#BABY ALTAN REVEAL!!!!

[asksolgaleo]

"From teaching me to fly to helping me learn constellations... I miss her terribly." @asktheisle

Amelia's cast section updated. Hints updated. Ask box will be opening shortly.

[didyoutrydynamite]

Old Friends

New prompt baby!

Prompt by alexanderstormbringer: Reese introduces her old friend, Arslan, to the rest of her team. Jaune, of course, is terribly awkward and makes a fool of himself, much to Arslan's and the rest of the team's great amusement.

Team Juniors were sat in Atlas’s library, partaking in one of their usual pass times of deep philosophical debate.

“So why can’t I just stomp on the snail?”

“Ughh, May, we’ve been over this. The snail is immortal and if it touches you die!”

“A snail honestly doesn’t sound that threatening Reese.”

Reese sighed as her words were lost on the resident markswoman as she turned to Jaune pleaded “J-man, can you please help me explain why she’d have to spend the rest of her immortal life looking out for the killer snail.”

Jaune looked at Reese as he thought for a moment then responded, “I’d just hire a guy to drop the snail in a box of wet cement.”

“Oh in that case I’d definitely take the one trillion lien.” May stated.

“Totally. Hello, new yacht!” Neon agreed.

“You guys just don’t get it!” Reese argued. “One day that little killer snail will bust out with it’s tiny muscles and come after you. Then one day when you least expect it, it’ll sneak up behind you and-!”

It was then suddenly a figure in a red cloak dropped from the ceiling. The stranger rose up right behind Reese, extending out an index and middle finger together, whipping her arm down on Reese’s neck before anyone could shout a warning. The two fingers landed on what must have been a sensitive spot, causing Reese to scrunch up her neck like a retreating turtle and let out a startled squeal.

“ACK! What the hellllaaaaaAAAAAARSLAN?!” As Reese turned towards her ambusher, her anger had shifted to surprise then absolute elation, apparently recognizing the stranger as they pulled down their hood, revealing platinum blonde hair and exoticly tanned skin.

The welcomed intruder, Arslan, if Jaune heard Reese’s squeal correctly, simply giggled, “I see your defenses are as open as ev- OOMPH.” Arslan’s sentence was cut short as Reese wrapped her up in a spine shattering hug, which was then returned happily.

Eventually the two broke the warm embrace and Reese started bouncing with excitement.

“Dude what hell?! You’re here! You're here! What are you doing in Atlas?” 

“Master and I are here on assignment.”

“Dad’s here!?” Reese gasped.

“Correct.” Arslan nodded, “In fact he’s talking with General Ironwood up in his office right now. He was hoping to request the aid of a certain team of students to help out with this mission. I was sent down to go retrieve them.”

Arslan’s hint didn’t go unnoticed. “We’ve been requested for a mission?” May excitedly inquired.

“Wait a minute,” Neon interjected. “Reese’s dad is your master? Is he some sort of ninja or something?”

Jaune was pretty sure if Reese’s dad was a ninja, the girl would never have stopped talking about it. ‘You talking to me you little shit? I’ll have you know that my dad is a ninja master, graduated at the top of his dojo…!’. The thought gave him a chuckle.

“Pffft, if you count lugging around a Dust Thrower and chucking explosives as stealthy, then yeah.” Reese cackled, “Nah, he’s a Huntsman like Jaune’s dad. Wait! I need to introduce you!”

Reese grabbed the girl next to her. “Guys, this is my dad’s protégé and my best friend from back home! Arslan Altan!” She waved her arms towards her best friend as if revealing a brand new car.

Arslan was dressed in bright yellow monk robes that reminded Jaune of those old Mistrali Kung-fu movies, complete with dark baggy pants and a bright red sash around her waist. The only things she wore that would have made you guess she was even bothered with getting cold was a pair of big snow boots and a large dark red cloak she wore on her shoulders. Jaune couldn’t help but admire the way her platinum blonde hair and olive green eyes contrasted against her dark skin, giving her a fiercely sharp look.

The monk bowed respectively. “It is an honor to finally meet you all. Reese has told me quite a few stories of team Juniors. Let me see… you must be May Zedong, correct?”

May took a moment to look surprised and then nodded in confirmation. “That’s right, based on your robes, you belong to the Usama Monastery?”

Now it was Arslan’s turn to be surprised, “Exactly! I’m surprised to hear we’re known outside of Mistral.”

“One of my dads grew up in Mistral, he studied the lawsuits on Usama Monastery v. SDC. I was happy to hear that the ruins had managed to be saved.”

“We all were.” Arslan agreed but then sighed, “Although the village down the river wasn’t quite as lucky, the whole place is under water at this point.”

“Hey sorry to interject here.” Neon interrupted “ But I remember something about you shadowing a Huntsman? Are you from Haven Academy?”

“No, actually.” Arslan stated, “Let’s just say that Haven and I were not able to see eye to eye on certain things. I’m getting my Huntress license through apprenticeship under Master Chloris. I assume you must be Neon Katt?”

“Guilty as charged.” Neon confirmed. “ And that sounds super cool! So you’re like a free spirit huh? Roaming the frontier, kicking ass and taking names?”

“In a sense.” Arslan chuckled. “ I still have to adhere to Huntsman law and all that. It’s a lot more dangerous than actually studying at a school, but there's a saying among Huntsman, ’Every day outside an Academy is worth a week of classes.’” 

“Awesome!” Neon exclaimed. “I can tell we’re gonna be fast besties. Also you have got to tell me what you use for your hair! Bet guys go wild for the lioness mane you got, huh?”

“Thank you,” Arslan flattered “But I’m hardly as popular as you suggest, my presence tends to intimidate rather than charm.”

“Oh please. I bet guys say thank you after punching them in the face. You totally got the Amazonian Beauty thing going on girl! Right Jaune?”

“Huh? What?” Jaune dumbly asked, wondering why the conversation was steered towards him. He noticed the glint in Neon’s eye as she metaphorically threw the ball in his court.

“So you must be Jaune Arc.” Arslan thankfully said, either knowingly or unknowingly, sparring Jaune from giving his opinion on how attractive she was. “From the stories Reese had told me I’d thought you would be taller.”

“Totally…” Jaune then coughed into his hand “I-I mean yes, I am! It’s a pleasure to meet you. Any friend of Reese is a friend of mine.”

Nailed it.

He held out a hand, Arslan taking it into a surprisingly strong handshake that nearly took him off balance.

“Likewise. And I’d like to go ahead and give my deepest apologies for all the mischief she has no doubt caused.”

“Hey! I’m not that bad!” Reese protested.

“Do I need to remind you of the time you invented ‘Urban Kayaking’?. The city still hasn’t removed those wire fences around that water fountain.”

“It was revolutionary and those cops wouldn’t know fun if it kicked them in the shins!”

The little daredevil’s passion gave Jaune a light laugh. “You don’t need to apologize, Arslan, I can assure you she hasn’t been that… much trouble…” he trailed off as his mind suddenly montaged every stunt Reese had pulled since the start of the school year, before he politely bowed and sighed “Thankyou for understanding.”

As Reese whined, Arslan let out a soft chuckle. “Although it’s good to know there's another that shares my pain, I can’t help but feel guilty that my responsibilities may have been placed on you now.”

“Well I’m sure we’ll find a way for you to make it up to me then.” Jaune joked, rubbing the back of his neck.

…

It took seconds for Jaune to realize how suggestive that statement was, and then another second to internally scream.

‘Maybe no one noticed?’ Jaune thought to himself hopefully, ‘Maybe I’m just over thinking how straightforward that must have sounded!’ He then took a second to gauge reactions.

Reese looked mortified, May was giving him a thumbs up. Neon’s jaw dropped open, the corners of her mouth curled upward as if it was both her birthday and Shawcrossmas morning.

Arslan’s eyebrows were raised in surprise, before narrowing and crossing her arms in front of her into a more challenging stance.

“And how exactly can I make it up to you?”

Abort! Abort! Pull up! Eject!

“N-n-not that I’m insinuating that you need to do anything!” Jaune blurted out, “I-I o-only meant that you shouldn’t feel obligated to do something for me! A-and I wouldn’t take advantage of something like that. And I would never try anything with you, w-well not never, not like because you’re unattractive-”

As Jaune was busy shoving his foot deeper and deeper down his throat, Arslan let out a hearty laugh.

“Haha… It’s okay. Reese has told me plenty about you, including your quirks, so I understand you didn’t mean anything by it.”

The poor boy simply whimpered a thankyou as he tried to fight his blush, Reese taking the chance to jump in, fighting back her own second hand embarrassment.

“A-Anyways! Mission? Dad? Something else entirely?”

“Ah yes, I believe we’ve kept Master and the General waiting long enough. We should get going-!”

The little skater punk started dragging the lioness towards Ironwood’s office ahead of the rest of team JNRZ, leaving May to console Jaune with a few pats on the back as Neon gave him some praise on his bold move, and then some constructive criticisms on his lacking follow through.

~O~O~O~O~

“I am so sorry.” Reese apologized outside the rest of the group’s hearing as they walked through the Academy’s halls.“ I swear he’s a lot awesomer when you get to know him.”

“No worries,” reassured Arslan “He’ll have plenty of time to be ‘awesome’ on our mission. But I do have to admit…” She leaned in and whispered this next part. “ He really is as cute as you say.”

“What?!” Reese loudly whispered as her ears turned red, “I-I never said that!”

“Really? Hm, I guess I must have misheard you somewhere between your stories of fun adventures with Jaune and how cool he is when he takes charge.” The monk let out a laugh as her friend smacked her arm.

“S-shut up! You really suck you know that?”

“I missed you too.” Arslan chuckled as she wrapped an arm around her childhood friend’s shoulder.

[lady-d-ac]

Voltron Legendary Defender Deserved Bette

Dear Voltron Fans Voltron Legendary Defender Deserved Better now I say it's the writer's fault or that it's DreamWorks because frankly, I have no idea at this point.

But I will say is that starting Voltron with the very first season I thought it was tremendous, but I slowly watched it go from third to two thirds from bad to worse.  In the beginning, you could tell that the writing was focused clear and neat and you could feel the rush after us being more rushed after season three. And yes after reading, ... Comment link in the description below that they did lose some decent writers for the series and they were also rushing it out towards the middle to final parts of the seasons. I particularly felt they were out of ideas by season seven, That was the worst season for so many other reasons than killing off Adem, But I'll get to that further on. In the meantime, the big disappointments I feel happened, are the many missed opportunities they could talk but didn't, lack of world building and lack of character development and relationships.

Particularly in lance's character development, in the beginning, he was going to laugh more a lot more but that was left out.  I just shame because he really had some good foundations for a strong character. Lance acts arrogant and cocky but beneath that he's insecure, scared but is brave and willing to sacrifice his life for others, Lance is the kind of person who put aside his fears it and wants for the good of others and frankly I just feel like his character potential was wasted throughout the series. Not to mention how his" friends" Pidge and Hunk treated him but that's a topic on the whole other level.

Mainly the character relationships between the teammates, Season 1&2 were all we really got with development between the characters and their relationships, and really was a light touch on the subject but not much.

Of course, we were all curious what was Keith's relationship with Shiro?

What was Lance's rivalry with Keith really about?

Would Pidge and Lance developer brotherly-sisterly relationship with one another and the loss and separation of their family members, and what kind of relationship with the be like?  Would blossom into a small romance?

Would lone Wolf Keith eventually become comfortable with his teammates and open up about his traumatic past with the other members about his life and becoming a better team player?

Would they ever find Matt Prof. Holt alive, and if so what with their feelings beyond the aliens after being violently abducted versus their dreams of meeting intelligent life, how would this affect professor holds you on the universe after this?

Who's Keith's mother and whatever happened to his father? This is disappearance have something to do with the galaxy Garrison? Where is Shiro? And what happened to him? would Shiro and Allura have a relationship with what few tender moments they had on-screen? We ever get to see Allura is passed on Altea?

And what happened to Shiro during his time as a Galra prisoner. Why was Hagger trying to make and so strong, and how much experimenting did she do? Was he so similar to Altans was she trying to infuse his genetics with what Altan DNA she had left? Why Shira going to be an experimental hybrid between human and Altan DNA?

Did King Alfor secretly build a six lion, the white lion?

What was the galaxy Garrison really up to, especially Commander Irvington and he seemed to have so many secrets and want to keep a lid on them?

Did the galaxy Garrison had ulterior motives? Was there something more nefarious going on there? And how much do they really know about alien life? Was there it a secret organization behind the whole thing. Was Dare I say, the ancient villains Galactor somehow involved in the now globalized government military system, pushing things forward for their own benefit behind-the-scenes, and with this lead to the legendary team-up of GForce with Voltron, and somehow the Macross consortium.

(Though I know this last paragraph is fan wishing)

All these questions were answered never because most of them never happened. Yes, we got Shiro and Keith's backstory. We got to meet Keith's mother and find out the fate of his father which in my opinion was sad but not really what I was led to believe based on the episode the Blade of Mamora, in which keep this up to see his father, but is not shot that he's alive again considering he's compound dead in the later seasons. We also at least get to see how case parents met but it just doesn't go into too much detail about that either. For instance we seek will only as reaction was she being saved from the shuttle that's good, but what about a reaction after she regained full consciousness, her reaction to her pregnancy, her spending more than just a few minutes of screen time with baby Keith, all this would have a lot more depth to the relationship between Krolya and Keith's father's as well as their son. I'm not saying they should have done a whole relationship thing throughout the episode, but a bit more than what they gave us would've been nice.

As for Lance and  Pidge's relationship, it completely disappears after season three. We seen Pidge still getting jealous over Lance is flirting and self-idolization with beautiful girls in the first episode of season three, but after this, we really don't see much more of it leaving the question what happened. We know that Jaquam De Santos and Lauren Montgomery of specified that while all more rise the girl Lance wants she's not exactly the girl Lance needs and with the way the relationships were going we could assume that Implied the back girl could be Pidge. Yet after all of this, we just see them growing more and more a part as the series progresses and not in a good way. Later in the season it's obvious he feels bad the Laura's going after load tour despite the fact he claimed in his “ unquote” interview” that there are plenty of fish in the sea and that is by not settling for one girl, (yes I know there are many inconsistencies in the script) yet here he is moping and clearly upset about it, while Pidge and His Best Friend, Hunk Rob into his face that the Prince and Princess will be getting into a relationship together. And they do nothing to lighten his mood a little bit about it, that just basically making fun of him without any remorse or empathy for how he feels. And this is supposed to be the team that is supposed to have such a strong team bonding can take five mystical lion robots and combine them form a super giant robot? What the heck!

Of course, Keith gets more distant from the team instead of getting close to them. While yes it was the fault of a fake Shiro, Wouldn't he have a stronger bond with Shiro after the years he's known him to know that there was something off about this Shiro? I'm just saying the relationships for a long time tend to notice problems even small ones. But then again the two producers have shown they can't really write relationships well. 

That aside, I really think that during Shiro's disappearance this was a great opportunity for the team to get know each other better and bond more, 

Allura could have gotten to know Pidge better than what her life on Earth was like. Her past experiences with her not so great male classmates and teachers. How page feels about herself, what she likes what she dislikes, and in turn, she could learn a lot about a Laura and how she had to deal with things, what life is like to be the Princess of the entire planet and the responsibilities that came with it. How they dealt with things and how they could learn from each other how they could handle it in the future.

Lance hunk and Keith could've all gotten to know each other a little better. Lance could've learned Keith despite being the best in his class did not come from perfect life. He lost his only family member at a young age and had basically lived from foster home to foster home, dating a distrust of people and a cold distant Attitude because of it. Keith could've learned about both Lance and hunks families, how even though they came from big families they still have their difficulties as well as their joys. How being the younger sibling can be somewhat adult indulging but being the uncles that they are, is a big responsibility. And it could warm up to Keith by offering him to come to spend not next holiday with their family when they return to Earth. This would also really be a great opportunity for Lance because despite his rivalry with Keith he sees a twice been hard for him and he reveals that he's insecure about his status at the Garrison because his older siblings are much more accomplished than he is. And he Felt he should be just as good as Keith, in order to prove that he was worth something not just everyone but himself. And this helped break down a lot of barriers between him and Keith's cold relationship. As well as hunk having a better time understanding Keith knows how to relate to him better and is able to form a better bond.

Keith and then Pidge could have a bonding moment because they were both disrespected by their teachers one for being a bit too smart and the other for being a bit too brash. It also would've helped that they had a bonding moment with a Laura over the missing she wrote as a Laura had obviously befriended him, and page knew him as a friend of the family and how we both meant something to each of them.

Instead, most of these potential ideas were pushed to the sidelines in favor of moving on for Rush plot with some not so good episodes will step away from that for now and explain what happened to Shiro in the meantime. What we don't learn much about the experiments that were done to Shiro, we do know that his owner was used to make clones of him. How when why was this done? we have yet to get an answer!

We also learn that Shiro was, in fact, gay, and a former lover on earth but broken off because of his drive for the stars which is understandable, but we also learn that he has a terminal illness that is slowly shutting down his muscles and going to eventually kill him at the beginning of the seventh season. And it would great if we had this all the way back in the know the second season when he disappeared and apparently DIED! But also apparently there were three more episodes edited each season that were cut after certain riders left the show makes you wonder doesn't it, what they really did have a plan for the reveal. And it's not that I don't have anything against Shiro being gay it's just I like I said earlier, I would have loved for them to show signs of that earlier. according to what I've heard from the writers they had planned to make him gay and kill him off before the execs told them it wasn't a good idea. And frankly I agree with that, as it was not obviously the best writing idea to kill off a gay character in a supposedly positive modern action cartoon, if anything that shows that you're still stuck in the 70s and you're not with the times if you're going to be killing off the LBGT characters.

Frankly, I would've loved that Shiro is bisexual, and have a lightly explored relationship between his love for Allura in his former fiancé Adam. Heck even a Laura Adam having a conversation about top issues behavior is a leader and how I felt it was just too rash for him but that's what Allura loves about Shiro, how she's not so different from him herself and how need this strength from each other to push forward for the better.

But I think the biggest missed opportunity, especially from how they set it up, was not making the galaxy Garrison and enemy or at least a threat. There were hints in the first season that they were hiding something, they knew something was wrong on the Kerberos mission and it wasn't the pilot error. And it went through great lengths to hide it, even going so far as to ban the future grapevine that would've been a great asset to them from the base merely because she wanted to find out what happened to her family. They could have secret ulterior motives to try to steal some of the alien technology to push their own to make later expansions to the universe for the human race. Maybe they could've had their own ideas for Galactic conquest, or better yet had a secret agreement with the Galra military or possibly even connections thought Price Lotor himself. True there could've been some who wish to just protect the planet but it was so much more interesting having them as the bad guys. That's why was hoping the Gallactor was secretly running the Galaxy Garrison. I mean what else would you have a militarizing space program conveniently located all over the world. Conveniently making the galaxy Garrison the only world defense it's very suspicious.

All and all there was so much room for this kind of development but in the end of for one reason or another, they just didn't do it. I don't know why they did it this way and not 100% sure if it was the rush, executive pushing deadlines, saying some things were unnecessary, but what I do know is that the show could have been great. The show could really been something amazing, something different from all its predecessors,  something unique, something special. But in the end all it seems to me is that it's going to be a spectacular flop. Season eight debuts tomorrow and I don't know if any of you viewers will have the strength to read this beforehand as I know some of you will stay up late watching midnight (me I'm waiting till the morning). But I just hope your first and final viewing experience of this series isn't total garbage. But if it is, there is one solution find out all we can about the series before and after it was written, and do a rewrite of the series. We can do a crowd funder, signed petitions, right our own fan fiction and make our own comics of the series. Let's just remember even if it's not what we wanted we still have the fanscape to express how we feel about the series and how it made us feel. Happy viewing to a season eight

[the-real-tc]

Review: Ep. 1110—A Fine Balance

(Cross-posted on FB; additional comments here because I can.) I wasn't sure what I was going to see when Heartland returned to my screen in 2018. Tim's irritating attitude towards Altan in the opening minutes soured me immediately, which put me in a mind to dislike the rest of the episode. I was further set back by the Pollyanna-esque "Attila the magical horse will find Ty! Let's go traipsing off into the Mongolian desert with nothing else but these equines! Whee!". It made me realise I was turning into Tim, which didn't sit well with me, and made me even more grouchy about the way the episode seemed to be going. *Fortunately*, the second half of the episode was a lot more serious and great performances by everyone won me back. 

Yes, Attila the Magical Horse facilitated Ty and Bata's rescue after they were kidnapped and then "taught a lesson" by those dastardly poachers (one with a stereotypical diabolical British-like accent). But, see, Ty had a revelation of sorts. During his period of deep despair, with Bata pratically coughing up a lung, and the night turning dark and cold, Ty realised just how much his trek across the globe might cost him and his family, especially Baby Lyndy. She's so young, she'll never know him or even remember him if he croaks out there in Mongolia. It seems like... what is that thing called... Regret? Regret he chased after poachers in a foreign country instead of staying home with his wife and child? Is that what Ty was experiencing? I sure hope so. It seemed like he concluded that maybe he shouldn't have done the stupid thing he did to land him in that predicament. Good for you, Ty, for finally having that epiphany. NOW STAY HOME FOR THE REST OF YOUR NATURAL LIFE, got it?! Seriously, though. When Amy and Ty were reunited, I had real tears streaming down my face. Graham Wardle delivered beautifully in that scene as his character embraced and kissed his wife. Amber Marshall was equally impressive as you could just see the total relief flow through Amy at the sight of her husband, alive, and unharmed. Best scene of the entire episode. no question. On to Tim. Oh, Tim. Brash Tim. Bull-in-a-china-shop Tim. Foot-in-mouth-syndrome Tim. Irascible Tim. I could think of other things to call him, but this is supposed to be a family-friendly forum, so let's leave the descriptors at that. Anyway, Tim's got health problems and relationship problems, and he's not dealing with them well. Along comes quiet and unassuming Altan, the Mongolian shaman who keeps calling Tim "Manan". Tim thinks it's some kind of insult, until Altan has a chance to explain: Manan means "shadowed", which is how Altan sees Tim. Whoa. Shadowed? That sets Tim back on his heels a bit. After all, didn't that MRI of his brain reveal a shadow? How could this Mongolian stranger be so perceptive? Makes Tim more willing to listen when Altan doles out words of wisdom regarding balance in life, the yin and yang, shadow and light, and how Tim needs to learn to let the light in. In the end, Tim has to acknowledge Altan might be on to something, and accepts a talisman with the yin and yang on one side, and a falcon on the other... and didn't Tim just see a falcon earlier that morning where it's rare to see falcons? I do believe Tim is starting to see a light of his own. Not that there was ever any doubt Ty would get home safely, of course we were all relieved he did get back to Heartland in one piece, to be with his little girl again. Not only that, but Lyndy utters her first word: "Dada". Cute way to end the episode. I wasn’t terribly interested in the “B” plot, which was Georgie’s showjumping thing. Maybe I ought to have been, since I was a background extra that day, but... Truly, it was cool to see how that portion of the episode was edited, so I’m not complaining about that. For me, though, I’m just not all that excited about what’s happening in Georgie’s life. Alisha Newton is a terrific actress, and she always kills it as Georgie, but... her showjumping life and her relationships aren’t going to hold my attention. Not even concerned about the creepy paparazzo in the woods plot they have going. (Mind you, I’d be calling the police if that happened to my daughter/great-granddaughter, so I was a little puzzled by the lack of ire on Peter and Jack’s part. Yes, they showed concern, but I’d be like, “Call the cops, find this creep and no you’re not going out into the woods alone I don’t care how innocuous this might seem!” Maybe that’s part of my ambivalence?) Anyhow, Peter and Mitch’s little showdown over caring for Lyndy was amusing, Too bad Pete is still insecure about his place in the family, even after getting his family stone. I did laugh when Lyndy began crying in Mitch’s arms, anyway, after he tried to be like “Yeah, you like Uncle Mitch, dontcha? Not strangers like that Pete guy over there”, and Pete all smug-like, “Yeah, well... you’re not on the approved list of baby-sitters, so there! Gimmie back my niece!” (Seriously, though: Mitch isn’t on Amy and Ty’s list of approved baby-sitters?!) 

I have not seen the preview for 1111, so I’ll just have to wait for the trusty BW to post it.