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boomerangguy · 3 years

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Hey Boomi. I was wondering, how do you think Baatar and mommy Suki's relationship would have been? And Suki + her grandbabies?

Thank you so much for the ask, LM! And what a great ask, too! 😄 I loved answering this one…even though it got kinda long and ramble-y.

In my Ultimate Sukka Family Headcanon, which is something I don’t write fics for really (it’s much easier to write just 3-4 OC kids with distinct personalities rather than twice that number), they get married pretty young—like 19ish, right where the comics left off. They just both know they’re it for each other, so what’s the point in waiting? 🥰 But regardless, Sukka goes back to Kyoshi Island not planning on having kids anytime soon—they’re just trying to enjoy being kids themselves and have fun, since the war pretty much stripped them of a normal childhood.

But that’s not quite how things work out, and Sokka and Suki quickly realize that being both spontaneous and frisky is precisely how you end up pregnant. 😬They freak out and panic at first, of course, but then with each passing symptom, the terrifying abstract concept of having a baby starts to feel more like welcoming family member #3, and by the time little Kanna arrives, they’re so hyped to be parents that they make Foaming Mouth Guy look like a stick-in-the-mud. 🤪

Fast forward several years later (almost a decade, maybe?), and they’ve basically created an entire troupe of Kyoshi Warriors—six girls. 👩🏼‍🦰👩🏽👩🏼‍🦰👩🏽👩🏼‍🦰👩🏽Six sassy, sarcastic, carnivorous, little girls (with varying senses of humor) who will just as soon chi-block the shit out of a playground bully as write and recite haikus. They’re a handful, and Sokka and Suki love them. Attempts to pump the baby breaks fail once again (they weren’t really trying that hard anyway) 😏 and Suki finds out she’s pregnant with #7. Everyone predicts a girl, because at this point, who wouldn’t? 🧐 Sokka has stopped joking about the spirit of Avatar Kyoshi cursing him to be forever sonless as punishment for his past sexism because…he just truly doesn’t care about that anymore. He loves his daughters, they love him, and that’s all that matters. 😌

Enter Baatar. 👶🏻 Naturally, the whole Gaang and all Sukka’s family and friends go bananas when they finally have a boy, and everyone (especially the SWT folks) makes a point to congratulate Sokka on having a son. And he’s definitely excited, of course—but it’s Suki who takes one look at her baby boy and just suddenly feels a type of love she never knew before. 😯 She understands now why Sokka is so crazy about their girls—because they remind him of her, and little Baatar looks so much like her husband, her soulmate, that she doesn’t want to ever take her eyes off of him. ☺️

Baatar is the baby of the family, so between his dad and older sisters, he already gets a whole lotta love—but from Suki, it’s different. It’s not in her nature to actually coddle her children, but with Baatar, she comes pretty close—much closer she did with than any of her daughters. She reads to him every day, always helps him lace up his little boots, snuggles with him all through stormy nights, tells him legends and tall tales from Kyoshi Island & the SWT, and even some G-rated versions of her and Sokka’s adventures. But ‘the memory’—the thing they do together that is just between mother and son, that’s so sacred not even Sokka and the girls get to join—is when they go down to the bay at dawn to watch the koi fish jump out of the water and build sandcastles together. 🌅🏰That’s where Baatar begins to love building things—beautiful things. His earliest memory is watching the sky fill with color, sitting next to his mom on the beach and helping her (or so he thinks as a three-year-old) shape the sand into something new and magnificent. 😮

It sticks with Baatar forever, and they go down to the beach, sometimes as a whole family, sometimes just the two of them, pretty regularly until Baatar is a teenager. By then, thanks to his mom, he knows he wants to be an architect…and when it becomes obvious that he needs a real Earthbending teacher—like his aunt in Republic City, whose cute daughter might also have something to do with it 🤨—Suki’s heart breaks. 😞 Their daughters are still on Kyoshi Island or in the SWT, but it still hurts more than anything when she has to stand on the dock and hold back tears while she hugs her baby boy goodbye 😣…because she knows that if she starts crying, Baatar will break down too and want to stay. And as much as she loves him, he belongs out there in the world where he can chase after his dreams and put all his passion and talent to good use. 😔

They exchange letters steadily, but Suki still carries around a dull ache knowing that Toph and Suyin are spending more time with Baatar than she is. There’s a new ceiling to her happiness that’s never been there before, and Sokka takes it upon himself to cheer her up. 🤪 One night when they sneak out of their cottage and camp out on the bluffs, he does such a good job of cheering her up that…well… 😛⛺️😩…I hope you get the picture.

Enter Senna and Varrick (who I’ve started hc’ing as twins, because why not?) 😄 Now preggers at forty years old, Suki remembers that there’s still so much happiness right in front of her (plus two bundles of it right inside her), and her whole family is relieved to see that their matriarch is herself again. 😌 And to top it off? Sokka gets bullied by Aang into going into politics, and after the twins are born, they move to Republic City. It’s hard saying goodbye to most of their daughters (the youngest few come with them), but the eldest are practically young women now, and it feels natural at this point, no matter how much it stings when Sokka bawls like a baby and leaves them each with a hand-painted family portrait, a heartfelt haiku, and a huge barrel of seal jerky. 😖😖😖

In the city, Suki gets to see Baatar become a man while still getting to be a mom to Senna and Varrick (whose birth name is Iknik, he just gives himself a bunch of extra names after making it big). It’s the best of both worlds, and she gets some closure when she eventually joins Baatar and Baatar Jr. down at the beach years later, helping her grandson make his first sandcastle just like she helped his father. (And after Baatar and Varrick join the Earth Empire years later and ultimately come to regret it, Suki takes them both by the ear and reminds them that the namesake of their home island ate Earth Kingdom tyrants for breakfast, possibly the most ironically humiliating part of that whole fiasco for the two boys. 😡😵)

As for the grandbabies? Kanna (oldest child) and her sisters take one look at their parents’ nine children and go, “Ha, amateurs.” Family reunions are absolute madness, because between Sokka, Varrick, Baatar/Suyin and their kids, then the Avatar herself and dozens of little Kyoshi Island munchkins, Suki has a ton of big personalities to deal with. 😜 When she and Sokka finally retire and move back to Kyoshi Island for good, Gran-Gran Suki makes a point to take her children’s children down to the beach to play in the sand and watch the sun color the sky as many mornings as she can. For someone to which community is so important, it’s the perfect way to spend her life. 🥰 (And it’s hardly unexpected, but with so many grandkids running around the world, she gets to meet quite a few itty-bitty babies named after her and her husband—and her favorite miniature Suki is definitely Opal’s daughter.)

How did your simple ask turn into Suki’s bittersweet biography? 😟 I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t help myself. I love Sukka, and I love fluffy family headcanons! And if you can’t tell…once I get going it’s hard for me to stop…and I ended up really getting deep into both Sukka feels and emotional feels. I need to go give my mom a hug. 🥺

@light-miracles thank you so much for the ask! It was a pleasure answering it!

#why am i crying #how did such a straightforward ask end up so emotional?#sukka #suki #sokka #baatar sr #varrick #senna #suyin x baatar #atla #avatar the last airbender #tlok #the legend of korra #thanks for the ask!#light miracles #ask answered #Ultimate Sukka Family Headcanon

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daydreamorama · 2 years

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May I suggest...

Yes, absolutely. Bai Choufei deserves Wen Rou too. Not sure who LM is but give the boy more love, he needs it. And how could I forget about Di Feiji.

Poor Yang Wuxie only gets one line. If I ever finish my modern AU, he'll develop more. Lines for everyone!

(also I love that this shape looks like a letter).

#heroes #relationship graph #asks #in this house we ship everyone with everyone #heroes poly agenda

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joezworld · 4 years

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📂

What in the HECK happened with Scotsman, Dominion, and Dwight during the Great Gathering?!

(Also, since Dutchess of Hamilton has also been to the US during the 1939 NY World’s Fair, did she get involved?)

Warning - extremely long post below

So, first of all, Duchess of Hamilton never went back to the UK.

Duchess of Hamilton (6229) and Coronation (6220) had their nameplates swapped by the LMS when an engine was sent over to the US. 6229, in the guise of 6220, went to the US.

Streamlined locomotives were all the rage at the time, and railroads practically fell over themselves to get Coronation (as she was now known) onto press trains. The B&O railroad in particular was so impressed with her capabilities that they extended a formal offer of employment to her for service on their streamlined Royal Blue service. The LMS were surprised to get an offer to "purchase" their locomotive, but accepted nonetheless, as it meant a welcome infusion of cash in the dark days during the beginning of WWII.

Coronation fit right in with the Americans, having only been about a year old when she was sent to New York. Following the end of steam traction on the Royal Blue in the late 40s, (the B&O were early adopters of diesels.) she and her B&O coworkers found good employment on the New York Central, where she still runs to this day.

Since then, she's fully "gone native", marrying a J3 Hudson, (yes one of the streamlined ones) adopting both an American accent and three children, and being fully repainted to NYC silver by 1956. Flying Scotsman met her in Albany in 1970, and neither one of them recognized the other.

Actually, most UK expats don't recognize her, to the point where a common interaction is for her to be held up as an example of "look at her, she's integrated well into the US", only for the British engines to say "that's preposterous, she isn't English".

When it's pointed out that she's still obviously an LMS Coronation, the next response is usually screaming.

All that being said, she has no interest to come back to the United Kingdom, and wasn’t asked by the NRM anyways.

---------------

Second of all, the Great Gathering was... an event.

So, there are (officially) 6 preserved Gresley A4s.

Mallard - static, National Railway Museum (UK). Also an asshole.

Bittern - running, private owner, UK based

Sir Nigel Gresley - running, owned by a trust, UK based

Union of South Africa - running, private owner, UK based

Dwight D. Eisenhower - static (officially), National Railway Museum (USA)

Dominion of Canada - static (officially), Exporail (Montréal)

This is the official list, and for the first 4 engines, it's the truth.

However, things are a bit hazier on the other side of the Atlantic...

-----

So the thing that needs to be made clear right up front that in a sentient vehicle world, museums aren't like the NRM, where locomotives sit static for years on end, although obviously the English have museums like that because of course they do.

Rail museums in the rest of the world are much more like Colonial Williamsburg - a living history center staffed by volunteers who act out a prototypical setting from [insert decade here].

British Rail, being British Rail, didn’t know that and didn’t care.

4496, Dwight D. Eisenhower, having been named after the General-turned-President, had been earmarked for preservation by BR, and was summarily shipped off to the US National Railway Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In an entirely unintentional move, this donation MONUMENTALLY snubbed the Smithsonian, who refused to have any dealings with BR for decades, even for archival purposes. This, combined with the fallout from Operation Smash Hit, and the fact that the Smithsonian is Petty AF, meant that there was virtually no official trans-Atlantic cooperation between British and US museums for decades.

Dwight hit the shores of the US in 1964 New York City and was greeted by a marching band, a ticker-tape parade, and Presidents Johnson and Eisenhower, who were on-hand to personally make the engine a US citizen.

Always keen to curry favor with the government, the Southern Pacific railroad had a job offer waiting for Dwight right alongside the Presidents and the parade, and when he accepted, he went off to Sunny Southern California - someplace so opposed to Britain the he fell in love with the place immediately and refused to leave!

The ladies may have also had something to do with it as well - while most engine classes fell into a typical 50-50 gender distribution, the SP GS-4 class was all female...

[Pictured above - one of 28 very good reasons to live in California if you're a single British steam engine.]

Dwight does not kiss and tell, but at his wedding in 1974, all 28 GS-4s showed up - and he was only marrying one of them!

Since the 70's, he's become a mainstay in California, having been repainted into Daylight Limited colors in 1969, and retiring from railroad duties in 1999. After that, he went into the movie business, and is currently the head of digital media development at Disney.

His wife Irene (SP 4437) is also an interesting figure as well - following in the wheelmarks of the great female locomotives before her, she had an eye for business and a Stanford education before she married her husband, and was an initial investor in multiple tech companies in Silicon Valley during the 70's and 80's, but stopped doing that after her investment in Apple proved very lucrative. In 1996, she was convinced by a few people in the Stanford Alumni association to invest in another tech startup, this one an "internet search engine" called Google.

So yeah, Dwight Eisenhower kept falling up and up and up all his life, and is now married to the richest woman in the world.

4489 Dominion of Canada was donated mostly by accident, having been forgotten in the back of Darlington sheds until 1966, when she was shipped off to the Canadian Railway Historical Society in Montreal.

As stated elsewhere, the Canadian Government considered any locomotive built in the UK to have UK citizenship, and therefore treated them as commonwealth citizens under existing Canadian law. (remember that Canada was still a colony at that time)

CN, the national rail carrier, was obligated to offer her a job under their charter, and she accepted, moving to Toronto to run intercity trains between Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.

Within two years she was displaced from those duties by the introduction of a new, shiny, jet turbine powered train, and was summarily demoted to local commuter runs in the Toronto suburbs.

Moving to suburbia did one thing more than anything else - expose her to the people who live there. They all had complaints, they all had problems, and they all had no idea on how to fix them.

Being a helpful sort, Dominion decided that she could help, and promptly ran for Toronto city council in 1974. She won, and has been a fixture in local Toronto politics ever since - she even got to be Chairwoman of Metro Toronto (the closest thing to being mayor because Toronto's governmental structure is weird) until 1998, when Toronto was merged with the surrounding area to create a massive new region.

Having then done everything there is to do in municipal Toronto government, Dominion went on to become the Chief Executive Officer of Metrolinx, the agency that controls almost all of the transit agencies in Ontario, because, as she puts it, "I'm still a commuter engine at heart".

She's now painted in the current GO Transit paint scheme, and still does commuter runs- which is really weird looking now that there are double deck commuter coaches in a push-pull configuration, with a Gresley A4 doing the pushing.

------

Now, I mentioned that those 6 were the only ones officially preserved - there were two unofficial preservations as well...

4486 Merlin was properly Shanghied - he was yanked off the docks in Southhampton by a cargo ship in August of 1965, and was spirited away to parts unknown.

Those unknown parts turned out to be South Korea. There, he was given citizenship by the US-aligned military dictatorship (Korean history is wild) and was employed by the State-run rail operator.

As the military government began a hardcore plan to increase their country's wealth and industrial output, rail lines were being built across the country, and Merlin was soon awarded a position on the fastest train in the network, the Seoul-Busan Saemaeul-ho.

Because of his experience in running high-speed express trains, Merlin not only became the public face of Korean high-speed rail, but also became an "honored elder" amongst the other Korean engines, a position he still holds to this day - as despite being over 70 years old, he still runs daily trains on the fast services, easily keeping time with the Korean schedules as well as training the new high speed trains, including the KTX sets. He's on his 24th boiler by now, and has more parts from Hyundai than Doncaster.

An additional fact - Merlin actually has had a linguistic effect on Korean railroading, as his strange amalgamation of an accent - a strong Yorkshire accent that tried to be Received Pronunciation for 30 years, mixed with almost 50 years of middle-to-upper-class Korean - has filtered down through the ranks of KoRail, because all of his students want to sound like him out of respect. Human British expats in Korea will occasionally hear a locomotive speaking in English, and the engine will sound like a Yorkshireman every time and the Brits cannot handle it.

---------

4495 Golden Fleece is the only A4 to preserve himself - he saw the writing on the wall in the early 60s, and hopped a car ferry to France at the end of 1962. From there, he bounced around Europe for a bit before making it to the United States in the late 70's.

Of the 8 surviving A4s, he's probably led the quietest life of all - he moved to Miami before it got nice, and basically got in on the ground floor of CSX when that merger happened in 1980. He's now the head of terminal operations for the Port of Miami, but he's generally kept a low profile - not even having a chance to meet Scotsman due to his time in Europe.

He's still in contact with Dwight and Dominion, and has no real bitterness over not being "famous" like they are - he likes the quiet, and still lives in a modest house in Boynton Beach with his long-term girlfriend.

----------------------

Soooo... the Great Gathering.

It was supposed to be a meeting of the 6 surviving A4s - a two year event held at the NRM in honor of the 75th anniversary of Mallard's record-setting run.

"Record setting" is a past-tense term here. While there have been no official runs, every single one of the Pennsylvania Railroad's T1 and S1 locomotives claim to have gone faster than 126 without meaning to, and numerous other locomotives on unofficial attempts done late at night on flat stretches of land across the country have hit 130+.

British Expats have also done better than 126 - Coronation claims to have hit at least 140 on a midnight mail train in 1980, and in Korea, Merlin claims to have hit 128 on a test train, although that was judged by timing mile markers as his speedometer wasn't functioning properly.

Problems arose before any of the engines had even reached the NRM, as Mallard's already sizeable ego had swelled to massive proportions, and several engines in the great hall were planning a justifiable homicide.

Then came the time restraints - none of the foreign locomotives were willing to uproot their lives and jobs for two years just to sit motionless in a shed. A two year exhibition was eventually negotiated down to a 6 month gala, much to the irritation and confusion of the NRM, who could not understand that the engines were still in service.

Then came the extra engines - Dwight and Dominion thought that the NRM knew about Fleece, and were quite insulted on his behalf when he wasn't invited - they threatened to not attend unless arrangements were made for Fleece to attend as well.

An utterly baffled NRM agreed, but also tore their record archives apart, as they knew that Fleece had been scrapped. The fact that his picture was plastered all over CSX's Florida Division website was all the more confusing as a result.

Meanwhile in Busan, nobody knew that Merlin had escaped the scrappers' torch and therefore did not invite him. He was only informed after K-Pop star Psy texted him from London to ask if he knew about the event, which was being advertised on television.

Merlin, having missed his friends from the LNER, decided that he would just crash the party, used some of his many vacation days, and took off for England on a cargo ship.

By sheer coincidence, all four foreign A4s hit the dock in Southhampton on the same day, and were delighted to see each other - especially Merlin, considering that everyone else had thought he'd died.

Meanwhile at the NRM, delight was not the word one would use. Befuddled, confused, shocked even, but not delighted. Their plans had revolved around 6 A4s, most of which wouldn’t be running - only to now discover that there were 7, all but one of which were functioning! (Mallard, the star of the show, was the odd one out, and it drove him crazy)

Then they got a phone call from their man at the docks saying that another one had showed up, looking like he’d driven out of a K-pop album cover, and they just gave up and started screaming.

Screaming is also what happened when the cavalcade of foreigners showed up in York - first of all, the quartet of new engines sounded nothing like they had when they left England.

Dwight had willfully unlearned his Upper Crust British accent by 1971, and had fallen deep into a California accent (quite similar to what Scotsman sounds like - coincidence? No.)

Dominion and Fleece hadn’t tried to unlearn their accents, but 40+ years of living in North America can really dilute the Britishness. It doesn’t help that Dominion has developed most Canadian vocal tics eh?

As stated above, Merlin has a weird fuckin accent, and now he speaks English with a strong Yorkshire accent, but will occasionally and without warning drop into a Korean/Yorkshire hybrid accent.

The screaming also happened because the NRM had wanted to repaint the duo trio! quartet?! into LNER garter blue, and were promptly informed that “we’re painted like this for work! Don’t touch it!” (the sole exception was Dwight, who hadn’t pulled a real train in 14 years, but he liked his Daylight Limited paint), so instead of the new arrivals showing up in LNER colours, they showed up looking like THIS:

Having their long-lost siblings show up looking and sounding like THAT had quite an affect on the A4s and the other NRM engines:

Bittern could not believe her eyes - to the point where she actually began making noise about seeing an optometrist

Union of South Africa almost backed through a wall

Sir Nigel Gresley was speechless for two days

Mallard was so angry that he actually chipped a tooth during one of his rants about “the impropriety of it all!!”

Evening Star laughed so hard that he managed to derail himself without moving

City of Truro almost cracked a piston from shock

Alycidon spent the entire gala coming up with more and more laser focused jabs at Mallard - who was so easy to fluster that the Deltic needn’t have bothered

Oliver Cromwell and Green Arrow made fast friends with the new arrivals, and spent the entire time learning ‘Americanisms’ to annoy the other engines with.

But what about Flying Scotsman? Where was he in all of this? He was generally considered to be the “leader” of the NRM fleet (much to Mallard’s annoyance), and was usually who the other engines turned to when things started getting out of control.

Did Scotsman calm things down? Like hell he did. The inmates were running the asylum from the moment that Scotsman saw the other A4s - more importantly saw Dwight - and immediately greeted them in flawless Californian.

This actually set off the building’s security alarm, as Flying Scotsman saying “DUDES! Wassup?!” caused such an uproar that the noise broke several exterior windows.

----

And all of this was in the first few days - there were six months left to go.

There was one railtour attempt. It was supposed to feature Bittern and Sir Nigel running in tandem, but instead featured Dwight and Merlin, mainly because Bittern wanted to see what would happen.

They exceeded the max speed limit for steam traction within 15 minutes, sparked a thorough investigation by the RAIB, and got all future steam powered railtours for the Gathering cancelled immediately.

On the plus side, the two engines did prove that it was still possible for a steam train to hit 100 safely.

One thing that baffled the other engines was the inordinately large number of people who turned up just to see Dominion, and the one person who kept turning up to see Fleece - it took a lot of explaining for them to understand that Dominion had been married three times, and had children (adopted) and grandchildren from all three marriages coming to see her. A similar amount of explaining was required to explain that Fleece’s girlfriend/partner wanted to see him too.

The normally chatty Dwight and Scotsman would suddenly clam up whenever Dominion and Fleece teasingly tried to ask about their love lives, something which wasn’t unnoticed by the other engines, but got similarly nowhere.

The answer to why they both shut the hell up was explained when a lot of shouting broke out in the yard of the NRM one day about a month into the exhibition:

Irene Eisenhower, not content to sit in California and count her billions, quickly grew bored without her husband, and decided to go to England and be with him. The fact that she definitely did not fit the UK loading gauge was never even a consideration, and so she just showed up in York on the back of a lorry, having informed no-one of her arrival, and content to just pay off the requisite people if a fuss occurred.

A fuss did occur, and it was only ended when Scotsman managed to convince the museum’s curator (who at this point in his life was regretting ever thinking of this damned gathering) that Irene was a ‘temporary donation’ to the museum.

[Scotsman, who definitely hid his Cali accent from museum staff the entire time, has one of the best poker faces in the world]

Dwight was overjoyed, and so was Scotsman, for initially unclear reasons. Then Irene managed to grab both her husband and Scotsman, dragged them behind a shed, and [THIS IS A PG13 HEADCANON] the both of [PG13]. Turns out that while Scotsman may have slept his way across the US a few times, he was actually ready to settle down with Dwight and Irene - they were a throuple way back in the 70s, and those passions haven’t faded. When Scotsman reluctantly left the US in 74, a lot of the reluctance was because of those two.

This bombshell of a revelation went over interestingly at the NRM. Some engines (Green Arrow) were happy for them, some were incensed (Mallard - although it was for anti-American reasons, not homophobic ones), and some were intensely curious about what was going on in the outside world (Bittern).

The ‘foreigners’ (as Mallard had taken to calling them), were deeply displeased at how their fellow engines were being treated - while a lot of them were ‘in steam’, some were not and might never be again, something they found abhorrent. Unable to do anything at that time, as the NRM was not a for-profit entity and therefore did not have anyone to bribe, (Irene’s solution to things is to throw money at the situation) the engines started talking about how life was different in the outside world - namely that engines were still working hard, even when they were over a century old and running on steam power.

This was of great interest to engines like Evening Star and (6220) Duchess of Hamilton, neither of whom were likely to be steamed again, and Bittern, who was growing more and more curious with each passing day. Dissent began to slowly build against the NRM curators, and the culture of the United Kingdom in general.

One thing the foreigners did try do something about was Ellerman Lines. The poor bastard had been sectioned to show his inner workings, much to the jaw-dropped horror of the foreign A4s, who made such a stink about it that he was moved outside the museum by NRM staff, who must have thought that the engines lacked object permanence or something, because that didn’t make it better!

Irene Eisenhower, who was beginning to get really sick of the nonsense that the NRM called preservation, (Scotsman was not in running condition, and had been hastily reassembled mid-overhaul in order to be cosmetically ready for the event, and let’s not forget poor Ellerman Lines) elected to bring the event to a close on her own after only three months. She did this by eventually putting her immense wealth to good use, and called for a haulage service to rescue the engines from the NRM without the knowledge of the museum staff. Aside from the A4s, she also took Ellerman Lines, Scotsman, and Bittern (who had asked to go) with her, and only bothered to inform Ellerman and Bittern - she was not about risk Scotsman having another “think of England” moment and staying.

The haulage firm was efficient and the cargo ship was waiting, so the engines were in international waters before the NRM opened the next morning.

Much swearing occurred in England that day, and the NRM’s image has yet to fully recover from the PR story that they had sold Flying Scotsman (and Ellerman Lines) to a reclusive American billionaire.

Privately though, the NRM does not care, as that story is a lot better than “Someone stole our engines and we’re not allowed to get them back because as it turns out we’re slaveowners, so no international court will help us.”

Also, despite their multimillion dollar “donation" from the I. Eisenhower Opportunity Fund, they still haven’t been able to fully pacify their engines, all of whom have somehow gotten the idea that they should be running in main line service like they live on Sodor or something...

--------

Dwight, Scotsman, and Irene all live happily together in the sprawling Eisenhower estate in Malibu. Irene is currently lobbying the California state government to legalize polygamy, with moderate success.

Ellerman Lines, after a lot of therapy and a full rebuild, is now working on a short line in Wyoming. He likes the scenery.

Bittern followed Dwight, Irene, and Scotsman to Los Angeles, and used her ‘connections’ (Dwight) to get a supporting role in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Since then, she’s gotten several roles based on her own merits, including an Emmy nomination for Best Guest Appearance in a Comedy.

Merlin spent a few months in LA before he went back to Korea. He is very thankful that he was able to reconnect with his brothers and sisters, and that his homeland has good internet, as he video calls his family across the Pacific almost every day.

Golden Fleece still lives a quiet life in Florida, but finally decided to tie the knot, and married his girlfriend in 2017. The ceremony was supposed to be quiet, but Irene Eisenhower has no idea what that word means.

Dominion of Canada continues to baffle non-local trainspotters when she runs commuter trains into Toronto. She is now a great-grandmother.

7 years later, and the term “Great Gathering” is still a forbidden phrase in the back rooms of the NRM.

#ask response #long #really long #I wrote this for like me and two other people at most #national railway museum #flying scotsman #Headcanon #ttte #ttte adjacent #bittern #mallard #train headcanon #locomotive rights headcanon #extremely specific headcanon #headcanon

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flyingblakeryan · 3 years

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Hey LT, I told you the red racing stripe would bring good luck!! You don't have to worry, Kodi is coming home soon.

Oh! How's Meli? Strickland hasn't tried to step on her again has he? You know, if you ever wanted to drop him off at an asteroid sometime, he wouldn't be missed!

//LM

Much as I'd love to space Strickland, it would double my work load and then I'd not have nearly as much time to sit and listen to you. That just won't do.

The stripe looks good, kid. It's a quality addition.

Remember your docking protocols. I'm the one who gets his ass chewed every time a chunk goes missing from the bay floor. ;)

See you real soon, my boy.

#luca moreno

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redsamuraiii · 4 years

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What a list! But these 5 dramas are the ones that caught my interest.

2. EdoMoiselle: Reiwa de Koi, Itashinsu

Senka (Yui Okada) tries to navigates present-day Tokyo after traveling through time from the Edo period. She appears at a café where Shunsuke Kuraji (Shono Hayama) works and stuns him with her traditional oiran (Oiran; high ranking courtesan) garb.

As Shunsuke tries to find out more about Senka and how he can help her return to the Edo period, Senka works at the cafe and intrigues others with her appearance and odd behavior.

8. Date My Daughter !: Uchi no Musume wa, Kareshi ga Dekinai !!

40-year-old Aoi Minase (Miho Kanno) is a single mother who is a popular writer of romance novels. Her daughter, Sora Minase (Minami Hamabe), turns 20 years old and doesn't have a boyfriend, so Aoi is concerned about her love life.

Aoi believes that Sora doesn't have a boyfriend because she's an otaku who enjoys manga and cosplay. But little does she know that Sora does want to fall in love. At the same time, Sora is also concerned about her mother's love life. Together , they decide to embark on a journey to find love and happiness.

9. Pension Metsa

Tenko (Satomi Kobayashi), is a lady who runs a pension located in a forest in Nagano. Each episode features a new guest at the pension. The interactions between Tenko and her guests unravel throughout each episode.

12. Heaven and Hell: 2 Psycho People (Tengoku to Jigoku: Psychona futari)

It tells the story of a detective, Ayako Mochizuki (Haruka Ayase) and a psychopath murderer, Haruto Hidaka (Issey Takashi), whose bodies are switched right before Ayako arrests Haruto.

23. Welcome Back, Mone: Okaeri Mone

Momone Nagaura (Kaya Kiyohara), graduates from high school but doesn't secure a spot in a university. She moves to the city of Tome and works as the apprentice of a forest guide.

She meets a popular weather forecaster from Tokyo, who tells her that weather forecasters can predict the future. Intrigued by this she decides to become a weather forecaster. When a major typhoon approaches Japan, she returns to her hometown of Kesennuma Bay in Miyagi Prefecture to help.

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victorlimadelta · 4 years

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@awkwardxmon | lance

TRANSMISSION SENT [0958] > LM: You probably noticed I’m not there to actually see you home. I’m camped out in the med bay with Ulaz. Shiro’s here, too. I won’t lie to you, he’s really sick, but we have a plan.

TRANSMISSION SENT [1001] > LM: I’ve been working nonstop all week to get this done, and we’re close to being able to operate. In the meantime, if you want to wish him good luck, he can’t exactly hear you since he’s in a medically induced coma, but I think he’d appreciate it.

TRANSMISSION SENT [1002] > LM: I wouldn’t mind seeing you, either.

#awkwardxmon | lance #ϑ comms log

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falcongumba · 4 years

Text

Lesley Mok

Photo by Luke Marantz

Lesley Mok is an immensely creative drummer, percussionist and composer who works in a wide variety of collaborative ensembles as well as writing music for her own projects. She is also part of Polyfold Musical Arts Collective, a really wonderful group of musicians who have been curating a concert series for musicians to present new works of music as well as running a small record label that already has a sizable catalog.

I’ve only known Lesley for a couple of years, but we have played together a few times in informal sessions and I always admired her original drumming and her strong voice as a composer.

In this discussion we talked about her entire trajectory as a musician as well as some of her upcoming projects and plans.

JT: You’ve told me before that you are originally from the Bay Area but I’m a bit curious about your family’s background. Where are your parents from? What did they do?

LM: Neither of my parents are creative professionals, though I'd consider both of them creative people. I'm a first-generation American, and like many immigrants at the time, both of them had an intense desire to climb the social ladder and make it for themselves in the United States. I think uprooting one's life and moving to an unfamiliar place takes a different kind of creativity--figuring out which bus to take, what to eat, how to communicate...they're cultural challenges that require creative thinking.

JT: And, were they the first ones to steer you into getting music lessons? Or was that something that you wanted on your own?

LM: My mom forced me to take piano lessons, but drum lessons were something I asked for.

JT: Before we get onto the drums. I read on your bio that you also played the flute, correct?

LM: Yes! In my elementary and middle school concert bands.

JT: I imagine studying flute and piano was likely helpful, no? You write a lot of music now.

LM: Definitely - it gave me a good sense of tonal harmony, or at least what it sounded like and how it might move. It wasn't until recently that I started writing music, but taking lessons at a young age gave me a lot to work from. It's like learning a language at a young age..you can't really forget it.

JT: That’s amazing! So how did you arrive at the drums originally?

LM: I don't really remember, to be honest, but I took lessons for a few years before joining the middle school jazz band. I would invite friends over to work on songs we learned in school. I was terrified of soloing and I remember wanting to work on trading 4’s so I wouldn’t embarrass myself during rehearsal.

JT: And was it already pretty geared toward a jazz thing? Or were you playing other kinds of music?

LM: I was drawn to jazz from the beginning - it always felt like the music I wanted to play. I wanted to be in a backing band for a singer - my favorite records were with Ella, Billie Holiday, and Nancy Wilson.

JT: What kind of form did that listening take?

LM: One of the first drummers I met, Scott Lowrie, introduced me to a bunch of records like Sonny Rollins Quartet, Sarah Vaughan with Basie, Miles Davis’ First Quintet...He would point out certain things that captured him, like how swinging Philly Joe’s ride cymbal was, or the vibrato in Sarah’s voice, or how relaxed Paul Chamber’s beat was. He would sing along to the drum solos and try to figure out what sticking Philly Joe would more likely play. He introduced to me a listening culture that made me more interested in the music.

JT: What was the transition to Berklee like?

LM: I had started to meet a bunch of other high school musicians in my junior year of high school through programs like the Stanford Jazz Workshop. Everyone could really play, and it inspired me to know that people my age were already so committed to music. I remember Cory Cox and Caili O’Doherty were mentors at the program at the time, and just hearing them play encouraged me to apply to music school.

JT: That’s cool because that's kind of a common thread for a lot of people that I know from the Bay Area. There were all these music camps, and a lot of people went and even if a lot of them didn't end up playing music professionally, they still would end up playing an instrument pretty well and having a really strong appreciation for music.

LM: Yeah, I studied with Akira Tana at the time and I remember he even recommended that I not go to music school; he was like “you should check out these other things”.

I think a lot of my hesitation about going to music school didn't have to do with music itself but how to make a living in music. At that time, coming from a more traditionally minded family, music wasn’t a legitimate practice or career. It wasn’t until college when I built up more confidence and commitment to music.

JT: I remember you telling me that you had a pretty good experience at Berklee.

LM: The first two years at Berklee were a little unstructured and I was sort of confused about how to move forward. I felt lucky to play in a few ensembles that I really enjoyed, including Jason Palmer’s ensemble (my first foray into odd meters and original music) and Ralph Peterson’s Art Blakey ensemble, but I didn’t have high enough ratings to get into some other ensembles. (Those of you who are familiar with Berklee’s rating system can maybe empathize!). I felt a bit discouraged with navigating what felt like a bureaucratic system.

In my third year, I applied to this program called the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, led by Danilo Perez and Marco Pignataro. I didn't get in my first time around, but then I think it was in my sixth semester or something I auditioned again and got in. That program was really significant for me.

Global gave me some clarity in my practice and I was able to prioritize my learning. It was also during this time when I started to think about bigger questions, not just how to play the drums and music, but you know...how to play music in a culturally and socially informed way.

JT: And what were some of the breakthroughs? Was there a teacher that was particularly empowering? Or was it just the benefit of being in the program?

LM: The program itself was very empowering, but Danilo, Terri Lynne Carrington and Ben Street were the three teachers that really influenced me. Bob Gullotti was also enormously influential as a teacher. We would work on playing Bird heads around the drums. He was so thorough with the way he thought about dynamics, articulation, and tambor, and if he didn’t feel like you played the essence of the melody, he would ask you to work on the same thing for the following week. I hadn’t thought much about drumming outside of a rhythmic and linguistic context up until that point so those lessons were super transformative. Bob would play every Monday night at the Fringe--I remember hearing him take a solo on sticks on a ballad at like 40bpm, and being like, “Holy shit, I want to be able to do that.” Bob passed away just last year--he was a completely dedicated teacher and I will always treasure our time together.

JT: When did you move to NY?

LM: I moved in September of 2017.

JT: Okay. And did you move because you felt that New York was a center for this music? Or was there another reason?

LM: There was never much doubt in my mind about moving to New York after school. I travelled between Boston and New York pretty often while I was in school to take lessons or see shows, so after I finished my final year at Berklee I moved here.

JT: There's usually all these logistical and life challenges moving here the first year. How did that affect you? Were you able to get to music right away? Or was there an adjustment period?

LM: It was a tremendous life change. I applied for a bunch of jobs the first week I moved here, and ended up working at a small entertainment law firm for about four months..that's how long I lasted! (Haha) It was super gruesome and I was pretty miserable. I was in the office for nine hours a day, and would head to my studio every day at 6pm and practice until 10pm or so. I would plan sessions on weekends or weeknights after work. Oddly enough, I think I practiced the most when I had that job just because I knew I had to structure my time really well.

It was an emotionally tough time, but it really made me question what was important to me. I think I was scared of what it meant to be a working musician but after working at the law firm, I knew it wasn't something I could do--my body and mind just rejected it. After I quit my job I felt like I had control over my own time and free will, and it was then that I really started pursuing music more fearlessly.

JT: Yeah, I feel like there’s a huge character building that happens in that first year and then the following years almost get easier by contrast or something.

LM: I’m definitely less stressed out than I was that first year. There are always challenges and self-doubt, but I feel like I can return to familiar rooms in my mind and trust that I’ll overcome the moment.

That said, I still worry all the time if my music’s any good, if anyone resonates with it, and if other people like playing with me, etc. (Haha)

JT: And in those first couple of years were you already able to find some people to play with or did it take some time?

LM: I was playing with a lot of really great musicians, but the more I questioned my own artistic values, the more I was able to also find a community of people I resonated with emotionally and artistically. I also moved to Bushwick in November 2018 and started playing with people with completely different value systems. To be honest, I couldn’t relate at first. I heard Weasel Walter for the first time and remember thinking how weird and overwhelmed and intrigued I felt. There’s a record he’s on with Mary Halvorson and Peter Evans, and there are long stretches of time where he doesn’t play anything I can identify as a sound from the drum set. Hearing him along with other musicians like Brandon Lopez and Matteo Liberatore made me think consciously about all the musical choices I can make in any given moment. My first year living in Bushwick felt like everything I had known and felt about music was flipped upside down. I had to learn to engage with creative music beyond the ride cymbal being the main timbral focus...beyond jazz.

JT: I remember you telling me that you didn't start writing your own compositions right away.

LM: Yeah, I didn't really start writing until the end of 2018 with my band The Living Collection. It's funny to think that my first foray into writing was for a large chamber-like ensemble because I feel like I still have huge gaps in my knowledge of harmony and traditional compositional methods.

But it's something that also I think freed me from thinking I had to do a certain thing or compose in a certain way. I learned so much through trial and error...I'd have the flute in one octave and then have bass clarinet in another octave only to realize that the flute was barely audible. I had random mistakes in my chart, or very inconvenient ways of writing things, or literally impossible parts to play, so it was really trial by fire. But I think I learned through having a supportive group of friends for a band who would share their thoughts with me, and criticisms as well.

youtube

JT: I think I listened to everything there is currently available from that band. The music is really beautiful. I was wondering what is your concept for the music of the group?

LM: I think it's changed a lot. Some of the first compositions we played had many independent, moving parts. I was drawing a lot of inspiration from Henry Threadgill at that time. I was writing entirely notated music at one point, after listening to more contemporary classical composers like [Helmut] Lachenmann. Recently I’ve been thinking more about the idea of musical democracy and non-hierarchical ways of playing, improvisation being a vehicle for these social-cultural processes involved: spirituality, community-as-oneness, and communal joy. I hope to establish a context in which everyone can participate in music as a necessary ritualistic function.

JT: That brings me to the work that you've been doing with Polyfold Musical Arts Collective. How did it come about and how did you all start fleshing out these ideas?

LM: Well, I'm the newest member of Polyfold. The collective originally started in Detroit and consisted of 20-something musicians. It took on a new shape when a few of its members moved to Brooklyn in 2017, so the current membership includes myself, Yuma Uesaka, Alex Levine, and Ben Rolston. The idea is basically to expand opportunities for improvisers to create original music. That usually takes the form of a monthly concert series, something we call Polyfold Presents, but we’ve also put together these “Sunday Salons,” informal workshops where people can bring their music or share ideas they’re exploring. The idea comes from something Geri Allen used to do with her students. We recently have been working on our record label...your record was actually the first we put out in awhile! So thank you for all your work on that.

*Lesley adds: (Juanma’s band was originally scheduled to perform at the April concert series, but when COVID hit, we commissioned him along with the other artists that we scheduled to perform, to perform a creative work of any kind. He ended up recording four full-length compositions remotely with his band. It was so well recorded and the process was so representative of the moment that we decided to put it out on the label. Check it out - ‘Folklore’ by Juanma Trujillo.)

JT: How, would you describe the role that you have in the collective?

LM: It's hard to say, the structure and the nature of the organization has changed over time, our roles kind of shift as we go. I just worked on writing the last grant. Trying to put into words what exactly is it we do and making sure we're holding ourselves accountable for those things.

JT: Has being part of this initiative been rewarding in a way that you didn't expect? Has it helped you see things in a different way?

LM: Yeah, for sure. It’s made me realize how important and powerful organizing is for the improvised music community and how we all sort of depend on each other.

JT: Yeah, I think I wanted to get your input on that because I’ve been kind of pleasantly surprised to see that you guys as a group of artists who are already playing together and are good friends are also welcoming people from outside your circle. In my time living here I can confidently say that this is somewhat rare.

LM: Yeah..I hope it becomes less rare. I've met some people that have really made it feel like home here.

I think it’s hard to feel a sense of community in a place like New York, where artists-entrepreneurs are constantly up against so many things. It seems like everyone’s competing for the same opportunities.

I think community building starts on a personal level...who you hang out with or talk to, who’s in your band, what kind of bills you’re curating if you’re a bandleader. All of these things are part of what makes a community. The 501c3 is just a status.

JT: So we’ve talked about your main projects, but I can also see that you're doing quite a bit of one off gigs with people just improvising. How has that been helpful in your development?

LM: I often feel like there's a lot of pressure to play written music or to present something really polished, which I also enjoy, but it’s nice to get to know someone intimately without the pressure of following a specific musical format. It’s really invigorating getting to know their musical perspective in an open space and forming a connection.

Depending on the improvisational context, I sometimes feel that there’s nothing I wish to contribute on the drum set. It’s encouraged me to work on different techniques that might produce different sounds and timbres and to search for percussion instruments that might give me a broader range of expression. My dream is to build a drum cage like the one in that iconic photo with Roscoe Mitchell!

vimeo

JT: Are there any of the other projects that you have that you would like to talk about or mention any other experiences that have been meaningful to you recently?

LM: I recently spent two weeks in Newton, MA with my good friends Maya and Akiva. We had no agenda other than to play music if we felt like it. It was one of the more intimate and spiritually fulfilling experiences I’ve had in awhile. The music felt like an extension of our cooking together, our swims in the lake, our humming. I listened back to some of the recordings we made a few days ago...it feels both personal and non-precious. It reminds me of these words by Nicole Mitchell--

“If you practice your connection to the stars enough, you can go anytime you please. The Dogon mastered it, but the shoebox architects sold kids on rap videos over stargazing. Doesn’t matter how much pollution, or how many ceilings or drones are flying above, the stars are there. I promise. No wonder Lightin’ Hopkins, Jeff Parker, Jimi Hendrix and all the bluesmen made their own vessel guitars to communicate here. And ever better, I’m tellin’ you, there are no consequences, no punishments and no side effects except joy and more strength. Can you imagine? I’m thinking, maybe we can build a bridge from pain to hope and insight and take all our families there.”

JT: Thank you Lesley!

LM: Yeah, thanks so much for doing this.

You can learn more about Lesley on her website: https://www.lesleymok.com/

Lesley has all her releases available on: https://lesleymok.bandcamp.com/

#lesley mok #drums #The living collection #Polyfold #composer #interview #jazz

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brookstonalmanac · 4 years

Text

Events 1.1

Pre-Julian Roman calendar

153 BC – For the first time, Roman consuls begin their year in office on January 1. Early Julian calendar (before Augustus' leap year correction) 45 BC – The Julian calendar takes effect as the civil calendar of the Roman Empire, establishing January 1 as the new date of the new year. 42 BC – The Roman Senate posthumously deifies Julius Caesar.

Julian calendar

193 – The Senate chooses Pertinax against his will to succeed Commodus as Roman emperor. 404 – Saint Telemachus tries to stop a gladiatorial fight in a Roman amphitheatre, and is stoned to death by the crowd. This act impresses the Christian Emperor Honorius, who issues a historic ban on gladiatorial fights. 417 – Emperor Honorius forces Galla Placidia into marriage to Constantius, his famous general (magister militum) (probable). 1001 – Grand Prince Stephen I of Hungary is named the first King of Hungary by Pope Sylvester II (probable). 1068 – Romanos IV Diogenes marries Eudokia Makrembolitissa and is crowned Byzantine Emperor. 1259 – Michael VIII Palaiologos is proclaimed co-emperor of the Empire of Nicaea with his ward John IV Laskaris. 1438 – Albert II of Habsburg is crowned King of Hungary. 1502 – The present-day location of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is first explored by the Portuguese. 1515 – Twenty-year-old Francis, Duke of Brittany, succeeds to the French throne following the death of his father-in-law, Louis XII. 1527 – Croatian nobles elect Ferdinand I of Austria as King of Croatia in the Parliament on Cetin. 1600 – Scotland recognises January 1 as the start of the year, instead of March 25. 1651 – Charles II is crowned King of Scotland. 1700 – Russia begins using the Anno Domini era instead of the Anno Mundi era of the Byzantine Empire.

Gregorian calendar

1707 – John V is proclaimed King of Portugal and the Algarves in Lisbon. 1739 – Bouvet Island, the world's remotest island, is discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier. 1772 – The first traveler's cheques, which could be used in 90 European cities, are issued by the London Credit Exchange Company. 1773 – The hymn that became known as "Amazing Grace", then titled "1 Chronicles 17:16–17", is first used to accompany a sermon led by John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Norfolk, Virginia is burned by combined Royal Navy and Continental Army action. 1776 – General George Washington hoists the first United States flag, the Grand Union Flag, at Prospect Hill. 1781 – American Revolutionary War: One thousand five hundred soldiers of the 6th Pennsylvania Regiment under General Anthony Wayne's command rebel against the Continental Army's winter camp in Morristown, New Jersey in the Pennsylvania Line Mutiny of 1781. 1788 – First edition of The Times of London, previously The Daily Universal Register, is published. 1801 – The legislative union of Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland is completed, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is proclaimed. 1801 – Ceres, the largest and first known object in the Asteroid belt, is discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi. 1803 – Emperor Gia Long orders all bronze wares of the Tây Sơn dynasty to be collected and melted into nine cannons for the Royal Citadel in Huế, Vietnam. 1804 – French rule ends in Haiti. Haiti becomes the first black-majority republic and second independent country in North America after the United States. 1806 – The French Republican Calendar is abolished. 1808 – The United States bans the importation of slaves. 1810 – Major-General Lachlan Macquarie officially becomes Governor of New South Wales. 1822 – The Greek Constitution of 1822 is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus. 1834 – Most of Germany forms the Zollverein customs union, the first such union between sovereign states. 1847 – The world's first "Mercy" Hospital is founded in Pittsburgh, United States, by a group of Sisters of Mercy from Ireland; the name will go on to grace over 30 major hospitals throughout the world. 1860 – The first Polish stamp is issued, replacing the Russian stamps previously in use. 1861 – Liberal forces supporting Benito Juárez enter Mexico City. 1863 – American Civil War: The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect in Confederate territory. 1877 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom is proclaimed Empress of India. 1885 – Twenty-five nations adopt Sandford Fleming's proposal for standard time (and also, time zones). 1890 – Eritrea is consolidated into a colony by the Italian government. 1892 – Ellis Island begins processing immigrants into the United States. 1898 – New York, New York annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York. The four initial boroughs, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx, are joined on January 25 by Staten Island to create the modern city of five boroughs. 1899 – Spanish rule ends in Cuba. 1901 – The Southern Nigeria Protectorate is established within the British Empire. 1901 – The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton is appointed the first Prime Minister. 1902 – The first American college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl between Michigan and Stanford, is held in Pasadena, California. 1910 – Captain David Beatty is promoted to Rear admiral, and becomes the youngest admiral in the Royal Navy (except for Royal family members) since Horatio Nelson. 1912 – The Republic of China is established. 1914 – The SPT Airboat Line becomes the world's first scheduled airline to use a winged aircraft. 1923 – Britain's Railways are grouped into the Big Four: LNER, GWR, SR, and LMS. 1927 – New Mexican oil legislation goes into effect, leading to the formal outbreak of the Cristero War. 1928 – Boris Bazhanov defects through Iran. He is the only assistant of Joseph Stalin's secretariat to have defected from the Eastern Bloc. 1929 – The former municipalities of Point Grey, British Columbia and South Vancouver, British Columbia are amalgamated into Vancouver. 1932 – The United States Post Office Department issues a set of 12 stamps commemorating the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth. 1934 – Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay becomes a United States federal prison. 1934 – A "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" comes into effect in Nazi Germany. 1942 – The Declaration by United Nations is signed by twenty-six nations. 1945 – World War II: In retaliation for the Malmedy massacre, U.S. troops kill 60 German POWs at Chenogne. 1945 – World War II: The German Luftwaffe launches Operation Bodenplatte, a massive, but failed, attempt to knock out Allied air power in northern Europe in a single blow. 1947 – Cold War: The American and British occupation zones in Allied-occupied Germany, after World War II, merge to form the Bizone, which later (with the French zone) became part of West Germany. 1947 – The Canadian Citizenship Act 1946 comes into effect, converting British subjects into Canadian citizens. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King becomes the first Canadian citizen. 1948 – The British railway network is nationalized to form British Railways. 1949 – United Nations cease-fire takes effect in Kashmir from one minute before midnight. War between India and Pakistan stops accordingly. 1956 – Sudan achieves independence from Egypt and the United Kingdom. 1957 – George Town, Penang, is made a city by a royal charter of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. 1957 – Lèse majesté in Thailand is strengthened to include "insult" and changed to a crime against national security, after the Thai criminal code of 1956 went into effect.:6,18 1958 – The European Economic Community is established. 1959 – Cuban Revolution: Fulgencio Batista, dictator of Cuba, is overthrown by Fidel Castro's forces. 1960 – Cameroon achieves independence from France and the United Kingdom. 1962 – Western Samoa achieves independence from New Zealand; its name is changed to the Independent State of Western Samoa. 1964 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is divided into the independent republics of Zambia and Malawi, and the British-controlled Rhodesia. 1965 – The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan is founded in Kabul, Afghanistan. 1970 – The defined beginning of Unix time, at 00:00:00. 1971 – Cigarette advertisements are banned on American television. 1973 – Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom are admitted into the European Economic Community. 1976 – A bomb explodes on board Middle East Airlines Flight 438 over Qaisumah, Saudi Arabia, killing all 81 people on board. 1978 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747, crashes into the Arabian Sea off the coast of Bombay, India, due to instrument failure, spatial disorientation, and pilot error, killing all 213 people on board. 1979 – Normal diplomatic relations are established between the People's Republic of China and the United States. 1981 – Greece is admitted into the European Community. 1982 – Peruvian Javier Pérez de Cuéllar becomes the first Latin American to hold the title of Secretary-General of the United Nations. 1983 – The ARPANET officially changes to using TCP/IP, the Internet Protocol, effectively creating the Internet. 1984 – The original American Telephone & Telegraph Company is divested of its 22 Bell System companies as a result of the settlement of the 1974 United States Department of Justice antitrust suit against AT&T. 1984 – Brunei becomes independent of the United Kingdom. 1985 – The first British mobile phone call is made by Michael Harrison to his father Sir Ernest Harrison, chairman of Vodafone. 1987 – The Isleta Pueblo tribe elect Verna Williamson to be their first female governor. 1988 – The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America comes into existence, creating the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States. 1989 – The Montreal Protocol comes into force, stopping the use of chemicals contributing to ozone depletion. 1990 – David Dinkins is sworn in as New York City's first black mayor. 1993 – Dissolution of Czechoslovakia: Czechoslovakia is divided into the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. 1994 – The Zapatista Army of National Liberation initiates twelve days of armed conflict in the Mexican state of Chiapas. 1994 – The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect. 1995 – The World Trade Organization comes into being. 1995 – The Draupner wave in the North Sea in Norway is detected, confirming the existence of freak waves. 1995 – Austria, Finland and Sweden join the EU. 1998 – Following a currency reform, Russia begins to circulate new rubles to stem inflation and promote confidence. 1999 – Euro currency is introduced in 11 member nations of the European Union (with the exception of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Greece and Sweden; Greece adopts the euro two years later). 2004 – In a vote of confidence, General Pervez Musharraf wins 658 out of 1,170 votes in the Electoral College of Pakistan, and according to Article 41(8) of the Constitution of Pakistan, is "deemed to be elected" to the office of President until October 2007. 2007 – Bulgaria and Romania join the EU. 2007 – Adam Air Flight 574 breaks apart in mid-air and crashes near the Makassar Strait, Indonesia, killing all 102 people on board. 2009 – Sixty-six people die in a nightclub fire in Bangkok, Thailand. 2010 – A suicide car bomber detonates at a volleyball tournament in Lakki Marwat, Pakistan, killing 105 and injuring 100 more. 2011 – A bomb explodes as Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, leave a new year service, killing 23 people. 2011 – Estonia officially adopts the Euro currency and becomes the 17th Eurozone country. 2013 – At least 60 people are killed and 200 injured in a stampede after celebrations at Félix Houphouët-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. 2015 – The Eurasian Economic Union comes into effect, creating a political and economic union between Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. 2017 – An attack on a nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, during New Year's celebrations, kills at least 39 people and injures more than 60 others.

#Events

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blackwatch-gwyn-active · 5 years

Text

Not A Dream (Part 2)

Training was hard but somehow, they managed to survive against the team’s strongest and oldest member.

“Good, you are getting better at ducking but your reflexes need to be improved.” His loud voice boomed through the air as they smiled and he goes to pat them on the back, making their entire frame jump from the sudden physical action.

It has been about 3 months since they were sucked into the world of Overwatch and they seemed to be getting stronger, faster and better at being a hero than they thought.

“Take a break, little one then resume after we both ready.” He laughs as they nod and watch as he leaves with a smile on their face.

When they first started, Reinhardt volunteered to take them under his wing and to be their ‘guardian’ due to the fact that Soldier said he was not ‘babysitting’ them but Reinhardt told them that he is just worried for their safety but with the training he has offered them, he sees that they are ready for anything they are having to face.

They collapse on the floor, exhausted from the last 3 hours of training with the large man but they wanted to prove to the Commander that they could handle anything they are having to face. I mean, they have been training with just about everyone from each classification to better improve their chances of getting ready for some kind of field work. They love working with Winston but they were tired of being at base all the time.

They had been training Genji as a means to perfect their hand-to-hand combat and with Lena (Tracer) as a way to practice work with moving targets. They enjoyed practicing accuracy with Hanzo but enjoying the free time hanging out with Bastion. They mainly worked with Angela (Mercy) as a means to practice some first aid for the field but Lucio was awesome because he made them songs to listen to when they trained. They got along awesomely with Hana (D.Va) due to them both being gamers but their favorite was training with Reinhardt.

It was because he pushed them just enough that made them want to keep going and despite their size, he told them that with enough training, they could become a pretty wonderful addition to the Tank heroes, making their heart soar. Winston was still trying to find a way back to their home, thinking that maybe they were homesick and they were to some degree but in all honesty, they felt like they were doing more good being here than doing nothing. They were helping the Junkers with keeping their supplies cleaned and ready. They helped Zarya with everyday tasks when the other weights were busy by being a weight and laughed at McCree’s jokes.

They loved how the entire team was like a family. The feeling of being a part of this team reminded them that life is full of many adventures. They could listen to all the stories that Fareeha (Pharah) told about her mother, who they have not met yet, after finding out that they too wished to have questions answered and she swore to look after them like a sibling.

They help Mei and Torbjorn work in their labs with smiles on their face. They loved meditating with Zenyatta after a long day of training and helping Satya (Symmetra) with the maintenance on her Photon Projector if she was free and if she wasn’t going to be bothering the woman at all. Overall, they felt wanted and belonged.

Right as they were thinking, a sudden pain came from the old wounds that was caused by Reaper. They looked at their stomach and saw the wound had a scar but also had some fresh wounds because right after they saw some healing, they went right to training and were trying to hide this from Mercy but it was the now screaming pain from their side where a bullet was still lodged that hurt worse than hell.

They tried to stay standing and call for Mercy, not realizing that they were near the stairs as they fall. Before they passed out, they heard something being shouted along the lines of their name and then, that was all.

*Time Skip brought to you by...Ana’s Nano Boost! When she says she has you in her sights, then be grateful because you will be healed.*

They came to on a bed but it was not a bed in the medical bay and it smelled like a mixture of tea leaves, sand and desert flowers.

“Ahh, glad to see that you are awake.” A soft voice says along with the cold feeling of a wet cloth on my forehead.

“What happened...Where am I?” they ask as the voice lets out a soft chuckle and dabs the cloth on their forehead again.

“Shh, Tifl, all will be ok. Close your eyes and rest.” the voice says as they succumb to the warm voice that seemed to hum a lullaby, the smells of tea and the warmth of loving contact.

*Time Skip brought to you by...ehhh, got nothing this time*

They woke up to the sound of hushed tones and what sounded like the speaking of Arabic near them before realizing that it was Fareeha speaking to someone and then the loud voice that they knew too well. They got up and realized that they had a bandage around their abdomen along with what appeared to be a container of 3 bullets by the bedside, making them squirm before listening in this time.

“Farihatan, wa'ana 'aelam ma kunt 'afealah!” Someone yelled in Arabic but Fareeha steps up.

“I am glad you knew what you were doing and offered to help but you can’t just take them away from us without informing us, let alone taking them without either Reinhardt or I!” Fareeha yells as I flinch because I have never heard her yell except during battle so this scared me.

“Kanuu fi tariqihim 'iilaa tudarr 'aswa hatta 'ana zaharat ... 'annaha matat taqribaan min tilk alrrasasat lm 'anjila la yazil minha.” Is shouted again but this time, I could hear emotion and raw emotion.

“Mother...I...I have never seen that much emotion from you. I am glad that you showed up when you did but performing surgery to remove the bullets would have killed her but still thank you.” Fareeha says as they try to move but when they turn the corner, they are faced with an older woman who looks like Fareeha all the way to the tattoo under her eye and she has the look of that she could kill you but not before having some tea first.

“(Y/N), oh thank the Gods you are ok!” Fareeha says as they look at them and mumbles softly.

“Thank you for helping me...Ms…?” they ask as she holds out her hand and smiles when they go to shake, only to be pulled into a hug.

“My name is Ana and thank you for taking care of Fareeha and the others while I was gone. I was informed of your story and I must say, I am sorry for your lose.” She smiles as they hear the alarm goes off, ruining a moment like this because Winston calls everyone into the main meeting room.

“Good news everyone, we have a mission coming up that (Y/N) can participate in!” Winston announces as everyone cheers as Soldier nods and stands.

“They have shown remarkable improvement and would provide excellent and valuable during the mission. Lets suit up, we leave in 4 hours.” Soldier announces as everyone congratulates them but it was the next words that froze their blood.

“We have found a way to send them home!”

***Fareeha, I knew what I was doing!

***They were going to get hurt worse until I showed up...They almost died from those bullets Angela didn't remove from them.

#Overwatch #Overwatch Imagines #Reader x Ana #Reader x Pharah #Reader x Reinhardt #Ana Amari #Fareeha Amari #Reinhardt Wilhelm

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kcwcommentary · 5 years

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VLD8x09 – “Knights of Light Part 1”

8x09 – “Knights of Light Part 1”

The first time I watched this episode, I spent most of the episode being nothing but confused. This time, there is still a lot that confuses me, but I’m able to focus in on what does so. This episode retcons what has previously been depicted as the Lions’ consciousness. Now, the void that Shiro spent seasons three through six in is no longer the Black Lion’s consciousness. It’s just a miscellaneous realm of connectivity between everyone in the universe’s minds. In the style of how what was previously described as the Black Lion’s consciousness was animated, now similar appearing locations exist inside Honerva’s mind. The way universal consciousness is depicted in this episode is so uncontrolled that the episode has the Paladins arrive at Honerva’s mind twice during their attempt to get to her, or if the first mind they get to wasn’t Honerva’s then it was someone that isn’t identified. They get pulled into Honerva’s mind, but then the things characters say indicate that they’re not in Honerva’s mind. Basically, this episode’s production couldn’t keep clear about its locations. Maybe that’s just a problem with writing disembodied, nebulousness like this: you lose sense of the logistics of the action.

I’m also super annoyed that this episode now adds a second level of blamelessness to Honerva and Zarkon. The show has long been pushing the idea that neither of them are to blame for their actions because they were externally influenced by being poisoned by quintessence. But now, this episode says that they weren’t to blame because they were possessed by rift entities. I am not okay with a story telling me that it’s not the fault of abusive, torturous, genocidal dictators that they abuse, torture, and commit genocide.

The episode starts with Allura having another dream, floating in darkness. There’s a voice calling her name, I think it’s Honerva? Allura wakes up, Coran and Lance by her bed in the medical bay. Coran asks her about the entity, and Allura says, “I did what needed to be done. […] This entity, it is connected to Honerva in some way. I believe we can use it.” Coran goes patriarchal, saying, “I swore to your father I would look after you, but I fear I may have let him down.” Because how dare a woman make her own decisions.

Coran says, “This is the path of darkness.” We get lots of supposedly ominous statements like this in this part of the story, but none of it really amounts to anything. It’s certainly not foreshadowing, nor is it used as set-up to be undermined. It’s not as if the story is having it seem like the rift entity is dangerous only to reveal, as I suggested last commentary as having been a potential better story, that the entity isn’t dangerous, just upset at being imprisoned and hurt by Honerva. Nothing like that happens in this story. It’s just the entity is miscellaneously dangerous, and then the danger to Allura never happens.

I still think the way gravity works on the Atlas is odd. Shiro floats through a hallway up to a door, and once at the door, he steps down onto the floor. There’s no gravity in the center of the hallway, but there’s gravity along the sides of the hallway. It comes off to me as nonsense. Shiro opens the door and inside are the Paladins and Coran. “You wanted to see me?” Shiro asks. This again emphasizes how Shiro is not part of the team. The rest of them had this big conversation without including him in it until now.

Keith says, “We think we might have a way to find Honerva.” Allura tells Shiro, “The entity has bonded me to Honerva. The link is there whether we use it or not.” I guess this is just more miscellaneous, unexplained space magic. The entity isn’t really defined in this show. We’ve seen the entities in the past be aggressive, we’ve seen it merge with others of its kind to fight. That was presented as being a threat (3x07 “The Legend Begins). Now, we’ve seen it having been inside Tova, but precisely what it did in him wasn’t explained. I guess maybe the show is saying the entity is just there to let Honerva control and kill the Colony Alteans? That doesn’t make the entity really seem inherently threatening in and of itself though. That’s just using the entity as a mechanism to say this is how Honerva can control people. That’s Honerva, not the entity, being threatening.

Allura says (and Lance looks super angry while she speaks), “I believe if the Paladins connect using the shared consciousness of Voltron, we may be able to travel through the void and into Honerva’s mind.”

I have a huge problem with this. This is feels like a massive retcon to what “the void” has been shown as in the past. This is connected back to 5x03 “Postmortem,” in which all five Paladins used their bayards in Voltron. In that episode, Voltron is being attacked by a plant-virus and Pidge says, “Listen, this virus is affecting Voltron on a submolecular level. To drive it out, we have to tap into the quantum energy that binds us all to Voltron.” Allura then responds, “The bayards, they amplify each Paladin’s life force. They might provide enough power to drive out the virus.” The five of them put their bayards in their respective Lions’ bayard slots, and then they all appear within “the void.” The void is in “Postmortem” and in every instance that has dealt with Shiro and the Black Lion’s bond, like 2x07 “Space Mall” and 6x06 “All Good Things,” been about the Paladins and Voltron. The void has not been some otherworldly location separate from the Lions/Voltron. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the void to now be connected to Honerva. Honerva is not a Paladin. She has never been a Paladin. The psychic space of the Lions/Voltron should have absolutely nothing to do with her.

I can totally understand why people would see this episode and, on this alone, think that this is evidence of a massive change in the season’s plot really late into the season’s production. I can see how there’s a suggestion here of a revised story where originally the Paladins went into the psychic space of Voltron having something to do with Shiro and his having been stored by the Black Lion in her psychic space. If the void is now just some nebulous otherworld that does not belong to the Lions, then it completely erases the previously stated fact that the Black Lion kept Shiro in its consciousness. But the show’s use of the void in the past has been fairly explicit that that is what was happening. So, this episode contradicts severely with past episodes.

That’s not to say that the executive producers and writers of this show would have any problem with writing this story to contradict previously written story. They don’t seem to have any real desire to maintain continuity and consistency in the writing for this show. Since most of the plot of this series seems like the EPs and writers were mostly just winging it as they went along, I don’t think they cared that this violates what’s been established in the story. Sometimes, I honestly don’t think that Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery were even interested in telling a story. I think they just wanted to do story-less animation. So many times, this show feels like they were trying to do nothing more than to make some Voltron: Defender of the Universe AU fanart. They certainly did not construct a coherent, cohesive narrative. Maybe that’s part of what angers me so much about VLD. I’m a writer. I love storytelling. I love animation, but I come to animation as being a medium through which a story can be told. JDS and LM saw this project as animation first and foremost, and storytelling was only secondary, at best. The story of this show was only something they were forced to do in order to be allowed to make animation. I don’t think they really cared about telling a story.

Back to this episode. Pidge says, “That could in theory give us access to her physical location as well as key information on how to defeat her.” I’m still stuck on how they would see entering Voltron’s psychic space would have anything to do with Honerva. This is just feels forced.

Keith says, “Honerva is capable of creating galactic komars, wormholes, Robeasts,” I know this show doesn’t do logic, but Honerva’s “galactic komar” was dependent on the Robeasts. How many Robeasts did she create from the statues at Oriande? I know, the show doesn’t show us so that it can have an endless supply for whenever the writers want to pull a new one out of the bag and not have to keep track of the logistics of them all. All of the Robeasts used in 8x06 “Genesis” should be out of the story. Oriande and the white hole went boom, so none of them there should have survived (though since Merla pops up again, I guess they did). The ones used as part of this “galactic komar” though have been found; that’s where the four of the six Colony Alteans now onboard the Atlas came from. So, did the Atlas just leave those Robeasts laying on those respective planets? Are they just sitting there waiting for Honerva to reclaim them? Otherwise, how is the “galactic komar” still a threat since it was built out of tech (the mechas and the Olkari cubes) that are destroyed or no longer functioning?

Keith continues, “And now, Lotor and his mech are out there somewhere.” Again, this show presents this story as if Lotor is actually alive, but we’ll soon be shown that he’s a melted corpse. It does make the season feel like it was re-edited. If it wasn’t re-edited, then this is absolutely the creative team for this show repetitiously manipulating the audience. If they hadn’t already proven themselves to be more than willing to engage in audience manipulation, especially when it comes to Lotor’s part in the show’s story, then I might be more willing to give more weight to the possibility that this was re-edited. I can see JDS, LM, and the writers in a meeting saying to write the season’s story to make it look like Lotor is alive only to surprise twist! he’s been dead the whole time. They wouldn’t care about the inconsistency that writing this season that way would have because their goal would be to create the surprise twist! that they seem to think is how you create a story. And it would make sense that they would think that that is how you create a story if creating that story was always secondary, at best, to their goals with this project.

Keith says, “We don’t have any other leads. It might take lifetimes for another opportunity like this to come around.” Are you kidding me? Keith thinks that Honerva is going to sit out and do nothing for “lifetimes?” Remember, they’re saying they need to do this in order to find Honerva, that’s the opportunity of a lifetime: a chance to find her. But if Honerva’s not done doing what she plans to do, then she’ll show up again, thus they will have found her by her just continuing whatever it is she’s doing. This line of dialog is just not written well.

Shiro speaks. “I spent a lot of time in the infinite void.” Yes, you did, and that void was inside the Black Lion, not some otherworld that is connected to Honerva. “And if you face Honerva in the void—” They shouldn’t be able to because how is Honerva able to be in the Lions’/Voltron’s psychic space?

Lance says, “We’re messing with powers we don’t fully understand.” Unfortunately, the writers of this show don’t fully understand those powers either because they didn’t bother to define those powers.

Coran says, “It’s been a long time since it was only the seven of us in a room together.” That’s because the writers didn’t bother to continue to write you guys as the main characters.

The Paladins get in their Lions. Allura has a flash of Honerva’s face and screams. She then has a vision of Honerva and Merla floating in a hallway. It makes me think of how the Shiro-clone had visions of Honerva going to Oriande in 6x01 “Omega Shield.” Unlike with Allura, it couldn’t be that the clone had a rift entity in him. I’m still wondering why exactly the clone was able to see Honerva in that episode. The initial blast of Allura seeing an outline of Honerva’s face made it seem like Honerva was directly trying to access Allura, but then the vision of Honerva floating down a hallway would suggest Honerva was just doing her thing and Allura was eavesdropping. Even within just a couple of seconds, this show seems to contradict itself.

The show then cuts to a total tonal dissonance by having Veronica and Iverson discussing Shiro’s win at arm-wrestling while having a “robot arm.” I really like (the barely included) Curtis in the background turned in his seat and listening to this conversation while having an adorkable smile.

So, Voltron forms, the Paladins do their joint bayard use. The animation team was clearly lazy and just reused a shot from the animation in 5x03 “Postmortem.” You can tell that it’s reused animation because Keith is currently the Black Paladin. Keith, though he has the black bayard, wears red armor. In the animation of the bayards being used here in “Knights of Light Part 1,” the user of the black bayard has black armor, just like he did in “Postmortem.” So, in this particular shot here in “Knights of Light Part 1,” that’s Shiro’s arm, not Keith’s.

Everything glows and then turns dark. Then the Paladins enter the void. Allura declares that they “must travel through that light.” Generic, but okay. She says, “The entity draws me toward it.” That implies that either the entity has some agency or that for some reason the entity is unwillingly attracted toward Honerva. (I really hate that to continue to discuss this episode, I have to accept the retcon that the Lions’/Voltron’s psychic space is not the Lions’ consciousness but some otherworld that Honerva is connected to.)

The Paladins use their suits’ jetpacks to move toward the light. I know it’s a minor matter, but they’re not physically in this location right now; they’re sitting in their Lions. So, why write them to look like they’re using their jetpacks to move through space? They get to the light, which fills the screen, and then dissipates into normal looking space. Lance says, “What is this place? It’s like I can hear what the universe is thinking.” What? This show is going to write the universe itself to be sentient? I imagine that this line really is nothing but the writers thinking they’re being profound when really it’s just them being nonsensical.

Pidge invokes the Olkari having said everything is made of the same energy. Hunk replies, “So, thoughts are linked across some kind of, what, cosmic connection?” I’m so uninterested in this. The psychic space used to seem special, that it was a manifestation of the Lions’ consciousness. Now, the void is just some generic overmind of the universe. The implication of this is that the Black Lion didn’t save Shiro’s spirit at all. If the void is not some psychic space of the Lions’ consciousness but instead is just a universal overmind, then Shiro’s spirit wasn’t being stored in the Black Lion. Shiro’s spirit was just where spirits are.

Allura has another flash headache, and then everyone else does too. They see Honerva and Merla somewhere. It looks like Oriande with how the mechas are standing in the background. Cut to Voltron’s eyes glowing.

Back in the overmind. Allura explains that “that was Honerva. The entity inside of me is connected to her.” This dialog is getting repetitive. Allura says that they now have a psychic link with Honerva. “The closer we are to her, the stronger that link.” But of course, they’re not physically closer to her, so I guess this “closer” is referencing their being psychically closer to her here in the overmind? In which case, this line of dialog becomes a tautology. Lance worries that Honerva will use this link the Paladins now have with Honerva’s mind to find them. Then they will have achieved their goal; remember, they’re doing this to find where Honerva is. Also, Honerva has enough space magic already, I doubt she needs this link to find them.

It feels really weird for Keith to say, “This isn’t just on you now, Princess.” They haven’t interacted with Allura in recognition of her as a princess in a long time. It feels strange hearing him do so now. It actually sounds kind of condescending when he says it. Keith tells them all to miscellaneously focus on Honerva’s energy. They glow. The Lions’ eyes glow. Each Paladin is shown associated to their Lions. And then the Lions are flying through space.

What is happening here? I guess the Lions aren’t actually flying anywhere, that this is somehow now them in the overmind going with the Paladins through the overmind to Honerva’s mind? But then, they fly into the distance and there’s a flash of light and the Lions are back together in Voltron. So, is this actual Voltron or some Voltron in the overmind?

This is a huge part of why I hate this episode: It so too damn confusing. I can imagine the creative team had certain specific ideas in mind when they were doing this, but they failed to tell this story clearly, and I don’t know what they were trying to tell.

Voltron looks like it’s travelling through space. There’s even planets and moons. Because Voltron actually travels through space, there’s nothing visually that allows for this to contrast with actual space if this is supposed to be Voltron traveling through the overmind.

Hunk says, “I can feel something, like an energy inside me.” And Allura says, “It’s the entity.” The entity is now in Hunk? In all the Paladins? Keith says, “It’s like a dark realization washing over.” This line does not mean anything. It’s just miscellaneous spew that the writer thinks sounds profound and ominous. It doesn’t though. Pidge says, “It’s like we’re begin pulled by a tether connected to our souls.” Again, this is nowhere near as profound as the writer thinks it is. It also places the locus of action on the entity, pulling them, rather than on the Paladins actively traversing through the overmind. It’s sort of depriving the Paladins of agency. It also doesn’t explain why the entity is being drawn toward Honerva.

They come upon what looks like a black hole. Everything goes dark, then every looks like neurons, which I assume is supposed to be Honerva’s brain. Then Voltron looks like it comes out of a light, like it’s left the neurons behind. It’s so confusing. I’m really trying to understand what this animation is actually depicting, but I don’t really know.

Voltron flies through space some more, and then everything turns dark again. And then Voltron is flying through that darkness with little bits of quintessence? floating off of it. Then Voltron separates into little colored dots. From the wide shot, you can’t tell if they’re the Lions or the Paladins. They float through blackness with more quintessence-bits floating from a glowing event horizon. The camera reorients, and the glowing Paladins land on the black surface.

I don’t know why Voltron was involved in this traversing of the overmind. What did Voltron actually do for the Paladins in this process? And why is Voltron now not part of the process? Why did it poof into just being the Paladins in the overmind again? Also, the animation already had Voltron enter what looked like a black hole, which I assumed was Honerva’s mind, but then they left it, floated through space some more, and now have arrived at what looks like another black hole. So, why was there a first black hole if that wasn’t Honerva’s mind? Whose mind did that first black hole belong to?

They stand on a surface, and Allura says that Honerva’s mind is “on the other side of this wall.” There are streaks of black with streaks of red or orange for eyes moving under the wall. Allura says, “It feels like that these are the souls that Honerva has defeated and corrupted.” Why has the show not shown us that Honerva could corrupt souls before now? (Or is corrupting a soul what she did to the clone to be able to control him? That would make it even more offensive that the Paladins described the clone as evil.) Honerva corrupting souls just comes out of nowhere. There is nothing in the show prior to this that sets-up this reveal. And, if Honerva can explicitly corrupt someone else’s soul, then how did the writers think it’s acceptable for them to expect the audience by the end of the series to view Honerva as absolved of her horrible behavior?

The show here says Honerva can corrupt souls, it has been saying for seasons now that Honerva was corrupted by quintessence poisoning, and in this episode says that Honerva was corrupted by a rift entity. It’s all a mess that does not locate motivation for character action within the character.

Spectral hands come out of the floor-wall and grab Allura first and then all the Paladins. There are a lot of hands, so there are a lot of souls that Honerva has corrupted. The Paladins, with the exception of Keith, are pulled down into the floor-wall, into Honerva’s mind. Why wasn’t Keith pulled in?

First Pidge opens her eyes and the way the place she is looks, she’s in a greenish version of what had been depicted as the Black Lion’s consciousness in 6x06 “All Good Things” when Keith spoke to Shiro’s spirit there. But Allura just said that “on the other side of this wall” was Honerva’s mind. But the visuals of this would suggest that this is the Green Lion’s consciousness. So, how is the Green Lion’s consciousness inside Honerva’s mind?

A green-outlined shadowy person with a polearm weapon appears and attacks Pidge. Cut to a yellowy-orangey area where Hunk is being attacked by a similar figure with a staff. Lance in a red area fighting one with a sword. Allura in blue and fighting one with a bow. Keith meanwhile is still on the surface of Honerva’s mind.

Pidge says, “I can’t even feel my Lion.” I still don’t understand why the animators chose to have the environments the Paladins are fighting in resemble what “All Good Things” presented as the Black Lion’s consciousness if here the Paladins are, as Pidge says, disconnected from their Lions. I don’t know if the executive producers and animators in making this episode either didn’t remember or recognize the significance of this background from when it was used in “All Good Things,” but that’s hard for me to accept as a possibility. Or if they instead thought that assigning meaning to animation like they did for this background style from “All Good Things” just didn’t matter and that they could just port over the background style and ignore the previous meaning.

In Shiro and Keith’s conversation in “All Good Things, Shiro said, “somehow the Black Lion retained my essence,” to which Keith asked Shiro, “Is that where we are, in the Black Lion’s consciousness?” So, this background style has most definitively been established as being that of the Lions’ consciousness. But now, Pidge says she “can’t even feel [her] Lion.” I just don’t know what to make of this episode. It seems so disconnected from what has come before. No wonder people think this is the result of shattering some original story and reconstituting the pieces into this confusing mess.

Allura’s attacker shoots an arrow at her. She holds out her hand, shadowy wisps float off her hand, and the arrow stops. Her eyes turn black. She screams an inhuman scream. I guess we’re supposed to think this is the rift entity acting through her?

But then glowing, spectral versions of the Lions show up in each of the four’s combat area. So, they’re supposed to be inside Honerva’s mind, though it looks like the visual style previously used to depict a Lion’s consciousness, Keith can’t get inside Honerva’s mind with the other Paladins, but the Lions can enter into Honerva’s mind to join their Paladins? The Lions roar, and the dark wisps are blown by the wind of the roar off of Allura’s eyes. The shadowy figures the Paladins have been fighting have their shadow blown off of them revealing them to be the past Paladins.

So, we’re supposed to understand that Honerva somehow corrupted the souls of the Paladins. How did she corrupt Alfor’s soul? When did she corrupt Alfor’s soul? We saw in “The Legend Begins” that Alfor was killed by Zarkon on a bridge with no one else around them.

Allura’s eyes go dark again and she screams her inhuman scream and attacks Blaytz. The Blue Lion roars again and everything goes white. Then we see Alfor giving the other old Paladins their armor and their bayards. This scene depicts Zarkon pre-quintessence poisoning, and he says, “With this much power, we will be unstoppable.” So, his being a dictatorial, genocidal conqueror was always a part of who he was. He didn’t become bad because of quintessence poisoning. So, the show using the poisoning to excuse his behavior is just offensive. This flashback scene of the old Paladins unintentionally emphasizes Zarkon’s lack of presence in this fight so far, emphasizes Keith’s exclusion from the fight.

Allura stops short of stabbing Blaytz. “It’s really you,” she says. Pidge says, “Your soul, Honerva must have—” and Hunk continues, “—trapped you here somehow.” Of course, that makes me ask, how did Honerva do this? Especially with Alfor? We’ve seen his death. When did Honerva trap the Paladins’ souls inside her own mind? And why has that never been part of the story until now? Honerva has been active in this show’s plot for the whole series. Why is it only now that her having done this is relevant? This has never been a part of anything in the story until now. It clearly was not planned as part of the overall story arc. This really is just coming out of nowhere. And that, beyond this part of the story being super confusing, is why I don’t like it. The idea that the current Paladins would have to fight the old Paladins is a really interesting premise, but there’s been no set-up to lead to this fight. There’s nothing to this that makes it feel the inevitable outcome of the events prior to now.

Like too much in this show’s story, this is a set piece. It seems conceptualized wholly independently of the story and then the story is what was written to try to force connection between set pieces. It’s why the reveal of the clone and resulting battle between Keith and Shiro had a certain grandeur to it, but there was no reason ever given in the show for why Haggar had hundreds of clones of Shiro made. That fight was a set piece that was forced into the story rather than grown out of the story. Similarly, this fight with the old Paladins doesn’t come out of the story, it’s wedged into it, the story is forced to accommodate it, and that’s why it is so disconnected to what has come before. And in being so disconnected, the moment is deprived of the emotion it could and should have.

The Lions roar once again, the souls of the old Paladins and the backgrounds fracture and light pours out of it all and everything goes to white. All of the development in this conflict comes from the Lions, so if the Lions could clean the Paladins’ souls of corruption, they why have they been sitting there in this fight waiting instead of just doing so from the moment they came into this space?

Cut to a flashback with Alfor, Gyrgan, Trigel, Blaytz, and Coran discuss how Zarkon is going to come for them. Trigel wants to fight Zarkon, but Alfor doesn’t want to risk Zarkon getting the Lions. Alfor says they’ll use the other Lions to seal the Black Lion and then send the other four to where they were until they were found at the beginning of the series. Alfor tells Coran to use the Castle of Lions to take Allura and the Black Lion away. But then, Gyrgan says, “Then it is decided: We go into battle together one last time.” Of course, that doesn’t match Alfor’s having rejected fighting when Trigel suggested it first.

Cleaned of having been corrupted by Honerva, Trigel asks, “Where am I?” Hunk answers Gyrgan, “You’re in the void, just outside of Honerva’s mind.”

One, the backgrounds still look like the Black Lion’s consciousness, but Hunk doesn’t say they’re in their respective Lions’ consciousness, he says they’re “in the void.” But then he says that they’re “just outside of Honerva’s mind.” Keith is, the rest of them are not. The rest of them were dragged under the barrier into Honerva’s mind. This show really cannot keep this straight. So, which is it? They were pulled into Honerva’s mind, but it’s outside her mind. They’re in the void, but it looks like the Lions’ consciousnesses.

Trigel says she’s glad that “someone so connected to the world around her is piloting the Green Lion.” I still don’t think this show has actually shown Pidge to be connected to nature. “My race believes observation to be the most revered attribute.” As I’ve said before in my commentaries, I really don’t like when science fiction writes aliens to be monocultures. Trigel’s race doesn’t believe anything because it was made up of a bunch of different people, who like humanity, all have a bunch of different thoughts and opinions and beliefs, or at least her race should be like that if it was written realistically. Sorry, that’s just a peeve of mine.

Blaytz tells Allura, “People often overlook me because I was,” there’s a very slight hesitation in his voice, “different.” I very much imagine that this is supposed to be a reference to Blaytz being gay. Unfortunately, this phrasing sounds to me like how a straight person would write a gay person to speak. Using the word “different” as a stand-in functions like someone who doesn’t want to get personal, which you have to do to write dialog well. It’s seems clear to me that the word “different” was chosen to avoid actually, openly talking about Blaytz’s being gay. It makes the character’s experience generic, which causes it to lose emotion and meaning. I can imagine the writer defending this dialog by saying writing it this way gives it universality, but that’s a thought that comes out of unexamined privilege. By excluding the specifics in favor of claimed universality, you deny the cause and content of the discrimination and exclusion you claim to be rejecting, and so cease to be actually rejecting anything.

Blaytz then continues talking about the Blue Lion picking him. “But the Blue Lion recognized something in me, something others couldn’t see. It saw the greatness within that even I did not.” Imagine this dialog but instead of Blaytz talking to Allura, he was talking to Lance. It would be totally fitting in theme as another step in Lance’s struggle to recognize something great within himself that even he could not see. Lance had, until it was abandoned by the writers, serious issues with self-confidence and believing himself to have value as part of the team. Even this episode hints at that abandoned element of Lance’s character back at the beginning during the meeting with Shiro when Lance expresses pleasure that calling him “the sharpshooter” is now something the team does fondly. It would have made so much more sense for Blaytz to have said this to Lance. But instead, he says, “You, Allura, have greatness within you as well.” This isn’t something she needs him to tell her since she’s hasn’t wrestled with feeling fundamentally worthless, especially once she learned Altean alchemy at Oriande. She has doubted her ability to succeed, but not her inherent worth. “You’re so much like your father, and yet so different.” This line is so cliché and so meaningless.

Lance, with his long history of insecurity, gets nothing from Alfor that supports him as a person. Instead, the show returns to having patriarchy as the governing influence of Lance’s relationship with Allura. “Through the Lion’s bond, I could feel your love for my daughter,” Alfor says. “I could feel yours as well,” Lance says. Why is this show juxtaposing the love of a father for his daughter to the love a guy feels for his girlfriend? It’s just gross. It makes Lauren Montgomery’s claims that feminism has any influence whatsoever in this show seem absolutely absurd. But then, LM thought killing Allura at the end of the series was feminist. I still cannot get over how she considered having Allura reincarnated as an infant, literally infantilizing Allura, and have her then raised by Lance. It’s so creepy.

Alfor tells Lance, “We face many quests throughout the cosmos, but the most amazing journey is that of life. And the biggest question you face is who to go on that journey with. I’m glad my daughter chose you.” So, Lance receives nothing, no personal support from his Paladin-parallel. The others tell their respective Paladins something supportive of them, but all Lance gets is Alfor’s patriarchal approval of Lance as a suitor for Allura. This is such an absolute disservice to Lance’s character.

Keith remains on the surface of Honerva’s mind, unable to get through. Then suddenly the Black Lion is there. Why did it take so long for Black to show up for Keith when the other Lions had long showed up for their Paladins? Keith gets no special moment of affirmation with a previous Paladin. It feels absolutely like he was excluded, but for no reason other than they wanted to save a conflict with Zarkon until later. But if Zarkon was corrupted the same as the other old Paladins, why wouldn’t he have attacked Keith the same as the other old Paladins attacked their current counterparts? Almost as soon as the Black Lion shows up here with Keith on the outside of Honerva’s mind, the other Lions show up here too. The other Paladins, both old and new, show up here on the floor-wall to Honerva’s mind.

Allura runs to and hugs her father. Alfor says, “It is fitting that I would find what is brightest to me in the darkest place.” This feels a bit cliché. Allura says, “All that I have done, I have done to make you proud.” Trust me, I know what it feels like to want to make a parent proud, but this is so limiting. This is Allura defining herself by her father’s acceptance rather than defining herself by her own self. It’s very patriarchal to write a young female character to define herself by her father. I just don’t like it.

There’s a headache flash, and they see Honerva looking at a mecha, one that matches the one Allura saw Lotor piloting in her vision last episode when Lotor said, “Follow me!”

Alfor says to Allura, “You hold a dark entity within you! Don’t you know how dangerous that is!” Thank you so much for your patriarchal judgement, Alfor. Allura is so stupid that she couldn’t possibly know about something being dangerous unless you chastise her for it. Also, ignore the fact that this supposed dangerousness never manifests in the story.

Alfor says, “That’s what led to Honerva and Zarkon’s end!” So, not only were they poisoned by quintessence when they went into the quintessence field in “The Legend Begins,” now the show is saying that Honerva and Zarkon became who they are because they were possessed by a rift entity? The show is really doubling down on absolving Honerva and Zarkon for being abusive, murderous, genocidal dictators for 10,000 years. Not only is it supposed to be not their fault because they were poisoned, now it’s also not their fault because they were possessed. I do not find the-devil-made-me-do-it stories even remotely interesting. This is just the creative team of this show being too cowardly to actually have their villains be villains. They don’t mind retaining their proclamation that Lotor was evil all along because declaring him to be evil was their big, desired plot twist. But they were too scared to commit to having Haggar and Zarkon as villains. For so long, both characters were written as just generic, maniacal villains. Then, I think the creative team thought they were making Zarkon and Honerva be more complex villains by saying they did the horrible things they did because of an external force (quintessence). Now, the show is just creating another way with which they can absolve the characters of the horrible things they did. But it’s not like Honerva and Zarkon just said hurtful things. They abused their son. They enslaved people. They tortured people. They murdered people. They committed genocide, murdering the population of whole planets. This is not something to forgive them for. And it’s offensive that this show is telling us to do so.

Also, if Honerva is supposed to be absolved for her actions because she was being controlled by a rift entity, how is it that the show simultaneously has Honerva affecting others through the rift entity? She was trying to kill Tova last episode through the rift entity in him. So, is the rift entity controlling Honerva, or is she controlling rift entities?

Allura says, “I am not going to be afraid to use the power I have.” She says, “We need to continue,” and someone, Lance, I think, says, “But how do we get past the wall?” Well, the spirits of the old Paladins dragged everyone but Keith beneath the wall earlier, so, try that.

Allura says, “It’s like I can feel her thoughts. The way through is with the darkness.” I don’t know how these two sentences are supposedly connected. Is this the extent of what the entity is doing for Allura, just getting her inside Honerva’s mind?

Alfor says, “Honerva went mad—” it’s annoying that the show equates mental illness with dangerousness in this line of dialog “—obsessed with darkness and power.” She was obsessed with quintessence. So, is the show now calling quintessence “darkness?” I thought quintessence was supposed to be life energy.

Allura does a touch-hand-glow and the surface beneath them glows. A light line streaks through the surface and the geometrics like that which appear around wormholes and like the ones Honerva created on Oriande when she retrieved Sincline appears beneath them all. Everything starts glowing white and they disappear from the surface.

This episode is a mess. It’s ambitious, but it’s so unwieldly. It significantly contradicts previous parts of the show, and that really, really bothers me. I don’t like how it takes what felt special (the idea that the Lions had a psychic space created by their consciousness, and that that is where the Black Lion kept Shiro’s spirit after he died) and now just makes it all be some generic universal overmind.

And I really hate that this show is now saying Honerva and Zarkon’s horrible behavior is the fault of being possessed by rift entities. Before it was the result of being poised by quintessence. Did the show forget that they had already assigned one thing to blame for their behavior other than themselves? And that is the ultimate thing that angers me about this. Both quintessence poisoning and rift entity possession are cheats. They reveal a fear of letting villains be villains. They refuse to seriously deal with the reality that these characters are horrible people. By assigning blame to an external source, now two external sources, the show prevents the villains from having to confront their behavior, and the protagonists lose the ability to condemn the behavior as the narrative manifestation of their final confrontation with the villains. The same way that these episodes keep telling us the rift entities are a threat without ever really resolving that, the series, by locating the blame for the villains actions in external sources, never resolves the villains’ actions.

#voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld #voltron criticism #vld criticism #voltron critical #vld critical #vld season 8 #vld 8x09 #commentary

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