#I need him and Keith to interact FOR SCIENCE | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

salfishersimp2 · 1 year ago

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Okay hold up this could actually fix something ive been thinking about (i got excited and wrote too much and only 1/4 of it relates to the original post so there's a little TL;DR thing at the end if u wanna jump to that)

Yk the relationship chart with the ATLA team where each member has a relationship with each other? (I cant find it right now) It basically shows how they all had one-on-one time with the others, ending up where they have some sort of relationship with the other members, these being romantic (Aang-Katara), familial (Katara-Sokka) or friendship (Zuko's and Toph's with all members, and Aang with Sokka). So if two members are alone with each other at some point their interactions wont be awkward, since they already have a nicely established dynamic

Anyway, where i'm trying to get is, i was rewatching some episodes in the first season, and i realized that while there are a lot of meaningful relationships, the voltron team (Shiro, Lance, Keith, Hunk, Pidge and Allura) (sorry Coran) would benefit from building individual relationships, since i feel that when you're saving the universe and all its essential to actually be friends with the people living next to you 24/7. The thing is, i tried to think of their one-on-one dynamics and it was really hard to see some of them working together, like if they were all hanging out after dinner or something and at some point only two were still in the living room very few would be able to keep a converstation going without it becoming an awkward silence in little to no time; or if two of them ran into each other in the kitchen it would mostly be a "say hi get what you came for and go do your thing" kind of situation

Very vague examples i know but let me show you what I'm getting at

I've watched voltron maybe 3 times and how i remember their dynamics is kind of like this:

Shiro-Keith: mentor-mentee relationship, imo they're almost like brothers, or friends who care deeply about each other (i know some of you ship them, i don't see it that way but i completely understand it, my point still stands, even if the kind of relationship changes depending on who you ask)

Shiro-Allura: i don't remember seeing them interact much, but since they're both co-leaders of the team (allura with the castle and shiro being the black paladin) i imagine they spend a lot of time together planning stuff, still i feel thats not enough to build a meaningful friendship, like one of them goes missing the other would probably be mostly tactical about it (it goes both ways, not to say they don't care about each other but yk)

Shiro-Lance: while i think lance looks up to him as a hero sometimes, besides the whole leader thing there's not much to talk on how much shiro cares about lance to talk to him outside of their job or the group

Maybe my memory is foggy but i think we've never seen shiro with hunk or pidge that much? Probably bc of how little the writers focused on pidge and hunk during the later seasons (we honestly needed more than just family-balmera-cooking and family-olkari-science, it kinda sucked how they left the characters' life and development after that)

Keith-Allura: they had that whole thing of going away together in a pod to see if zarkon was tracking the castle bc of them, and that almost-romance they hinted at, i guess that counts as a relationship?

Keith-Pidge: i honestly don't remember seeing them talk to each other in any important way that could tell us about their relationship

Keith-Hunk: as i said i was rewatching the first episodes of season 1, we see them laughing and talking to each other at the party in episode 5 i think? I found that very cute and it makes sense for them to have that dynamic, i believe they kept that relationship through the years fighting with voltron. Keith's obliviousness (which sometimes even looks like apathy) to people's feelings and hunk's easy-going honesty are very nice when paired together

Keith-Lance: rivals to friends with friendly banter (i am obviously restraining myself to not talk about the bonding moment but their relationship (whichever kind u want, canon or not) is so obvious it barely needs words to describe it, which should be the case with all of them, sadly it aint)

Lance-Allura: the flirting from lance since first season really shaped their relationship, their romantic relationship at the end was really good, i have my complaints and it definitely needed more development but this isnt about that

Lance-Hunk: THEY ARE BEST FRIENDS. Literally goals. Srsly tho we see how they're friends even in the garrison, after fighting constantly side by side and sharing years of their lives together their friendship only got stronger, i'm sure

Lance-Pidge: They were also already friends in the garrison, even if lance was a bit nosy and was much more interested in parties than pidge they were good friends, being part of the same team both then and when they were in voltron was a big part of it, but they're still really good friends (almost if not to the same level as lance-hunk) outside of it and i think thats so very important, their bond got stronger after the garrison too, imo best friends rn

Pidge-Hunk: they're also besties your honor, they really work so well when together. Plotting, gossiping, sharing interests, having fun, helping one another? Also goals

Anyway, lance-pidge-hunk bestfriend trio

I dont even know how pidge and hunk interact with allura tbh

Okay i think i covered everything, now FINALLY getting to talk about what op said

Them bonding over their family experiences?? Absolutely perfect. It would make their individual relationships so much better considering all the dynamics that could come from it

If they had done that in the show i'm sure the way they talk and act around each other would make it all so much more meaningful than just having them work as a leader and the ones they lead, which goes pretty much with everything allura, shiro and keith are focused on most of the time

Plus the comfort they would have after bonding over that? The families of all the members are important pieces of their lives, if used the right way in story-telling it can become the most important trait of the entire group as one. And the trust that would come with it from sharing that part of themselves with the whole team at some level is incredible

TL;DR the whole team would benefit from bettering their individual relationships with each other and bonding over their families is possibly the best way to fix that, barely leaving any place for superficial interactions and feelings on the importance of everybody there

ok ik i've been dead (im on vacation now yay!!) BUT!!!! listen. allura and pidge and their sort of found family dynamic yeah (bc pidge lost their family and allura lost hers as well and they sort of bond over not having that sort of comfort together and find that in each other....) u can add keith into the mix bc he never really had a family or atleast hasnt for a long time and BAM found family dynamic OOOGH they make me sick.

i just love pidge having familial dynamics w the paladins and keith and lance and hunk being like brothers to them but also allura being like the sister they never had .... UGH

#got a bit carried away #ive just been thinking on this for a long time #is most of this post affected by my opinions and the things i remember?#absolutely #so feel free to add or correct my rambling #voltron #pidge gunderson #princess allura #keith kogane #vld found family #lance mcclain #takashi shirogane #hunk voltron #help idk hunks last name #avatar the last airbender #voltron defender of the universe #sal's tagging tag

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wicoppi · 4 years ago

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what do you head canon as the origins for the blade of marmora ? like all of the lore n stuff. im curious to know your thoughts on all of this :)

In s7 with Macidus, Krolia has some very interesting lines circling around safe houses and old secret communication codes that make me think she and Kolivan are founding members or, at most, second generation leadership. I tend towards them being og because with Keith taking over after them it ties in thematically with other leadership transitions in the show.

In s2, there’s a line from Ulaz while introducing the Blade of Marmora about how their members are Galra who became disillusioned with the empire. Meaning they were at some point on board with Zarkon and his expansion.. probably before the casual, regular decimation of planets- something we know Zarkon started doing early on based on Lotor’s story about colonizing a planet in the name of the Galra Empire.

And in s3 during Lotor’s introduction scene Throk says, “We’ve fought be Zarkon’s side forever, and now we are passed over by this exiled brat.” So 1. Lotor, who is approx. 10,000 years old, is relatively young compared to Throk and most high ranking officers and 2. said officers have been doing Zarkon’s work for a long,, long time.. since before Lotor.. since before the rift. Hell, when Honerva jumps realities + back in time to young!Lotor and Zarkon, we see a version of Sendak that supports this. I.e. many of the key Galra we encounter are old, older than this war. And served under Zarkon at some point.

These are the main points that lead me to believe the Blade of Marmora is not that old relative to the Galra Empire or even Zarkon’s reign.

Furthermore, it is interesting that one of the first planets conquered by the Galra Empire, Planet Feyiv, home to the Kral Zera, is shown as kept intact (read: not decimated) and sparse of intelligent life-forms. It reminds me of sayings like “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and “Evil isn’t born, it’s made.”

There’s hints across canon and specifically within Coran’s story about the paladins of old that leads me to believe both Alteans and the Galra were spreading their culture before the destruction of Daibazaal, but after Alfor tried to destroy the rift, the Galra had to be more earnest in their conquest because they needed a new home.

So what’s likely is that as the Galra Empire rose from the ashes and grew beyond expectations and various acceptable limits, blade!Galra hit epiphany moments where they realized how unsustainable Zarkon’s methods/actions were, gained perspective, and felt a call to action to correct things.

And it’s unlikely these epiphanies happened at the same time. What are the chances scores of Galra just woke up one day and said “this must stop” and all set out to find each other?

So for headcanons, I see the Blade of Marmora as having formed quite organically and informally before finally accumulating enough members and independence to pull together in person and establish protocols, bases, chain of command, bitchin’ uniforms, etc.

Going more into personal headcanons:

I would wager the BoM started more as a “we need to course correct” movement before hitting the “oh. oh, no. we gotta stop this shit full tilt” realization and forming a proper organization.

Galra, as a species, are opportunistic as fuck. It’s not unique to empire-loyal, “evil” Galra. Lotor didn’t get all that shit from Honerva. Kolivan and other Galra probably started out as individuals lying in wait, gathering information, maybe making small sabotages, and keeping their ears open for others sympathetic to stopping the empire for the good of the universe (as opposed to Galra who were interested in sabotage in the name of taking control for themselves.)

Basically, there have always been mutinous, self-serving, power-hungry Galra who did not agree with Zarkon’s version of the Galra Empire and felt they could do it better. Just look at how they all behaved at the Kral Zera ffs.

But Zarkon had the respect, fear, and/or admiration of his people despite being a HIGHLY liberal Galra: in the early days he worked with rather than over non-Galra, he allowed Alteans onto Daibazaal and gave them a foothold to do dumbass science on what was destroying their planet. He married a non-Galra for crying out loud.

But Zarkon also ended an endless war that spanned generations (think about how long Galra live), he made peace with their planetary system, he unlocked the secrets of Altean technology in order to advance Galra tech faster than they could have on their own. Zarkon kept his people alive, carved them out home in the universe, lifted and expanded their empire at a time when they were at their lowest. Under Zarkon, the Galra Empire not only survived, but thrived.

Of course his people, blade!Galra included, would learn to look past Zarkon’s liberal oddities, his murderous tendencies, would make him the exception to their prejudices while shaming half-breeds, would find ways to justify his imperialism.

And speaking of half-breeds, let’s talk about a part of the Blade of Marmora’s foundation: recruiting. Yes, the Galra love the fuck out of their pure-bloods. And the BoM had to be in keeping with that culture if they wanted to successfully infiltrate the highest parts of the command chain (see: Thace, Krolia). But Keith is also brought into the mix. Goes on missions with Regris who has a prehensile tail. Kolivan’s right-hand man, Antok, is of atypical, stocky build also with a tail. Clearly the blades did a lot of recruiting within marginalized Galra communities.

Back to origins, I can see a story where the original gambit was to identify the Galra who agreed the empire could be doing things better than straight up destroying planets, enslaving populations, casually committing genocide.. and started spreading doubt and raising concerns through Zarkon’s ranks, found the ones close to Zarkon who could try to sway him with reason. Only for that mission to end with Zarkon condemning those advisors and Haggar creating her first robeasts out of them. Leaving Kolivan, Krolia, and crew to firmly break away and formally gather, creating the Blade of Marmora.

Ultimately, I kind of like that the Blade of Marmora remains shrouded in mystery; it lends to their aesthetic. But I also crave their backstory, even if it were just a comic series or whatever. I want to know who/what “Marmora” was to the Galra; that name has to be tied up in symbolism in a similar manner as “vrepit sa” and “palen bo.” I want to know how Kolivan and Krolia met. See interactions between Krolia, Ulaz, and Thace. How did the BoM operate before they found Slav? How did Kolivan become their leader? What did he do to earn that respect over others? If the empire values strength (Victory or Death) and that’s how they choose their leaders, what does Kolivan know (Knowledge or Death) that put him in the top echelon?

#blade of marmora #bom #galra #voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender #oh sweet anon thank you for encouraging me to bring my ramblings back on main #i really do have a lot of feelings about the bom #i thought this resonse was going to be just a few paragraph #there's like.. 5 meta that could spin off from this #krolia #kolivan #go loose coppi #vld.schematics #vld.hc #vldgen

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astonishinglegends · 4 years ago

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Ep 201: The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich Part 3

“I am prepared to swear on oath or submit myself to any lie detector test to substantiate this, my statement.”

– Don Cox, who observed a triangle-shaped UFO for 45 minutes from his yard in Adelaide, 385 miles northwest of Valentich’s last known location, just 28 minutes after his radio fell silent.

Description:

As we wrap up our coverage of the Frederick Valentich story in Part 3 of our series, we'll continue our conversation with Melbourne resident Chris Tyler about his research into the case and other possibly related UFO incidents around the same time and area. We'll also examine the Australian Department of Transport accident report's remaining findings and discuss its conclusions. As you begin to reach your own conclusions, it's essential to keep several factors in mind which make the usual mundane explanations seem inadequate. The high number of independent sightings of aerial phenomena occurring in proximity to the disappearance suggests Valentich wasn't alone in witnessing it. The distance a Cessna cowling was found from a potential crash site and the lack of definitive markings makes its discovery inconclusive. Even if the cowling did come from Valentich's plane, it still doesn't account for what caused him to ditch, let alone other missing debris and Valentich himself. Perhaps the most surprising revelation comes from the summary of the report itself. Rather than dismissing the possibility of a UFO entanglement, an official government statement lists it as one of four likeliest scenarios. Remember that Valentich himself never suggested he interacted with a UFO in his last transmission, despite being painted as obsessed with them by his skeptics. When these factors and more are taken together, it's no wonder this incident is one of the most baffling and tragic in the phenomenon's history and leaves us all to wonder, what happened to Frederick Valentich and where did he go?

Location:

Moorabbin Airport, where Frederick Valentich took off from on October 21, 1978, headed for King Island across Bass Strait.

Reference Links:

“UFO suspicions still cloud disappearance of Frederick Valentich” from Melbourne’s Herald Sun

The strange noises heard on Valentich’s last transmission, posted on Facebook by A.U.F.O.A. – Australian UFO Action

“How the 40-year-old mystery of a UFO in New Zealand lives on” from news.com.au, about Quentin Fogarty’s UFO experience

The UFO Documents Index on NSA.gov

Cape Otway Lightstation

“What is the Aurora Australis?” on Universe Today

The Green Flash

“The Disappearance of Flight N3808H, Puerto Rico, 1980” blog post by “karl 12” on AboveTopSecret.com

“Disappearance of flight N3808H 28th of June, 1980” with pilot’s radio transmission on YouTube

“UFOs, USOs and the Island of Puerto Rico.” by “karl 12” on AboveTopSecret.com

“Jet Fighters disappear as they approach UFO in Puerto Rico” section of a documentary on YouTube

“Two F-14s kidnapped by UFO near Puerto Rico” forum thread on unexplained-mysteries.com

“The Valentich Disappearance: Another UFO Cold Case Solved” by James McGaha and Joe Nickell on Skeptical Inquirer

“Spooky Space ‘Sounds’” from nasa.gov

“What Is This Flying Object??? Occurred at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse - 1/7/2021” on YouTube by Wes Snyder Photography

The “PPRuNe” forum or “Professional Pilots Rumour Network” discussing Valentich's radio transmission

The Melbourne Marvels podcast and their episode on “The Unresolved Disappearance of Frederick Valentich”

“10 Truly Bizarre Incidents From The Bass Strait Triangle” from Listverse

The Unsolved Mysteries Wiki on Fandom.com for the Frederick Valentich episode

“Lost yacht mystery continues 30 years on” from abc.net.au

Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race on Wikipedia

“Race Tragedy Tale / Oracle CEO tells all to St. Francis Yacht Club” from SFGate.com

“'Holy grail' or epic hoax? Australian Kelly Cahill's UFO abduction story still stirs passions” from ABC South West Victoria news

“Capturing the Light” – The true story of Dorothy Izatt on Amazon Prime

Close Encounters of the Third Kind feature release date information on IMDb

The Frederick Valentich case on the original Unsolved Mysteries, Season 5, Episode 2 on Amazon Prime

“Last Light: the Valentich Mystery” from The History Listen with Kirsti Melville on ABC.net.au

“Disappearance of Frederick Valentich” on Wikipedia

“What Happened to Frederick Valentich? Possibly the scariest UFO case ever” by OzWeatherman on AboveTopSecret.com

“Valentich Case Files Finally Released” by Kandinsky on AboveTopSecret.com

“The Valentich Abduction/Disappearance: 40th Anniversary” by MirageMan on AboveTopSecret.com

“The Abduction of Fred Valentich” from The Unexplained Files on Discovery UK – YouTube clip of Melbourne Flight Advisor Officer Steve Robey describing his radio communication with Valentich

Complete episode on the Valentich disappearance from The Unexplained Files on the Discovery Channel

Cessna 182 “Skylane”

Valentich’s missing aircraft report online, from the National Archives of Australia

Download of Valentich’s missing aircraft report as a PDF

Bass Strait

Moorabbin Airport

“'Truth' was out there after all –An accidental discovery sheds new light on the mysterious disappearance of a pilot in 1978, writes Miles Kemp” from The Advertiser

Australian UFO researcher, Keith Basterfield

Melbourne, Australia

Tasmania

King Island, Tasmania

Visit King Island at kingisland.org.au

“Biography of Bette Nesmith Graham, Inventor of Liquid Paper” on ThoughtCo.com

Bette Nesmith Graham on Wikipedia

Australian crayfish

The TCAS or Traffic collision avoidance system

“What C.S. Lewis and Martin Luther Would Say About Our Coronavirus Panic”

Black Death

Second plague pandemic

“Plague was one of history’s deadliest diseases—then we found a cure” on NationalGeographic.com

Suggested Listening:

Melbourne Marvels podcast – “a podcast about true stories from Melbourne” CLICK HERE to listen to their episode on “The Unresolved Disappearance of Frederick Valentich”

Check out our good friend Gledders’ paranormal podcast, ANOMALY, where he, his co-host Steve Freestone, and Forrest discuss some of the more weird and wild events of 2020 and more in his latest 2-part series. Click here to subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, the website at anomaly.co.uk, or anywhere excellent podcasts are found.

And then after that, check out Gledders’ “80’s Mix Tape” for the best in 1980s music, Saturdays, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the UK, or stream anytime at Huntingdon Community Radio HCR 104 FM!

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Credits:

Episode 201: The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich Part 3. Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess; Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees Wendel. Sound Design by Ryan McCullough; Tess Pfeifle, Producer, and Lead Researcher; Research Support from the astonishing League of Astonishing Researchers, a.k.a. The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2021 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

#199 #Frederick Valentich #Melbourne #Australia #Moorabbin #airport #UFO #Tasmania #Bass Strait #Unsolved Mysteries #King Island #Cessna #pilot #airplane #UAP #200 #201 #2021

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seriousfic · 8 months ago

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Season seven.

-This love triangle stuff and slice-of-life episodes would go down better if this weren't already a slow-paced story, because it feels like wallowing in unimportant stuff, not comic relief to break the tension.

-For a diverse group of heroes like this, it's funny how none of them have an accent other than standard American. I guess we're just going to take over the whole world and impose American English on everyone? U-S-A! U-S-A!

-Shiro starts a game of Dungeons & Dragons and plays a Human Fighter? Yeah, he's straight. You're going to tell me a gay man would play a Paladin?

-Okay, finally we're at the twist.

-First off, this makes the Dungeons & Dragons episode a bit of a fail, because why would you not include Lotor in that? If you wanna convince everyone he's part of the crew so that his betrayal stings, he should be interacting with them constantly. We never really know him as a person, so it's hard to feel like he's gone against our expectations.

-Wait, why does he need Quintessence from vampirizing Alteans? Can't he just get energy from... however Golra are getting it normally? I'll allow the contrivance that Golra can't use nuclear power or solar power or any other source of energy, it can only be Quintessence, but why does he need so much? You can't go "the ends justify the means!" when there's a different, convenient other way to achieve the same ends.

-Okay, I guess it's... general mad science experimentation? Alright. Whatever. He made it sound like the only way to protect the millions of refugees he's sheltering was to sacrifice a small number of them, but I guess he's just mean.

-It still makes it a bit weird that they've basically solved the Golra Empire problem--access to infinite Quintessence, just let 'em have it and the war's over--and the Paladins basically decide "no, we need to kill Lotor, that's more important." Yeah, okay, he's a piece of shit, but there's at least an argument to be made that ending the war is more important than punishing one guy.

-Oh, but he goes mad with power and starts ranting about taking over the multiverse, sure, I guess we papered over that. And all that business about him being a sympathetic, well-intentioned antihero was just.....?

-Speaking of a waste of time, the Keith and Shiro fight is well-animated and all, but the context sabotages it. Is this the real Shiro, brainwashed? Is it just a Shiro clone? If so, why do we see him trying to resist Hagar's influence and seeming to try to be a good guy? Yeah, we get the answers later, but it kinda destroys the drama of the scene to think back and realize it's basically Keith fighting a Shiro-shaped robot.

-And with Shiro getting to upload himself into the clone (wait, wasn't he depicted as his own person who was trying to fight Hagar's control? Did the Paladins just mind-kill that guy because they like Shiro 1.0 better?)... okay, what's really happened in this multi-season arc? Real Shiro disappeared, was replaced by an evil clone for a while, and now he's back. No struggle to reconcile what he's done or anything--that was all the evil clone! The Real Shiro never did anything wrong.

-It'd be hilarious if Keith's black hole years ended up making it statuary for him to date another Paladin.

-Just me, or is this the first time the whole 'Shiro is a mentor/surrogate father to Keith' thing coming up? I feel like there's this whole backstory they've worked out which gives context to everyone's decision making and group dynamic, but we only get the bare minimum of it, and not early in the show, when we need it, but so late in the game that it's almost irrelevant. Do I have to go to some dumb website and read a character bio to get what's going on or is it going to be explained in the show? Wait, shit, do I have to watch the old Voltron for all this to make sense?

-...there a reason Haggar turned herself white or was that just a red herring?

This is leaving Netflix, so I'm going to do a sorta watchalong thing before it goes, where I just post my thoughts on each episode as I watch 'em. I've never seen it before and I haven't really picked anything up from fandom osmosis except that there's big gay ship drama and people don't like the ending. I also don't know anything about the original Voltron or the Japanese stuff, so no opinion on it as an adaptation (although you'd think a modern adaptation would throw in a lot more girls, but I guess this is from the Before Times and they could just not do that).

1x01: Rise of Voltron.

-Kay, so Lance is Sokka but as the kinda-sorta lead? The big difference seems to be that Sokka was actually the smart one, but Lance is an idiot, which... yeah, is a difference, but seems to make the character flatter.

-Hunk and Pidge are both fine. I guess the subverted expectation thing is that Pidge isn't a scaredy-cat, but Hunk is, which seems so contrary to being the Big Guy that it's hard to get behind it?

-Does this make sense to anyone else? Keith and Shiro both have Sixth Ranger Energy to me and they kinda blend together with a lack of personality? I guess Keith is the angsty bad boy (flunked out of space explorer school) and Shiro is the leader guy, even though he's also the amnesiac untrustworthy guy with the mysterious backstory (he's Bucky and Captain America, basically, just like should've happened in the MCU). I don't know, the dynamic is just weird to me. It's like if Angel showed up in the first season of Buffy and went "I'm a friend... but I never said I was YOURS😈😈😈" and then he started leading the Scooby Gang and giving inspirational speeches?

-Not to Surf Dracula things, but it might've made for a better story if it took longer than three joined-together episodes to find ALL the Lions and we met them later on. Sorry, gut feeling.

-The bad guys are furries?

-I would've thought Alura (?) would be one of the pilots. I know Koran can't be because he's an adult, even though he'd seem ideally suited to pilot a Lion, since he's in the military or something and it's his technology and he's old enough to have a 401(k), but even in Anime Land (America), that just means he's old and washed-up, six steps away from the grave.

-Koran's grandfather was alive 600 years ago, but he and Alura are shocked that the Big Bad (I forget his name) is 10,000+ years old. I guess it makes sense, but still, I find it a little funny that there's a distinction between being Kinda Immortal and Super Immortal.

#voltron

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patientfocusly · 5 years ago

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major canon divergences

( i don’t expect anyone to read this because it’s a lot lmao. this is more so for me to have a reference because i forget things about my own muse / canon rip. if we’re rping together we’re probably also talking ooc so anything important from this post will be mentioned to you at some point. )

( please note that by canon, i’m referring to my general main verse which includes no interactions with other muses. each interaction with a muse is put into its own verse. new interactions can come into the main verse at any point of the timeline and then diverge from that point. )

does not marry curtis. they noticed each other because they worked closely as part of the atlas crew and maybe if the time and place were different there might’ve been a chance for them to get to know each other and form something but for shiro, there is a lot weighing on his mind that he needs to wade through

( a ) shiro has been thru Sum shit and he has an endless list of reasons to be sad but i just want to make it known that shiro’s no. 1 source of guilt and just general mind-anguish is the fact that he is living in a borrowed body, that he took from someone who had to die for him to live.

( b ) at this stage he is also coming in touch with his feeling for keith which have been with him for a while, so even if he was aware of other potential interests . . . he’s not actually interested back.

adam is alive. he was critically injured in the first wave of attack by sendak and recovered enough only to provide ground support for the second wave. he remains an officer of the garrison and heads training and recruitment. he does not fly again. he’s happily married and reaches out to shiro. they’re amicable, but not close friends. maybe eventually they will be. ( this will obviously not be the case if i’m writing with an adam. )

allura is alive – i need to rewatch the end of season 8 to figure out how, but she’s alive.

after a year or so of captaining the atlas, the need for atlas to be an offensive military ship decreases and shiro consults sam and pidge for their thoughts on deweaponising his prosthesis. The new arm is still powered by allura’s crystal but looks more similar to the galra arm ( except it starts at the shoulder since his bicep??? disappeared magically ), but it’s coloured white and light grey, and the lit up areas are aqua ( same as the crystal. )

speaking of the crystal . . . the original arm was designed to operate via a balmera crystal, because that’s what most of altean designs are based off of. however they didn’t have a crystal to use, and sam says the remaining energy required for the armto work would be drawn from shiro’s own electromagnetic field. he tries it for the first time and . . . his body rejects it, in what looks like an incredibly painful and potentially fatal way, if it hadn’t been for allura stepping in and replacing the original energy source for the arm with the crystal from her tiara. we don’t ever find out why shiro’s body rejected the first energy source but here are 2 theories:

( a ) shiro’s body is actually kuron’s body, a clone, manufactured by haggar, using ~space science~ and likely some form of quintessence. the electro magnetic field coming off of the clone’s body would vary to that of a human’s, which is what sam would’ve based his calculations on. balmera crystals have incredible properties that aren’t really explained in great detail but we know how powerful they can be, regardless of size.

( b ) because it’s kuron’s body, maybe the connection to haggar didn’t completely shut off when keith cut off the arm. that flash that happens when the arm connects and shiro’s body starts rejecting it is very similar to the flash that happens when haggar starts controlling kuron earlier ( better explained in this headcanon piece. ) my only issue with this headcanon is that it implies haggar may still have some degree of control over shiro, and I just………….it’s been so overused, i just don’t want that for shiro anymore, so i’m most likely sticking to theory a !!!!!

still on the subject of the crystal, let’s talk about what shiro says after allura places the balmera crystal in his arm ; “i feel strange . . . i feel – great !” strange, as in he’s feeling something he’s never quite felt before. this is in contrast to what he feels when the first energy source is used in his arm ; “i feel . . . good,” but he sounds hesitant, like he doesn’t feel good at all, and obviously we see why moments afterwards. the great part is emphasised. he almost seems excited, like he really does feel great, and the scene cuts off with him trialling his arm by making a fist, and smiling. again, the properties of the crystals are pretty much undefined, but they are an immense source of power – what allura’s tiara contains is likely more than enough required to power shiro’s arm, and going back to how allura operated the castleship, and how shiro is able to operate the atlas, i’m loosely headcanoning that the crystal acts as a link between “captain” and “ship”, though obviously, allura herself channels quintessence and has so much more capabilities as a “captain.”

what does the crystal providing an energy source for not only the new prosthesis, but also shiro’s body mean for shiro? an external boost of energy and human-compatible quintessence is probably the first dose of anything resembling treatment shiro has had since the kerberos mission. i don’t see the balmera crystal nor altean healing pods having the power to edit genes but as far as healing goes, it must have some effect in alleviating pain and / or fatigue for shiro to exclaim, “i feel great !”

( a ) sometimes it’s difficult to write in a universe set in the future because things of our current reality ( social injustices, shit politics, technological limitations etc. ) may not be a reality say 100 years in the future, and add space and alien technology to the mix and you’re sort of left with a lot of potential for creation and imagination and progression but also hindered by the reality of present day and representing present day. i wouldn’t want to “magic” away shiro’s disease or magically come up with a cure, but at the same time i don’t want to take away the possibility for him to be potentially cured ( which is what the “i feel great !” line hints towards ) just because of the limitations of today ???????? i’m just having an inner conflict over this - i will update what i decide when i decide !!

major fanon divergences

does not qualify as space dad. it simultaneously infantilises the other paladins and takes away from their own journeys of being forced to grow up too quickly and take on the responsibility of fighting in a war, and puts undue stress on shiro who is only ~25 himself responsible for his team only in the role of their commanding officer at best

his prosthetic arm is not a sex toy, it’s a prosthesis ( refer to this post on arm related bed time activities )

shiro did not have a romantic connection with keith pre-kerberos. if anything the earliest signs of anything resembling a romantic connection would be late into season 2, but that is pending heavy plotting

shiro came from a happy family . . . he just lost almost all of it very early on. he grew up loved even though he learnt about loss too quickly ( please refer to this headcanon. )

shiro cannot sing lol . . . i dont know where this headcanon came from, but it’s sticking

i think it’s popular headcanon for shiro to have a little sister, or a big family; i wrote his backstory with his older sister before i came across this, so i’m sticking to my original headcanon because his bond with his sister is so strongly formed in my head

shiro is not afraid of death . . . but he doesn’t want to die. i feel like his relationship with death needs its own post but the tl;dr version of it is that he had a timer put on his life when he was around 17 years old. life goes from seemingly endless to suddenly very very short ( not just in the sense that his lifespan is predicted to be shorter, but that his body will soon restrict him in movement and opportunity. ) and then kerberos happens, and the arena happens, and voltron and zarkon and he’s reminded that life is short regardless of whether they give you a timer at 17. any moment could be his last and shiro has had a long time to come to terms with this. it makes him incredibly grateful for the present, and of what he’s had in the past. it also is potentially why he prioritises a mission that will take him to see the stars, over a relationship with adam ten years down the track.

if anyone makes it this far . . . ur the real mvp, thank u for reading my brain ramblings <3

#━━ ⋅ ✰ ⋆ merry crisis ! ⋮ ❛ headcanon ❜#( headcanon. )#━━ ⋅ ✰ ⋆ aw fuck ! i can’t believe you’ve done this ! ⋮ ❛ ooc ❜

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squeakyleftsneaker · 2 months ago

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Also enjoying your Voltron watch! It's nice and refreshing to see the perspectives of people who haven't been influenced by the..."fandom" (please forever avert your eyes from the western side). Had the same reaction to certain scenes, so I'm like :D!!! when you get there too. I'm a big fan of Keith which can sometimes be exhausting because the fandom either mischaracterizes him or outright hates him for "getting in the way" of their personal fav Lance or Shiro while still apparently shipping him in those pairings. I also like Pidge but I feel like if there's anyone in the main cast people should be mad about it's her--whitest character the only one who gets everything and a satisfying ending to boot. Straight up the writer's pet fav.

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME ONLY PIDGE GETS A GOOD ENDING???? BRO???????

I uh. My fandom interaction is PRETTY LIMITED so far lmfao, and I'm enjoying it that way. I am not a big shipping person mostly because like. I think a good writer can make near anything work!

I am again, a little... weirded out... that the only characters not voiced by white people are 2 aliens who have thus far lost an awful lot narratively (Allura especially so, in a way that is honestly so poorly handled by the show it makes my head HURT).

Hunk and Lance for me are.... falling pretty squarely into the unfortunate trope of Ambiguously Brown background characters which is a HUGE shame! They're SUPPOSED to be main characters! More to the point, Lance is like, our audience surrogate! He is us! Having him fall away so much is like having us viewers fall away.

I don't want erase the fact that the crew that worked on this show was NOT all white people. That'd be a massive disservice to all of the non-white people who worked on it! But I do think that the show would've significantly benefited from more time in the oven to ensure that white-biased tropes that are VERY COMMON to science fiction and can be reinforced subconsciously were less prominent in the show. Sci fi is Very White as a genre in the US. It just is. A lot of the language of the genre is HWITE. That's why good writers that CAN will take time to work through that! Make sure that you're not reinforcing racial biases in your writing! (Especially if 5/7 of your main characters are not necessarily white even by alien terms) (EVEN MORE SO IF YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE CHARACTERS THAT AREN'T WHITE BE VOICED BY WHITE PEOPLE)

And I think that (so far at least) for all that Lance and Shiro are, as you mentioned, compromised in service of Keith (which they are to some degree for sure lol), Keith too is compromised as a character in service of other ones– I remember REALLY EARLY in the show I pointed out that they made him a hypocrite without ever textually engaging with it, there's been several other instances of shit happening with him and being dropped or altered or just ignored.

Idk I think the character I'm most angry for rn is Allura, who is being forced to shrink down and lose her anger, lose her competence, lose her CONFIDENCE for them to make this plot happen rather than just letting her be herself and having the plot arise from there. Closely followed by my seething RAGE about how they treat Hunk. Just. Ugh. Makes me nauseous. Makes my skin crawl. It's horrible.

Don't be angry for just YOUR favorite characters! Be angry that there was so much story, so much life, so much cool stuff completely left on the table because this whole thing was clearly so rushed no one could guard against all this dumb shit happening!

WE NEEDED LIKE A SECOND, MAYBE THIRD OR FOURTH DRAFT OF THE WHOLE SHOW DAWG

(That said I am only about halfway done with it! So let's see how it pans out!)

#voltron #liveblogging voltron #voltron legendary defender #keith kogane #lance mcclain #shiro #princess allura #vld #vld keith #vld lance #takashi shirogane

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anchoredtether · 6 years ago

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Title: The Ghost in the Machine

Chapter: 1/13

Series: Another Way to Die

Author: AnchoredTether

Rating: M [graphic depictions of violence, dark themes, slight horror]

Pairings: Pidge | Katie Holt / Lance [Plance]

Tags: Danny Phantom AU, Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters (kinda), ghost!Lance, Pidge is slightly goth, Keith is also half-ghost, angst, heavy angst, hurt/comfort, slow burn, disturbing themes, slight horror elements, dark, claustrophobia, implied/referenced torture, double life, angst and humor, body horror, graphic description

Summary: “So this is how I die. In some Holt laboratory device when ALL I WANTED WAS STRING CHEESE!"

Artwork: The lovely @numbah34 made several arts for this work and they are fantastic! Check out her art here! She also has more concept art which I will link once it’s posted~

A/N: Here is my contribution for the @planceminibang! A special thank you to @amicuscordis for beta-ing! Vague summary is vague.

Read below the cut or over here at Ao3 >>

001 || THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE

---

“We should probably get back to studying,” Pidge announced after both their characters died on the retro gaming system and the eight-bit funeral dirge played. “Since, you know, you came over here to study.”

“Yeah yeah, I know…�� Lance sighed. He currently had a D in his physics class and Pidge happened to be a genius at anything related to science, so they started study sessions at her place a few weeks ago. “I needed a break though! All this talk of kinetics and energy was putting my head for a spin.”

“Killbot has killed us seven times in a row so I think that’s as good a time as any to quit while we’re ahead.”

“Seven times the charm?” Lance put down the controller and pulled his textbook back onto his lap, stretching his legs out onto the coffee table. “Maaaan, who studies on a Friday night??”

“Smart people who want all day Saturday and Sunday to themselves.”

He snapped his book shut again and stood up. “You know what? I’m starving. I’ll be right back with some snacks.”

She sighed. “You have the attention span of a magpie, Lance.” After five good minutes of studying he’d go on some tangent and she had to redirect his attention, or he’d want to do a video game break or a snack break or a bathroom break and she swore that boy drank water like an alcoholic downs free shots because he was constantly needing to relieve himself. When she called him out on ‘faking’ bathroom breaks to get out of studying he simply lifted up his massive water bottle and told her he drank six of them a day. He progressed on a long spiel about how great water was and she couldn’t decide whether she was impressed by how much science he had to back up his arguments or annoyed by the fact that he couldn’t shut up about water.

She called out to him as he started down the hallway. “Can you bring me some peanut butter cookies? They’re on the top shelf of the fridge.” He held up a hand to indicate he heard and she pulled out homework from one of her advanced placement classes to work on while she waited for his return.

The Holt house was confusing. The whole family was geniuses - Sam was a revered engineer and Colleen a brilliant chemist and botanist. Half the rooms in the house were labs or conservatories (or a combination) and so many parts of the house were added on or obscure extensions that made it a strange maze of plants and machinery. Lance usually had to ask Pidge to remind him which way was to the bathroom or kitchen but he didn’t want to bother her this time. It shouldn’t have been too hard to figure out, right? He had an innate sense of direction.

The other issue was the fact that Sam upgraded all their normal appliances. Their washer and dryer did not look like the standard because he invented ones that worked better. Lance found a room that might possibly be a kitchen but just as easily a lab. There were a few black knives left on one of the counters and some strange looking vegetables. Knives and vegetables were found together in kitchens, right? Then again, half the rooms had vegetables, but he figured a kitchen utensil and an edible looking plant had to be a good indicator.

He walked up to what looked like could be a fridge and tried pulling the giant red lever that could have been the door handle. When nothing opened for him, Lance let out a dissatisfied hum and walked over to some double doors that might have been a pantry or fridge and pulled them open. They were heavy and made a hissing and whirring sound as they slowly opened. The area inside was well lit and the walls looked like they were lined with drawers, but when he walked up and tried pulling on one of the panels it wouldn’t budge.

“Pidge distinctly said ‘shelf.’ So obviously whatever this is, it’s not the refrigerator.” He took one last look before turning to leave, but the doors just barely finished closing on their own without a sound. He let out a short yelp before rushing over and pushing on the thick metal doors but there were no handles and they weren’t budging against his weight. Suddenly the lights in the room snapped into an electric green and he could hear an ominous whirring of something powering up gradually increase in volume.

He pounded on the door, yelling Pidge and her parents’ names in a vain attempt to grab someone’s attention. He started to panic, looking around frantically for some escape latch or emergency button within the walls of the room. When he exhausted all his options he backed up into a corner and braced himself for whatever was about to happen, his limbs plastered against the walls.

“So this is how I die.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “In some Holt laboratory device when ALL I WANTED WAS STRING CHEESE!”

The lights turned off and he screamed, but his scream slowly died out as he realized he wasn’t being evaporated. Nothing happened except for a sudden nausea that overcame him and then his senses quickly faded into blackness.

---

When Lance came to, he was lying on the ground of the fridge-not-fridge, the hospital-white lights were back on, and the double doors were left open. He looked over his body and patted himself in random spots and let out a sigh of relief. He seemed to be alright and figured he simply passed out from fear and adrenaline. He stood up and quickly left the room, finding his way back to Pidge.

“You can’t find the fridge, can you?” she asked in a dour tone.

She didn’t seem concerned that he was gone for a long time, so Lance figured he was only passed out for a minute or so. It would have been logical to tell her what had just happened but a part of him hesitated. Nothing happened and he didn’t want to get in trouble with her parents. He didn’t want her to get in trouble with her parents when he was being an idiot. He’d seen the way Colleen and Pidge interacted and Mrs. Holt was a scary woman when she wanted to be. He let out a nervous laugh before answering. “No, it appears I’m helpless at your house.”

Pidge stood up as she finished typing something on her phone, her green-painted nails clacking against the touch screen as she led the way without having to look up. “Follow me, goofball.”

They acquired the snacks from the strangely designed fridge - which he could have sworn it did not look like that two weeks ago - and returned to the living room (and he tried to make a mental note of the directions they took through the hallways to get there). They resumed their study of kinetic motion but the only motion Lance could focus on was the swaying of the room.

“I think I need to go home,” he said in the middle of Pidge’s explanation.

“Really, Lance? We haven’t studied five min-” She frowned a moment as she looked him over. “You’re… actually really pale. Are you alright?”

“Um… I think… yeah. I think so.” His voice was starting to slur ever so slightly and he had a feeling it would only get worse. “I just need to… to lie down, or something.”

“You can lie down on the couch or I’ll get you a bed! I don’t think you should be walking home in the state you’re in.”

“No really, I’ll… I should go home.” He stood up and swayed, but Pidge quickly stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

“At least let me walk you there,” she insisted.

His house was just a few blocks down from hers so the walk wasn’t long, but they still had to take a few rest stops for Lance to catch his breath and steady his nausea. Mrs. Villanueva kindly greeted them and took Lance in, thanking Pidge for her help (and referring to her as ‘Katie’). Pidge walked back home and wondered what could have overcome her friend. His constitution had gone from perfectly fine to on his deathbed within minutes. She made it a note to check in on him tomorrow if she didn’t hear from him.

---

Mama Villanueva put Lance immediately to bed, completely tucking the blankets around him and leaving him with bottles of water, a sleeve of saltines, and a throw-up bowl. He had a feeling that whatever was wrong with him wasn’t some kind of flu or virus, and a dread gained weight in his chest that he’d have to tell the Holts what happened to him in their lab if he ever wanted to get better.

What if he never got better?

What if he was dying?

After several runs of overthinking, Lance eventually passed out from mere exhaustion. Not even his worried, rambling brain could keep him from the fatigue that soon overtook his body. He had stressful dreams of things chasing him, as if the mysterious sickness was something he could not run from or escape. When he awoke in the middle of the night, he was fairly sure it was a false awakening and he was still in a dream.

Because he was floating above his bed.

It wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened in his dreams but it started to get freaky when he saw his whole body was slightly translucent. And for whatever reason, instead of his sleepwear he was dressed in what he wore yesterday and his clothes were inverted in color. His jacket was now a pale frosted gray, the orange bands around his sleeves now a vibrant blue. His jeans became a light tan while his shirt and shoes darkened into a charcoal gray.

“Of course I’d dream myself as a ghost after worrying about dying,” he muttered to himself as he looked at his hands with a calm fascination. He also knew he was dreaming because the sickness that consumed his body before was magically gone. He knew if he had woken for real, he would have felt like death.

He tried moving to the ground and floated on down with ease, his feet touching the floor without a sound. He started to walk out of his room but then decided to try floating instead because if he was a ghost why bother using the energy to walk? He discovered he could do it without much thought, his feet hovering a few inches from the ground with knees relaxed as if he were making his way through zero gravity.

Lance was about to open his door but his hand phased through it, causing him to let out a startled yelp. He covered his mouth with his hand that wasn't halfway through the door and waited, listening to hear if he woke anyone up. He shook his head, realizing this was a dream and it didn't matter if he woke up his parents or siblings. Although for all he knew, in this dream world there might have been monsters or something equally as terrifying he did not want to awaken.

He returned his focus to his hand in the door. It didn't hurt but he could feel where the doorknob began through his wrist and where the door ended halfway through his fingers like a precise singeing upon his skin. It didn’t burn, exactly, but Lance didn’t want to linger through a solid object for too long.

"This is the weirdest thing…" He experimented by moving his hand in and out through the door through various parts, testing how it felt at different angles. He slowly made his way phasing his whole body through the door, pausing here and there with curiosity. It wasn't long after he passed through the door that a chilling sensation passed up his spine and caused him to let out a squeaky wheeze. Some strange feeling overcame him, urging him to go outside.

Now knowing he could phase through solid objects, he passed through the bathroom in the hall and straight to the outside of his house. He turned towards the street, completely silent and serene in the middle of the night, and saw a figure in the distance. Normally a stranger out in the street at three in the morning was a major red flag but Lance could afford to follow his dangerously unhealthy curiosity when it was only a dream. He might get chased and murdered by a serial killer with an axe, but he could phase through walls now so it might not be nearly as scary (at least that's how he justified it).

Upon hovering closer, he saw that the figure was semi-translucent as well, although the stranger had his feet planted on the ground like a normal person. Perhaps everyone in this particular alternate universe were ghostly. Lance must have spent way too long staring at the stranger because when he spoke it completely startled him.

"What are you doing out here?"

Lance struggled for a moment as his mouth worked but only sputtering came out. "B-bold of you to say that when you're out in the middle of the street in the middle of the night… in the middle of my dream," he added for emphasis, as if that mattered. "So what are you doing out here?"

"It's not safe out here, you should go back to your home," the stranger said in a kind but cautious tone. He was interesting looking and perhaps that's why Lance was staring so intensely before. The stranger had purple skin with darker stripes curving up his cheeks, his eyes an electric yellow with bright purple irises. Lance had to wonder if he looked just as strange but the color of his skin was its usual warm tone.

"My home is right there," he jabbed a thumb behind him. "So I might as well see what's going on."

"No, really." The stranger almost looked nervous. "You should go."

"Aww come on, do I really look that pathetic?" Lance scoffed, confident that he could handle whatever this dream verse would throw at him. He had played enough video games to improvise and figure out how to survive.

"Considering you no longer have legs, yes."

He stared at him in confusion for a moment, then dared to look down to see his legs were gone, a translucent ghostly tail curling down from his waist instead. "Oh! Wha… what does that mean?" This dream is turning out weirder by the minute.

"Either you're an emotional wreck or you have no control over your ghost powers. Or both," he answered flatly. "Don't you know you don't need your tail unless you're traveling at high speeds or maneuvering quickly through solid objects?"

Lance lowered his brows. "I- wh?- No. I have no idea how to be a ghost."

The stranger looked a hundred percent done. "You are a ghost."

"Yeah, just for right now in this weird dream. I always have weird dreams when I'm sick."

"This is real life. It's not a dream."

"See? That's exactly what someone in my dream would say!"

The stranger rolled his bright eyes. "Fine. Whatever. Die for all I care."

"Aren't we already dead? We're ghosts."

His eyes narrowed, his expression intense. "You… you aren't normally human, are you?"

"Of course I'm 'normally' human," he answered with air quotes. "What kind of a question is that?"

The stranger suddenly looked apprehensive. "You really need to go home. And stay there."

Lance placed his hands on his hips, his face turning into a frustrated pout. "You're not the boss of me."

He turned on him, his face only inches away as his voice tugged an urgency from Lance's chest. "Your kind are rare and there is a hunter out on the loose looking for ghosts like you. Believe me when I say you do not want to be caught. If you care at all about your own self-preservation you will run and hide. I can mislead him from your home but only if you promise to stay there."

Lance was silent a moment, his eyes wide as he tried to process the severity of his words, but something stuck out to him more than the imminent danger or the implication that he was no longer human. "Why would you want to help me?"

The other ghost hesitated but his answer felt sincere. "Because we're more similar than you think." His golden eyes moved to the house and back to Lance to indicate he should go back, and with that, he gave him one last look and flew away, out of the streetlight and into the darkness.

"… I guess that's one way for my dream to wake me up." He shrugged and hovered back towards his house, phased through the walls and went back to his room. As soon as he approached the bed, the same chill from earlier traveled up his spine except this time he felt it worse.

He had a feeling that whatever the stranger was running from had arrived.

And whatever it was, it felt like a horribly bad omen.

#plance #plance mini bang #plance au #plance fanfic #flirtyrobot #danny phantom au #plance danny phantom au #ghost au #fanfic #vld #voltron #voltron fanfic #voltron au #vld au #ghost!lance #vld lance #vld pidge #my fanfiction #anchoredtether

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wiggly-blue-shite · 6 years ago

Text

Chapter 19 The Bell Doesn’t Dismiss You (Tedgens)

“I can't live with my mom anymore." Ok shit it's really that bad. Fuck. I don't know what to do. I've never been in the scenario before. I really really really want to help but what the fuck can I do?

Then the bell rings.

"Shit." All I know is he's alive, and of course the fucking bell has to right. "Can we talk about this at lunch?"

"Of course. I'm gonna go say hi to the others." Ted puts his sunglasses back on and walks over to Paul and Bill.

I guess I'll just go to my next class now.

"Not so fast." Emma yanks on my shirt sleeve violently. I turn to face her. "Did he fucking kiss you?"

I forgot other people were around. He kissed me in a public place. He's not ashamed of me. I can't help but smile.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Emma is great but that doesn't mean I can't annoy her. It's sometimes funny watching her get frustrated.

"Bitch you have to tell me." She already looks a little pissed.

"Ok, I'll tell you." I pause for dramatic effect, "wow would you look at the time! I'm going to be late to third." And I jog away towards my next class. I'm not going to look back but I can imagine the look on her face.

He kissed me in public. He's not ashamed. I hadn't even thought about whether or not he would be ashamed. BUT HE ISN'T!

Third period. He isn't there

Lunch time! I need to find Ted. Right now. I might not be able to get lunch. School lunches do suck though so I guess it's fine.

Ted: Do you want me to meet up with you?

Henry: Meet me at the main building cafeteria.

Sweet, I can get lunch. A shitty shitty public school lunch.

From the lunch line I can see ted waiting

at the cafeteria door. I don't think he can see me. He looks like he's doing a better, but he's clutching his stomach. He's still wearing the sunglasses. I wish I brought makeup with me to help with his black eye.

I grab my peanut butter and jelly sandwich lunch thing. I walk up to him. He smiles warmly when he sees me. God his smile.

"Hi" I smile back.

"Hello. So do you want to like go somewhere to talk or should we just stand in this doorway?" His black eye is really apparent when you're up close. I've never had a black eye before. I've only really seen them in movies. They look really painful.

"The doorway is tempting, but perhaps we should get out of people's way." We can keep it a little light hearted before we have to get into all of the serious stuff. Right? Is that appropriate?

"Perhaps we should." Ted and I step out of the cafeteria, "I have an idea of where we can have a little privacy."

He walks me over to the science building. Apparently there's just a bunch of benches over there. I've gone here for three fucking years and I didn't know that there were benches here. There aren't many people over here, so me and ted have a table to ourselves.

Ted has a little bag with his name written on it. I have no clue where he got it because he didn't have it when he left my house, and I don't think he got it from his mom.

"So." I don't know how to start this conversation. "What happened to your eye?"

That felt like a safe way to start. Ted chuckles nervously.

"Is it really that bad?" He looks really sad. I want to hug him until he feels better.

"Well it's not good." I don't know how to explain how painful it looks. It's all swollen and purple. It freaks me out.

"My mom's boyfriend," he exhales heavily, that's enough. That sigh, and I already hate whats-his-name's guts. "Keith, punched me."

He did more that that. Ted was holding his stomach. It was more than just a punch.

"I'm so sorry." I don't know what to do. I want to help. I just care so much and there isn't anything I can really do.

"I'll be ok." Ted puts his hand on mine. His hand feels dry and rough. I should have stopped him from going.

"Where are you going to stay?" I know he'll be ok. He seems really prepared for this. I need to know for sure he has a place to stay. My parents won't get home till Monday so...

"I'll probably stay with Bill and Paul. Their parents don't seem to really care. Hell I think Bill's parents want to adopt me. I'll probably stay on some other people's couches." Ted shrugs. That kind of sounds like what he is already doing.

"Well my parents aren't home till Monday so feel free to stay with me over the weekend." I squeeze his hand, "you will eventually have to get a permanent place to live." I really really really hope he has a plan. I want him to be safe.

"Yeah I know." God if anything happened to him I don't know what I'd do. That feels dramatic but it's true. I care so much. "So what are you doing later tonight?"

Wow that is just a complete pivot. Shit, what am I doing later?

"Nothing?" I'm like 80% sure that I'm not doing anything. I want to hang out with him so I'm just going to say that I don't have anything going on.

"Well how do you feel about me taking you on a date?" Ted smiles. I know I'm definitely blushing. Like a date. Like a date date with Ted.

"Yes." Wow how eloquent. Ted starts laughing. I can't help but laugh too. I'm the least smooth person to ever live.

"I FOUND THEM!" Someone around us yells, I know that voice! "What's up lovebirds?" Emma sits down next to me.

She's follows by Bill, Paul, and Charlotte. It's kind of nice that they came looking for us. I haven't ever really been a part of like an actual group of friends. But I like this.

"So how long has this been a thing?" Paul wiggles his eyebrows. What does Emma see in him?

"Why didn't you tell me!" Charlotte lightly hits Ted's arm. I know that they are just friends but, I don't know.

"When were you going to tell me?" Emma pushes me violently. That scans.

I realize that Ted's still holding my hand. My heart flutters. I want to go on that date right now! Why do we have to stay at school? School is stupid.

"This has been a thing for, what like 10 hours." Ted still doesn't let go of my hand, and he's so casual about it. It's just. Great.

"I was going to tell you, Em. I just hadn't yet." That's a lie. I wasn't going to tell her until I talked to Ted about it. I mean I guess everyone knows now.

"So ted are you like..." Paul doesn't finish his sentence. Straight people BS right here.

"Bi. I'm bi." Ted casually squeezes my hand. My stomach does a flip.

"Cool," Paul nods. He seems cool with it. If he wasn't I'd have to cancel all interactions between him and Emma.

The bell rings. Everyone goes their separate ways to their next classes. Ted waits till the others are relatively far away.

"Meet me in front of the auditorium when school gets out."

"Got it." I cant wait. I don't want to do two fucking classes. Just date now.

Ted kissed my forehead and walks off to his next class. I watch him walk away. I don't give a shit if I'm late to theatre. It doesn't matter! I have a date!

The moment I step into class Norah is by my side asking my questions and making sure I'm ok. She's a good friend but wow she can be annoying.

"I'm fine Norah." I finally start to sketch down some costume designs.

"You can't lie to me. We're bound by the sacred bond of running mates." She isn't working on the assignment she's just watching me.

Zoey's on her phone, but she's always on her phone. It's a wonder she's passing any class.

"Hey Henry." Zoey looks up from her for the first time in a century. "Why is there a video of you kissing Ted Richards?"

What.

#tedgens #the bell doesnt dismiss you #fanfic

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yellowmechanicalcat · 6 years ago

Text

fic: Take It Easy (plance, gen)

what up guys have a non-queued post! This fic takes place after Chapter 3 of Waiting, Wishing but can be read as a standalone. Set sometime between Seasons 3 and 4, it features one-sided (...for now) Pidge/Lance, platonic Kidge, dubious skincare techniques, and awkward bonding experiences, but everything turns out okay.

Summary:

Lance flashes finger guns at her and jogs off, leaving her standing in the middle of the corridor in her dust-covered armor, beads of sweat dripping down her face, trying to figure out what she’s gotten herself into. Oh, right. The conversation at breakfast the other day. The face goo. She’d agreed to try it.

Which means, apart from the weirdness of putting the substance she regularly consumes for nutrition on her face, that it’ll be the two of them. Making conversation, the way she’s tried her best to avoid ever since their little heart-to-heart on Olkarion. And it’s fine. She can do it.

Find it on AO3 or below the cut.

Take It Easy

Allura clears her throat with just enough authority that the team automatically turns towards her as she leans across the table and gently but firmly places a hand on Lance’s arm.

“Lance, what is wrong with your face?” the princess asks.

Simultaneously, they all stare at Lance as he guiltily looks up from his breakfast goo and – yeah, okay, Lance’s skin is practically sparkling, which is definitely not normal.

“N— Nothing’s wrong with it!” Lance sputters, flushing red. Somehow, blushing only makes his skin shimmer more brightly. It’s like he’d morphed into a human disco ball overnight. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Keith says from the end of the table, letting his spork clatter into his empty bowl. “You look like you rolled around in glitter. Like a chinchilla, or something.”

Shiro looks faintly alarmed at the prospect of Lance having somehow located enough glitter to do so. He sneaks a side-eyed glance at Pidge and quirks an eyebrow, like he wants to find out whether she knows anything about it but isn’t brave enough to actually ask. Pidge just shrugs, because she definitely doesn’t keep track of all the weird things Lance does in his free time, thank you, Shiro.

“You’re a chinchilla,” Lance grumbles half-heartedly.

Keith rolls his eyes at him but Lance doesn’t notice. He’s too distracted by the fact that Allura’s hand is still resting on his arm. This is the longest they’ve ever touched outside of training in probably ever, give or take a few doboshes.

“Do you mean you did this to your face on purpose?” Allura clarifies. In his dazed state, it takes him a moment to process what she’s actually asking, but Lance eventually nods. Satisfied, Allura pats his arm and returns to her breakfast.

“That’s fine, then. I thought you might have contracted a Glass Virus,” she says cheerfully. “That’s when the skin on your face slowly cracks open because the layers underneath have solidified. It looks a bit like glass before everything starts to, ah, leak.”

Shiro finally finds his voice. “Allura, that’s awful.” Allura shrugs. “No worse than your— what do you call them? ‘Pimples.’” “Not that I don’t love learning about gross alien diseases while eating, but I’d like to know why Lance is sparkly,” Hunk interrupts.

Lance groans. The blush is starting to fade but he’s still obviously flustered. “It’s not a big deal. I was trying out a new face mask last night, it’s probably just some residue or something. But it worked great, check this out!”

Expectantly, Lance angles his face towards Hunk and waits until he reaches over and pats his cheek, his skeptical expression giving way to awe. “Whoa, smooth.”

“I know, right?” Lance says smugly. “I grabbed some of the junk you and Pidge brought back from that rando market you found last week, the one that’s kind of like cinnamon?”

Hunk frowns. “What junk— wait, that brown powder? Lance, I got that for eating! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find spices that are actually edible?” “Calm your pants, I didn’t take that much. Anyway, the one I used was more yellow-ish–”

They’ve all gotten used to seeing Lance walk around the Castle with a blend of Altean goo slathered on his face. He’d grilled Coran about its nutrients long enough to conclude it’d be just as good for the outside of a body as it was for the inside. Incorporating secondary ingredients into his face masks is new, although from his impromptu speech about Altean food goo’s seemingly extended-release hydrating properties, he’s clearly put a lot of thought into it. For someone who frequently claims to have slept through every single one of his science classes, Lance understands a lot more chemistry than he thinks he does.

“I still can’t believe you were willing to put all that stuff on your face,” Pidge says once Lance has finished.

“Don’t knock it ’til you try it,” Lance sniffs. He shoves a sporkful of food goo into his mouth.

And Pidge, much to her own surprise, says, “Fine.”

Lance looks up at her with suspicion. “Fine? What doesh ‘fine’ mean?” he says through a mouthful of goo. “It means I’ll try it.”

The room goes awkwardly silent for a moment as the others pretend they aren’t all staring at them. Pidge makes sure to keep her expression perfectly neutral, even though she’s dying inside because she knows that any moment someone’s going to make a big deal out of it.

Lance swallows, considers it, then nods. “Okay, cool.”

And… that’s it. Everyone starts talking again and breakfast goes on, like nothing unusual had happened.

Voltron’s sent to a volcanic planet to scout out a Galra base that is less of a base and more of a campground. The place appears long abandoned. Allura attempts to put a positive spin on it by pointing out that at least they’ve discovered a planet the Galra are not currently occupying, but even that doesn’t do much to raise morale. The air is full of ash and everything is bone-dry. Their helmets filter out most of it, but not enough. By they time they get back to the Castle, they all feel like their mouths are full of dirt and dust.

Lance loudly announces to the team that his skin is in need of some serious downtime after being exposed to such harsh conditions and leaves first, ostensibly to go back to his quarters for said downtime. Pidge ends up trailing behind him because there’s really only one way back, although she tries to maintain enough distance that it won’t seem like she’s following him, because she isn’t– and just for the record, she’s getting very tired of having to put so much thought into every single one of their interactions.

Lance looks back at her and she stops in her tracks. “Oh, hey, you still in?”

She isn’t sure how to respond to that, so she nods. Lance’s face lights up with excitement.

“Sweet! We’ll have a mini spa day, it’ll be fun. Meet me in the kitchen in a varga!”

He flashes finger guns at her and jogs off, leaving her standing in the middle of the corridor in her dust-covered armor, beads of sweat dripping down her face, trying to figure out what she’s gotten herself into.

Oh, right. The conversation at breakfast the other day. The face goo. She’d agreed to try it.

She can’t do it.

“‘Nooooo, Pidge, you are definitely overthinking it. Seriously, this is all we ever talk about anymore! Can you please just put a lid on your emotions instead of letting them ooze all over the place?’ …I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what he’d say. And that’s why I can’t ask Hunk,” Pidge concludes, switching back to her normal voice as she peers around her trash sculpture of Hunk.

Her audience, nestled in junk-Shiro’s hair, is not impressed. The blue space caterpillar chirps.

Pidge frowns down at them. “Excuse you, my impressions are great.”

She flops onto her back and stares up at the ceiling, cataloguing her options. She can’t think of a good reason to cancel on Lance that wouldn’t make him suspicious and she’s running out of choices to ask for backup. She’s already ruled out Hunk, and she’s not sure about asking Allura or Shiro–

That’s when it hits her. Well, technically, her sweatshirt hits her, right in the face, because the caterpillars have just dropped it on her, but it coincides with figuring out the solution. She pulls her sweatshirt over her undersuit and shoves her feet into her boots, because being half-changed is as good as it’s going to get.

“Thanks for your help, guys!” she tells the caterpillars, hurrying out of her room.

Pidge catches Keith in the hallway. ‘Catches’ is not an exaggeration because she actually latches onto his arm to make sure he doesn’t get away. It’s taken her nearly half a varga to track him down, and she’s nearly out of time.

He looks down at her, clearly startled, and still in his paladin armor. “Uh, what’s up?”

She levels him with a hard stare. “You owe me.”

He doesn’t get what she’s talking about right away, but embarrassment is contagious. She figures if she keeps staring at him long enough, he’ll eventually remember what she’s talking about and she won’t have to rehash the whole awkward event.

It works.

Keith’s eyes widen before his face settles into a mildly pained expression. It sort of reminds her of the time they’d guessed his birthday and gotten Shiro to confirm it and spontaneously decided to celebrate at dinner. Coran had made them all wear silly hats he’d dug out of some storage cube because he remembered hearing about Earth traditions and party hats and he’d forced Keith into wearing the most ridiculous one. Once he’d realized there was no escape, Keith had sat through dinner with that exact same expression.

“… okay, and?” says Keith.

“And I’m cashing in. So I told Lance I’d try his face mask thing, right, and he invited me to do a spa day but there’s no way I can do it alone because things have been so weird since Olkarion but if I bail it’ll make it worse, and that’s why I need you to come with me.”

It’s more information than Keith probably needed and he has to close his eyes as he processes everything. She watches as he takes a deep breath, muttering something under his breath that sounds a lot like ‘patience’, then opens his eyes again.

“This isn’t really a good time, Pidge. I’m leaving for a mission with the Blades first thing tomorrow and I have a lot to do before I go–”

If there was anything that would convince her to back down, the reminder that sometimes Keith left their team for another one was definitely not it. She tightens her grip on his arm.

“Don’t worry. This won’t take long, I promise,” Pidge lies, tugging him in the direction of the kitchen.

Lance had changed back into his civilian clothes. His eyebrows raise questioningly when he sees Keith trailing behind Pidge, and the boys’ eyes meet as silently, Keith dares him to say something, anything, just to pick a fight and give him an out–

Until Pidge slugs him in the arm, breaking his focus.

“Keith was just telling me how he’d been dying to try this stuff too, weren’t you, buddy?” she says blithely. “So I brought him along. Hope that’s okay, Lance.”

Lance looks skeptical but shrugs. “Sure, I should have enough. Let me grab another cup.”

Keith glares daggers at Pidge the moment Lance turns his back to them. She smiles sweetly at him in response.

Lance’s spa day supplies are lined up on the counter, covered by a blanket. Before they begin he makes them swear they won’t reveal his Top Secret methods to anyone. This is apparently something he genuinely worries about, because, as he tells them with the utmost seriousness, what they are about to experience will change their lives forever.

Pidge thinks this is dumb, and tells him so. “Seriously, who would we even tell?”

“Just swear!” Lance insists, scowling.

Keith huffs impatiently. “Fine,” he says, clapping one hand over Pidge’s mouth before she can say anything else and raising the other hand in an approximation of a Scouting salute. “We swear.”

Lance waits until she, too, raises her hand in an actual three-fingered salute, but seems satisfied. “A little sloppy, but I’ll allow it.”

Pidge tilts her head up slightly and blinks up at Keith. “Lemme go or I’ll bite you,” she says through Keith’s hand. Keith releases her in a hurry.

Lance pulls the blanket off with dramatic flourish and animatedly gestures to the setup on the counter. “Okey-dokey, here we go! Just three easy steps for guaranteed results: Steam, scrub, and soothe. Nothing to it!”

There’s a covered basket, the corner of a towel peeking out; a tea kettle and cups; a couple small containers, one of which contains something that like goo; and two short Puigian scarves that Lance holds out to them.

“You and Keith can use them,” Pidge says.

Lance looks doubtful. “You sure?”

Pidge quirks an eyebrow at him, a wordless reminder that she specializes in finding solutions to the most challenging situations, and this is far from challenging. Who does he think he is to question her ingenuity?

Lance’s mouth twists wryly in response, but he offers one scarf to Keith, who just stares at it.

“Why do I even need this?”

“Watch and learn,” Pidge says grandly. She pushes her bangs back with one hand then slides her glasses up to rest on top of her head. Matt’s old glasses are surprisingly sturdy. This isn’t the first time she’s used them as a makeshift headband.

“That works,” Lance says, looking impressed as he knots the other scarf behind his head.

Reluctantly, Keith copies him. “This is weird,” he mumbles.

Pidge goes to stomp on his foot, but Keith slides both his feet out of the way before she can reach with her unfortunately shorter legs. Lance notices their scuffle, glancing from Pidge to Keith.

“For someone who ‘really wanted’ to try this you sure are unenthusiastic about the process, dude,” Lance says dryly.

“Not unenthusiastic, just tired,” Keith says, poker-faced. It’s hard to argue with that, considering the morning they’d had, so Lance drops it.

They pull out the multipurpose chairs from under the counter, unfolding the legs, and settle in; they’re more like stools than real chairs, but their low backs made it safe to tilt back without collapsing.

The covered basket turns out to hold heated cloths. Lance instructs them to drape a cloth over their faces, something about preparing their skin for cleansing by steaming away ‘toxins’, a term he seems to believe is defined as ‘gross space dirt’.

But Pidge can’t even bring herself to argue with him right now because Lance’s cloth trick is magic. She can feel her sinuses clearing as pressure lifts from her head; she hadn’t realized just how much the dust had affected her. She makes a happy little noise of contentment, settling into her chair.

“This actually isn’t so bad,” Keith says in mild surprise, voice muffled under the cloth.

“Yeah, well, that’s kind of the whole point,” Lance sniffs. “Skincare: it’s actually not so bad.”

“Shut up,” Keith says amicably, leaning further back in his chair so he can prop his feet up on the edge of the counter.

They sit there until the cloths on their faces start to cool. Then they all have hot tea, because apparently they need to steam the toxins out of their insides, too. Lance fusses about the amount of sweetener Pidge puts in her tea because it isn’t healthy or something and before Pidge can argue that space sugar doesn’t count, Keith points out it isn’t even real sugar so it’s probably fine. Lance complains about the two of them ganging up on him, but she can tell he isn’t actually that upset about it, so she sneaks some more sweetener into his tea when he’s not looking.

Once they’re mostly done with their tea, Lance pulls out a small container, twisting off the lid to reveal something similar to glue, or maybe wax.

“This is for exfoliating. Just, uh, don’t ask me what it is, Coran explained it to me and it made my head hurt,” Lance says. He smears some on his forehead and around his nose. “Anyway, you wait about thirty ticks and then peel it off. It works great on blackheads.”

He demonstrates, holding out the used strip as proof. Keith declines to look, but Pidge leans in closer. Whatever the exfoliant is made of is definitely effective.

“Gross,” Pidge says appreciatively. Lance beams at her.

She dips her hand into the adhesive and manages to cover half of Keith’s nose before he squirms away, baring his teeth at her like a cat in a bath. He sulks his way through the thirty ticks, at which point Lance has to help Keith peel the stuff off his nose because Keith apparently can’t manage it on his own and Keith nearly punches him when Lance tells him not to be such a baby before Pidge intervenes.

In the end it takes all three of them to get the exfoliant up because it turns out that Keith really wasn’t joking about it not coming off.

“Are you crying?” Lance says incredulously, eyes wide.

“No,” Keith snaps, hands protectively cupped around his nose.

Pidge takes it upon herself to settle with science whether the exfoliant was really that awful or if Lance was bizarrely immune to its effects. She dabs some onto the sore spot on her chin as the boys watch closely and peels it off with the same results Lance had. Bonus: one less zit.

Lance grudgingly concludes that he should probably test his skincare routine efficacy more thoroughly before trying to patent it. Keith is overwhelmed by the idea of Lance ever patenting anything. While they bicker, Pidge seizes the opportunity to examine the exfoliant, having noticed that the jar actually has two separate compartments and that Lance had only opened the lower one.

She twists open the top lid and peers inside, but she doesn’t see much before the lid slams shut as Lance unceremoniously plucks the jar from her hands. “Nope, nuh-uh, bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Told you, it’s Coran’s, and you really don’t want to know any more. Trust me.”

It’s probably the worst thing he could have said, because even if Pidge wasn’t already curious, it pushes Keith’s suspicion to an all-time high.

“Let me see that.” Keith grabs the jar from Lance, ignoring his indignant yelp of protest. He twists open the lid just enough for something to tentatively wiggle its way out before hastily pulling back as Keith slams the lid back down.

“It’s alive!” he chokes out.

Exasperated, Lance throws his hands in the air. “I tried to warn you!”

Finally, Lance unveils his piece de resistance. His latest concoction of face mask goo is a muted lavender color instead of the familiar green. He pushes the bowl towards them and tells them to cover their faces, demonstrating proper technique on his own. Dubiously, they copy him until their faces are all not-quite-Galra purple.

“Now what happens?” Keith asks, mask applied.

“Now we wait,” Lance says, reaching for the kitchen timer and setting it. “Twenty doboshes, then you rinse it off. I usually listen to music but I only have the one set of headphones.”

“Imagine that,” Pidge says dryly, because he seems to have forgotten that they’re her headphones and at some point she does expect to get them back.

Lance ignores her. “So. Ideas, anyone?”

Much to their surprise, Keith does. “We could play that game.”

The game is a slightly more competitive variation of Twenty Questions mixed with Rock, Paper, Scissors. The rules are simple: Everyone has to answer, and more rules can be added at any time. None of them remember who’d come up with the game in the first place, but it’s ended up being both a good way to kill time and a much less invasive bonding experience than the Altean mind-meld gear. They haven’t been able to settle on a points system yet, so no one’s ever officially won.

Pidge and Keith shoot for the category, her rock crushing Keith’s scissors. She ends up going with ‘favorite things’, even though it’s kind of a cop out choice because it’s so vague.

She and Lance shoot next; paper covers rock, Lance wins. He does a drumroll on the table.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the first topic of the evening iiiiis: Halloween candy!” he announces with entirely too much enthusiasm.

Keith looks confused. “Didn’t we do this one already the other day, with Hunk?”

“Nah, that was… food, I think? Favorite foods? Totally different concept.”

Keith shakes his head. “I don’t get why people are so into Halloween. It just seems so– so over-commercialized.”

“Maybe because it’s fun, you weirdo? Also, free candy. Anyway, you’re up, Pidge, loser answers first,” Lance decides arbitrarily. He nudges her with his elbow, which wouldn’t have been a problem if Pidge wasn’t also downing the last of her tea.

“Really, Lance?” she chokes out, coughing furiously.

Lance thumps her back sympathetically. It doesn’t help. “My bad.”

They wait for her to finish hacking up her lungs before continuing with the game. Admittedly, it is not her finest hour. Then again, they’re all sitting around the kitchen with food goo smeared on their faces, so at least she’s in good company.

She clears her throat. “Um, I like peanut butter cups. Matt and I used to fight over who’d gotten more whenever we went trick or treating and I usually ended up stealing his.”

“Same for me,” Lance says cheerfully. “Lucky for me, no one else in my family liked them that much, so I never had to fight for them. Remind me never to go trick or treating with you. Keith?”

“Sour gummy worms,” Keith says, without elaborating. “Point of order, are we shooting for every topic?”

‘Point of order,’ Pidge repeats, silently mouthing the words, because trust Keith to be extra-formal with what is the world’s least formal game.

Lance bares his teeth in a fierce grin. With the face mask, the effect is slightly terrifying. “Bring it.”

The boys shoot. Keith’s scissors win.

“Favorite pet,” Keith decides. “Or pets, I don’t care. Go.”

Pidge zones out as Lance continues to ramble about a giant goldfish he had when he was nine years old and wonders whether she should pick the space caterpillars. She’s not sure they count as pets, though; they’re self-sufficient enough that they’re more like freeloading alien roommates.

Lance still hasn’t settled on his answer by the time she tunes back in. “—although we already had a turtle and two finches and sometimes a cat by the time I was born and they were all pretty cool, so I’m torn–”

“Wait, how do you ‘sometimes’ have a cat?” Pidge interrupts, frowning.

“Julio was his own man, he liked to do his own thing. Kind of like Keith, actually,” Lance adds unnecessarily, much to Keith’s displeasure. “Anyway, Julio visited lots of people around town. I’m pretty sure we were his favorite family because my sisters gave him cans of tuna.”

“So he wasn’t actually your cat, he was just a stray,” Pidge clarifies. “That shouldn’t count as a pet.”

To their surprise, Keith disagrees. “Actually, I think it should. We had a cat like that too. Technically it had us, I guess, because it’d been living out back before we moved in. Ours was just called Cat, though. He’d have been my pick.”

Lance looks faintly impressed by Keith sticking up for him. “Gotta say, I never would have pegged you for a cat person.”

“We fly giant robot lions. I think that makes us all cat people,” Keith deadpans, much to Pidge’s delight. She offers him a high five that he returns after a split second of hesitation, while Lance loudly groans at the pun.

Pidge turns her attention back to Lance. “I know I’m going to regret asking, but what actually happened to your goldfish?”

Lance heaves an overly-dramatic sigh, putting a hand to his forehead in an obvious pantomime of Tragedy. “My sister Rachel fed him to Julio when we were out of tuna fish. Anyway, now that I’ve shared my tale of woe with you all, it’s Pidge’s turn.”

“Well, we have a dog, so I guess it should be her…” Pidge trails off when she realizes with a sudden pang that there’s no way to know if Bae Bae is even alive anymore and tries her best to ignore the thought. “…but I’m going to have to say that Kaltenecker’s my favorite.”

Lance’s face falls. “I should have said Kaltenecker! Can I change my answer?”

“Too late,” Pidge says smugly as she and Keith face off again.

Keith wins once more, this time playing paper to her rock instead of scissors, and grimaces as he realizes he’s stuck picking the topic once again. “Uh… movies?”

Lance leans forward, already on the edge of his seat with anticipation, and Pidge rolls her eyes at him because she’s pretty sure she already knows what movie Lance is going to pick.

“…that don’t have a sequel,” Keith adds at the last moment, which means Pidge’s selection is also null. Her face falls.

“What? No!” Lance complains, slamming back in his chair. “That’s hard!”

“What about remakes?” Pidge asks anxiously. “Do remakes count?”

Keith lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Sure, remakes are fine.”

“Yessss,” Pidge and Lance say in unison.

“Team Remakes!” Lance crows, holding his hand up for a high five. It’s ridiculous, but she slaps her hand against his anyway.

“Team Remakes!”

The Castle alarms go off before they can finish. “Galra cruisers spotted near the Balmera. They’re moving into attack formation, the Balmerans need us to head them off while they prepare their defenses,” Shiro announces over the Castle’s comms. “Everyone to your Lions! Wormhole opening in ten doboshes.” Keith’s yanked off his headscarf and is already halfway to the door by the time Shiro’s done talking, face mask and all. “On our way, Shiro.” “Hold up!” Lance hollers at him. “At least wipe the mask off, you’ll get your helmet all messy—” Keith pauses and turns, holding out a hand to catch the towel Lance is already throwing to him before Lance is even fully in his line of sight. Their motions are perfectly synced. It’s kind of impressive. “Thanks. See you guys out there.”

Lance passes Pidge another towel as he pats at his own face. “Remember to wash your face when we get back, okay? That way you’ll at least get something out of it.” She nods, face already half-buried in her towel, and rushes back to her room to collect her armor, grimacing when she remembers she hadn’t fully cleaned it after that morning’s mission, but there’s nothing she can do about it now.

By the time she gets to the Bridge, her face is mostly clear of goo. She jams her helmet on on the way, leaving the visor flipped up. The others have all reported in as en route to their Lions – all except Lance, who’s standing by the doors with his helmet tucked under his arm, like he’s waiting for something.

Or someone?

His eyebrows raise when he sees her and he taps his cheek. “Hey, you missed a spot.”

“So did you,” Pidge points out, looking up at him.

“Hold still.”

Lance reaches out and catches her chin to swipe at her face, his thumb gently brushing her cheek before he lets go. It’d be an intimate gesture, under different circumstances, and Pidge isn’t entirely comfortable with how frequently she’s thought about what that might be like.

Her hands are already moving before she realizes it and she carefully brushes a smear from his nose. She can’t help grinning when he goes crosseyed to try to see what she’s doing.

“Much better,” she teases, poking the tip of his nose.

It isn’t actually much better. Their faces may be slightly cleaner, but now they’ve both got purple goop on their hands and it’s going to get on their gloves.

An unreadable expression flickers across Lance’s face and his shoulders drop forwards. “Look, Pidge, I don’t know how to say this…”

Seeing him so serious wipes the grin from her face and makes her stomach clench. Her emotions are oozing again, and her mental version of Hunk is displeased.

“Can it wait? We really need to get going.”

“I know, I know, just give me a tick,” Lance says. He reaches up, scratches the back of his head with his free hand. “I wanted to tell you that I had fun hanging out with you today. We usually end up doing stuff you like, but this was the first time you actually wanted to try something that I’m into. And that was cool. So… yeah. Thanks for that.”

He flashes her a small smile and heads inside before she has a chance to process what had just happened.

Then Coran’s voice is in her ear reminding her to get a move on, wormhole opens in one dobosh, and soon all her attention turns to the fight.

Pidge heads up to the Bridge for debriefing, Keith’s quick footsteps echoing half a step behind her. They aren’t the first ones back; Hunk’s already deep in discussion with Shiro about how many consecutive layers of metal the Yellow Lion’s armored claws could cut through while Coran checks in with the Balmerans. Pidge removes her helmet, shaking out her sweat-damp hair.

Hunk’s back is to the doors, so Shiro spots them first. He nods in greeting, then squints at them.

“What happened to you two?” he asks suspiciously, which is a bizarre question from someone who’d observed the entire fight.

“Shiro?” Keith says questioningly.

Shiro holds up a hand to stop him. There's a funny expression on his face. “Actually, never mind. I think I’m going to let Hunk handle this one.”

Shiro claps a hand on Hunk’s shoulder before striding off to join Coran at his station. Hunk turns around, clearly perturbed by his sudden responsibility.

“That was weird,” Pidge comments. Keith grunts in agreement.

Also weird: Hunk is staring at them.

“Did you know that you both have a little bit of, uh, something? On your faces? It’s red,” Hunk informs them. “Oh! Not like blood or anything, it’s more of a… marinara sauce kind of red? Or maybe more like a sunburn? Hang on, let me pull up a feed real quick.”

Hunk helpfully activates the camera in his gauntlet and aims it at them so they can see themselves.

There’s a moment of silence.

Finally, Keith speaks up. “I have no idea what this is.”

Keith looks like someone shoved a very runny cherry pie in his face. Pidge’s face is mostly solid red, except for a curved line running down her cheek that’s about the size of someone’s thumb. It hadn’t been visible through their helmets’ visors, but there was no mistaking it now.

“I do,” Pidge says grimly. “It’s Lance’s face mask. There must have been a dye in whatever he mixed into it, and we probably rubbed it into our skin when we were wiping them off earlier.”

The video feed abruptly cuts off as Hunk triumphantly slams a fist into his palm. “I knew he took the brown powder!” he says excitedly. “I’m pretty sure it’s more like beets than cinnamon ’cause it stains like crazy. Great substitute for food coloring, though. It really only glitters when you mix it with water, which… actually, that’s how you’d rinse off a face mask, isn’t it? Huh, that explains a lot.”

“This stuff stains?” Keith demands, voice cracking. He buries his head in his hands. It doesn’t do much to conceal the fact that the the tips of his ears are turning a shade of red that very nearly matches his face.

Pidge takes a slow, deliberate step away from him, just in case he decides to blame her for their unfortunate new makeovers. Keith’s only embarrassed now, but that’s not to say he won’t be mad later.

“Is it permanent, Hunk? Please tell me it isn’t permanent.”

“It isn’t permanent,” Hunk replies immediately, looking increasingly sheepish as he twiddles his thumbs. “Probably.”

“Probably?” she echoes in disbelief.

“Well, it’s hard to say. I haven’t had enough free time to work with any of the new spices enough to know for sure...”

From behind her, Keith speaks up, his tone low and warning. “Pidge.”

She rounds on him, scowling, because this is definitely not her fault.

“What?” she snaps defensively.

“Red is really not your color.”

A pause.

She stares at him, not sure she heard him correctly. Keith stares back coolly.

She narrows her eyes and looks closer, studying his splotchy red face. And– there. The edge of his mouth is twitching, like he’s trying to hold back a smile. There’s a glimmer of mirth in his eyes.

He’s teasing her.

Pidge lets out an incredulous bark of laughter, breaking into a wide grin as Keith starts to laugh, too. It turns out laughter is even more contagious than embarrassment, because once they start they can’t seem to stop laughing.

“‘Three easy steps for guaranteed results!’” Pidge quotes, imitating Lance, jazz hands and all.

Keith snorts. “Yeah. Guaranteed to look ridiculous.”

“I’m sorry about your nose. Does it still hurt?”

“Nah. The mask thing actually made it stop stinging.”

“… I can’t believe I ever agreed to do this.”

“Well, I can’t believe you dragged me into it!”

“Well, I, for one, hope Lance learned his lesson and doesn’t steal from me again,” Hunk adds with affected sternness, arms crossed, and that only sets them off again.

They barely manage to pull themselves together when Lance and Allura finally get back. They’re both in full armor, deep in conversation until Lance pulls off his helmet and Allura abruptly cuts off mid-sentence.

Half of Lance’s face is a bright, solid firetruck red. The other half looks like an abstract painting. There’s a pale stripe along the bridge of his nose with a larger dot right where Pidge had poked him.

Allura looks over at the others; Pidge and Keith wave. Hunk shrugs.

Without a word, Allura turns on her heel and heads over to join Coran and Shiro, leaving a bewildered Lance behind.

“What’d I do now?” he says plaintively to the room at large.

Hunk coughs. Lance looks up and finally notices Pidge and Keith, identical smirks on their bright red faces, Hunk standing behind them and unsuccessfully trying to hide his own amusement. Lance’s hands fly up to his own face as he realizes, with dawning horror, that something has gone very, very wrong.

“Aww, quiznak,” he mumbles.

After a long shower, Keith heads back to his room. His face is back to its normal color but still faintly shimmers under direct light, which Lance and Hunk both promised would fade within the next day. Keith can’t really bring himself to be that annoyed about it because his skin does actually feel pretty good, although he’ll never admit it. Even so, he’s immeasurably grateful for the full coverage of his Blade mask. The less to explain, the better.

There’s a piece of paper attached to his door, some kind of drawing. He pulls it down and tries to figure out what he’s looking at. It looks like a humanoid shape in red with one foot on the Black Lion and one foot on the Red Lion, like it’s waterskiing through a sea of stars. Which is impossible. Keith squints at it and realizes it’s probably supposed to be him. Huh.

Below the doodle is a note in Pidge’s familiar scrawl:

Thanks for helping me break the ice today. I think everything’s finally back to normal, and it wouldn't have happened without you. You’re a really good friend.

She’s signed it with her usual self-portrait, the one she likes to embed in her code, except she’s colored her face in red.

Keith bites back his smile and folds the note neatly, stashing it in his pack to take with him.

I believe that we're in this together.

- Mika

#plance #vld fic #platonic kidge #voltron fic #lance #pidge #keith #sarah forms voltron things #sarah forgets her own tag system whoops

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silverineontherun · 7 years ago

Text

A theory about Lotor’s real goal and a possible plot for Season 8

With s8 coming closer, the sneak peek we got at NYCC, and the possibility of witnessing a Lotor comeback, I’m writing this meta to revisit a theory I used to have around s4 and that I feel, after what happened since s6 and what we’ve seen in NYCC (and the poster), could not be as crazy as I initially thought. I discussed it on twitter first and decided to finally write a long version, but you can check that thread for a quick “summary” of this if you prefer.

In short, my theory is this: What Lotor was trying to accomplish by working so much on the rift and attempting to cross it is not just to harvest quintessence, but to travel between realities and, more importantly, TIME. Why? To reach the past and change the course of history by altering a crucial event of the reality they live in. Which one? Probably, the trans-reality comet landing in Daibazaal. And he is not alone in this: he is being helped by Alteans. Be it willingly or not, it remains a mystery.

What would this mean? No corruption of Daibazaal and Lotor’s parents, no fall of Altea, and therefore… no Voltron either. And also, many other consequences for our current timeline that could play a crucial role in season 8, especially for our paladins.

All highly debatable, but if you are interested, I’ll explain my point under the cut. Buckle up, this one is long!

It always struck me as weird that Lotor, having so much beef with his father, would be more obsessed with the rift than with overthrowing him and after he dies, more interested in Altean science than managing his blooming Empire, which he loves, but also kind of… disregards, in a way.

The motive he claims to have is valid: he declares in season 4 that he’s trying to find a way to collect unlimited quintessence from the rift to stop the Galra from exploiting planets and to finally achieve peace. But given what we see in later seasons, this raises a few questions. First, why enter the rift? There was no need: his mother created pure quintessence from the rift and made it exploitable (if unstable) without ever entering it. From what we can grasp, he managed to stabilize it, why go further? More importantly, why enter it PERSONALLY? And why make the Sincline a faithful copy of Voltron (mecha and all), but with two seats? These questions make me believe he had a more personal goal in mind, and this goal could be crucial for season 8.

Let’s go back a bit to see the full picture. In season 3, Lotor is introduced after Zarkon’s supposed demise. He has a very smart and manipulative way to control his enemies and allies alike. However, since the beginning, he is very focused on Voltron. When the paladins are struggling with their new positions, he challenges them. His generals are ready to capture the Lions at his command, but he stops them. He has other intentions.

Said opportunity is swiftly explained. In S3E4, the comet is introduced for the first time, and we also get a view of an alternate reality where Alteans have defeated Zarkon. About this, there are already great metas, but for this post in particular, I’m considering 2 things as relevant:

- The episode is telling us that the course of history changes radically with just a few events being different. In this reality, Allura wasn’t put to sleep and instead, fought the Galra Empire, changing everything. Including Shiro’s accent…

- And two, Lotor ALREADY had a theory regarding Voltron and its interaction with this rift and he is just testing it.

He did the false call to lure the team, and his plan worked well. He was set on getting the comet from the beginning, but whether Voltron could do it or not, he had a backup plan. I love my sly son.

As we know, Voltron brings the comet to stop the Alteans from conquering all realities, but then Lotor steals it from them (hah, losers!). Later, we know what he used it for.

The mysterious ship has been built by himself and his team. We don’t even know how. Could Galra manipulate the comet’s material? Didn’t the Alteans from the parallel reality say they were the ones who knew how to work it? This would be confirmed in the last episode of this season.

The team follows the comet’s signatures and finds Lotor’s generals in a Galra base where they are trying to steal a teludav.

So, Lotor has scaultrite thanks to Acxa. Which, as we know, is used for wormhole technology too. Taking Haggar into consideration, the team concludes very logically that Lotor is trying to emulate this technology to conquer other realities like the Alteans intended, and they must stop him. This episode proves 2 facts: a) Lotor really pretends to use wormhole/teludav tech for some reason, and b) that said tech is key to make the comet/ship jump between realities and must be manipulated by an Altean. The team immediately thinks of Haggar.

Well, as we know, Lotor is NOT working with Haggar, so… why would he be so set in stealing a teludav he can’t use, even risking being deemed a traitor by his own people?

Yep Lance, none of this makes sense… yet. Lotor keeps the ship but loses the teludav. This slip makes him truly mad and perhaps will cost him a lot next season.

Finally, by the end of season 3, we are shown the origin of Voltron, and most importantly, we are introduced to the rift in Daibazaal, created by the comet which later became Voltron itself. There are many bits in this episode that matter a lot, but for length’s sake, the most important are:

- Quintessence is worked by Honerva and becomes an unlimited source of energy. No need to enter the rift.

- Voltron was created by Alfor and is made of the comet’s material, therefore it’s capable of traveling through the rift safely. Not only that, it can open it and interact with it without suffering harm.

- RIFT CREATURES. Our boy is probably a rift creature baby (we see that much later and that would be a whole new meta, but people has already done some!).

- And, very relevant: the only ones who know how to manipulate the comet’s material are Altean engineers.

And if that’s so, it brings the question… how did Lotor build his ship 10000 years later, after the extinction of the Alteans? How does he intend to use the teludav tech by himself, if he hates Haggar’s guts?

All of that remains a mystery as we enter season 4.

A few months have passed. Lotor is accused by Haggar of hiding. Keith leaves the team and is tracking Lotor with the Blades because they believe the strange influx of quintessence (in abnormal supply lines) can take them to him. He’s using a LOT of it while he works in his secret project. And, btw, it’s this trail of quintessence which takes Krolia and Keith to the colony in season 6. Bear that in mind.

As Haggar slowly recovers her memories, Lotor is dismissed as a ruler by Zarkon (on renewed steroids), but Lotor remains unbothered. He has other “plans”.

Haggar notices something’s up with Lotor. She feels something “ancient” on him. Isn’t it a curious choice of words?

Well, at this point, Lotor has built 2 ships already and only 40% of the material is left. He’s carrying it in his own ship. However, being spied by Narti (rip), Zarkon discovers his plans and this pushes him to make a desperate decision: before completing his ultimate plan (which is still a mystery), he’ll try to accelerate it and bet everything on it. And we are finally taken to the rift in Daibazaal, his secret project.

Notice this face? He truly feels for what happened here, I think it was worth showing it. And then this scene happens:

So… three important considerations:

- First mention of a “secret team”.

- The construction around the rift is clearly Altean. This here is an excellent theory about it. Also, it looks a lot like a teludav.

- Lotor intends to “pierce” the barrier between realities.

This is the key to this theory. If he just wanted to harvest quintessence, he could exploit the rift in the same way his mother did before. But that’s NOT what he wants. He made it so he could cross it.

Then what was he trying to accomplish in this moment, exactly? He just had 2 ships and his father was tailing him to kill him. It’s not like he could form the Sincline mecha with that to confront him and having infinite quintessence doesn’t mean he can manipulate it immediately. Then, why did he bet everything on this strange plan instead of hiding to save his own life?

My theory is that he didn’t intend to come back from the rift. And why wouldn’t he come back? Because he intended to cross this reality, powered by a constant influx of quintessence from the rift itself, and tear the realities tissue to reach a moment/place in the past.

Which moment is debatable, but if I had to make a bet, I’d say that Lotor’s ultimate goal was to stop the corruption of his parents. If he went back and stopped the comet from landing on Daibazaal, or at least the corruption of the planet and the fall of it, he’d alter the entire course of history on this reality. It wouldn’t matter if he dies trying. It wouldn’t matter if he can’t go back after accomplishing his objective, and that’s why he put all his money on it.

I know by this point it sounds like a crazy reach, but it’s in later seasons where the writing bends the rules and allows us to consider it possible. However, here in season 4 his first try failed (because he doesn’t have the teludav technology NOR the ability to use it! He’s just a plain half-galra, half-altean man, not an alchemist, and the project is unfinished), and at such an early stage none of us had a clue on why he’d just throw himself head first into the hole that had ruined his planet and his entire life. Well, most of us didn’t.

Of his generals, the only one who seems aware of his plans is Acxa, his closest ally, and a relationship that is really important, as Astro wrote. Look at her face: she knows they failed. And also, once Lotor escapes, it’s her idea to take them to Haggar, as we’ll see in the next season. Sounds convenient, right? Anyways, Lotor shames his father’s fleet making good use of the resistant properties of his ship and heads to Naxzela, where he surrenders to Team Voltron.

And here’s where it starts getting juicy. But since these seasons are more recent, I’ll just make a quick recap.

In the first ep of s5, Loki Lotor finally gives us a clue about his real intentions. In his words, he wants to find a way to give the Galra Empire a permanent source of quintessence to make them stop ravishing planets.

Which makes a lot of sense, but it’s probably a lie. Or, at least, just part of the truth.

I think that, from now on, he is at all moments showing part of the truth. He really wishes to put an end to the war, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t other ideas. He really is trying to enter this zone, but not just for extracting resources. And Lotor always adapts to his circumstances…Though his original plan failed the first time, he didn’t drop it. Instead, using his new position as Emperor and after gaining an unexpected but invaluable ally in Allura, he dedicated himself to discover the secrets of Oriande and strengthen his assets.

It’s worth saying that I’m a firm believer that he truly fell in love with Allura, and that this wasn’t in his plans. However, he let it happen, because it didn’t hinder them at all. His ultimate goal remains the same and being accompanied by Allura would actually grant his success, and I’m pretty sure that, in his head, he judged that it was the best for Allura too. Imagine saving her entire planet and her life. Maybe he could even convince her to join him… which I think he actually intended to do, in season 6. But in a bad moment, so it didn’t work and she uh... didn’t take it well.

There’s so much to be said about the Oriande episode but I bet all has been said before. I’m just gonna rescue two bits:

First, Acxa again showing her undying loyalty. She’s back to help him a second time with the plan. I’m convinced she’ll play an important role in s8.

And Lotor telling his awful experience with the colony he once ruled and how it made him start exploring his Altean heritage. We see in the season 8 sneak peek this heartbreaking shot:

His story is true, and I mention it here because I’m quite convinced that this moment is the trigger of his plan. Zarkon always was shitty, but Lotor was cruelly marked by this horrible day and I’d say he’d do anything to stop things like these from happening. He probably became cold and sly to survive for so long with the only hope of fixing this mess some day.

Anyways, jumping to season 6 and the colony episode, the project is finally done. Lotor and Allura try the ship and get into the rift, though NO ONE UNDERSTANDS EXACTLY WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO DO.

Lance again, asking THE RIGHT QUESTIONS. After that, what?

Please notice the curious composition of the ship. It’s designed to have a copilot, and that copilot was going to be Allura. He included her in his plans this time. The project is done and Lotor is satisfied, ready to change the course of the universe, but they are going to collect samples and probably study the real reach of the rift before even trying to get to the final phase. This time he is not in a hurry, after all. It must work perfectly and, more importantly, he must convince Allura that trying to go back in time is the right thing to do.

But he never gets to do it. When he is denounced by Romelle, he sees himself again in the same position he was in season 4, cornered by his enemies and having to make the bet again. And it could have worked, if not for one missing piece: Allura.

Allura doesn’t give him much more room to explain himself. I admit, this was a good moment to explain himself if my theory (reach, call it whatever you like) is right, but I’m pretty sure that he chose to go for the emotional approach instead of the logical one. Resulting in one epic yeet before Kuron rescues him.

After being rejected by Oriande, Lotor doesn’t have the powers to maintain himself stable inside the rift. I guess he would have succeeded if he convinced Allura to join him in this final attempt. But that doesn’t happen and, as we well know, being compared to his father (whom he despises deeply) is the last straw before he loses it and ends up trapped in the space between the same realities that he longed to cross.

And the team discovers that Lotor built his ships to form some kind of bootleg Voltron they have to fight. If he just wanted to collect quintessence, why do this? Alright, the EPs need cool mecha battles, but can’t we give them some meaning? I really believe he intended to copy Voltron’s ability to cross the rift, but failed. More than the ship, what failed was himself: he got corrupted. He had no means to defend himself from the rift’s horrors. Even Allura had trouble with that, after all. And they left him there.

But the explosion from closing the rift after their battle sends the paladins 3 years into the future. They don’t know it yet, but this is confirmed during season 7. Again, the rift, Lotor, quintessence and time mechanics are all together in the picture. I don’t think it’s coincidental.

Ok, but what’s the deal with the time traveling tho?

Season 6 also introduced the Quantum Abyss, a place where time rules are all over the place, which allows us to include time skipping mechanics into our current universe.

They are telling us that playing with time IS POSSIBLE. And, surprise, surprise… Lotor’s colony happens to be built right in the middle of it. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

And if these mechanics exist, why not take them into consideration when we are talking about crossing realities? The Quantum Abyss on itself is remarkably similar to the rift. In 10k years, Lotor had plenty of time to study it.

To even reach such a place, Lotor must be at least familiarized with the concept of time traveling. And to do so, he probably needs technology. Dare I say, Altean technology. Technology he probably acquired thanks to the Alteans he found. The same who were meant to help him with the teludav he tried to steal, and which he could never have used by himself, not even after we discovered he is half-altean: he needs alchemists for that.

Unless you have Voltron. We saw in S7, in The Journey Within, that the paladins struggled a lot when they were hit by a similar rift (its nature remains unexplained as everything in this series lol). But once Keith and Lance formed the wings, they were able to cross this wormhole and travel in a few minutes a distance that, normally, would have taken them 1.5 years.

I’d say this is EXACTLY the kind of horsepower that Lotor needed with his Sincline, but we don’t know if he had it. And the ship got lost with him on the other side... at least for now.

I’m not gonna get into the authenticity of Romelle’s story. There’re a lot of ways that could play out, but to defend my theory, I’ll say this: the Altean structure around the Rift, the “secret team” Lotor mentioned, the fact that his first 2 ships were built in record time and in absolute secret, and the fact that Keith and Krolia found his colony just following the trail of quintessence are dead giveaways that he was working alongside Alteans and not just extracting their quintessence. There is a high chance that some Alteans were voluntarily helping him reach his ultimate goal, and they could be the same ones that are going to be introduced in the last season. So, whether we can forgive Lotor or not for his supposed crimes, season 8 will (hopefully!) answer that.

And speaking of season 8! How could all this work in the final season?

With Lotor gone, our new challenger seems to be Queen Honerva herself (yaaaas!).

After NYCC, I’m convinced that Lotor’s plan will carry on to the last season of Voltron in the hands of Honerva who, unlike him, has the knowledge of Oriande. Her agenda, much like her son’s, has always remained a mystery. However, now that she’s free from Zarkon, now that the Empire is crumbling and her memory is back, perhaps she will finally pursue a personal goal. To be honest, most of this wishful thinking is inspired by the first pic of this post, where the poster showed us happy small Lotor with his parents. What if Honerva decides she will use her amazing powers to get THAT?

But given the sudden attack at the end of season 7 and the cliffhanger with the Altean Eva, I suspect that she may need something else to accomplish whatever she intends to and that something could have to do with team Voltron. Why bother attacking Earth, otherwise?

The sneak peek shows many interesting bits. I highly recommend that you visit this amazing frame by frame analysis and s8 prediction here. But the bits that matter to me are, of course, the flashbacks that are going to explain Lotor’s story, and these:

A crew of Alteans walking into Oriande. See those mechas? Smells like danger. Also, this seems to explain why Kolivan found the colony empty. Our Alteans have a new home!

This shot of the paladins traveling through a wormhole, similar to The Journey Within in s7. Sounds familiar?

That wormhole looks pretty familiar too. As @luminis said on Twitter:

That was the time when Coran was de-aging. See? They were already teasing us with these time-traveling shenanigans.

This last bit is the most interesting to me. They are the same Alteans that are behind Honerva in the poster. And the ones around this crystal are five, huh? Maybe Honerva wants Voltron for herself to travel through the rift with these 5 cuties? Who knows. But for the Alteans to be powering the Atlas, it must be for some crazy maneuver they will have to pull after they have shifted sides. Maybe a time jump?

So, after trying to stick to the facts (hey, I tried), this is where I just let myself speculate. My bet is that Honerva rescued her son, who may or not be conscious, and now that she discovered his entire plan, she took control of the colony or the real Alteans working for Lotor, to carry on with it. With her memory restored and her Oriande powers, she will try to finish the job and recover what she destroyed. But she may be missing something that only team Voltron (or Allura specifically) can give her to travel to the past.

So, what would this mean for the plot?

This is the last part where I just go crazy because it could be a juicy twist of events. This could mean:

- A possible redemption for Lotor. It all depends on how is his relationship with the Alteans explained, and the veracity/accuracy of Romelle’s story. Whatever the case, from the teaser we already know that he is a crucial part of s8, so let’s hope that he is more than a mere memory.

- A moral conflict for the Team. If the team is confronted with the choice, what will they pick? No need for Voltron if there’s no war, after all...

Because this sounds like the golden solution, right? No comet means no war, no cruelty and no loss. Allura and Coran would have never lost Altea and Zarkon would have never been corrupted. The paladins would never become paladins and, therefore, wouldn’t be hurt by this decision. They wouldn’t even know. And depending on the timeline intervention, Lotor could or not have been born (if the comet lands but Honerva is not corrupted, he would be born. If not, he wouldn’t, and I’m sure Lotor was willing to pay this price. Honerva tho, I’m not sure).

So, our paladins would probably live normal lives, with two notorious exceptions.

a) Shiro would eventually die of his illness. I swear I don’t enjoy writing this, Shiro has had enough, but remember this is just hypothetical and I’m as salty as you about his mistreatment.

b) Keith would never be born. No war means no Blade of Marmora. No Blades mean our boy is never born because Krolia never gets to Earth.

As a demon klancer (sorry, don’t leave!), point b is making my senses tingle, because I’m pretty sure that in a moment of confrontation, Keith would consider it a fair price to pay and I like to think that the team, especially Lance, would be dead set against it. If the gang had to take sides, my bet is this: Allura and Coran would be tempted, and Keith would agree. Pidge and Shiro could be in a grey zone but I’m pretty sure that Hunk and Lance would be totally opposed to this.

And I know what you’re thinking: what a tired trope is this “ magical time travel, the plot never happened” crap. TO BE CLEAR: I’M SURE THEY WON’T ACCEPT IT AND THEY WILL FIGHT HONERVA ANYWAY. I’m just exposing a possible moral dilemma that could divide the team as a plotline, but I think there will be some kind of scientific inconvenience to this, that will make it too dangerous or downright impossible to achieve. And you know who I think will have to explain that to them?

This fella. He is back for a reason! (he’s also in a screenshot from the sneak peek). And he is the only one who understands the complexity of the trans-reality comet, the coexistence of many realities and the percentage of success of every action in the chain. And once the team settles their argument, maybe after some confrontation, they will have to stop Honerva from wrecking their reality, maybe giving us one last epic mecha fight and one last, heartbreaking team bonding moment too. After all, this cartoon is called VOLTRON for a reason, right? And it’s… ending. Finally.

Inch resting at least, don’t you think?

Many thanks to @leakinghate for letting me borrow the NYCC screenshots and also for writing an amazing post, and to @astrolatte for being on board with this and making a great thread on twitter. Let me know what you think! And sorry if you’re on pc, it looks kinda ugly lol

Edit: In case you are interested on a take about the endgames, I answered that here.

#lotor #haggar #vld #vld meta #vld s8 predictions #voltron meta

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greenteafiend · 7 years ago

Note

touch starved Keith + klance + your writing are all of my favorite things, for the bad things happen bingo :D

@badthingshappenbingo

Crosses are done, circles have been requested. Thanks anon! :) I hope you don’t mind that I’ve built on a tiny snippet I’ve posted before, and always intended to come back and wrote more for.

There were requirements that needed to met in order for Keith to sleep well.

The first, was physical exhaustion. He had to be worn out, completely wrung of energy, with aching, trembling, muscles, so tired there was no room left in his brain to think.

The second was it had to be quiet. He was a notoriously light sleeper, waking up at the slightest disturbance. Even a change in the rhythm of someone’s breathing in the same room as him was enough to wake him. Enough to have him springing into alert defensiveness.

Lastly, he had to have his knife on him, within easy reach. No matter how exhausted he was, without his knife he wouldn’t feel safe enough to drop off.

Which was why it was so shocking to Keith to wake up, after having fallen asleep on the couch in the rec room, with none of those requirements satisfied, feeling more well-rested than he could remember feeling almost ever.

He hadn’t been physically exhausted; he hadn’t actually done anything even mildly taxing that day so far.

It wasn’t quiet. The boring Altean movie he and Lance had been trying to get through was still playing, relatively loudly, in the background.

He didn’t have his knife on him. Ever since he saw the symbol on Thace’s blade, he was a little paranoid about having it on him around the castle just in case the wrapping came off the handle and someone saw. He had his suspicions about what further investigation would reveal, and he was a little apprehensive (read: terrified) of what would happen if those suspicions were confirmed.

So the fact that he was laying sprawled across Lance’s chest - head resting right over where Lance’s heart was, one hand loosely fisted in the fabric of Lance’s ever-present jacket - wasn’t even the most shocking part of all of this.

Lance seemed to think it was however…

Keith got one moment of bliss, where he was perfectly comfortable, with the warmth of Lance’s body seeping into his own, the calming scent of Altean soap filling his senses, and a profound feeling of safety hanging over him…

… and then Lance looked down at him, he looked up, Lance yelped, and suddenly he was on the floor.

“Why were you sleeping on me!” Lance yelped.

“Why’d you push me on the floor!” Keith retorted heatedly.

“Because you were sleeping on me, why were you sleeping on me!?” shouted Lance.

“Because it was comfortable!” shouted Keith back.

“What are you two shouting about now?” injected Pidge. She’d just come into the room, laptop cradled carefully in her arms.

“Nothing!” they both shouted simultaneously, and then Keith stormed off.

Lance didn’t acknowledge what had happened, and Keith followed his lead, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. How it had felt to hear someone else’s heartbeat, how nice it had been to share body heat…

When he’d lived alone in the desert, even when he’d had enough blankets, he’d never really been able to get warm. It was like there was a pillar of ice inside his chest that only thawed when he was near other people, but he was hopelessly clueless about how to go about actually being near people.

He wanted it so badly. To touch, and be touched. It was as if his skin was hungry for it, but he didn’t know how to ask.

To make things worse, it was as if his body had gotten a taste of what proper comfort and security felt like, and was no longer satisfied with physical exhaustion, quiet, and his knife as sleep-aids. He lay awake for hours, shivering even though the castle wasn’t cold, arms wrapped tightly around himself to try and mimic the feeling of a hug.

He knew it was his own fault. The others thought he was a loner, that he preferred being alone, and his temperament being what it was, (hot-headed, angry, impulsive) he could understand why were more standoffish with him than with each other. When they hugged each other and high-fived after a mission well done, Keith only gots nods of acknowledgement. He was reaping what he’d sown; they thought that was what he preferred.

Shiro was the exception to that. Shiro would put a hand on his shoulder, and sometimes, he’d even pull him into a half-hug, but it only happened rarely, and it was careful. Shiro was always very careful to never crowd him.

When they’d first met, and even Shiro’s most innocuous movements had made Keith flinch, had made Keith so very aware of how much larger and stronger than him Shiro was, how much damage he could do to Keith if he wanted to, he’d been grateful for that care.

Now however, when every day that went by left him feeling more and more exhausted, more and more like the icy pillar in his chest might overcome him completely, Keith wished he knew how to reach out.

But he didn’t, so he suffered in silence, and thought a lot about the firmness of Lance’s chest, and the safety he’d felt being held in his arms.

“Jesus, Keith. You look awful,” remarked Lance a week later. They’d found themselves alone in the rec room as they usually did when Shiro was busy with leader stuff, and Hunk and Pidge were busy with science stuff. It said a lot about how bad Keith must have looked that Lance’s remark had actually sounded concerned, rather than mocking or teasing.

He shrugged in response.

“You look… really tired. You should have a nap or something,” suggested Lance.

“I’ve tried,” Keith muttered.

“You obviously need to try harder,” said Lance. “I’m gonna put on that movie we tried to watch last week, maybe it’ll put you to sleep again. Just try not to fall asleep on top of me this time,” the words were teasing, and pretty tame as far as their banter usually went, but Keith had just spent a whole week trying to capture the feeling of lying against Lance with his imagination in an attempt to trick his body into letting him sleep, so he wasn’t amused.

“Was it really that bad?” he asked. The question came out sounding small and vulnerable, rather than annoyed and accusing like he’d intended.

Lance’s eyebrows had raised so high they disappeared underneath his hair.

“Do my ears deceive me? Keith Kogane, resident Red Paladin and killjoy, asking me, ‘was it really that bad,’ when talking about accidental, completely unintentional, cuddling that definitely didn’t happen.” Lance’s imitation of his voice was very poor in Keith’s opinion.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Keith snapped, not in the mood to decipher Lance’s silliness.

“It means, I like cuddles as much as the next person, but you’re allergic to human interaction,” Lance explained.

“Oh…” said Keith, looking down at his knees as everything in him just shrivelled up.

“What am I doing wrong?” he asked.

“Doing wrong-?”

“Everyone thinks I want to be alone. No one ever hugs me,” Keith regretted the words the minute they left his mouth.

“Nevermind. Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled, backtracking as quickly as possible.

It was fine that no one wanted to touch him. They didn’t owe him anything, he was fine. He could deal with the cold, itchy feeling underneath his hungry skin the same way he always had, alone.

“I’m just gonna-” he got up, intending to escape from this whole mortifying situation as quickly as possible, but Lance stood too and grabbed his wrist to stop him. The simple touch made him shiver.

“Hang on a minute, are you saying you like hugs?”

Keith shrugged.

“I just… that nap with you was the last good sleep I had,” he admitted.

There was a beat of silence, and then Lance let out an irritated huff.

“Fiiine,” he whined, “it was pretty comfortable. And you do look like you need sleep.”

Keith frowned.

“What are you saying?”

“I guess I don’t mind if we have another nap like the other day,” he said, sounding put upon.

Keith wanted to, he ached for the safety of Lance’s embrace, he could taste sleep on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t want something given so begrudgingly. He’d been through that before with countless foster families. Accepting things people didn’t want to give you didn’t work out in the long run.

He pulled his wrist out of Lance’s grip.

“Look, if this is some sort of– if you feel sorry for me–”

“Hey, hey,” interrupted Lance, “I said I like cuddling, didn’t I?”

Lance sat back down on the couch, raising an arm invitingly.

“Stop being so grumpy, and just c’mere,” he ordered.

Keith wanted it so badly… His resistance crumbled under the weight of Lance’s expectant stare like a sandcastle breaking apart under the weight of a wave.

He obeyed, tucking himself carefully against Lance’s side, and shivering when Lance’s arm clamped around shoulders. His ear was pressed up right against Lance’s chest, and he could hear his heartbeat. He could smell the soap he used, he could bask in his warmth.

It felt so good, so safe.

Keith fell asleep.

(And when Lance was positive that Keith was indeed asleep, he ran his fingers through his hair.)

#bad things happen bingo #touch-starved #voltron #vld #klance #my writing #answered ask #fanfic

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