#but for most ppl it seems like the disappointment comes from s2 being so different from s1

[elibean]

I worry that like, i want lc to be more than it is

[jess-the-vampire]

Lilith or Belos for the ask game

Send me a Character

(I'm picking belos because i actually have another request for lilith, so i can do her later)

First impression

As someone who wasn't really into s1, i say with high praise that belos was the first character i actually felt intrigued by in the entire show.

He's got a good design, a great voice, and outside of like his weird dumbness with lilith he's pretty solid.

Honestly i was worried s2 would find a way to make him worse, or more boring, since it would've been easy to make him fall into the usual tropes.

Impression now

underrated, 2nd favorite character, the fandom sleeps on him constantly and i hope it stops moving forward.

so no belos improved in s2 and i'm so thankful for that, i appreciate a lot of the directions with him, his writing, he's so well written and not enough people appreciate it.

even if the twist being implied with him seems obvious, it's so interesting that i could not care any less about it being obvious or not.

i could talk about him all day, he's so entertaining to watch and i want him in more episodes so badly. He gives me so many mixed feelings all the time and it's great.

why is there no belos merch, i demand merch of the stupid evil overlord.

Favorite moment

Belos has yet to have a ton of moments but out of what we have i like his scenes with hunter a lot, his relationship with hunter is interesting because while it is toxic.....it also does come off like belos does care for hunter to a degree, like it doesn't feel like their relationship lacks ANY care.

Those scenes are just...well written tbh, because there's many ways to look at them.

Idea for a story

I still like projects that explore belos in different ways, like as a good leader, or a better parent to hunter, or even just as a regular guy with no power at all. Projects like this acknowledge fans recognize he's not an entirely black and white character and he has complexity to him worth exploring and i appreciate it.

Even if we didn't get belos not being a dick to hunter, exploring their dynamic in a more healthy way is still great to see in fanwork.

Unpopular opinion

I think most of the fandom, especially when it comes to writing belos, don't really understand him well.

I think people focus far too much on him lashing out and all the physical stuff, and while belos can show anger and lash out, that's like.....not his character?

i see so many comics and stories rely on injuring hunter for plot purposes or to get an emotional reaction from the reader and sure, your project, do whatever....i just want it to be acknowledged this isn't actually belos's character in canon.

Here, listen.

Belos, is the disappointed dad of disney villians.

He only uses violence either when he is protecting himself, or feel words alone is not making his point across, but violence is never really usually his FIRST option when it comes to getting ppl to do what he wants.

Belos plays on people's insecurities, when hunter or lilith screw up his response is to scold them like children who misbehaved and make them feel bad for screwing up, and threaten them with the burden of failure and losing stuff that matters to them....because they screwed up.

Hunter does appear to be scared of injury, but it’s clear his fears especially involve his own self worth and not being loved far MORE then that, and that’s the spot belos prefers to hit because that’s far more effective.

Not to mention hunter’s love for him and want to make him happy.

Belos wants you to want to help him, he relies on people LIKIING him and wanting to please and make him happy. This man does not need violence, because he's great at convincing others to do things for him out of love, pride, ect, ect

Sure, he's killed ppl, but he didn't exactly become a leader from taking over via war or a fight, he won through his WORDS. Belos is more bark then bite, he only bites when he deems necessary or is actually unable to help it seemingly.

I just think more people pay attention to the small moments of physical abuse, and never pay nearly enough attention to everything else that makes his character so good.

And there’s more then this but this alone bothers me sometimes because it takes away from why i like belos in the first place as an antagonist, and as a character.

he’s got so many complex layers to him, but he always gets reduced to being a angry violent dude and that’s just not his character and removes what i like most about him.

Favorite relationship

i mean, his and hunter’s because that’s basically his best one atm

it’s good in many ways

especially because it’s very arguable that belos does love and care about hunter, even if it’s in a very unhealthy and toxic way.

i think it’s easy to say belos doesn’t care about hunter at all, but i genuinely think if hunter had died belos would’ve actually been pissed, i just don’t get the impression hunter means completely nothing to him despite the manipulation.

their relationship isn’t healthy, but i don’t think it’s devoid of any attachment either.

the implication of belos maybe cloning his own brother, who he most likely lost, def implies some kinda weird attachment or else i’d wonder why he’d pick his brother for this process in the first place.

Favorite headcanon

That he’s constantly sweating in his full garb

i mean, he’s wearing 3? layers of clothing, and a mask and hood, with all that hair, in a throne room of fire.

he should be sweating to death wearing that.

[shiningjoy]

so i’ve finally watched s3 of free! and i wanted to put my thoughts in about it and hopefully also get some ppl to reply (respectfully) with their own input? also sorry if my knowledge of free seems spotty or incomplete since i don’t obviously have all free lore burned into my head so pls inform or correct me on anything i’m missing!

anyways before even watching s3, i noticed it was pretty widespread that s3 was rather disappointing or at least fell short to s1&2. and not only that, but i could see that s3 was likely going to be a bit disappointing just bc of how many less ppl were interested in it or even knew about it (ofc popularity=/=good but i doubted that the loss in numbers was just bc time had passed) sadly, the season actually exceeded my expectations of the worst.

first of all, i think way too many characters were introduced without any need of them being there. ofc not all of them seemed worthless to being there, but i think at least half of them didn’t have a need of being there (or at least didn’t need to appear as much as they did) or they could’ve at least waited to introduce them. don’t get me wrong, i loved characters like isuzu and albert, but with how little they appeared or added to the plot, i don’t think they were necessary at all. they introduced so many characters and kind of tried to forcefully endear them to us but it just seemed really shallow and random. i was really uninterested in the new iwatobi hs sc tbh (i love rei and nagisa, but i just don’t feel anything for the new members tho it was funny how the new manager is interested in fat instead of muscles) i don’t think isuzu was worth introducing, but i do get why they introduced albert at least. he was supposed to serve as their first rival introduced strictly from the professional world, and to emphasize there are many people above them not just in japan but the “world stage” but i definitely think they could’ve waited on that until the free 2021 movie tbh. plus i felt that any conflict he brought to haru was resolved within 1 maybe 2 episodes so yea they definitely didn’t really need him bc he hasn’t had much impact (yet) if anything, they could’ve just had him briefly appear at that training camp haru was at to race him and beat him to remind him that he still has a long way to go to get to the top. but all other appearances of albert were so extra and unnecessarily emphasized how inhumanely talented he was (the arcade scene, the thing with the chopsticks,etc) it just felt like really weak foreshadowing

also, the main conflict in s3 was just way too prolonged and solved unsatisfactorily. first of all, i don’t know why the blame seemed to be shifted by ikuya and hiyori almost solely to haru, like yes he was the one who quit first but it wasn’t an attack specifically to ikuya and the rest of them left too, so they should’ve held more grudges on haru makoto and asahi rather than just haru (or if anything at least have more blame on asahi bc makoto at least talked to ikuya beforehand) like did he just forget asahi also made a promise to not move away? honestly from the content they gave us, i’d argue that asahi and ikuya were actually closer than how ikuya and haru were, since i feel like most of the latter relationship was based on ikuya admiring harus swimming.

second of all, hiyori was another character i found so unnecessary and just weirdly protective over ikuya. he repeatedly gets in the way between them and ikuya when ikuya never said he didn’t want to talk to them (and it’s not like talking to them is gonna give him a health relapse) and so he just seemed to be there to prolong the conflict between them which was irritating. not even natsuya, ikuya’s actual brother, was that obsessive over him so i really don’t get hiyori. even sousuke, who was actually friends with rin before haru and the others were was not that possessive over rin, and there was actually pretty good reasoning why he had a grudge against haru (he didn’t see haru taking swimming as seriously as rin and thought that would cause him to hold back rin who looked up to haru, and was jealous that haru who had the talent to swim the world stage with rin wasn’t taking advantage of it when sousuke wanted to but couldnt bc of his injury) and like what right did he have to say to haru that his swimming hurts others when it didn’t even affect ikuya negatively (instead it inspired him and led to him wanting to swim like haru) like how haru originally thought it did to rin and how it did to asahi in high speed 2?

third of all, like i said before the way they solved the conflict between ikuya and the rest made little sense. like yes harus swimming is magical but i don’t get how swimming IM with him could instantly solve all the problems between them. (ik that it was based on the promise they made to race each other but i’ll get into that part and how shallow it felt later) if anything, i think what would’ve been more impactful was something happening to ikuya that made him realize that he can/should rely on/trust others, (maybe a more serious accident?) and enjoy swimming with a team and not just alone since his personal conflict was that he thought swimming alone was better than swimming with others when actually he was lonely (at least it was in starting days). and that wouldn’t even have to be with haru and the others that he learns that lesson. it could be with his own university team and hiyori, which would give hiyori a much better purpose of being there. (or they could’ve just not had him exist) if they were so inclined to have closure between ikuya and the other boys by having them resolve ikuyas personal conflict, i feel like it should’ve been at least haru AND asahi (maybe even makoto too but idk how thatd work when he’s no longer competing) racing him in the same race (if not them doing a relay but i guess they didn’t want to make it too obvious than they already were that they were just recycling the plot of s1 (lol)) if anything i think they could’ve even waited for them to reconcile while they were on the olympic team, but ig kyoani didn’t want to wait that long to reintroduce ikuya and wanted to use s3 to warm ppl up to the idea of ikuya being on the olympic team which they didn’t do very well considering how bad the development was

also what was with ikuya saying he swims his own way while obviously taking sm inspiration fron the way haru swam? it was so contradictory and even as kids haru told ikuya to swim his own way when ikuya told him that he wanted to be like haru and he understood that obviously but didn’t apply that to his actions at all? and i’m surprised haru was ok with ikuya blatantly copying him when i vaguely rmb that he’s been shown to get annoyed with even makoto when he seemed to be doing that?

another fault in having all these characters was that haru’s actual personality seemed to be taken away for the sake of these characters.

they wanted to establish a deeper relationship between ikuya and haru, but it just seemed so off the way they went about it in free! haru promising ikuya to race him just felt so ooc to me and had little emotional impact tbh bc of the lack of reasoning i felt haru had to agree to such a thing besides him promising ikuya that just bc he asked rather than bc he actually wanted to race ikuya. (while it took rin weeks to get haru to warm up to him and then agree to the relay, and seeing the process of haru getting used to the idea then openly enjoying swimming with the others was really touching) i think they just added that to make harus quitting have more impact on ikuya but i don’t think it was necessary at all when they already made plans with the rest to swim the relay again and win. if they wanted to make it seem like ikuya and haru had more of a one on one relationship with each other they should’ve gone into more about how haru saw the same darkness in ikuya that he did in himself like in high speed 2. make them bond over their similarities since i’m pretty sure ikuyas purpose as a character is to give haru a rival that is like how sousuke is to rin is; which is being rivals while being two of the same person. (in contrast to haru and rin who are very different and are rivals that inspire each other) but the way they try to establish the relationship between ikuya and haru pales sm in comparison to sousuke and rin that it’s a bit laughable, even more so in those occasional moments where they try to act like ikuya can measure up to rin’s impact on haru

another much more obvious event where haru’s character is forced to act ooc for the sake of the establishment of another character is with albert. yes, haru has grown a lot from the beginning of the series and has gotten a lot more open, expressive, and friendly, but that’s mostly just to the friends around him, but that’s not even to all of them (he still seems to find kisumi irritating and in TYM tries to leave at the sight of him lol) so him noticing, randomly approaching a stranger he doesn’t know a single thing about to help them order food and then even going far as to have lunch with him was the most blatantly ooc thing in the season. i think he may be polite enough to help him order his food but i don’t get why he even noticed albert in the first place. they should’ve just left him noticing albert to be at the practice race. like i said that scene was just there to emphasize albert’s skill with the chopstick thing but i think saying he was the world record holder and also being way ahead of haru in the race was already enough

besides haru’s character, another character i felt they did wrong was makoto. besides the plot of s1 being recycled, s3 makoto seemed to just repeat the development he went through in s2. by the end of s2, he already establishes that he wants to coach swimmers. and at the end of s3 he comes to that same realization but acts like it’s something completely new to him introduced by nao that he never thought of before?? the only difference was that he said in s2 he wanted to help kids realize how great swimming is, which was sweet and suited his personality, but in s3 he says he wants to do it for athletes on the world stage. tbh i like either way, and the latter one would help him be able to stand with rin and haru who in s2 he was afraid of being left behind by (hence why he swam the free against haru in s2) but saying that being an olympic trainer can also help him inspire kids and show them swimming is fun makes no sense. choose a path you want for the character already and make it consistent does he want to help athletes in the world stage or does he want to help kids fall in love with swimming? bc i doubt any kids pay attention to the coach or trainers in the olympics rather than the actual athletes so that reasoning like i said didn’t make sense.

and after haru lost what i think was the 200m (?) free at the All Japan Invitational, i found it weird that they had makoto there after to talk with haru and rin about the race? idk to me it just feels like it’s tradition for it to end up just being rin and haru talking when they’re struggling with swimming (in s1 was their fight in front of the tree that looked like the one by their elementary, in s2 it was the australia trip) his presence didn’t even feel necessary either, he just randomly interrupted the moment by saying his future plans after haru had that angst yell lol. it felt like just an appeal to mh shippers which is not a good enough reason at all

the last point i can remember at the moment is that the ending was so underwhelming. i don’t understand why they couldn’t have shown the ending to rin and harus 100m free race when the movie trailer already confirms that they’re going to the olympics. why cut to albert watching them on the tv?? all this build up to not even show the results of it? I think this ending really just confirmed that s3 was so unnecessary and just there to warm ppl up to the olympic movie but not actually give us anything good or plot moving

anyways sorry for this dump. besides all these criticisms, i want to say there were parts of it that i enjoyed, i just didn’t go into it bc this post is already so long, and me bagging on ikuya was not hate; i actually like him and the only time i teared up in s3 was in his race with natsuya lol. i’m afraid that at some parts i may have not expressed my thoughts exactly so please don’t be too harsh if you engage, but i’d love to hear other ppl’s analysis of s3 and the characters as well !!

[gooodluckmode]

im deep in the vld hole here and need to voice my thoughts on kallura given literally everything so far & how i believe it doesnt make sense? (even though a lot of ppl have already said that) and maybe my worries will subside a bit. this most definitely might be a jumbled mess but i hope if youre worried or anxious or just kinda ehhh on the whole possibility this will help your worries subside too!!

(definitely got longer than i intended it to be but its coherent!)

i guess first ill go with the vld staff and crew. have to start with this dont @ me: lauren montgomery retweeted very obviously romantic klance art months ago (which im still not over lol). onto more serious stuff, i do know in an interview it was said sexuality can be explored? jeremy shada has said on a few occasions that he wants more keith and lance interaction and he has said that lance is gonna mature! i see that as a really good opportunity to address sexuality - have lance contemplate his bc of his feelings for keith. like that potential just seems so big and i would be disappointed if they wasted it?? lance obviously has confidence issues and to have him work through everything would be rly nice to see? also bex brought up klance in an interview and looked so devious and happy when she said she likes watching the klance shippers explode (i love her). she also said kallura is a bromance and thats it. of course this means nothing for sure but its stuff to think about. steven yeun said quite strangely that you never know where the romance is or who it is between so like ?? that can go both ways given what question he gave that as an answer to (it was about keith and allura). and just in general i know this crew isnt against lgbt content and representation (they’ve already done a bit with pidge & worked on lok which has korrasami!) so why not go further? and of course if they do go further, im just gunna guess and say it would be with klance, and if klance happens, well, kallura cant? honestly vld is ripe for amazing storytelling and relationships (if they choose to address romantic relationships - which if they dont thats totally fine too! the friendships in this how have amazing potential too!) and i want to trust the staff to handle it all well no matter what and not force anything just bc it happened in the older voltron.

onto keith himself. we havent seen keith show any real interest in allura at all. heck he even wanted to leave her on a galra ship in s1? in s2 its obvious he is hurt by her comments but yeah of course who wouldnt be? when he was in the little pod thing with her in s2 he didnt act like he was interested in her that way and when she kinda sorta hugged him after apologizing he didnt really react like someone would if someone they were interested in p much hugged them? i mean yes there are maaany eps left (at least 4 seasons worth!) and i know shada mentioned slowburn and i think it was lauren and joaquim that mentioned romance not being the paladins’ priority bc duh war but theyve also said they can plant things in early eps and seasons to go back to and really the only two ships that you can really argue things have been planted for for ultimate slowburn are shallura and klance (have you seen how tender some moments between shiro and allura are??? and of course bonding moment).

allura also hasnt really shown any romantic interest in keith either and tbh i really think she just felt genuinely bad that she treated keith that way after finding out he was part galra? i dont really see the apology scene with the kinda hug as totally romantic but i definitely see why it worries ppl bc it does worry me too. (especially when coupled with the scene of them in the pod together in space but *big shrug* you know. i dont think that scene was romantic either except for when the pod exploded and they had to cling to each other??? but i digress). idk how other ppl interpret allura’s age and i dont wanna start discourse here but i personally feel like she is an adult in human age and keith is obviously a teenager and like yeah age gap problems but also??? no offense to keith but allura deserves someone more mature and just.. better for her?? and IF she gets paired up with someone i think given her interactions with shiro, he would make the most sense (plus she will probably play a very big role in finding him and saving him and im super excited for that!! allura is gonna kick some ass)

additionally ive already mentioned this but i mean the development and potential for both shallura and klance cant be ignored. this isnt a “shallura and/or klance might become canon post and here’s why” post but it is a post that points out two very popular ships in the fandom that make a lot more sense given everything. if you want a good klance meta, head on over here. i dont have any shallura metas on hand but if anyone knows of any link me!!

and also real quick i mean.. the crew on vld is capable of telling a good story and i really want to trust them to not write forced relationships if they make anything canon at all. i know a lot of ppl think s2 didnt rly compare to s1 but i think s2 was made to set us up for A LOT in the upcoming seasons. plus tyler labine has said that they do look at feedback they get from fans when considering things (for example they know how ppl have reacted to how hunk was treated and theyre going to work on showing him in a different and more heroic light rather than just the comedic relief food guy). i know this fandom has a bad rep when it comes to discourse about everything but i also know ive seen legit respectful constructive criticism from fans and thats what will be mostly heavily noted - NOT harassment!! dont harass the crew!! these people are working on a show you love and dont deserve the terrible harassment i know has gone on. being someone who lives for characters and character development more than plot, im really concerned about relationship dev in the upcoming seasons (platonic and romantic) and im sure a lot of ppl understand where im coming from but more than that i think its important to enjoy the show and the story, you know? i think the lore in this universe has got amazing potential and im excited to see it unfold along side these characters that i love!

feel free to message me or add more!