated for a second before for patch the commutation in

“ UUUh hello” Jay said confused

“ Hi there pilot of the Valkyrie. I’m Quinn pilot of The Halberd it’s nice to meet” Quinn said with joy in his voice

Jay was super confused by this and decide to stay silent and sent a message to the other to just leave him behind and he will find a way back to them. But what he got back from them was no were on are way

“ So your going to stay quiet Ok then”

The Halberd kicked the valkyrie square in the stomach area causing Val to let go of the spear and sending her backward and as they were flying back. The turned the spear pointing at the valkyrie and charged at the valkyrie trying to stab right through but as he got close the spear disappeared and reappeared in the valkyrie’s hands She thrust the spear forward and stabbed the halberd in the shoulder stopping them in their tracks. Quinn Felt pain shot into his shoulder. He yelled out i n pain

“ Brother are you alright?” Harley asked with a mixture of Worry and anger

“ I’m fine how are yo-” He was cut off when he was the spear disappear and what took its place was a energy whip that whipped around one of the halberds right are and the valkyrie started to spine. Quinn tried to to break free of the whipped grasp but it was to late and he was now spinning along side the valkyrie and after a few second of being spun around the whip that wrapped around the halberd’s arm unwrapped and sent them flying in to the side of a nearby warship. Quinn’s head slammed into the back of his seat

“Is that all you got you bargain bin rip off “ JAy yelled

A smile crept across Quinn’s face “ NO It’s no but thanks for asked . Hayley Now” Quinn Yelled

“ Harl-” A massive explosion engulfed the Valkyrie followed by a second, third and a fourth . After the dust and debris cleared It showed a damaged Valkyrie one of it’s wings was disconnected it’s armor was dentend it’s body was sparking the spear was broken apart and it was floating there lifeless

On top of a nearby Warship the wardog with all for railguns drawn and smoking

“ HAHAhAHAHAHA” Harley was laughing her lung out at the sight.

“ Calm down sister we need to keep this thing intact and leave the pilot alive. Well in one piece at least” Quinn said as he moved the halberd closer towards the valkyrie just to make sure that the valkyries was truly offline

“ Sorry brother i just was really wanted to see what would happen to something if i hit it with all four of my railguns at once and it did not disappoint” Harley said as she moved closer to the valkyrie as well

“ Good to know. “ Quinn said as moved the Valkyrie around and after he made sure it was offline he started to order fighters to move in on the Castle off lions.” Now sister take that thing back to central command and when your done come back and help me “

“ Will do “ Harley said as she grabbed The valkyrie the the detached wing.

As Quinn watch his sister slowly fly away he heard screams over the comms coming from the fighter that had gone into the vortex . He turned around and looked down into the vortex and saw voltron booking it towards him. He quickly pulled back an barely dodged the sword swing that could have easily cut him in two if he wasn’t careful. He had to keep on dodge each swing of voltron blade. “ Hey sister i need you help over here.”

In side of voltron

“ Keith calm down “ Shiro said as his little brother violently swung his blade with reckless abandon

“ Why should i this thing For all we know Killed Jay “ Keith yelled

“ We don’t know if Jay’s dead or not.” Lance said

“His comms might just be down or he might just be” Pidge was trying to calm keith by giving him reasons onto way Jay was responding to them. But then hunk spoke up

“ Uh Guy i hate to be the bear of bad news but look”

A screen appeared in front of each of the pilots it’s showed the valkyrie’s wing being held by a four armer robeast. They watched as it turned around and what they saw next sparked anger in all of them as they saw the damaged body of the valkyrie motionlessly laying there.

“ Ok let’s not jump the gun here we still need a pla-” Shiro was cut off when Keith let out a roar of anger as he started to wildly swing the sword again trying to hit the Smaller robeast that was still in front of them

in the cockpit of the valkyrie

Everything was muffled as Jay’s ears were ring from the multiple explosions that when off right on top of him.As he was just sitting there regaining his senses he felt something wet going down his forehead. He didn’t even need to guess what that was. Jay grabbed onto the control stick’s of the valkyrie

“ HEY VAl YOU UP?” Jay Yelled

“ I’m up but i need a few seconds to reboot the VAlkyrie systems “ Val said

“ GOOD To know “ Jays hearing returned to normal then another loud Bang when off . Jay grabbed his ears as they started ringing again “SHIT, FUCK,DAMMIt Quiznack “ He yelled “ Why is there sound in space” as he yelled that he felt his whole world start moving on it’s own “ HEY IS THAT YOU Val?”

“ No that is not us .I think we're about to be thrown at voltron. So brace yourself” Val said as the whole world blurred out as the Valkyrie was throw straight at voltron. Unaware of what just happened Keith was still trying to cut down the Halberd well the other were trying to calm him down and after another missed swing the Halberd rocketed downward to reveal the offline Valkyrie as i soared towards them. The team didn’t have time or know how to react to this as the valkyrie slammed into voltron’s chest. knocking Voltron back

“ Ok is everyone ok ?” Shiro asked

“i’m fine “ Pidge said

“ Same here” Hunk and lance said

“ i’m ok “ Keith said

“ OK that hurt but i’m alive how are you ” Jay said over the comms

“ Jay” they all yelled

Jay winked at his name being yelled “ok hi nice to see your still here despite me saying retreat”

“ Sorry not sorry but were not leaving you behind” Shiro said

“ And we were worried after you were cut off as you were yelling at us not to come help you ” Lance said

“ Good to know”Jay saids A smile appeared on his face as the valkyrie’s power came back on. He switched the wings for the drills wing causing the dettacked to disappeared from the war dog’s hand and then he slammed his bayard back into the slot As he was doing this the comms came to life

“ Sorry to interrupt but were fighting or what “ Harley said as she moved the wardog closer

“ Yes i would like to finish this before lord Zarkon decide to just bombard you with ion cannons and plasma fire ” Quinn said as a sword and shield appeared in the Halbers hands

Voltron and valkyrie looked at each other before turning back to their opponents

“So how do you think were going to get out of this one guys”Jay asked as he wiped sweat and blood from his forehead

“ Don’t know but will think of something “ Lace replied

“ Coran Allura Beau How long until the Flux generator is ready ?” Hunk asked as he removed his cracked helmet

“ It will take a few more minutes so just hold out until then “ Coran said

“Well if we can’t hold out till then it’s been fun fighting alongside you guys and it’s been an Honor serving you princess Allura and take care of the boy for me “ Jay said as he pointed the bow at the bigger of the two Robeasts

“ It won’t come to that. Now get ready for what this two do next “ Shiro said

But before any one could do anything Warning appeared across everyone’s screen As a bright green triangular worm whole appeared in between the four mech as the upper body of a colossal mech crawled out and turned to look at Both the Valkyrie and Voltron

to be continued in part 3

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jadewing-realms · 7 years ago

Text

Voltron S8 Thoughts

warning: there will be spoilers ahead

So, I wanted to give myself some time to ponder this before I threw my thoughts out... I don’t want to just say more of what’s already been said, and I don’t really have the brain capacity for a super long rant right now anyway, but... there are a few things I feel like I want to contribute if I can.

I’ve seen some people claiming that those of us who are upset about this conclusion to the show are only upset because “our ships didn’t happen.” Others seem to defend the “tragedy” of this ending as a positive element from an artistic vantage point. Those are the things I want to address mostly, I guess.

On the matter of ships: I’m a writer myself. I’ve been studying the art of story for 10 years now, so that’s usually the lens through which I view most shows and movies. And while I’m sure some might be upset over ships alone, from what I’ve seen, most have cited most of their problems with this season/the latter half of S7 as being from a story point of view. Which I have to echo.

For example: I don’t hate Allurance. Really, I don’t. It’s not my cup of tea, but I wouldn’t have had a problem with it if it felt... genuine/not rushed/not a rebound/not flat by comparison to the previous canon-confirmed ship that was Lotura. The problem with how Allurance panned out, to me, depends entirely on the context.

Like, one of the major problems with the ship that I’ve seen is that Lance is a human boy from Earth, who loves Earth and his family there, and he’s never expressed interest in being a diplomat. Which isn’t a bad thing.

On the other hand, Allura was the princess of a lost race, the last remaining relic of a culture that existed 10k years ago. She had dedicated her life to being a diplomat who would rebuild the universe. Once everything was said and done, she shouldn’t have been expected to abandon that role (this is, for the moment, ignoring the fact that the show did more than have her do just that). Ideally, she would have had to stick with it, lead New Altea, continue to seek peace as any good leader does.

If the Allurance subplot could’ve addressed some of these themes and complexities, I would’ve found that interesting, even if it’s not my ship. It would’ve been intriguing to see how a couple might face those kinds of challenges together. I can get behind any character relationship if it’s done well, has depth, and makes sense.

For me personally, the execution of Allurance (and then of course, Shiro and his unnamed SO that seemed to get tossed in as an afterthought) had none of these things. My distaste for these is not due to the fact that my chosen ships weren’t endgame; in the end, that’s not what it comes down to for me. It’s more about the characters and what feels right for them in context of the show as a whole, and their pre-established character arcs.

The way it was actually manifested, Allurance felt shallow and rushed to me, Shiro seemed tacked on to the season as a whole, and all in all, I was left with a feeling like the characters themselves were not done proper justice (regardless of who they ended up with). That their potential had been let down hard.

Then in regards to the tragedy element, I’ll start by saying that I LOVE a good tragedy. I live off dark themes, it’s what I love to write myself. One of my favorite shows is Attack on Titan. All in all, I don’t mind seeing things ending horribly for characters, okay?

But it has to be executed properly, or else tragedy just ends up feeling like blatant manipulation. Like a bid to make the viewers feel something in an otherwise shallow emotional context.

Viewers of Attack on Titan could never complain about the brutality of that show because it establishes itself as brutal from Episode 1. It sets the tone to tell viewers ‘this is gonna get ugly, don’t get comfortable’. It prepares viewers for a rough ride, so that when we see characters die in horrible, gruesome ways, it’s not as jarring as it might’ve been had we had no warning.

Season 8 of VLD seemed to fish this tragic element out of left field. The show was not built to be a tragedy; up until the end of Season 7, there was no indication that that’s the direction we were going to take. If there HAD been evidence of it, the subtle laying of the foundations of darker elements, it would’ve been fine. But because there was no precedent for how horribly things went, it had all the emotional tact of a freight train barreling down a city street with no tracks (Inception reference, anyone?).

Lotor and Allura both became critical victims of this (though the entire main cast suffered from this ultimately). They both deserved better, and I don’t mean from their universe. I’m talking from a story point of view, as characters, they deserved better from their writers. Even if they both still ended up dying, they were both well-done characters who deserved for their arcs to reach satisfying conclusions. Especially as representative characters.

Lotor specifically spoke to me on a more personal level, as a victim of paternal abuse/neglect myself, as someone who’s constantly checking myself and my flaws because I share that fear of becoming the person who hurt me so deeply. It’s always felt like there’s no way anybody could truly understand what it was like growing up in the environment I did. Like I have to bear it alone.

So to have a character presented with hints of these same struggles was really validating, especially when it seemed like these things were going to be called out. Addressed. Dealt with. Other characters would find out the truth about the depth of Lotor’s suffering and he would find peace and solace in newfound friendships. Such an ending is idealistic, yes. But it’s a nice thought that even if I struggle to find that kind of peace in my own life, it happened to this character. And maybe some day, it could happen to me.

Instead, Lotor is betrayed so wholly and completely by those newfound friends, based solely on circumstantial evidence, that his fragile state of mind can’t take it. Guilty or not isn’t relevant; the Voltron team stuck him in the Rift and FREAKING LEFT HIM THERE TO DIE and that was never once addressed as a problem. The Voltron team was painted as The Good Guys who totally did the right thing, until the very end when Allura (who incidentally was the one previously shown to be the most incensed/angry/bitter over what Lotor did) conveniently acknowledges that Lotor was just trying to do what was right and that he deserved better--which just fell flat coming from her, who up to that point, had not been shown to feel any sort of guilt over what she and her team did to him. Even that acknowledgement was not any sort of admission of fault on her part; only an admittance that Lotor thought he was doing the right thing.

All in all, this does not paint a hopeful picture for me as a victim. It creates a theme of inescapable pain... the idea that my trauma might haunt me so thoroughly, only death brings an escape. Heck, even if Lotor still had to die unfairly (if they had to show us those flashbacks, confirm what a horrific life he’d led, and then show us his melted corpse), the least they could’ve done is dealt with the ramifications of that... show the Voltron team realizing how wrong they were, feeling guilt and shame for their drastic, cruel actions, and THEN admit that even if Lotor had done some horrible things, nobody deserved the fate they dealt to him.

Instead, the message presented is the idea that Lotor, the manifestation of the pain Zarkon caused over the course of ten thousand years, was unable to endure his suffering. That there was no hope for him. He was unable to defeat his upbringing, and was then sentenced to a torturous death for the resulting crimes. And the people who were both betrayers and executioners felt absolutely no remorse for it. And yet I’m supposed to think of them as the Heroes.

I don’t know... maybe all of this is just circumstantial. Maybe I’m biased due to my chosen field of study and my own personal background. But I don’t see how this season was in any way satisfying on a plot or character level... and I certainly can’t bring myself to see any beauty in the injustice of my own childhood, so it stands to reason I can’t see value in the needless tragedy of Lotor’s suffering. Or even Allura’s death (the necessity of which is debatable, btw; there was literally no explanation for WHY she absolutely HAD to die).

I can’t speak for everyone, but the thing that originally kept me watching this show was the characters. Not the plot, not the space battles or giant robots or weird aliens. I watched for the people--for Lance, Pidge, Hunk, Keith, Shiro, Allura, Coran, Lotor, etc, etc--and how they interacted, how they got to know each other and understand each other and help each other. How they made each other better. Because that’s really all any of us can hope to get out of life, isn’t it? To be known, to be validated, to be understood, to love and be loved. This is what I read/watch fiction for, because if I have a hard time finding those things in real life, then at least I can watch it happen to characters I care about.

In the end, though, this season left me in the depressing state of wondering what the point of it all was, which is probably the last place any content creator should want to leave their audience. What was I supposed to take away from this, if not the idea that this show, which obviously fell in love with itself somewhere along the line, pretended to represent many varied facets of the human condition, only to conclude those facets with pat answers, hasty romance, cheap monologues, and shallow tragedies?

I’m not angry. I am simply disappointed.

#voltron #vld s8 #vld spoilers #a rant #lotor #lotura #allurance

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shiroallura · 7 years ago

Note

(1/2) You know why I would haved love Shallura even more to be endgame now? Because it think it would wonderful to show that bi/pan people don't stop being lgbt just because they're in a hetero relationship, and that not everyone in a hetero relationship is automatically straight. Given how much bi/pan erasure there is, I think that's an important message that needs to be conveyed. Unfortunately at this point if they were to make it endgame, we would have to deal with a bunch of obnoxious

(2/2) “children” (and i call them children because these toxic fans don’t deserve to be called anything else with the way they act), will see it as Adam being killed off to put Shiro with a woman, and will throw tantrums about it being homophobic. The EPs really backed themselves into a corner.

I also think it shows, in many ways, just how much s7 really damaged VLD beyond repair. Even if Shallura was canon, although I would be thrilled for a multitude of reasons, it still wouldn’t sit quite right with me that there were no other canon MLM relationships and none that ended happily. There was no universe my head where Shallura was endgame where Adam and Shiro didn’t get closure; I never thought VLD would be vile enough to just kill Adam off point blank, without at least a reunion or something, with the way they were hamming it up. And yet, here we are, because that’s the sort of thing VLD does.

Like how even if Shiro became BP again, it wouldn’t erase his mistreatment in s7, and Allura having the ATLAS would feel hollow because altho it would fit her narratively, the time for it to feel earned is already gone.

VLD has already burned too many bridges narratively to suddenly go back to being on the right track and have even that feel somewhat coherent. S7 was the make it or break it point for a lot of things (end of Allur@nce, set up for endgame Kl@nce + Shallura, OG lion lineup, etc) that simply aren’t possible now. Like really the only way endgame Allur@nce isn’t happening now that Allura ‘apparently’ feels the same out of nowhere is Lance turning her down for whatever reason, but then she would have been heartbroken for a second time and there’s no way any other romantic partner wouldn’t be a rebound.

And even if we had gotten everything we’d wanted from s7 (mostly BP Shiro and well developed ships, or at least giving Allur@nce a turning point or something) it wouldn’t have fixed the wide array of the show’s issues. Things or plot points that are nonsensical, the lack of a consistent narrative or goal so that progress never feels real, power lion upgrades > actual character development, the fact that Pidge and Hunk have both had completely stagnant character arcs since s2, Keith’s half-assed leadership arc that didn’t look good even when it wasn’t necessarily permanent, all of the dropped points of Lance’s possible arc + undoing any good the show actually did by having him end up with Allura anyway, Allura’s treatment seasons one through six, how Shiro was treated, how Kuron was treated as an extension of Shiro, etc etc.

In regards to your last point, as much as the crew fears fan vitriol, they also very clearly don’t give a shit about what their ‘fans’ want as I’ve never seen a team of writers more out of the loop with fandom than VLD; like holy shit, is it disparate.

This show is a steaming pile of garbage and s7 only showed how in all the worse ways. I’d been putting up with it since s4 because what was happening in show was entertaining and somewhat coherent with the narrative s1/2 had laid down, but once s7 showed that narrative does not matter (and hence that they can pull absolutely whatever they want out of their asses with complete disregard for their audience / characters) I’m not giving it that mercy anymore.

Voltron: Legendary Disappointment has never been a more accurate title.

#vld critical #thanks for asking #anonymous #sHALLURA DESERVED BETTER #s7 salt

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ganymedesclock · 7 years ago

Note

Per the next season, slightly concerned that the paladins are returning to Earth while strategically weakened – I’m a little worried that the Garrison might try to claim jurisdiction inappropriately or make the Alteans jump through hoops to retrieve their own intellectual property. That said, the fact that the Kogane parents didn’t contact the Garrison because they didn’t want to drag Earth into things – not because of worries about the Garrison itself – is reassuring. Maybe things will be fine?

The short answer is no, I’m pretty sure that the paladins are not going to have to fight the Garrison. I’m gonna break up my reasons for this.

Stated values of the Garrison itself

While we know relatively little of the Garrison’s infrastructure, the highest stated rank we’ve heard is Commander, of which we have two examples. These would be Commander Sam Holt, and Commander M. Iverson (presumably “Mitch”, like the writer he was named after)

These are examples of people that the Garrison has rewarded and given power as people with the right ideas, so suffice to say their values reflect the sentiments of the larger Garrison.

Here’s what we know about Iverson:

He and Shiro appear to have been fairly close. Both forego rank when speaking to or about each other (Iverson calls him “Shiro”, Shiro merely calls him “Iverson” when Sam is “Commander Holt”)

Explicitly, when training his students, Iverson emphasizes that the overall success of the team is more important than any individual victory (“And worst of all, the whole jump, they’re arguing with each other! Heck if you’re going to be this bad individually the least you can do is work as a team!”)

Chooses to enforce quarantine procedure over hearing out Shiro and puts the Garrison on lockdown / responds very significantly to an unknown crash near his facility. However, never once during breaking Shiro out does anyone shoot at Keith’s bike, even though we know the Garrison staff present is armed with guns.

Iverson is also specifically physically present during the quarantine, though this is likely beneath him, and talks to Shiro directly, telling him to calm down and that they’re just quarantining him. In the order to sedate Shiro, he explicitly says to do so until they know what “that thing” (the arm) is capable of.

Iverson’s response to the arm is vindicated by canon, which later reveals Shiro’s prosthetic is, in fact, a weapon and quite a dangerous one capable of harming both Shiro himself and those around him.

He punishes both Keith and Pidge for transgressions against Garrison privacy or faculty, but both times, does not punish as much as he could. Given we learn in s6e5 that Keith had multiple difficulties at the Garrison that Shiro had to vouch for, it’s very likely what led up to his expulsion was the final straw. However, Iverson still chooses to emphasize Keith as the best pilot in his class rather than as the local delinquent.

Uses the Kerberos mission as a cautionary tale, clearly emphasizing that it is vitally important for the next generation of explorers to be as prepared as possible and survive where their predecessors did not. In fact, emphasizes the survival of personnel exclusively- Iverson makes no particular comment about the success of the mission, and Lance, Hunk, and Pidge are shown to fail the simulator when the ship crashed, not because they failed any specific objective. This is in sharp contrast to the Empire, who is established in the same episode as explicitly discouraging its operatives from self-preserving, emphasizing instead that they prioritize their mission over their own lives.

Here’s what we know about Commander Holt:

He’s often quoted as emphasizing the possibility to do something amazing over being too afraid of what could go wrong- but is otherwise indicated to be a reasonably cautious individual.

He possesses a certain disregard for Garrison secrecy- at least, is willing to breach official barriers to talk to his kids about them. Doesn’t have issues hiding things from the Garrison but doesn’t suggest that this is out of any fear or distrust of his workplace.

He has a fairly high level of clearance, and thinks highly of his organization, to the point that he has no qualms encouraging Pidge and Matt to follow in his footsteps.

Eager to help and motivated largely by curiosity and fascination for the wider universe.

Highly intelligent, to the point that his intellect was valued by even the capturing empire, hence his being transferred to a specialized prison and “office job”.

A warm, friendly person, and possibly one Shiro greatly admired (Shiro’s Monsters And Mana character’s mentor resembles Sam Holt)

Had no doubt the Garrison would listen to and cooperate with him quickly when returning to Earth.

This last point aligns with other testimonies- Shiro kept attempting to talk to the Garrison employees and tell them they didn’t have time, and while he doesn’t regret acting on his own, we’ve seen that Shiro does not have qualms acting behind the back of people that he otherwise respects (see his operations in s5e2 and s5e4)

Keith’s father also encouraged Krolia, on multiple occasions, to speak to the Garrison well after he had developed considerable fondness and empathy for her, thus making it very unlikely he’d want to expose her to dangerous people. Likewise, Krolia’s rationale is that it would endanger the Garrison, not that it would endanger her position.

(That’s a pretty big deal if you consider almost everything in Krolia’s experience would tell her that military organizations supported by the main government are not to be trusted)

If we assume Keith’s father was a Garrison employee, and add him to the ranks of the Holts, Shiro, and Iverson, there’s a consistent thread that basically every single Garrison person we’ve spent time around has been established as an earnest, moral person.

Iverson is snappy and harsh, but in a show where one of its dearest and deepest-held morals is the Power of Friendship, that deep underlying virtue of the show is put in Iverson’s mouth first. His angriest criticism of Lance, Hunk, and Pidge is “forget the mission, forget the outside parameters, you need to stick up for each other and you need to stick together.” And Iverson’s proved right when we see Hunk, Pidge, and Lance (plus Keith) working together as a team, they get in, rescue Shiro, get out, and with Shiro’s help once he wakes up, get to the Blue Lion.

Sure, we don’t know much of the Garrison’s upper management, and they could be a bit of a wildcard... but the overwhelming message here is that the Garrison’s heart is in the right place. These are people you can trust to care about the right things, because their values, their ideals, are not only things our heroes can get behind, but the point where they disagree with the heroes is they’re more concerned with caution and preservation.

These are not the kind of people who are going to start shit with the Defender of the Universe when Earth might be in danger.

The Garrison doesn’t have a leg to stand on even if they were likely to

A good chunk of Voltron’s current forces are former Garrison cadets and personnel. However, Voltron itself is pretty unambiguously not Earth property. They’d be really hard-pressed to argue why they’re offending a foreign dignitary who has a lot more power and authority in the larger galactic community than they do- remember, Allura has a standing army at her beck and call, and while she wouldn’t leverage it against Earth, it’s going to be pretty obvious she’s not someone the Garrison can strong-arm.

And if they try to flex rank on the Earth paladins? Not going to work. Remember, these kids started out breaking quarantine to go find the Blue Lion. The Garrison already has a working model of what’s gonna happen if these people’s coworkers (in Shiro’s case) and instructors (in the other Earth paladins’ case) try to put their foot down and give them orders.

Shiro is a Garrison employee and they might have some grounds to direct him in that sense, but he’s also the Black Paladin, which gives him an obvious role and rank in the coalition’s forces- which is not under Earth’s jurisdiction. Earth hasn’t even properly joined the coalition yet and no matter the composition of the paladins, that’s not going to immediately give Earth a major role compared to, say, Olkarion which is far more entrenched as a coalition capital.

Besides which... Earth doesn’t remotely have the infrastructure or the technology to flex against the paladins, against the Lions. Other continuities have done plots of the Garrison stealing the Lions for their own uses, but you have to understand in most other continuities, Earth is already a superpower in the galactic community with FTL travel, allies, and influence. VLD’s Earth is not in a position where they have the muscles to flex against even a single Lion. All of the technology they have was given to them by Sam Holt, who was sent home with the grace and assistance of Voltron and the Coalition. That’s not a position to spit on the Coalition from.

It would rapidly become a standoff of Shiro going “listen, we like you, we deeply respect you, and that’s the reason we don’t want to reduce you to pulp right now, which is where this standoff is gonna go, because I am basically driving a sentient alien superweapon and you guys have modified lunar rovers at best.”

Furthermore, even if the Garrison brass isn’t woven from quite the same moral fiber as Iverson and Sam Holt... that just means that their defenses aren’t going to be ironclad because we can at least count on the Garrison folk we know outright defying those more callous orders.

The Garrison is very likely going to have much toothier fish to fry than going after Voltron itself

Sendak’s still at large. Sendak’s already aired the idea, as far back as season 1, of going after Earth. And Sendak has also established a conspicuous track record of attacking people less out of tactical advantage and more in the interest of punishing them for resisting him.

It’s basically a given, at some point or another, Sendak is going to attack Earth. Even without him in the picture, part of the reason they sent Sam home was exactly what Allura said in s1e1:

“Earth is here. An attack on your planet is inevitable.”

Everybody’s been taking it as a given that the war is gonna come to Earth’s doorstep. The only question they have is when, and how much time they’ll have to prepare.

Now, it’s entirely possible we’re gonna see them pull a Dairugger/ Vehicle Voltron allusion out of it by having Earth mount a specialized combat fleet, but for the sake of drama (and the writers confessing they aren’t that attached to VV) it’s likely whatever Earth is planning won’t be ready for takeoff by the time trouble comes calling.

#voltron legendary defender #vld #Galaxy Garrison #season 6 #vld spoilers #readmore #Anonymous

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f-117-nighthawk · 5 years ago

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I’m in a Playlist Mood

I was scrolling through my dark matter tag looking for something I made a while ago to reference in the next chapter of Carry Me Home and ran across my last playlist explanation post. It put me in the mood to think about this again, and I’ve added...a lot. The playlist might’ve actually doubled in length since then (Thank You Abyss) and I’ve moved some stuff around in order. So, more playlist meta under the cut (it’s LONG)

So first thing: I’ve actually created two new playlists (well, one new one and actually made the third playlist have more than two tracks) since that post jhadsfljd. Working forwards in time (kinda), we have:

Dark Matter: The Road to Ruin

The Road to Ruin is the Main Playlist, the thing I use to write to, the thing I lie in bed and listen to to think up new things, and half the thing that keeps the timeline in place (it’s actually more updated than World Anvil rn whoops). Here we have overarching plot hooks, character development, and the story of six Paladins and their friends trying to save the universe.

Turn the Lights Out I sort of explained in the last post and I can’t think of too much more to add. The TLDR is it’s about the Lions (and, well, technically [REDACTED] too....) and sort of why I refer to a fully-melded Lion-Paladin duo as Spirits.

(I was here/Will you welcome and recognize me/I'll be there/I was here/Will you dread me, will you despise me/I'll be there/For the last living thing)

Remnants of Stars is again about Galran philosophy and the actual process of the quintessence nurseries filtering quintessence back into the universe. But the bit about giving in to know the truth becomes important much, MUCH later.

(As children of space/With stardust in our veins/We will give in to know the truth/We are the remnants of stars)

Your World Will Fail, Dark Matter, and Eater of Worlds are about [REDACTED], about what happens between that instant between the first plank time and the next. They’re an overarching theme, but also the event that everything else builds from, whether that be interpreted as the beginning of the universe or the Voltron comet crashing into Daibazaal.

(Your world will fail my love/It’s far beyond repair/Your world will fail my love/It is already there)

(Bring me your soul/Bring me your hate/In my name you will create/Bring me your fear/Bring me your pain/You will destroy in my name)

(Can’t imagine the violence/The rage and the love in my madness/I am the eater of worlds and I’m looking for someone to feed me)

Apocalypse 1992 is actually the main story of Through Apocalypse Skies, although its framing story is shortly after String Theory. It happens between parts of Awakenings, detailing the rise of [REDACTED] and the final hours before the destruction of everything sentient species knew beforehand.

(Fly high through apocalypse skies/Fight for the world we must save/Like tears of a unicorn lost in the rain/Chaos will triumph this day)

You Keep What You Kill covers the slow degeneration of the Empire between The Fall and the Battle of Arus. The knowledge harshly taught by the Thuanial War is forgotten under the influence of Zarkon, Haggar, and [REDACTED]. Marzin and Galraasa quickly rise the ranks as the Empire’s left and right hands, like omens of destruction before them. The four are the ‘holy half-dead,’ the ones who shape the devouring of the universe before them.

(Defying dimensions/These ruthless creatures will steal your soul/Breaking away from the chains of mortality/They won't be taken down/Bow now to the holy half dead/The master to death mongers calls)

The Seven Sisters is about Keith, mostly, and connected to Closure via its influence on Child From the Stars (Lost in the Dark) and also to Memories of a Girl I Haven’t Met

(I cast my hope upon The Pleiades/The Seven Sisters who would come for me/They'd fall to Earth to grant a child's dream/But I'm still waiting)

Starlight is the newly added Adashi song. Here, it’s the sad part, based around the time that the SFSS Genesis launches for Kerberos. It also is sort of about Shiro’s thoughts throughout the war as he watches ‘from distant skies’ (and influences String Theory kinda)

(At night the earth will rise/And I'll think of you each time I watch from distant skies/Whenever stars go down and galaxies ignite/I'll think of you each time they wash me in their light/And I'll fall in love with you again)

Abyss is Awakenings again. It’s specifically the Red Lion waking up on Sendak’s ship to her new Paladin, but also sort of the rest of the Lions as they find new Paladins for the first time since The Fall

(Open my eyes in a daze/How long has it been? Am I so out of place?/Warmth I can no longer feel/My mountain is gone, I'm surrounded by steel/The strangest of structures arises ahead/Seems to be held up by nothing/Where have I gone, do I dream?/How can the stars be all I can see?)

Who Will Save You Now is about the Paladins in First Contact. It’s the video messages they send to their families, the warning that Something Is Out Here that they need to prepare for. It’s a declaration of protection for Earth, but a recognition that the Paladins may not be able to do what they say.

(I will not take from you and you will not owe/I will protect you from the fire below/It's not in my mind/It's here at my side/Go tell the world that I'm still alive)

The End of the Beginning and Nobody Gets Left Behind are the aftermath of the Battle of the Sarnan Nebula, the end of season two. The End of the Beginning hasn’t been posted yet, but it’s also the second of the four Closure fics. The End of the Beginning also has influence on String Theory.

(Every night I die just a little/All this time, I'm caught in the middle/All your life, you fought with no winning/This is just the end of the beginning)

(Don't even try to pretend/That you're rough and just as tough/As when you're missing a friend/Attack and take him back/Cause when the team isn't whole/You've got a hole in your soul)

A Simple Plan is sort of part of The End of the Beginning, but really takes place after it. It’s the newly shuffled Team Voltron attempting to track down Lotor as Haggar tries to keep him under her control, and the new Black Paladin’s slow shift away from the things that he was pushed into and to the Blade. (And... guess what... it has influence on String Theory!) Fun fact I found out recently: The Spiritual Machines are by and large also the people behind Les Friction, which explains so much.

(What is this space we’re climbing/What is this place we’re stuck in/Why do we feel we’re sinking/How do we get out – get out of this)

Memories of a Girl I Haven’t Met skips all the way over Naxzela and to the Mission to the Baaria Shipyards, the first major offensive that isn’t somehow connected to canon (even if only a very very small part of it is actually at the shipyards lol). This is also the song that solidified Keith’s very queer identity in Dark Matter.

(In this lonely place, bathed in silence and thoughts of you/I can't see your face but I'm trying to envision you/So are you really out there? Are you awake with memories/Of a boy you haven't met yet who's wished upon the Pleiades?)

TRIALS (reimagine) and String Theory are.... hoh boy. [REDACTED], [spoilers], and the turning point for a lot of things, which is why it has the honor of being the separating fic between my two main Dark Matter folders. TRIALS being on here is a fun story, because I associate that song very heavily with my main Star Wars fics, since that’s where the series title comes from, but the reimagine version of it gave me such strong Dark Matter vibes, it ended up here. It has heavy influence on the first part of String Theory, and is what I’ve been using for general pacing of the first half. String Theory itself isn’t the weirdest song on the playlist, but it’s really hard to find the connections to it without several layers of abstraction and backstory on [REDACTED]. String Theory is also weaved into a good chunk of fics before it.

(The ending won't be forgotten/It's written in the stars and the hieroglyphs/Sending the lionhearted/The stones break bones, but we're venomous)

(You don't believe in space/You don't believe in light/You don't believe that anything is well beyond your might/We walk across the sky and beneath the ocean floor/We're never going anywhere we've never been before)

House on Fire is the aftermath of String Theory, and a large vibe of We ARE Struggling Together! (Rise Against says it’s about parenting???? lol fuck that) (okay but actually, switch the parental love part to sibling love/general familial love and that’s a pretty good description....)

(So I'll just hold you like a hand grenade/You touch me like a razor blade/I wish there was some other way right now/Like a house on fire we're up in flames/I'd burn here if that's what it takes/To let you know I won't let go of you)

Belgrade is the klance song! It is a) bop b) always stuck in my head because it is That Good. The line in the chorus about ‘sweet songs of seduction’ is eternally funny to be bc a)they’re both ace and b)QPR’s don’t usually involve seduction as far as I know. Belgrade also leads almost directly into...

(We pretend in the darkness/We pretend the night won’t steal our youth/Singing me the sweet songs of seduction/Let me be the fool, fool, fool/Who will live and die for you)

Here to Save You is about Sam. Mostly. It’s also about Pidge. And Zaivorge cannons.

(A slave for humankind/I made sure I would survive/To stay alive/Now it's time to move on/When there's nothing left to prove/I'm coming to get you)

Iron is what eventually replaced Ten Thousand Against One. The plot has actually changed a lot since it was that song like. two years ago (three?) at this point. It has more of a focus on Keith knowing what’s going on due to [spoilers] and coming to accept parts of himself that are suddenly very obvious (kiiiinda the third closure fic?)

(You can't live without the fire/It's the heat that makes you strong/'Cause you're born to live/And fight it all the way/You can't hide what lies inside you/It's the only thing you know/You're embracing that, never walk away)

Birthright and Firewall are not exactly a direct result of Iron, but they wouldn’t happen how they do without it. They’re actually largely about Lotor, but then [REDACTED] swings back into the fray and things learned in String Theory/the framing story for Through Apocalypse Skies hit in full force.

(The voices in my head have all begun to sing/(The voices in your head have all begun to sing)/And they sure as hell hope I am listening/(I sure as hell hope you are listening!))

(They come to your dreams with illusion/They come to bring shape to your mind/You know how to stop the intrusion/We all have to fight for our lives)

and then, The Day the Earth Collapsed

(How much time has been elapsed/Since the day the earth collapsed?)

Here Comes the Reign doesn’t come into full effect until several months after Birthright/Firewall after Galraasa meets their fate, but starts with The Day the Earth Collapsed. It’s largely about Haggar and [REDACTED]

(You made something they can't take away/Now bring the fire of the burning sun on everyone)

Closure is placed where the fourth of its fics is. Closure in general is a lot of Keith’s character development and some of the struggles he goes through to accept his place in the universe and the fact that yes, he does have people that care about him. The last fic is me shining a brighter light on Closure’s chorus and taking a ‘last goodbye’ as never needing to say it again

(I am the child from the stars/That got lost in the dark/Between heaven and hell/I am forced to live on/I am the cause when you sin/I am the demon you skin/But there is no more tears to beautify/This is my last goodbye)

Ember and Soulbound are two closely related missions involving both Voltron and the Blade (specifically the Dark Whispers) in which [REDACTED] comes in with a vengeance, and some revelations about certain people’s fates are had. Soulbound is actually sort of from Krolia’s perspective.

(Dark matter falling from the sky/Dancing flames reflecting in your eyes as you watch them burn/Watching all your riches witches burn)

(Soulbound, endlessly forever/Locked between the darkness and the light/Don't drown in the swarming, blackened rising/Hold on to humanity and fight)

Darker Matter and Other Worlds Than These are. Well. [REDACTED] and [spoilers] and String Theory’s revelations rearing their ugly head once again, but this time with extra context and just a little bit of [spoiler]

(Dream yourself away/The pull of you shredding time and space)

(There are monsters in the sky/There are demons in the sea/I have seen them with my eyes/I've seen what you won't see/Pull the wool out from your eyes/It won't shade your frail belief/In the end we cannot hide/There are other worlds than these)

Godhunter is a fun one. The combined effects of String Theory, Soulbound, and Darker Matter/Other Worlds Than These come to a head and Team Voltron goes, well, hunting.

(She's been watching for a century/With hatred, and with scorn/If you know the hunter's coming/Then you hide or keep on running/'Cause she's slain the gods before)

My Darkest Hour is revenge for Godhunter, as well as a distraction from it, although Godhunter continues all the way to Louder than Words.

(When the sun comes crashing down/When the world is spinning round and round/I will face what must be my darkest hour)

Faster Than Light is almost direct aftermath of My Darkest Hour, and sort of the inverse of Godhunter, where now Team Voltron are the hunted, even as they attempt to continue hunting. Oh and, Marzin and [REDACTED] are big parts

(Once more we're flying fast as light/Dark matter passing in the night/Pursued by a force we can't outrun/As we hurtle towards a dying sun/We maneuver through the remnants of a moon/On the solar winds of supernovas/There is not a place to hide, the Matriarch is close behind/It's plain to see she's coming for us all)

The Reckoning, This is a Call, World on Fire, The Wind that Shapes the Land, and Louder Than Words are the finale, what everything has been building towards. Earth’s faction, Haggar, [REDACTED], Voltron, the Empire, and the Coalition, all clash together in a final desperate bid to finish or prevent the final result of Your World Will Fail/Dark Matter/Eater of Worlds.

(I see your face, find peace of mind/Between the madness and the sadness and the fire burning/The end of war, the great divine/We'll see the day of reckoning)

(This is a call to action/This is a call to arms/All lives for one, together/There are no false alarms)

(World on fire with a smoking sun/Stops everything and everyone/Brace yourself for all will pay/Help is on the way)

(Search within/Uncover the will to win/Turn against the tide that washes o'er/Find the strength to fall and rise again/Open up the gates, unleash the force/I am the wind that shapes the land/Old as time and twice as strong/Oceans arise at my command/I alone can carry on)

(We have the force to fight/We have the blinding light/A war is more than heard/Coming in louder than words)

Dystopian Fiction

Dystopian Fiction is focused on what happens on Earth during the main playlist. I split it out because putting stuff like Cross the Line on the main playlist was getting clunky, and I figure Adam and Veronica (and the rest of the Paladins’ families, but mostly those two) deserve a chance for their story to shine on its own.

Dark Matter is on here because title track, but also it does end up with effects.

(Don't stop, don't think/Move up, don't blink now/On your knees pray for rain/Don't breathe when you take your aim)

Codebreaker is Adam’s song! I have him primarily as a cryptologist for the Garrison, teaching on the side and as a reserve pilot. Aviators says Codebreaker is actually about Cyperpunk 2077 but uhhh Fuck That it’s about Adam being The Best and dealing with...

(Codebreaker can't you find/Can you read between the lines of code?/Tell me all that you know/How far down the hole does it all go)

Cross the Line is the Éskhayklos’ image song. They’re a neo-luddite movement turned terrorist group that are upset with the way the Sol Federation is trying to fix Earth, stating that humans are the one that pushed it into this state, they should leave it to die and die along with it. Akane Shirogane was their worst nightmare. Cross the Line fits because, well, they crossed the line when [spoiler beep] and they were happy about it. (And “human cause” comes into play later when they pick up anti-alien leanings)

Who Will Save You Now here is about Sam, and the aftermath of Here to Save You, in addition to its referenced role in the main playlist

(Alone with this vision/Alone and blind/Go tell the world I'm still alive)

The Day the Earth Collapsed is exactly what it says on the tin.

(How much time has been elapsed/Since the day the earth collapsed?)

Dystopian Fiction is the title track for this part. With the events of The Day the Earth Collapsed, the Garrison and our heroes on Earth are at their lowest point. It really is a piece of dystopian fiction, between [spoiler] and [spoiler]. And also: “Nobody can shoot me down, not just yet” is about Adam bc Fuck Canon

(I'm a dead man/In the wasteland/I'm a soldier fighting for superstition/Under search lights/In the long nights/We've been written like dystopian fiction)

The Reckoning is the only one of its little subset that made it over here, because it’s the only one that references events from before its eponymous fic (both verses are Very Earth)

(We're all alone, walking in twilight/The night has been long and so many have fallen/Feel no remorse, light will be breaking/Our freedom is worth it all)

Filaments

Filaments is the least complete, mostly because it’s the ‘sequel series’ of sorts. I have ideas for it, but I still haven’t posted most of the major story beats from the main portion of Dark Matter, so I’ve been purposefully putting it on the backburner. I do have enough to write Carry Me Home and put some foreshadowing in other fics.

(I am the keeper/I am the secret/I am the answer/I am the end)

Filaments is the title track of this part. It’s... a little hard to explain why without giving away the entire plot (what little I have planned lol) but it’s about the connections between different parts of the universe, and some fall-out of Darker Matter/Other Worlds Than These.

(These glowing filaments/Conducting this enchanting/Sarcophagus that's holding us)

Starlight is, again, Adashi song, and this time the happy part

(Don't leave me lost here forever/I need your starlight and pull me through/Bring me back to you)

Carry Me Home is what I’m in the process of writing right now, and it’s about the aftermath of the Quintessence War, specifically about how Shiro decides to settle down on Earth and what he does to build himself a home.

(Carry me home to the morning light/carry me home before you wave me goodbye/Oh, carry me home...)

#i am dark matter; your road to ruin #wow it's 2am #i spent like three hours on this #playlist #enjoy the spotify links #i really did not realize just how much I've added to the playlist this year #it's abyss's fault #i just. really love the playlist #it is my masterpiece #my brother makes fun of me for this but like #you DON'T make super complicated playlists for stories??#i reiterate i really really love this thing #anyway i should. sleep #i mean the semester is over i cn stay up till two but that doesn't mean it's wise #can't wait for me to finally post everything so i can gush about the playlist without smatterings of [REDACTED] tags when it shows up #DM Playlists

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numbah34 · 7 years ago

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Heart’s Desire- 3

Author’s note: Wow, I’m so glad there’s been interest in this story! I am loving reading the occasional comments and tags. I originally set myself a goal of posting the whole thing before season 7 came out, but that was apparently a little ambitious. On the plus side, the entire story is now outlined! And, since it’s not really all that reliant on what happens in canon, I don’t have any worries about not finishing it. So, provided I survive the hurricane of adrenaline and emotions we are all expecting from season 7′s release, you can *probably* look for the next chapter some time next week! Thanks for reading! ^_^

Other chapters: Ch1 / Ch2 / Ch4

Chapter 3

“…How could you possibly know?”

*************************************

Pidge and Lance both gasped as they saw the princess topple over the side of the boat. As she hit the water, Lance reacted, diving under the waves and swimming as fast as he could toward her sinking body.

Pidge was right behind him. “It doesn’t look like she’s trying to swim; the impact must have knocked her unconscious! We have to hurry, humans can’t breathe underwater!”

Lance drove himself ever faster. Reaching Allura, he scooped her up and made for the surface. The rapid change of direction pushed something out of Allura’s loosened grip. Lance glimpsed the rapidly sinking object; the princess’ sword! Remembering her joy at receiving the sword for her birthday, he knew they couldn't let it become lost at sea.

“Pidge!" he exclaimed, “The sword!”

Without hesitation, Pidge took off after the sinking sword, while Lance continued to swim upward. Moments later, he broke through the surface. He caught sight of the shoreline and began swimming toward it, careful to keep the princess’ head above the water. He felt her torso contract just before she let out a loud series of coughs, and then went slack in his arms again.

Coming up to the shore, Lance carefully laid Allura face up on the sand. As he took a minute to consider how he was going to move her further out of the surf, he was rejoined by Pidge, scabbard strap hanging from her mouth. She inched her way up onto the dryer part of the sand and dropped the sword. “Ugh.” She worked her jaw for a moment. “That was heavier than I was expecting.”

She made her way back to Lance, who had managed to wriggle his way further onto the shore. Together, they slowly pulled Allura’s unconscious form onto the beach.

Pidge assured Lance that Allura was, in fact, breathing. They took a moment to rest and catch their own breath. Lance gazed at the princess’ face, mesmerized. He had never seen anyone quite like her. Long lashes framed her closed eyes as she slept. Eyes that, from his vantage point on the ship, had been a curious shade of blue that he found difficult to describe; almost like they couldn’t decide between blue and violet and took it in turns to shift color in the lights. Her slender face held an expression of contented peace. Lance reached his hand to gently brush granules of sand from her cheeks, and move wisps of her silky, white hair from her face. She let out a quiet sigh at the contact.

“She’s… so beautiful,” he whispered. “I think she might be the prettiest human I’ve ever seen.”

“To be fair, you haven’t seen that many humans…” Pidge muttered. Her brows knit together as she felt an odd sensation forming in the pit of her stomach; an almost… hollow… feeling. She idly wondered if she needed to eat something. “Hey, are you hungry?”

“Yeah…” Lance replied quietly.

“Should we go find something to eat?”

“Yeah… in a moment, Pidge.” Lance answered, almost dreamily. “I think I might sit with her for a while longer, make sure she’s okay.”

“Well, okay,” said Pidge. The weird feeling in her stomach twisted ever-so-slightly. “I think I’m going to see what I can find.”

“Alright.” Lance responded, still not taking his eyes off the sleeping princess.

Pidge scooted herself back to the shoreline, then cast one more glance toward her oblivious friend before diving into the water.

A short while later, Pidge returned to the beach, finding Lance in the same spot she had left him. She had felt a little better after a few fish, and thought she should come back to check on him. She made her way over to him.

“Hey! Hyanssh!” she nudged his arm. Lance jumped a little in surprise, then grinned and held his hand out. Pidge deposited the fish she had caught for him into his outstretched palm. “Thought you might still be hungry.” She smiled back at him.

“Aw, thanks, Pidge!” he said gratefully. “I guess I must have lost track of time. Thanks for bringing me dinner!”

She snorted. “Dinner? I think you mean breakfast.” She gestured eastward with a flipper, where a sliver of a sunrise could be seen coloring the waves.

Lance looked shocked. “Have we really been out all night?!”

“Yes, and I think it might be a good idea to head back to deeper water. The princess will be safe enough in the daylight, and there are sure to be people searching for her. If a ‘mysterious-golden-seal’ and a ‘merman-who-is-not-supposed-to-be’ want to keep their existence secret, then we need to go before the search party finds us, as well.”

Pidge had no sooner uttered these words than her ears perked to the sound of someone shouting “Allura!”

She and Lance looked at each other in alarm, and then quickly headed for the water’s edge. As they dove beneath the waves, Lance couldn’t resist one more look. He peeked out of the sea, watching their recently decamped spot. Allura was beginning to stir as the person shouting drew closer.

Lance saw the knight from the ship- Keith?- come into sight. He noticed Allura and his quick steps turned into a run.

“Allura!” Keith exclaimed, dropping to his knees in the sand next to her. He carefully lifted her head and cradled her in his arms. “You’re alive…”

“Keith,” Allura softly responded, now fully awake. “You found me…” She put a hand to her head. “I think I’ve just had the strangest dream.”

Before Lance could observe any more, he felt a tugging on his fin. He ducked back under the water to find Pidge pulling on his tail.

She glared at him. “You’ve got to be careful! Just because they haven’t noticed a face watching them from the waves doesn’t mean they won’t!” She turned and began swimming away.

Lance cast one more longing glance in the direction of the coast, then turned to follow. “Pidge, come on. You know I’m always careful!” He caught up with her and smiled as she rolled her eyes.

Later that day, Lance sat up in his bed, stretching. Shortly after arriving back at the submerged city, he and Pidge had parted ways to get some rest; she swam back to her little home on a beach nearby, and he had gone back to his room in the palace residences.

Upon completion of the castle hundreds of years ago, it had been the belief of the kings and queens of the merpeople that they should take care of their community; the palace and its many rooms were far too many for just the royal family, so they had invited the citizens to live there as well. The royal family stayed in their own wing close to the center of the palace, while the common merfolk, such as Lance, had their own rooms in the general residence wings. Everyone was expected to work together to keep their home in good condition, and the merpeople generally followed this rule without exception.

Lance was grateful to have his own room, though he did find himself occasionally lonely. When he was younger, his family had been part of an official exploration team. Lance had not yet been old enough to join them on their missions, but he always looked forward to hearing their stories of what they had seen and found when they returned. Queen Luxia, the current ruler of the merpeople and a good friend of his parents’, would often watch after him while they were gone.

It was on one such mission many years previous that his family had disappeared without a trace. Many speculations were tossed about as to what could have happened to them and the rest of their team, but no evidence was ever found. The queen, fearing what this might mean, had become even more cautious in the years since.

Lance felt like the queen was a bit too cautious at times, especially regarding him. As he had been in her care at the time of his family’s disappearance, he had all but become a ward of the queen, who felt responsible for continuing to take care of her friends’ son. Even now, when he was no longer a minor, he felt like she continued to be overprotective of him.

This was why he was not really surprised to find Plaxum, one of the queen’s attendants, knocking on his door. Her face bore a slight worried expression.

“Oh, hey, Plaxum,” said Lance. “What’s going on?” He did his best to keep his own expression neutral, as though he had not been part of a daring rescue of a human princess who had fallen off a ship he wasn’t even supposed to get close to only the previous night. He put on his best nonchalant smile.

“Hello, Lance,” Plaxum said. She returned his smile, looking somewhat apologetic. “The queen noticed you weren’t at dinner last night…”

“Oh! Yeah, I was hanging out with Pidge and just… uh… lost track of time?” he shrugged in what he hoped was a convincing way.

Plaxum raised her eyebrows. “Hmm… I’m not sure I would mention that part to her. You know how she feels about the surface world.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know, but seals barely spend time on land anyway, I don’t see what her problem is with… wait.” He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘mention that part to her’?”

“Oh! Yes! That’s the whole reason I’m here. Queen Luxia has called you for an audience with her.”

“Oh… um… sure, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“I will let her know!” Lance shut his door as Plaxum swam away. He frowned. Why would the queen want to see him so urgently that she sent an attendant to fetch him? This was definitely not the first time he had missed a meal at the palace. Or come back home later than usual, for that matter. What was so important?

He quickly took a moment to compose himself and come up with an alibi, then left for the throne room. Plaxum was right about one thing. The queen would not be pleased if she knew what he had really been up to the previous evening.

Lance soon found himself in the throne room, floating in front of Queen Luxia. She regarded him kindly, with concern in her eyes.

“Lance, we missed you at dinner last night.” she stated.

“So I heard,” he replied, nodding towards Plaxum.

The queen continued. “I wondered where you might have been instead. Perhaps you can enlighten me?” She looked at him expectantly.

Lance blinked. “I was just spending time with… a friend. We lost track of time. That’s all.”

“Ah.” said the queen. Her expression had turned cool, and perhaps a little disappointed? “Spending time with a friend. What friend had you so preoccupied?”

“Um.” Lance didn’t see any way around this. All the usual merfolk he might have named would have surely been at the palace. “I was with… Pidge.”

“The seal with the strange-colored fur.” It was a statement more than a question.

“Yes, that’s her,” he replied. Of all the truths that he could share from last night, this one would surely get him in the least amount of trouble. He was fairly sure most everyone knew of their friendship. “I don’t really see what the big deal is, either. So she spends a little bit of her time every day on land, so what? She’s my friend.”

“The big deal, Lance, is that you’re lying to me.”

“What? No, I’m not! She is my-”

“Not about the seal, although she may well be part of the problem.” Queen Luxia gave him a hard look. “You’re not telling me the whole truth about where you were last night.”

Lance gulped. All he could do was stare back at the queen. What did she know? And how did she know?

She sighed. “Lance, I know about the boat.”

He looked at her with wide eyes. “Um… which boat?”

“Which-? Was there more than one?” she demanded. “No, actually, that’s not important right now. Lance, you could have been seen.”

Oh. Not the shipwrecked boat, then. “There might have been a ship out on the water… but it was so dark, there’s no way they would have noticed us!”

“That is not what I was told, Lance.” She gave him a pointed look. “A swordfish spotted you and your seal friend swimming right next to the boat. You know my rule about boats, Lance. And you know my rule about humans.”

Curse those nosy swordfish! “But-! We didn’t-!”

“Tell me about the storm.” She folded her hands in her lap and simply looked at him, waiting for an answer.

Lance knew it was over. There was no getting around the truth; it was best to just come clean. He took a deep breath, and then told the queen the whole story; the shipwreck, the shark, getting Pidge to the surface so she could breathe, noticing the fireworks, swimming for a closer look…

Queen Luxia listened patiently, and waited for him to finish his tale before she said anything. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly when he got to the part about saving the princess, though.

“…and then we watched over the princess until sunrise. And then we came back.” he finished.

Her voice was quiet when she responded. “Lance, you have a good heart. It speaks very well of your character that you wanted to help.” She paused, and looked him right in the eye. “But even so, it would have been better if you had let well enough alone.”

“She would have drowned!” Lance exclaimed, horrified at the queen’s statement. “She would be dead if I hadn’t done anything! How would that be better?!”

“Our people have remained secret for so long that our existence has passed into the realm of myth and legend. We are far safer if no one knows we exist. If she had awoken for a moment and discovered an actual merman-”

“But she didn’t! And, even if she did, she wouldn’t have tried to hurt me! She’s… she’s just different!” he cut the queen off, and continued, softer. “She’s kind… she’s brave… she’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. And I think I might be… in love with her.”

Queen Luxia’s expression became stony. “You do not even know her. You’ve never spoken to her. You have a silly infatuation at best, based off a few hours of observation.”

“But I could-”

“No.” She cut him off. “You are forbidden from visiting or even going near the surface again. It has become painfully obvious that, at least right now, I cannot trust your judgment.” She silenced his angry exclamation. “Additionally, since you seem to also exhibit poor judgment around your seal friend, I think you need to disassociate from her.” Noting Lance’s expression suddenly changing from angry to crestfallen, she softened her tone. “At least for a while.”

Lance floated silently in his spot, unsure of what to say, or if there was indeed anything he could say that might change the queen’s mind. Queen Luxia, deciding herself that their conversation was at an end, dismissed him.

Lance swam quickly from the throne room. He left the palace, unsure of exactly where he was heading, but just needing to get away. He felt tears stinging at the backs of his eyes as feelings of anger, frustration, and despair clung to him. This was not the first time Lance had been summoned for an audience with the queen; as his daily adventures were often viewed as foolhardy or dangerous, he found himself frequently conversing with her about his activities. In all those other conversations, however, he had never seen her this irate. And he had never received a punishment such as this!

Never going to the surface, or even near the surface; never getting a chance to see the princess again; never getting to learn more about her; and… Pidge… His heart sank at the thought of not being with his friend.

Lance was pulled out of his thoughts by catching a glimpse of colorful sea plants in his periphery. So distracted was he, he had not noticed how far he had swum. Stopping, he took a moment to look around and get his bearings. He found himself in a small clearing surrounded by tall vegetation. Rocks of different sizes littered the sandy floor, and smaller anemones and other plants in vibrant hues ringed the misshapen circle.

The garden.

Lance had been here before; this spot was actually a favorite of his and Pidge’s, not too far from the entrance of the garden, and not so deep in that they could get lost, or run into anything… unexpected. He felt a little uneasy being here by himself, but in his current mood, he didn’t really care. He sat down on one of the larger rocks, planted his hands behind him, and turned his face upward.

He was going to have to tell Pidge. The thought made him ache; she was his closest friend. He had other friends, sure, but no one else seemed to understand him the way she did. Who would he make laugh with his terrible jokes? Who would patiently entertain and try to answer even his wildest questions? Who would go with him on adventures? Assuming he ever got to go on another adventure again…

This latest one had been nothing short of amazing. To not only see a working ship, but also people! Real people! And the princess… He sighed as he turned over and laid on his stomach, resting his chin on his crossed arms.

Allura… He wondered to himself how she was doing. He was glad he had seen one of her guards find her. How he wished he could have been the one to wake her up and return her to the palace. He swished his tail discontentedly and thought how his lack of legs was really cramping his continued heroism. What would have happened if he had been the one she had awoken to on that beach…? Would it really be too much to believe that a princess could fall in love with him?

He closed his eyes. “I wish I could see the princess again…” he murmured.

“Is that what your heart truly desires?”

#vld fanfiction #plance #pidgance #flirtyrobot #little mermaid AU #kallura #OHMYGOODNESS I actually posted content!#WOW this was a long one #still can't believe my word count #also another little cliffhanger?#hoo boy

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