#I have FEELINGS about this episode man

[toastess-with-the-mostess]

Some more vf oc thoughts have attacked me today

This takes place during Brains (ep 16) as I still haven't finished the official podcast episode review for it and just listening to them talk is making me want to rant <3

It's a long one again, rant under the cut TLDR: This could've and should've been a development episode for Vince, but instead it was skirted for a vague Halloween episode >:/

Since I'm adding Anya here, there are a few changes to the episode, mainly the way Pidge is reacting to the events happening and also an extra scene Anya is silently reassuring him every time he tells Vince that the Balton's aren't zombies and is part of Vince and Pidge's group after they get separated

During the scene where Pidge uses his smart stars, Pidge takes Vince's comment harder than we see in show Vince has constantly triggered Pidge's PTSD, and then he has the nerve to insult him TWICE* by not believing Pidge knew what he was doing

*The first time happened at the start of the episode when Pidge literally begged the team not to fight the Baltons and them doing so anyway (to protect Pidge and Vince) Vince comments that he'd rather have Lance and Larmina (the most aggressive fighters) protect him than Pidge

After they escape the mall, there's an extra scene where a small group of infected attack them, except this time they're out in the open where Pidge can't pin them down He tries to figure out the best way to immobilize them, and Vince is freaking out, telling Pidge he needs actually fight them this time, making him Big Mad Before Pidge can do anything though, Anya uses her voltcom weapon (strings) to help knock the Baltons out

Now Pidge is mad at her, saying she could've used less force in dealing with them, especially since they're obviously not in their right mind Vince butts in and in not so smart wording tells Pidge that at least Anya did something instead of stand there worried about the wellbeing of their own attackers (not word for word)

This is where shit gets real, Pidge finally snaps and starts yelling at Vince how the entire time he has done nothing but bitch about his fears and stand there criticizing someone who's actually thinking through their fucked up situation instead of bulldozing through innocent people who have no reason to be attacking Voltron* or the team at all

*When they first get to Balto, Keith explicitly states that it's a Voltron friendly planet, which makes their attack and initial stealth mode super weird

Pidge doesn't get to threaten Vince for his cowardice before Anya yanks him back by the arm, threatening Pidge instead that she'd become a bigger threat to their mission than their brainwashed race currently are if he even thinks about finishing his sentence

He glares at her before stalking off near a light post where the two can still see him Vince is obviously stunned from getting verbally torn apart by his hero and tries apologizing to Anya before she stops him This next part is going to be dialogue (and some action) just because it's easier for me to type out lol

---

"I'm so sor-" "Vince," Anya cuts in, "do you know why the force takes you cadets out on missions?" "For first-hand experience?" "And to teach you guys lessons, yes. Right now, Pidge isn't in it to teach you one. Luckily for you, you've got a survivor to do it instead."

She looks over to Pidge, who's less tense but has curled into himself some as he keeps glancing at the unconscious Baltons nearby

"How much do you know about Balto?" "Well... It's one of the planets that stayed loyal to Voltron after Wade. It's your home, it's Pidge and his twin brother's home. You guys grew-"

He stops abruptly, realizing a crucial mistake in his statement,

"This isn't the real Balto. You guys watched it explode.. He watched it explode. The surviving Baltons built this metal planet in spite of what happened."

Anya sighed, remembering her own memories of the evacuation and eventually the blinding light her parents couldn't shield her from fast enough as their home was erased without a second thought. She looked back at him,

"Vince I'm not going to tell you Pidge's outburst wasn't your fault, because it absolutely was, but you also didn't mean any harm and that's what I want to talk about"

Vince looks away and almost shrinks in front of her gaze, her pitying and disappointed gaze. He should've shut his mouth when he had the chance.

"No matter where you go or who you talk to, as long as you're on the force you're going to be fighting wars and interacting with victims from all over. You're allowed to be scared, but don't start spiraling, especially if it makes you say stupid shit like you've been saying all day today."

He grimaced, he wasn't that insensitive, was he? No, he definitely was. He literally set off Pidge's PTSD and got burned because he was too busy feeding the fire.

"Voltron may be a weapon for war, don't tell the princess I said that," she adds quickly, "but the pilots instead are diplomats, the more you travel the universe the more you'll see people just like Pidge who will never stop feeling pain even if time heals their wounds."

Checking up on Pidge again, he tried to hide the tired look on his face by rubbing his eyes and messing with his visor, but he'd known she'd caught it.

"One last thing kid, be conscious of what other people have gone through. Pidge gave you multiple warnings earlier, and they were borderline explicitly telling you to back off. Not many will be blunt and list the topics they're sensitive to, they won't talk about it at all."

He nodded, grateful she'd finally stopped lecturing him. He had enough of getting in trouble for today. The only thing to do now was apologize, and hope Pidge would forgive him for being an idiot on the field this entire time.

---

I'm not going to make Vince the only person with fault here, Pidge didn't have to tear into the kid and basically beat him down for being a coward, but he did.

I added Anya into this bc I want her to be a grounding opinion for the team. Sure, they differ between themselves, but more often than not they all agree on the same course of action. Anya is a way for more outside opinions to get heard, especially because she's watching the fights instead of being in them. She's not the voice of reason, but she's the damage control while the others focus on fighting

[astearisms]

catalysts, protectors

[egophiliac]

Since book 7 part 5 (the part where we meet Meleanor/Maleanor 👀) is coming to EN this month, i would love to see your take on lilia’s proposal to meleanor! i mean they were like little kids right? it couldn’t have been that serious…i think the only reason she even brought it up again is because she could tell lilia still genuinely loved her…(even if he didn’t realize it himself?) but, oh well! Let’s think about silly childhood shenanigans to numb the pain! ^_^ (orz)

oh shit?! get ready for a doozy guys, it's comiiiiiing ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

I chickened out of posting the whole thing (look, I get VERY carried away when it comes to these wacky kids and their Tragedy), but I do believe that it probably ended with Lilia getting embarrassed and just shoving the first thing he sees into his mouth to try and cover for it.

(we're just lucky it wasn't a frog this time)

[fumifooms]

I don’t like minimizing the importance and gravity of Laios and Toshiro’s fight into just being a childish squabble, even if to a degree it is framed that way, because to both of them it has a lot of personal significance and emotional weight and runs very deep to their characters… The fight isn’t nothing it’s a LOT, they made up but it’s not something easy to express and to get over for either of them which makes it all the more meaningful! I’m on both sides but there very much are sides, there’s no "they’re both having a ball, Toshiro and Laios hand in hand yay" side to the fight, that comes after

The fight with Toshiro WAS very scary to Laios, almost existentially so, but it’s moreso the "I thought I’d made a friend!!" bit and my god. My god actually

Like it’s not "just" about oh his friend liking him less than he thought, THAT IS SO MUCH. It’s a bond he thought he had being a lie it’s all the time and moments spent together either being a lie from his perspective or marred now looking back. It’s not only being upset at Toshiro for lying but upset at himself that he’s so easy to fool, it’s being upset that there’s something so wrong with you that you can’t even tell if your "close buddy" even actually likes you or not, it’s like. Holding my head. He can’t trust his own vision of events that happened do you see. There’s always this film of distrust that it could be a lie that should be there when he interacts with people there’s always this sense of cloak and dagger to expect backstabs out of nowhere because you CAN’T see it coming you CAN’T you CAN’T there’s something about you which makes it impossible so you CAN’T-

He’s so scared of not being able to read people. He knows it’s a weak spot he has, he’s always known. All of these bits are centered around social expectations and betrayals, the assumption that he doesn’t belong either in society or with other humans.

And Laios’ level of awareness is actually sort of complex to analyze, but it’s there, there’s how out of him and Falin he was the one sensitive to the ~aura of hatred~ he felt from the townspeople, there’s of course his nightmares whispering to him about the mocking looks, and how yeah actually he realizes that his gold stripper coworker was taking advantage of him. There’s of course the Winged Lion speech about his trauma and how he fundamentally mistrusts/dislikes humans to some deep seated degree, this distrust that he still keeps under control always. There’s how pre-canon he often wanted to suggest eating monsters but never worked up the courage to bring it up with the others. There’s how he gets across as stoic when he isn’t being enthusiastic…… We don’t know how aware and wary he is exactly in the moment but we do know he has some anxiety around social stuff, and looking back he does notice and aughh augh, the sense you have to hide yourself to not get hurt and be on your guard and shit and.

When you don’t know what to look out for and when to look out for it, the general ‘common sense’ of not always trusting people or noticing when someone’s messing with you becomes hypervigilance in social settings

"Man they really know what you hate huh". Being socially unaware literally plagues him, he knows, he knows it so well.

It’s so quick that it’s almost hard to digest how literal and blatant Laios summoning his monster to crush all the people who’ve hurt him is. His literal go-to coping mechanism for comfort in his literal monster-induced emotionally intense nightmares, saving him by taking away the upsetting element (the humans)

"Monsters are his coping fantasy, where they can whisk him away from humanity, all the hurt it’s caused him and its arbitrary rules" with the subtlety of a brick. Monsters are his comfort safe zone "because they kill humans" yes but no it’s because he pits them as the guardians against humans who to him are in the role of the agressors. To him they represent freedom from the shackles of what it means to be part of humanity, a fundamentally social species

[slymanner]

God dude these two scenes and how roxie moves hurt my heart so so bad 🥹

it's like a mix of anger, feral, emotional breakdown, and complete sadness that just fucks me up soooo fucking bad.

it's like she's a pet who got abandoned by their owner but they see them again after years of sadness and depression of them being gone and leaving them like that and all that anger and sadness just manifest's into one bundle of emotion's towards them they cannot control.

roxie baby ur gonna be okay u deserve better :[

[constablequodo]

Honestly, there's something about the sheer horror on Spock's face when he thinks he's killed Kirk in amok time that always hits me like a fucking truck.

Now, I know this discussion probably isn't anything new to the spirk community, but jesus christ. Every time I watch that scene, I go from "Oh my god this is so gay. How the hell did the writers and production team not look at shatner and nimoy rolling around in the sand together and go 'yeah seems totally heterosexual' " to "Oh my god. This is so fucking sad."

The pure horror and shock on Spock's face when he snaps out of the fever and realises what he's done (or what he thinks he's done) is so....AAAA

I can't even put into words how it makes me feel, it just makes me so not normal about the show and those two as a whole all over again.

He thought he'd KILLED HIM. BY HIS OWN HAND. DURING A PROCESS HE SEEMED TO BE VERY ASHAMED TO TALK ABOUT AND HE SMILED WHEN HE SAW KIRK ALIVE AND AJAJSJ-

[houseswife]

transgender detector going haywire rn…

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm sorry I let down my guard.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[witchofthemidlands]

everytime i watch anything that has paul mcgann in it i always sit there afterwards thinking what a fucking tragedy it was that he never got seasons as the doctor.

[gayspock]

i love it when a tv show has lows that are so low you're so ashamed to ever show it to anyone ever but then highs that melt your brain a bit, like, "good fucking god, this is genuinely such an astounding piece of craftmanship... my perception of the medium, and perhaps of myself, has been challenged/changed in 40 minutes" but you cant even express that to ppl without feeling like youre fucking deranged bc my god the lows .....

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: death mention / family death mention / ]

Mhmm I sure love thinking of the reality where we did get more time to really know Karai and her dynamics with the bros. Losing her hit hard in the finale, but it would’ve hit much, much harder had we known Karai longer and really saw her relationships develop with everyone.

I especially would have been interested in her dynamic with Leo, as past iterations often have the two of them clash in ideals and the like while still sharing many characteristics. Two sides of the same coin, and all that. Her specifically being the bros’ Gram-Gram also adds a whole new dynamic as well.

Imagine how interesting it would be, to have Karai start off on Leo’s side for once, showing wholly just how alike the two are at their cores and bonding as family without the worry of betrayal or animosity that other iterations suffer through, only to have Karai die anyway. Their parting hug and the desperate look of horror Leo wears later on would have hit that much harder, I feel.

[faithfulwhispers-art]

"...but you have no idea what I lost in that fire..."

[luck-of-the-drawings]

"I think this is the most inhuman; and human, that I've ever felt.." MUCH CAN HAPPEN IN A YEAR. IN FIVE YEARS. A DECADE. imagine how much can happen in a century. just ONE (1). How will you grow? what phases do you find? even in 5 years, you will find patterns.

[mattzerella-sticks]

Okay Okay OKAY.

I knew Dave had to be there. I KNEW - he was in the shop when the tape started, of course he'd be inside the action world. But as what I couldn't guess. I was going to let myself enjoy the ride.

But now...

Given what we know, about the Shadow Falcon protocol, the Archimedes Files...

I think Dave will do either of these two things

Rob the world and remain inside as the President for all time but also the emperor of reality given the abilities we've seen in the preview

Rob the world and LEAVE with all that world's money

I think number 2 might be more plausible than number 1 given how St. Jude had the belief that there was a new world waiting for him even after his 'death'. However, is it likely Dave lied to all the members of the Shadow Falcon protocol that he could take them with them, just so he can use them to further his own schemes? Possibly.

We also have to ask if Dave was ALSO aware of the power of 'Never Stop Blowing Up'. Because - think about it - how was Dave able to gather together the resources for a criminal conspiracy if he had only been in the world for the same amount of time as the others from Elsinore?

In fact... how has Dave been able to maintain a video rental store in the town of Elsinore for so long?

What if this wasn't the first time he's run this scheme? And the only reason the video rental store has survived for so long is because he's been robbing 'Never Stop Blowing Up's' inhabitants blind every time he enters the world? It would explain why he keeps Usha around, whose reticence for technology would mean an easier and less traceable way to funnel stolen funds into his pocket.

But because of Barsimian holding onto the tape for so long, he wasn't able to plunder the world for cash in time to pay the rent and has been FORCED to close the store.

It would also explain why he was so insistent on getting the tape back, despite it not making a difference because - why put so much effort into one tape when you're going to be dumping all your inventory anyway?

And if Dave and Barsimian were using the tape at different times, of course Barsimian was never aware of the Shadowfalcon protocol. He was enjoying the world, never questioning why - never wondering who was behind the drugs and the capers. It was all Dave.

And I wonder if there's going to be a connection between Dave and Wolfman Anne?

All things to ponder and I hope are explained in the coming episode.

[feline-evil]

I'm gonna be so real i don't remember which episode i got this picture of Nathan from to redraw, i just wanted to do a body study. Version without lighting and effects below, and the og screenshot!!

[fauvester]

uh oh! triggered some phantom trauma! (dannymanny iteration (c) nicktoonsunite)