#keith and ance

[sukoshininja]

Blood Gamble

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

"It's not mine."

That's what Lance had said, because it couldn't be. He would know. Wouldn't he?

But judging by the look on Keith's face, he was clearly missing something.

"We need to put pressure on that," Keith said slowly in that carefully enunciated voice, the one he used when he was trying to hide his alarm.

Again, it wasn't his. But he knew better than to interfere when Keith was like this, teetering on the edge of panic. Better to let him see for himself. 

Lance allowed Keith to remove his left rerebrace, which, to Keith's credit, was slick with blood. Keith wrinkled his nose and bit the tip of his glove, pulling it off his hand.

"See? Not mine."

 "Nothing on this planet bleeds red, Lance," Keith reminded him as he forcefully pressed the rubber glove into Lance's tricep. 

Oh yeah.

But if that was true, then why didn't--

Oh. Oh. Okay. Now it hurt. The pain was so sharp it felt cold, spreading ice to his nerves in his fingers. He wiggled them experimentally. Bad idea.

 Keith tapped his helmet, activating his comm, "Red team withdrawing. We need to get Lance to a healing pod. Stat."

"Do you need an extraction?" Allura asked, concerned. 

"No, but he's losing a lot of blood."

"How much blood are we talking?" Hunk asked as Lance's vision started to get fuzzy around the edges

"Tourniquet level," Keith replied as he pulled his hairband out with one hand, the other still holding pressure to the wound. 

His heart was beating so fast that Lance half expected it to explode. He tried to focus on taking big slow breaths, but he found himself gasping for air when it seemed like he couldn't get the air in fast enough. Oh no, he was hyperventilating. That couldn't be good. 

"Hold this," Keith instructed as he folded the band in half and wrapped it around Lance's arm, pulling the elastic tight.

The pressure on his brachial artery was not a welcome sensation, he realized as he felt his hyperactive pulse push against the elastic band. Nausea rolled in his stomach.

Keith snapped his fingers in front of Lance's nose. Lance tried to focus on the eyes looking back at him with intensity. "I'm gonna need you to keep pressure on this, as much as you can."

Lance nodded, the pain making him feel so weak he was numb, like his extremities were slowly disappearing. It wouldn't be long before he was weightless. 

Keith hoisted him in a fire's carry before bolting for Red.

Lance was barely aware as his cheek lay against the cockpit floor. It was cool. And he was the coldest he had ever been. 

Fog pressed up against him, clouding his awareness. 

-nce

What was that?

-ance!

The sound dipped in and out, gently, like a lullaby. 

Lance! What's your blood type?

And everything was quiet. 

*   *   *

There was a pressure in his head. A pounding. Wait. That's what sounds were. Those were sounds. Funny. He couldn't understand them. Not yet. It was like they were all meshing together in one big blob that echoed through his head like a gong.

It was dark too. Oh. His eyes were closed. He should open them. Nope. Too hard. He could wait. Something was off, and he wasn't terribly eager to find out what. 

When Lance came to, he was on his knees.

He slowly opened his eyes. The light burned. He squeezed them shut again.

"How are you feeling, Lance?" a booming voice asked and Lance flinched. 

"I--" words felt weird in his mouth. And was that supposed to be his voice all frail and scratchy? "I'm alive, I-I think."

"You had us for a while there," the voice continued. Lance recognized it as Shiro. 

"Can't keep me down!" Lance replied weakly. Sensations were gradually beginning to return. None of them were pleasant. 

He tried opening his eyes again. Still too bright. 

"You saw that, right?" Pidge asked, alarmed. 

Shiro made a corrective noise. "Let's focus on getting him stable before getting side-tracked. Lance, can you stand?" 

Lance tried, but it was like his muscles couldn't be bothered. "I don’t think so."

"It's okay. I'm going to carry you, alright?"

Lance nodded. As Shiro lifted him, he attempted to open his eyes once again, but this time only by a hair. It was still too bright, but it was bearable, and he could roughly make out the figures around him. They were in the medical bay. He must have just exited the pod. 

"Should I wake him?" Pidge asked, gesturing at a makeshift cot.

"Let's wait until Lance gets settled," Shiro advised. He gently carried Lance, bridal style, to his room. 

Pidge pulled back the sheets and Shiro gently placed him down on the mattress. They fussed at him, arranging his limbs, fluffing pillows and tucking him in. Shiro adjusted the weird cape thing that draped from Lance's shoulders. It reminded him of that thing barbers snapped around your neck when getting a haircut. 

 "What's this?" 

It did not escape him how they both stiffened. 

"We’re gonna wait until you are a little more sober," Shiro said carefully. "You'll get to see it soon, after you heal a little more."

That bad?

"Chicks dig scars," Lance made it sound as flippant as he could. 

Shiro regarded him with a calm mask. "Do you need anything? Water, more pain killers?"

"Can you turn the lights down? They really hurt."

Shiro adjusted the dimmer until the lights faded to a soft glow.

Everything came into sharp focus as he was able to open his eyes fully. His vision was still a little off, though.

Pidge was looking at him intently, almost as if she was studying him.

"How long was I out?"

"Long enough to have us all worried," Shiro answered. "I'll let the others know you're awake. I'm sure they'll want to see you, but it's okay if you're not up for company just yet."

"I can say hi," Lance offered.

Shiro nodded and stepped out of the room, the door sliding shut behind him. 

Pidge was still squinting at him. He was not about to apologize for the low light. She looked pale, like all the color had gone out of her. 

"Why do you look...less?" 

"You're standing in the presence of a universal donor, you greedy bastard," she announced proudly, striking a hero pose.

That couldn't be right. She was much too small. She definitely didn't hit the weight limit to safely donate. "I thought you had to wait at least another year to give blood?"

"If I waited, you'd be dead."

Oh.

"You're welcome."

"I don't know how to thank you," Lance said quietly. He owed her his life, that was a debt he would never be able to repay.

"Don't. Anyone would have done the same."

The door slid open and Keith strode in, out of breath and hair a mess.

"How was your nap?" Pidge asked. 

"I brought the pain drugs. Is he sleeping? Why is it so dar--" Keith made eye contact with Lance and froze. 

"Shit," he whispered.

"Keith!" Shiro called from down the hall, he appeared in the doorway a moment later. "I told you to wait."

But Keith wasn't paying attention. His eyes locked on Lance, lower lip trembling. Suddenly he turned on his heel and all but ran out of the room. 

"SHIT!" Lance could hear him scream into the hall.

Not exactly the reunion he expected. 

Shiro heaved a tired sigh, "I'll be back."

*  *  *

It had been days, and Lance was getting antsy. 

"Is it really that bad?" he asked Allura when she brought him breakfast one morning. 

"Is what bad?" 

"My face."

There was a reason all the mirrors were covered, that Shiro had tried to stop Keith from barging in, that when the others come to see him they wore curated expressions.

"Still got your looks, if that's what you're concerned about," Allura laughed, mussing his hair affectionately.

Lance tried to lean into and enjoy the rare casual touch Allura graced him with. But the feeling that they were hiding something from him wouldn’t leave him alone. 

"Keith took one glance and bolted," Lance challenged. He hadn't been back either. That bothered him more than he cared to admit. 

She smiled softly. "I believe he feels at fault for what happened to you."

Lance's memory was pretty hazy at best, but he seemed to remember Keith saving him. "What are you not telling me?" 

Allura hummed thoughtfully. 

"I'm going to find Shiro." She raised a hand at Lance's protests. "He can explain it better than I can. I'm afraid I don't quite understand how you earthlings work. He wanted to be the one to tell you anyways."

"You're scaring me."

“It’s been a very scary time for all of us,” she agreed as she slipped out the door.

When Shiro walked in a few moments later his mouth was set at a grim angle. "Hey, champ. How are you feeling?"

Lance shrugged. "Arm hurts. I'm stuck in this room because you won't let me out of bed. And everybody is hiding something from me."

That came out a lot harsher than he had meant it. But he was frustrated. 

Shiro nodded somberly as he took a seat on the bed, facing him. "We should have had this talk earlier, I'm sorry. We wanted to give you a chance to get your strength back a little first. I understand your frustration, but I still stand by that decision."

Shiro placed a hand on his shoulder. "I think you know this, but we came so close to losing you. There was a stretch where we didn't think you would make it. "

"Hunk said Pidge nearly killed herself to save me."

"She gave more than she should have,” Shiro confirmed. “However, you needed more than she had to give. When it became clear she would bleed herself dry for you, we had to make a choice. Losing both of you was not an option."

Hunk had conveniently left out that bit. 

"But neither was losing either of you. So, as your senior officer, I made a decision. A decision that should have been yours. But in the moment I was so scared of losing you that I didn't care. I am sorry I took away your choice. But understand that I do not regret my actions. The important thing is that you're still here, the rest is details."

Shiro looked down at his mechanical hand. Flexing his metallic palm open and closed a couple times. He reached behind Lance to undo his cape. As it fell off his shoulders, Lance braced himself for what he expected to be a nasty scar.

Only there was no scar.

Because there was no arm.

“There was no saving it,” Shiro whispered after a moment. “I’m so sorry.”

Lance could feel his heart rate quicken as his breaths became shallower. He lost his arm. They cut off his arm! How was he supposed to shoot?How was he supposed to pilot his lion? He couldn’t be a paladin anymore. He couldn’t even return to his life before, not with one arm.

“When you’re further along in the healing process, we’ll get you outfitted with a prosthetic,” Shiro continued. “Coran claims my Galra tech is too clunky and that Altean tech is much better suited for prosthetics.”

Oh yeah. Shiro had lost his arm as well. He seemed to be doing just fine. Alien technology for the win. When he dreamed of following in Shiro’s footsteps, this isn’t quite what he imagined.

He forced a smile that he didn’t feel. “We’re twins.”

“Now back to that choice I made.”

Lance felt his stomach drop. There was more?

"As I said, Pidge alone couldn’t save you. But she wasn't the only one aboard with an O negative blood type. But given that Keith’s not all human we didn’t know how your body would tolerate this blood. But when it became clear that you need more, what choice did I have? Watch you die? Or pump you full of alien blood and watch that possibly kill you faster? Or possibly live? At least you had a chance. So I gave the order. I didn’t even ask him.”

Was that why Keith couldn’t stand him? Because he stole his blood?

Shiro sucked in a big breath before slowly letting it go. “It saved your life, but there were…side effects.”

“Side effects?”

Shiro handed him a pocket mirror.

He caught a flash of yellow, glowing, pupil-less eyes from a familiar face.

“He turned me into a quiznacking Galra!”

Next Part -> my whumptober masterlist

[scotianostra]

On 12th April 1941, Scottish poet, Charles Murray died at Banchory, Aberdeenshire.

Though easily the best known and most popular Scots poet of the period from 1910 till the 1960s, Charles Murray’s literary output was modest. Though there was nothing amateur in his approach to his poetry, Murray was not a professional literary man and had to compose in the time he could spare from a busy working life first as prospector and mine manager, then as a senior colonial civil servant, in the newly created Union of South Africa.

In 1969, twenty-eight years after Murray’s death, poems which had not appeared in book form during his lifetime were published as The Last Poems, with Preface and Notes by Alexander Keith.

Finally in 1979, Murray’s friend, the famed novelist Nan Shepherd, edited Hamewith: the complete poems of Charles Murray. These publications were supported by the Charles Murray Memorial Fund.

Misfits

I've kent auld dominies wi' little skill o' teachin'

When put aneth the soundin' board show eloquence divine;

An' richt learn'd ministers nae worth a doit at preachin',

An' middlin' tradesmen, wonderfu' at gien oot the line.

Sometimes a Genius sets a bonny lowin' flame

Aneth the bushe'l in a neuk, lest it should stop the flails;

Whiles feet that should hae trod up the brae that leads to fame,

Gae trailin' weary doon a fur ahin' the ousen tails.

Now sirs, can ye explain why square pins sae aft are set

To fill roun' holes? Ye dinna ken? That brings menae surprise

For here I'm jamm'd sae ticht, where some other man would fit,

An' he is rattlin' in a place that's just my very size.

But bide till my corners are ance a wee bit worn,

An' I can turn as free as those wha think I shouldna try,

Syne mony wha look doon upon me now wi' scorn,

When speer'd at gin they ken o' me, will proudly answer, Aye.

[autisticlancemcclain]

prev chapter

-- -- --

There is, honest to God, a coathanger butler and a duster French maid.

“Well, that confirms it,” Lance says, clapping his hands together. “I fell off my horse on the way here and I’ve gone insane.”

“I think you’re just smart, kiddo,” Shiro says, amused. “Perceptive.” He has yet to stop his tour, hopping along rather quickly as Lance follows. 

Lance opens his mouth to deny that particular claim – Lance is many things and smart is sure as shit not one of them – but there’s a bellowing shout that interrupts him before he can. 

“Ta-kashi!”

Shiro-the-candelabra startles, then goes pale, which is a hilarious thing to witness in a face of wax. 

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” he curses. He makes an effort to hop behind a random sidetable placed against one of the farther walls of the massive corridor, but he’s not nearly fast enough. Rapid, angry clanking sounds precede the appearance of an ornately carved grandfather clock, the face – literally and figuratively, man this castle is fucking weird – twisted in a heavy scowl. 

“Takashi,” the clock hisses again. “What part of ‘united front' is hard for you to understand?”

Caught completely red-handed, Shiro straightens himself up and attempts to look dignified. “You were busy with Keith! What was I supposed to do, let this one wander around? I was –”

“You were supposed to wait for me, Takashi! Last time –”

It would probably be prudent for Lance to continue listening, as any information he learns is for the better. But as soon as Shiro says Keith’s name, Lance’s ears check out, the world in front of him goes blurry, and he starts to feel like he’s deep underwater. 

It hits him, all at once and intensely, that this is really happening. He is, sometime in the frighteningly near future, going to meet his future husband. His future husband who is known across the country to be one of the most vile men in temper ever to exist, who is impossible to love. His future husband who has money, money that Lance can send back to his family that can never manage to get food on the table for every mouth on every day of the week. The future husband who Lance cannot leave, unlike the people before him, because if he does then the family farm will sell and everyone will be homeless and it will lie on his shoulders. 

If he fails, his family will never look at him again, the shame will be so strong. The kids – they’ll be uprooted if they have to sell the farm and move away. He can’t do that to them. And yes, his family’s betrayal still aches like a gaping wound in his chest (they didn’t want to keep him Mamà didn’t want to keep him only three wanted to keep him and he doesn’t know who they sent him away the town sent him away his family sent him away everyone he’s ever known decided they were better off without him), but he doesn’t – he can’t let their saving grace slip between his fingers. If he fails then his greatest fears are confirmed – he is the failure that he’s always known he is.

But If he succeeds, he will be locked for life in an enchanted castle that feels as if it doubles as a tomb. 

Suddenly Lance is sick to his stomach. 

“–ance? Lance? You okay, kiddo?”

Lance shakes himself from his thoughts, eyes focusing on the concerned faces in front of him. He clears his throat, straightening his shoulders and plastering a smile on his face. 

He will not fail. He will not. It is the lesser of two evils, to succeed, so he must. 

“Yeah, sorry. Just remembered something, is all. I meant to look for something to feed my horse when I came in here, there’s no hay in the stable, but I forgot with all the –” he glances at the clock and candelabra, wondering how to phrase the clusterfuck that is now my life tripped me up, my bad delicately – “the… hubbub.”

Hubbub. 

Alrighty. That’s the word he’s going with. That’s fine. He’s totally cool with suddenly becoming a bitter senior citizen loudly complaining about the youths. All is well.

Despite his strangeness, the two people (??) in front of him visibly soften. 

“Sorry, dear,” the clock says. He clanks forward and extends one of his arms – shiny, carved gold decals of the sides of a grandfather clock – to shake. Lance does. “My name is Adam. I imagine you must be exhausted. Would you like to see your room?

That sounds excellent. Lance sags at the suggestion, shoulders slumping forward and sigh escaping his lungs without his position. His own room in the castle…what will that look like? He’s always shared a bed with someone, back home. And sometimes he is kicked and sometimes people snore and sometimes people squiggle around and hog blankets and talk in their sleep. Sometimes people even pick their toes, completely unconscious, and refuse to believe him when he complains about it in the morning. Such is the life of a large family in a small house. 

Lance will have a bed to his own, now. A room, even! It’s almost unfeasible. He’s expecting something huge; giant windows making up a whole wall at least to let the sun it, impossibly high ceilings, a bed as big as his house once was, with a canopy over the sides of it. As plush as goose down and soft as Kaltenecker’s – his favourite of their family’s cows – fur. Cream walls, maybe, prime for him to paint. 

Paint! He’s sure he’ll have paint here. The richest of colours, even, and paintbrushes he doesn’t have to make from kinky horse hair. And he’s sure he’ll have time, here, outside of whatever chores he’s expected to do, to ride Blue around the grounds. Maybe, for once in his life, he can enjoy his day outside of fleeting moments with the animals, or Veronica, or the twins. Maybe there will be more time outside of fleeting minutes when he watches the sun rise. Maybe he will have freedom here, to explore what he likes, and in luxury, no less. 

Wait. 

His brow furrows. Freedom…he won’t be free. He may be surrounded by more opulence than he ever expected to see in three lifetimes, but freedom is still a luxury he can’t afford.

“What about Ke –” he stumbles over the name – “the Prince?”

Shiro and Adam exchange the least subtle look Lance has ever seen on a human, let alone a grandfather clock and a candelabra. It would be funny if it weren’t so troubling. 

“What about him?” Shiro says carefully. 

Lance blinks at him. “Is his royal highness too busy to meet the guy he’s literally about to marry, or…?”

“We just figured you would prefer to settle yourself, first.” Adam says it quickly, practiced, obvious; confirming Lance’s suspicions. 

There is something afoot. 

“I’m pretty settled, actually. All good in the hood. Checked off most of the list, tick tick tick. I just need to meet Prince Temper-tantrum.”

Both royal attendants laugh nervously. 

“Ah, we’ll get there,” Shiro assures. He hops forward, pointing his candle to the hallway, indicating that Lance should follow him. “We have time, no? It’s late. Dinner will be ready soon. No need.”

He and Adam are very persistent, all but shoving Lance out of the front entrance and to a massive staircase. One of them must have sent the word of Lance’s arrival, because one of the branched-off hallways of the staircase – a wing? Is that what it’s called? Why must rich people label stupid things – is illuminated, clearing the path Lance is meant to take to his new room. The other is as dark as the rest of the castle, cold and isolating, reeking of angst and cowardice and a smidge of superiority, too, because reputation or not, what kind of jackass doesn’t at least introduce themselves to their future husband?

Suddenly, it all kind of boils over. Lance roots himself in the middle of some grand marble hallway and, ignoring Shiro and Adam’s frantic pleading, cups his hands around his mouth and shouts: “Hey, Prince of Darkness! Is it too beneath you to say hello to your future husband, you beastly man?”

His voice echoes throughout the castle, shout bouncing off the carved stone walls and getting louder, somehow. Lance stands, glaring at the dark hallway, fists clenched at his sides, fury still lighting up his veins. But then a minute passes, and another, without so much as a peep of movement, and rage starts to trickle out of his body in favour of something like regret. 

He has one job, here. He is to make nice and play the silent husband so he can get funds back to his family, and no one goes hungry. He is supposed to avoid Prince Keith at any and all possible moments, keeping his head down and living his life as separately and as well as he can given the circumstances. And Adam and Shiro were perfectly happy to let him do so, too, guiding him to his room before he even had to breathe in Prince Keith’s direction. 

Him and his big fucking mouth. Clearly, there is more than one person in this castle with a temper. 

He turns to the candle and the clock. “Sorry,” he mutters, averting his eyes. Hopefully they don’t call this whole thing off. He doesn’t think they will – from what Shiro implied, they seem kind of desperate – but still. He shouldn’t push his luck. 

When Shiro and Adam don’t respond, he looks up, expecting to find them disappointed, but instead finding them not looking at him at all. He frowns, taking in the way their faces have dropped, the way they’ve both gone pale. As pale as bloodless things can be, anyway. He follows their line of sight, shifting his body to face the farthest end of the dark corridor, and squints, trying to make out what they’re so white about. It takes him a moment to pick it out, but eventually he sees it, almost glowing in the darkness – a pair of large, yellow eyes. And…

Teeth?

Lance blinks. He rubs his eyes. He looks again. 

Where the mouth would be, under the eyes, are massive, fang-like teeth, glowing white in the dark shadows. They are not human. They are not even animal. Lance is not sure what they resemble, aside from monstrous. A chill runs down his spine. 

Slowly, silently, the way a wolf might stalk towards prey it knows it has trapped, the shrouded face comes closer, slinking in the shadows. Lance follows it, head tilting higher and higher as he begins to realise how tall this face sits on a still-invisible body; how large this…thing, animal or man, truly is. Closer and closer it steps, until Lance can hear its breaths, until Lance can feel the heat from its body from where it stands, in the last stretch of the shadows. 

Lance swallows. 

“Who are you?” he asks. His voice is surprisingly steady, although his hands tremble. 

Finally, the figure steps out into the light. Dark purple fur is all Lance can see; covering the figure in thick, uneven swaths; large brow drawn tight over his slitted yellow eyes, mouth twisted in a snarl, fangs pushing out from his lips, clawed hands clenched in fists, talons clinking on the floor as he steps closer. Ornate clothing covers his body, heavy red cloak draped over his shoulders, materials Lance can recognise as sturdy and well-dyed and rich. 

The figure bends low, close to Lance’s face. “I am as you say, dear future husband.”

“You’re a – an actual –” Lance stammers.

Prince Keith growls, low in his throat. 

“A beast.”

———

next chapter

[nebucat]

Y'know, I still think sh/eith is a weird af pairing. I still maintain the "it's not for me but I genuinely don't care if other people like it and they can do what they want because caring that much about what other people ship is a waste of energy and honestly just as weird to do" mindset but like, if I'm going to post my actual thoughts about that pairing, here's what they are:

Sh/eith is just the Son/Tails of the Voltron fandom, just older. I think I could see it if they met under different circumstances such as: if Keith was already an adult, and Shiro never took up a mentor like role to him, I could see it. But because of the canonical way they interact with each other and the way they met and when they met, it just squicks me out to throw a romance plot in there man. Keith was either 15 or 16 when he met Shiro, who was like 20/21. You know people would be losing their mind if Keith was a girl. It's just icky to me. So I don't like canonical context for Sh/eith. Plus it feels out of character too, like at best I can see Keith having a one-sided crush on Shiro, and maybe trying to express that at some point, but Shiro would gently reject him because he only ever treats Keith like an apprentice/little brother and he recognizes that it would be weird. Maybe if they got older, Like way older and the dynamic shifted, maybe? But still, I just can't see Shiro returning those feelings.

Again, if they met under different circumstances and their dynamic was different, I could see it. I could even see myself shipping it - because of their personalities, they would just be human Sonadow or Shadowpeach even.

Just not with the context that canon gave us. It's weird to me. And it's weird to me how some shippers doubled down on defending it even when it was confirmed on screen that Shiro raised Keith, instead of just taking the L and learning to enjoy the pairing separate from the show's canon. Like, I can totally understand shippers frustration, because everything about the writing for the show was a total dumpster fire anyways and it kind of just felt like after season 3 nothing made sense ever anymore and most people who shipped it were there from the very beginning before the ages were canonically stated, and it sucks to have shitty and inconsistent writing desicions blow holes in your ship. But it was very bizarre seeing die hard shippers still defend it in canon after Keith and Shiro's backstory was actually shown.

The other thing is, I still never got the impression even from the very start that they had a romantic bond. It always came across as genuinely brotherly/mentor mentee dynamic to me and that is how it was always intended as we come to find out later in the show. I think some people misinterpreted it and latched on to the pairing tbh.

But you know what else? Kudos to the Sh/eith shippers for not being fucking batshit insane and insufferable like Kl/ance stans/anti sh/aladins, that's why I always liked the people who shipped sh/eith or sh/aladin pairings in general more, because they always were the more down-to-earth and reasonable party and just wanted to vibe and do their own thing. (At least, most of them. Not the ones who were still hoping for canon Sh/eith. I feel like most of the people who ship it understand that it's weird in canon context, and probably just wanted to use the moments they had on screen together as ship fodder for their own self-indulgence with the pairing, while recognizing the canonical context that is there.) shout out to the people who were able to differentiate between canon and fanon, they were way ahead of their time LMAO.

So the verdict? Canon Sh/eith is weird to me and I can't see it, and I can't spend time with the pairing without seeing them as older brother younger brother and interpreting it as romantic feels incorrect and OOC. AU Sh/eith I could actually see however, but it would require very different context. I think it could be cute. Especially because Keith is the temperamental, super loyal, narratively tortured type who would set himself on fire to save his loved ones, while Shiro is the calm, confident DILF type that would be Keith's emotional rock and I eat that shit up in most of my pairings that I like.

And this is why I never took a side in the discourse 👍 because I was always team "just do whatever the fuck you want and don't be annoying or mean to other people about it" LMAO

[flagmean]

klance goes to prom

-lance promposes to keith by asking an elaborate scavenger hunt involving all of their friends and secret letters with clues

at first keith is kind of complacent but then he gets into it 

keith: HI YES, “THE GREEN ONE”? ITS YOU PIDGE. IT IS YOU. I KNEW IT.

 pidge: yeah alright just take the card 

“here ye, here ye/love of mine/ take this card/ and think malign/ his hair his white /just like his culture/ go get this card/ from this coy vulture” 

keith: ITSDFJFCUKING LOTOR SDJFDF BYE 

-lance pulls out all the stops even though keith explicitly says not to 

lance: you don’t even want a corsage? 

keith: no lance, you don’t have to do that 

lance: [gets him a huge bouquet of lilies] 

keith: 

lance: what? 

lance: YOU SAID NO CORSAGE

-lance picks keith up in a limo (keith is mad) but his annoyance turns into a blush when lance starts screaming when he sees him walk out of his house 

lance: HOT DAMN HOT DAMN WOOOOOOOOO WOOOO THAT IS MY BOY, THAT IS MY MANS! 

keith: lance, stop

lance: YOU DIDNT HAVE TO LOOK SO CUTE THOUGH? 

-lance wears a red shirt and keith wears a blue one under fitting black sport coats, both of them have purple flowers pinned to their pockets 

-shiro starts crying when he’s taking their picture 

keith: shiro 

shiro: iM SORRY 

keith: just take the photo

shiro: IDONT KNOW HOW

-they show up ten minutes late because shiro literally can’t work an iphone 

-coran is a chaperone 

coran: lance! are you wearing gold eyeliner?

lance: congratulations coran you noticed before my boyfriend

keith: i didn’t even know eyeliner came in gold

-they literally cant take serious prom photos because they start snickering every time which turns into a fit of laughter because they’re 5 years old

the photographer, kolivan, is not impressed

keith: this one looks okay....

lance: your head is buried in my shoulder

keith:....its cute 

lance: i cant see your face. that literally could be anyone 

-the theme is space (because what are we, animals?), allura runs the prom-planning committee with her girlfriend nyma 

nyma: can we make a banner or that says “this is a gays event only”

allura: 

allura: no 

nyma: you thought about it for a second there

-they decorate the entire ceiling with little glowing stars and when keith and lance go out onto the dancefloor, lance looks up and notices. 

he gasps and keith looks at him, following his vision and then drawing it back down to his face so he can lose himself in the wonder of lance’s eyes and the softness of his expression 

lance, looking down: what?

keith: nothing 

lance: okay

keith: you’re just so beautiful 

lance: [grabs his face and kisses him hard]

-they are crowned prom kings even though they didn’t sign up

allura: i might have nominated you 

lance: well that’s just unfair because no one else could ever win against us 

and they couldn’t 

(acxa and ezor pretend not to be mad)

-lotor offers them his flask and keith hits it out of his hand 

keith: nice try satan, i want to remember this night forfuckingever

-they play “the time of my life” and lance gets up on the stage and does an entire lip-syncing performance 

keith: thats my boyfriend

hunk: are you surprised 

(acxa: are you sure he’s not drunk?) 

-when it ends, they’re too tired to go to an after party but not tired enough to go home, so allura, nyma, shay, and hunk all pile into keith and lance’s limo and they tell their driver, slav, to pick up pidge and shiro 

nyma: get in losers we’re getting ice cream 

-they go to dairy queen and strut in like fucking models, ordering one of those huge ice cream pizzas 

pidge: i feel underdressed 

shiro: im just happy you kids invited me out with you! 

keith: you’re 26 stop talking like you’re 90 

-they drop everyone off and when it’s just keith and lance, keith falls asleep on lance’s shoulder in the limo 

lance takes off his crown and kisses his hair, whispering “i love you” 

keith wraps his arms around lance’s waist and kisses his chest, snuggling into it

[ashkazora]

Five!Lance: It's a rotten work. Especially to me. Especially if it's all of you. I'll fucking do it but christ alive

Is Lance... a tsundere?

Five!Lance: You all are too much work. I'm broke, tired, and too old for this. When can death claim me so I don't have to look after your accident-prone asses anymore? Life is pain.

Shiro: You know, you don't have to tuck everyone into bed at night, right?

Lance: Try and fucking stop me.

[discordiansamba]

pretty embarrassing that vld has been over for several years now and people are still writing fics where ~uwu sad soft insecure boy~ lance is chased out by his ~mean and awful team who obvs hate him and think he’s useless~. like. talk about watching a show with blinders on.

[lnkedmyheart]

I'm not even kidding. I was lucky to be amongst people who adored Shiro when I got into vld. Shiro was also the character of choice of many and I mean MANY gay men. He was often shipped by said gay men with Keith or Ulaz. And I think the main reason was because Keith was the leader of the Shiro defence squad (including, famously, David Gaider). The weird rhetoric started almost entirely from a specific section of shippers post season 2 when suddenly sha/llura was no longer allowed following a throw away comment by her VA (because sk wasn't allowed and antis needed to pretend to show consistency). And then kl antis basically just started acting like their personal headcanons were facts. Given that many of them were basing everything off of the k/ible and the later k/ancetament I'm not surprised that they completely misread everything Shiro was or presented. He was labelled a bad person incapable of loving someone simply to shut down a specific ship and then with the shiro vlog where he makes a lighthearted joke about l/ance it just went downhill.

@lnkedmyheart, I appreciate the counter and alternate perspective! Admittedly, my only engagements with the fanbase, outside of a rogue Youtube recommendation, have been on Tumblr and Archive Of Our Own. And, with K/L being, by far, the most popular ship, and Lance and Keith being the most popular characters on both of these sites, I've been inundated with a lot of... "questionable" opinions on Shiro. (People pretending they don't hate him while espousing the nastiest ableist, ageist, homophobic rhetoric based on absolutely nothing but the versions of these characters they've fabricated in their heads.) I don't use TikTok, but everything I've seen in screenshots and reposts on Tumblr and Youtube indicates that it is a cesspit of the worst ignorance, sensationalism, pettiness, immaturity, and puritanism from Tumblr and Twitter congealed into one massive lake of sewage and sludge.

The people who despise Shiro are definitely indulging in some sort of substance. How else do you explain looking at this man,

and deciding that he's an old, "broken", "monster"?

(It shouldn't be a point of pride for these people to regurgitate the exact language of Shiro's abuser.)

I can understand if Shiro isn't someone's cup of tea. We don't choose the favorite character, the favorite character chooses us. Maybe they find his quiet, reserved personality unappealing because they prefer louder, flashy, hyperactive types, or comic relief. That's fine. But, people who despise Takashi Shirogane are completely out of touch with reality.

[lesbianklance]

im sorry but if i were lance i too would choose princess allura over greasy boy keith

[scotianostra]

On 12th April 1941, Scottish poet, Charles Murray died at Banchory, Aberdeenshire.

Charles Murray has been described as a skilled and popular poet who wrote in the pure Scots of his native Aberdeenshire, "The Doric”.

Charles was born and raised in Alford in north-east Scotland. However he wrote much of his poetry while living in South Africa where he spent most of his working life as a successful civil engineer. His first volume, A Handful of Heather, was privately printed and he withdrew it shortly after publication to rework many of the poems within it. His second volume, Hamewith was much more successful. It was republished five times before he died and it is this volume for which he is best known. The title of the volume, which means Homewards in English, reflects his expatriate situation.

In 1969, twenty-eight years after Murray's death, poems which had not appeared in book form during his lifetime were published as The Last Poems, with Preface and Notes by Alexander Keith.

Finally in 1979, Murray's friend, the novelist Nan Shepherd, edited Hamewith: the complete poems of Charles Murray. These publications were supported by the Charles Murray Memorial Fund.

HAME

There’s a wee, wee glen in the Hielan's,

Where I fain, fain would be;

There's an auld kirk there on the hillside

I weary sair to see.

In a low lythe nook in the graveyard

Drearily stands alane,

Marking the last lair of a' I lo'ed,

A wee moss-covered stane.

There's an auld hoose sits in a hollow

Half happit by a tree;

At the door the untended lilac

Still blossoms for the bee;

But the auld roof is sairly seggit,

There's nane now left to care;

And the thatch ance sae neatly stobbit

Has lang been scant and bare.

Aft as I lie 'neath a foreign sky

In dreams I see them a'--

The auld deer kirk, the dear auld hame,

The glen sae far awa'.

Dreems flee at dawn, and the tropic sun

Nae ray o' hop can gie;

I wander on o'er the deser lone,

There's nae mair hame for me.

You can also read more and quite a number of his poems here

https://electricscotland.com/.../Murray,%20Charles...

[aperture-of-bullshit]

listen i know it’s 2020 and we’re all going feral over zukka,,,, and i hate to be the one to do this but,,, angsty lightskinned boy with dark hair and a red color scheme and a jokester with darker skin and a blue color scheme.. sounds,, ,,,unfortunately familiar,,, ,,we must remember our pasts in order to not repeat our mistakes

[romelle-moved]

lance, after he pointed out a shooting star and told keith to make a wish: so? what did you wish for??

keith, pressing a gentle kiss against lance's lips while keeping their foreheads pressed together, voice low and eyes never leaving the other boy's mouth: just to kiss the most beautiful boy in the universe. these stars work pretty fast, huh?

keith, tilting his head to slowly trail kisses along lance's jawline: and what did you wish for, sharpshooter?

lance, too flustered and lovestruck to focus on a lie: oh um. seven of those frozen bras that change color when you bump chests.

keith, pausing with the neck kisses: ...

lance: mostly cause i want to titty bump shiro,

[mitsukkii]

Oop havent uploaded here in awhile so heres one I never posted

[tvtaughtmehowtofeels]

These screenshots next to each other are really just making my day

[keithphantom]

*Keith and Lance in the astral plane trying to save the real Shiro*

Shiro: Second reason why I’m the real Shiro: *does a handstand* Can the other one do this? Lance: But, uh, what does that have to do with anything? Keith:  No, no, he's got a point.

[vaor]