#lmao some of their decisions and opinions are so indicative of a Whole Mess going on under the hood

[neutronian]

unreal how many fictional-character-real-estate braincells edgar and hunter take up and have been taking up since i first came across them

[bleachbleachbleach]

Do you ever stop and think "Mayuri has a (singular) really really long nail"?

lmao half this post was written before that Szayel ask and half was written after, so apologies is there’s any repetition or disjuncture across the two!!!

I'll be honest, anon, I often forget this detail! In the same way that I often forget that I have a giant full-color picture of Sunflower Mayuri set as one of my other desktop images, right up until I hit a rogue keyboard shortcut and am suddenly transported into his midst:

He's been lurking there for a full year and I am always taken by complete surprise.

I was actually poking around these chapters the other day, and I think what honestly I DO stop and think about is Mayuri's moral compass? Like, the fact that it exists. And I don't mean this in a "he acts like a sick freak but secretly he really cares" kind of way, or even a "he revels in his being a sick freak and doesn't realize he cares until he does" kind of way. The definition of "moral compass" here is absolutely a Mayuri Original Definition. He's totally invested in his various experiments to satiate his own personal agendas, but he actually does more "for the sake of Soul Society" than possibly anyone else, and... does a pretty good job of it? I imagine Soul Society would be less inclined to handwave whatever other shit he's got going on if he weren't, but my point is a weird amount of his time is honestly spent on things that benefit others, offer protection, etc. And again: Mayuri. Not a secret cinnamon roll. But he also can't be flatly read.

He's one of the few captains who seems willing to go toe-to-toe with Yamamoto about some of Yamamoto's leadership decisions--notably because he thought Yamamoto's Quincy genocide wasn't genocidal enough, er, but he also later insinuates that he disagrees with Yamamoto's conception of honor/patriotism--that the Gotei 13 serve 'til death, and that if you can't, then you should kill yourself. (Makes sense, given that Urahara drags him out of the Den of Maggots, so Mayuri's seen the fruits of this particular domestic policy first-hand.) He and Yamamoto are both dudes with often shitty opinions, but I think it makes them both more interesting that they are different shitty opinions.

I don't think his disagreement on that count is purely out of self-preservation/valuing self over others, either. Weirdly enough, I think he actually likes Soul Society and its observable phenomena (e.g. his colleagues), as long as it's not touching or interfering with whatever else he's got going on. He probably could have just killed dead Kensei/dead Rose/Matsumoto (and Hitsugaya, too), and that would have been a lot easier, but he went through the trouble of incapacitating/podding them. I mean, the man reads the SC cover to cover for fun. Sure, that's data, but let's be real--70% of those articles have got to be pure drivel.

And also like--I find Mayuri's fight with zombie!Hitsugaya extremely upsetting. I do not enjoy it at all. It feels horrible. But Mayuri doesn't even seem to enjoy it either? In the lead-up to it, he makes like three separate references to his own kind heart that are definitely not to be taken at face value, and talks a lot about the thrill of victims writhing against you, and how pleased he is to be able to test a bunch of new drugs on Hitsugaya, but then you get this face:

And it's not like he particularly likes Hitsugaya. (In fact, for reasons unknown, in the Bount arc Mayuri very specifically singles Hitsugaya out to be someone he Does Not Like! I imagine that as the Gotei 13 interacts with each other more often post-ryoka/Aizen, Hitsugaya is just more annoying to him. "Yes, we re-grew Hinamori's organs. Of course we did a good job! Get out of here, stop helicopter-captaining, ffs go micromanage your own division--")

I'm not saying that face is indicative of compassion. But he's not having all the fun he said he was going to.

I enjoy that a character like Mayuri can be humanized--here meaning “made complex” I guess--without that act suggesting that it should be attended with an assumption of goodness, or mercy, or redemption.

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@ippoddity here, jumping onto this post~

I too, have Sunflower Mayuri as my desktop background (but my desktop is much more cluttered than @whipplefilter’s, so I won’t be showing a picture of it).

I didn’t really give much thought to Mayuri’s long fingernail either, except to think “Boy, that’s kind weird, but this guy’s whole vibe is creepy so it fits.” But then you got me to thinking about it more, and I started doing some digging. My first thought was “maybe this long fingernail is like the one that all those old Asian men have??” But it turns out that’s usually the pinky nail. Mayuri’s long fingernail is the middle finger of his right hand, and from what I can tell after looking at hundreds of panels of him, is that this is consistent throughout the series (someone please correct me if I’m wrong). I think you can see his nails pretty well in these shots:

What’s really standing out to me here isn’t just his long nail, but the fact that all his others are so short?? My initial impression was just that he had painted his nails half black/half white (kinda going along with his face), but on close-up here, it seems like his nails are actually cut really short. That just seems incredibly painful to me, and the only people I know that have nails this short are habitual nail-biters. So maybe he’s a nail biter? Which leads me to wonder why he leaves that middle nail on his right hand so long…

This is just a speculation, but you know those reset buttons on certain electronics that can only be reached with a needle or unfolded paperclip? I feel like a lot of older electronics were like this. ANYWAY, given all the modifications that Mayuri has given himself, I think this long nail is probably his version of a reset button tool. There’s no way he doesn’t have one somewhere on him, which he needs to hit for a hard reset when he messes something up. It’s gotta be a long and thin tool that can hit a reset button, and a fingernail is the perfect choice! It’s easily accessible, in fact, it’s already on his hand!

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Mayuri canonically takes off his makeup every night and reapplies it every day. We know that underneath it all, he’s a (somewhat) normal looking shinigami. And it seems like it would be kinda inconvenient to have that long nail all the time… So I think it might also be a stick-on nail??

[bthump]

Thx 4 your compelling answer! You made me curious about what do you think Guts and Griffith would be like as a couple, how do you imagine their dynamic would develop and grow. Not super chill I agree lmao but it's very interesting given their respective baggages. And kind of unrelated but I was soo mad that Casca insisted Guts to leave the 2nd time even when Guts was like: HEY I WANNA STAY FOR REAL. But Griffith never knew that. Hurts but that's the kind of element that makes for a great tragedy

ikr! Man that scene where Griffith overhears them is so painful. Like it makes sense that Casca would tell Guts to leave imo for a few reasons (mainly because Guts successfully convinced her after they had sex that it was what he ~really truly wanted~ lol, and also I think there’s some interesting selfishness on her part there too) but man, it’s tragic.

Anyway back at you, thanks for the interesting questions. lol idk where to start with this one really because like, there’s so much to potentially say, and so many potential ways for their relationship to go, like I don’t really have One True Concept of their relationship, there are so many possibilities and options.

Holy shit this got ridiculously long lol, sorry. I just used the opportunity to throw out like as many of my griffguts opinions as I could reasonably fit lmao.

I guess there are a few things that I tend to stick to when I’m imagining them together in like a Golden Age AU where everything worked out, tho ofc none of this is set in stone.

Like, if this is an AU without the whole overheard Promrose Hall speech that changes everything, I tend to think Guts is more likely to make the first move. Like say Guts didn’t hear the speech but still fell off the cliff with Casca and got her monologue, and without his feelings of inadequacy clouding his understanding he actually starts to get it, like, I pretty much think Guts would’ve kissed him during Tombstone of Flame 2. Griffith being openly afraid of Guts’ judgement -> Guts impulsively demonstrating exactly how he really feels about him.

But also just in general I think Guts is more likely to act on his feelings without thinking about potential consequences or how it could’ve gone wrong until afterwards, so I can imagine a lot of scenarios where he’d make the first move. Whereas even if Griffith did figure out how he feels and what he wants, it’s harder for me to see him going for it. On the one hand yeah he does have that “I must obtain what I desire” attitude, on the other hand what he wants is for Guts to love and want him, and he’d know that, and he’d know that kissing Guts is not necessarily going to get him that, and might end up ruining everything he does have.

Like, dude has a major fear of rejection.

But I guess I could see him also impulsively going for it in a more extreme moment - like the way his mind shuts off and he runs to save Guts from Zodd, I could imagine a thank god you’re alive type kiss, eg. But imo he’d need more of a push than Guts would.

And yeah I think both of their respective traumas would affect things, but I’d prefer to delay that a bit? I want them to have a good positive sexual encounter before they start sorting through all their issues together, basically so they have proof that it’s worth persisting lol, and I think that’s pretty easy to manage. Like, they start making out and end up jerking each other off and no one has any flashbacks, easy peasy.

I could see them getting past a bad first time, but it wouldn’t be easy lol. Like first off they’re both overly likely to take it as a personal condemnation, even if logically that’s not how trauma works, because they both hate themselves, and they both canonically have a fear of being monstrous/predatory. Griffith asking if Guts thinks he’s cruel and tbqh most of his speech to the King in the dungeon is indicative of this imo, and Guts seeing himself as a monster after killing Adonis and also in canon flashbacking from his rapist’s perspective.

And yk, if they do start having sex without immediate issues, I imagine the first problem that would come up sooner rather than later would be Guts flashbacking. I tend to assume he would be upfront about not wanting to get fucked without saying why, and Griffith would be fine with that, and then Guts would still eventually have a flashback while topping and it would take him by surprise like in canon. I could see Guts reacting basically the exact same way he did with Casca, rambly confessional and all, and I think Griffith would be supportive and comforting and understanding in the immediate aftermath. Hopefully Guts would make it very clear that it had nothing to do with anything Griffith did or anything about him and he still wants to get laid on the regular, because otherwise I could see something stupid happening afterwards like Griffith withdrawing out of fear of his potential to Guts and Guts blaming himself for making things weird and neither of them talking about it until something gives.

Anyway if they do successfully navigate that, the next problem would be more insidious, and it would be Griffith, and the way he views sex as transactional. Like when I say Griffith would be fine with never topping, I think that holds true entirely regardless of what Griffith might actually want personally from a sexual encounter. He’d let Guts fuck him even if he hated it, because what he wants is the emotional closeness and Guts needing him and wanting him. I think he actually would want sex with Guts for its own sake and enjoy it, like he’s attracted to Guts and he wants him and I def don’t think he would hate it in any way. Buuut I see him as very detached from his own physical desires, yk? Dude has never had sex because he wanted to have sex, even the evil personification of his inner darkness didn’t lol.

And along with that you could have the additional problem of enjoying sex with a man being another potential source of self-loathing for him. I’m thinking because of ‘am I dirty?” in the river, and again the scene in the dungeon w/ the King lends itself to this really well too. Like it’s so easy to read internalized homophobia into his narrative imo, even the entire structure of it, with Charlotte and the dream on one side and Guts on the other.

And basically I think those issues would combine to make him see sex as something he gives in return for Guts’ love/loyalty/presence, and avoid seeing it as something he personally wants. So like basically I think in a way he’d use that transactional framework as a justification for doing something he really really wants to do (sex with Guts) but that he doesn’t want to acknowledge he wants because it makes him hate himself because a) internalized homophobia and also b) deep down he knows he wants Guts more than the dream which also makes him feel guilty.

Also like, when it comes to Griffith and his issues I don’t think any of this is required, like canonically we know Guts’ csa trauma affects him but we don’t really know how Griffith’s csa trauma affects him. I wouldn’t see it as out of character if he was ultimately fine with his desire for Guts and doesn’t contribute any issues to the griffguts sex life. But it’s really really easy to see how he could have a metric ton of issues with sex to work through, and I think those would be really interesting to explore, basically.

Plus I don’t necessarily think this would actually… matter? Like I could easily see Griffith never giving Guts any cause for concern, they never talk about this, Griffith himself barely notices that he’s got a messed up attitude towards sex, and eventually he just internally works through it himself as his relationship with Guts progresses and he gets more comfortable with wanting Guts and wanting sex for its own sake and he achieves his dream regardless of his emotional priorities, etc. Like this could all easily work itself out in Griffith’s subconscious without any external drama lol. (Tho if Guts ever picked up on this it would def fuck him up and the fallout would be big.)

ANYWAY so that’s all the trauma stuff I could see influencing their relationship.

Overall I think there’d be way more good than bad. They’re perfect for each other. Griffith wants Guts to know him and see all the stuff he hates about himself and want him anyway, and Guts would absolutely do that, and demonstrate it thoroughly, and it would do wonders for Griffith’s self-acceptance. Guts wants Griffith to pay attention to him, to love him and respect him and look at him, and being in a relationship with him would give him everything he wants. The way Griffith looks at him after they kiss or while they’re fucking or whatever, like he’s the only thing in the world, would be the highlight of Guts’ life. Guts fucking Griffith like he needs him, or making love to him with reverence, or demonstrating casual closeness and affection, would be the highlight of Griffith’s.

I think Charlotte and the dream would be a bit of an issue for Guts, like I could see him being jealous, but I could also see him being totally able to see Charlotte as business and himself as the person Griffith wants. The fact that they’re fucking behind Charlotte’s back would itself be probably enough proof of how much Griffith wants him and is willing to risk for him to make Guts feel secure. Like basically I could see jealous insecure Guts telling Griffith they should break it off because the risk to his dream is too much and Griffith refusing out of hand, and that being a big moment for Guts and his feelings of security in their relationship.

Eventually I think the most satisfying direction their relationship could go would be Griffith decisively choosing Guts over the dream and having grown enough in their years together that he’s able to live with that choice and be happy with Guts instead of a big exaggerated dream lol. As far as I’m concerned that’s the secret Berserk happy ending that they never got a chance to get to, but is wholly telegraphed by the story as something that could’ve happened if everything hadn’t gone wrong.

Hmm what else. Random details I guess: I think they’d start out with Guts exclusively topping when they have penetrative sex but Guts would absolutely eventually want Griffith to fuck him imo, and their first time switching it up would be pretty emotionally intense but extremely good and positive. They’d be really close and trusting and more effectively communicative by then, and it would work great and Guts would bask in the attention as Griffith v thoroughly makes love to him.

Also when Griffith achieves his dream and runs Midland they would both be extremely into Guts getting a little possessive and staking his claim on him, like by fucking him hard enough that he can feel it throughout the next day, or scratches/bruises under clothes, etc. Nothing super kinky, I think they’re both pretty vanilla lol, but Guts would love knowing Griffith is being constantly reminded of him while he’s at meetings with nobles or w/e and Griffith would love that lingering reminder.

I think at some point early on they’d have to have a talk in which Guts asserts that he wants to stay with Griffith and the Hawks and doesn’t feel obligated because he lost a fight when they were 15. I could see that thought eating away at Griffith for a while if they don’t. Also because the question of whether they’re equals or not is kind of hammered in in canon I think they’d have to navigate around Griffith technically being Guts’ commander. I don’t think Guts would think twice about it (again assuming he hasn’t heard the Promrose Hall speech) but Griffith would worry, especially given exchanges like “that’s why I’m asking you to do this” “just order me to do it” lol. So they’d have to at least talk about that.

Or conversely they could not talk about Guts potentially feeling obligated and it could blow up in their faces and lead to miscommunication drama. I mean there are so many potential ways they could fuck things up by not talking and assuming the worst at the first sign of an issue lmao, it’s like, you want relationship drama just take your pick.

Also relatedly, I think this is a little bit of an unpopular opinion, at least judging by most of the griffguts fic I’ve read lol, but I really don’t see Griffith as likely to behave possessively at all, unless he thinks Guts is about to leave him and is like next to having a breakdown about it, and even then… idk. I think the second duel was extremely atypical - Griffith defaulted to trying to fight Guts for his loyalty because that’s how he won his loyalty the first time and it was the only way Griffith saw to keep his loyalty, he was extremely out of his depth emotionally lol, and I think there’s some big indications that he hated himself for it afterwards.

He wants Guts to want him, to choose to be with him of his own desire, he wants Guts to love him. I think he would abhor the thought that Guts was obligated to stay with him in any way, and any indications of that would freak him out and add to his self loathing. So he wouldn’t tell Guts “you’re mine” as part of sexy foreplay or whatever, and he wouldn’t order him to do shit lol (along with this like I don’t think Griff is dominant at all, and trying to be with someone he loves would fuck him up).

I think the biggest problem for both of them would be a tendency to assume the worst and just blame themselves for whatever instead of talking. But I also think the longer they’re in a relationship the better they’ll get at not doing that and at constructive positive communication lol.

Like at the end of the day again I think there’d be way more positives than negatives. We’re shown how perfectly they fulfill each others’ needs. Guts wants attention, Griffith wants acceptance, they both want to be loved, and before the misunderstandings get in the way and fuck it all up their relationship benefits both and starts helping both heal emotionally. If they stayed together and added romance and sex to the mix I think overall they’d be pretty ideal partners.

Ooookay I think I’ve talked more than enough about this lmao. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to just ramble for ages about a bunch of griffguts stuff. Honestly if anyone reads through this to the end I’ll be slightly surprised lol.

[ironinkpen]

the bayard is the paladin is the lion: a season 3 prediction

Alternatively titled: Watch This Child Jeopardize Her GPA in Real Time As She Ignores Her Midterms to Write Yet Another Fucking Meta

The lovely @littleblackchats already wrote an awesome post about the symbolism of the bayards for each of the characters in Voltron. But I was wondering: could we take it a step further and use the weapons - and what they say symbolically about the paladins wielding them - to make an informed guess about who’s going to end up in what lion next season?

(even if the answer to that question is no, i’m already writing this so whatever)

Since Allura, Keith, and Lance are the most likely to be swapped into new lions (or, in Allura’s case, to be put into a lion for the first time), I thought it’d be cool to take a look at what the weapons each of them wields says about their personalities, and whether that can give us hints as to who’s gonna be the Black Paladin next season while Shiro’s gone.

Alright, so in episode 1, Allura tells us that a lion’s quintessence is mirrored in its paladin, and that the paladin shapes the bayard. So lion = paladin = bayard. The lion and paladin should be similar in personalty, and the bayard should be compatible to the paladin’s style of fighting and personality as well. This is shown really well in Hunk and Pidge: Pidge’s weapon is small (like her), electric (reflecting her interest in computers), and made for precision (Pidge is more interested in finding clever solutions than just brute-forcing problems), while Hunk’s is big (just like him), long-range (reflecting his wish to stay distanced from conflict), and packs a punch (Hunk is the strongest character on the team, after all).

So the weapons tell us something about the personalities of the ones using them. But what can their respective weapons tell us about Keith, Lance, and Allura?

Let’s start with Mr. “I want you to lead Voltron” himself:

Keith’s weapon is a sword, which is all sorts of metaphorical fun. Swords in literature (besides being like. hella phallic lmao) are usually associated with the archetype of the knight. 

The knight character usually brings to mind two sets of traits: leadership, wisdom, chivalry, and arrogance (yay phallic symbolism) and on the flip side, hot bloodedness, passion, youth, romance, inexperience, and naiveté. Knighthood stories usually either follow an older, wiser knight as they go on a quest (usually to repay an old debt of some sort, a la Beowulf), or a younger, bright-eyed knight as they set out on an adventure of some sort (which typically involve a pretty girl in some way). Two very different possible characterizations! As you can see, sword imagery is a... double edged sword. 

(I’ll show myself out)

Keith doesn’t have the naiveté or sense of romance that young knights often have, but the traits of hot bloodedness, passion, and youth fit him well. He’s definitely an impulsive character, prone to charging into battle without a plan:

(it was such a bad idea that Hunk thought it was a joke sldkjf)

The sword itself is a very impulsive, instinctive weapon. Sword fighting is about being faster than your opponent and values making the first strike. It’s also a reaction-based weapon that requires that you respond to your opponent’s attacks. Instinct is key in sword fighting– you have to be able to quickly respond when a blow is coming at you. This fits into the whole “relies on instinct more than skill alone” thing of the Red Lion.

The sword is also a weapon of violence. Knights were... usually not actually great, noble guys in practice. Keith subverts that whole mess by being a genuinely nice kid, but we see the bloodthirstiness typically associated with his weapon in scenes like at the end of season 1, where he charges in to attack Zarkon despite the fact that that’s. A really bad idea. Like I said, Keith’s a passionate character, and that can often translate into stabbiness with him. 

As a close-range weapon, swords require that their users be brave enough to get close to their enemy. The user also has to be pretty confident that they’ll be able to handle themselves in a fight, because you gotta get like super close to someone that wants to kill you and be fairly certain that you’re the one who’s gonna make it out alive. Definitely Keith.

The sword is also tied with the traits of adventure, protection, and duty. Keith kicks off half of this whole Voltron adventure by going to get Shiro (Lance brings Pidge and Hunk along and finishes the party). His protective instinct is seen when he saves Shiro in season 2, covers Lance when they fight together, and tries to leave the team because he thinks they’re being tracked through them. His sense of duty is seen when he argues that Pidge can’t leave the team to go after her family bc they need her for Voltron (like... not ur call tho buddy) and when he turns away from his past in BoM to save people.

And it’s a rebel’s weapon! Which totally fits the whole “had a discipline issue and flunked out” thing at the Garrison. My boy doesn’t like authority at all lmao. When Coran tries to stop him from fighting Zarkon he just. Runs off and does it anyway. I love him.

Another motif often tied to swords is brotherhood. “Brothers in arms,” and all that. In that scene with the Blade Of Marmora, the armor Keith’s wearing is meant to show the wearer’s hopes and fears, and he sees Shiro, someone he considers a brother, walking away from him. The choice he is forced to make in this scene is between knowledge and companionship, and then between knowledge and heroism, which is telling of what Keith values as a person. He actually chooses knowledge over companionship during his conversation with Shiro, which... actually doesn’t really fit with the knight motif at all. But he then chooses heroism over knowledge, turning away from the answers to his past, which does. Either way, the decision to pick his past over his friends was clearly a difficult one to Keith, which makes sense, as knights are often more interested in interpersonal relationships and saving others than the pursuit of wisdom.

(Interestingly, though, Lance calls Keith a “samurai” in the comic, and the samurai archetype is often associated with traits like loneliness, wandering, and being lost. So while Keith clearly places value in bonds with others, like a knight, it seems that in practice he behaves more like the lonely samurai. Aw :( )

At his core, Keith is a very loyal character, both to the cause of saving the Universe and to his teammates. And this is consistent with his weapon. Knights are often sworn to a lord or lady or cause that they’ll fight for. With Keith, that cause and those people are Team Voltron.

Alright so that’s a lot on Keith. Now onto Lance:

His bayard’s a gun! Also super phallic lol. But ignoring that, let’s talk about what this says about Lance!

Alright, so for one thing, Lance’s weapon is built for medium to long range fighting. It’s a weapon that requires distance from the opponent. This shows a tendency to disengage when possible, which is absolutely consistent with Lance’s character. He prefers to think up a plan rather than charge right in.

Lance’s weapon also calls upon the archetype of the sniper. When you think of a sniper, the trait of patience probably comes to mind– the sniper of the group is usually the guy sitting up on a high place, observing the lay of the land and quietly waiting around to make their shot. While it may seem at first glance like Lance’s loud-mouthed, hyper personality doesn’t fit this archetype at all, it… actually does. Really, really well.

(God this shot (heh) always gives me shivers)

Take this scene for example. Lance, despite the closing doors, the fact that he’s just been shot out into space, and the stress on him (they need Slav for their whole plan to work), makes the shot and saves Slav. And he waits for the perfect moment before shooting. The cool-headedness he shows here is astounding.

Plus, think of his Garrison backstory. He was a cargo class pilot at the Garrison despite wanting to be fighter class. But did he give up? Not at all. He continued to work to be top of his class so that when a slot opened up, he was able to be moved up into fighter class. And he did this with no indication that a place would even open up in the first place. He was likely working for quite some time before Keith got kicked out. He’s actually a pretty patient character!!

On the flip side, though, there’s the idea of the “itchy trigger finger.” Lance doesn’t always think things through– he can also be pretty hotblooded and passionate and make snap (read: bad) decisions (like in the case of his thirst for Nyma, for one). That also says something interesting about his character: impulse = bad when it comes to Lance. An itchy trigger finger is a negative thing. While with the sword, passion and energy can be good, noble things, the gun is a weapon that almost exclusively causes harm when used impulsively. Keith’s impulses tend to be on the right path, while Lance’s are usually bad.

The gun ultimately requires focus. When a sniper’s eye strays from the scope, the shot’s lost. A lot of the times Lance messes up in when he’s looking at the people around him for approval / praise instead of focusing on the task. In episode 1 he crashes the simulator because he’s bragging, at one point in season 1 he crashes into something when boasting to Shiro about how he’s not an amateur, etc. etc. However, in situations like the above where Lance is focusing on a task and not on the opinions of others, he’s extremely effective. 

This plays interestingly with another trait of the sniper archetype: observation. A sniper is often looking at things from a higher vantage point and watching others. While they have to be focused, they also have to be aware of the things around them. When he talks about his team during the episode with the prison break in season 2, Lance easily describes each of their strengths, and in season 1, he’s able to tell that the bomb isn’t Rover almost immediately, because Pidge isn’t with it. For someone that seems so self-absorbed at first glance, Lance is very in tune with the people in his environment and the environment itself.

On that note, the gun, like the sword, is a weapon of decisiveness. There’s really no taking back a shot bullet, just as it’s hard to stop a blade once it’s swung. The user of a gun must use it at the right moment, and with precise aim. In the scene above where he’s rescuing Slav, Lance only gets one shot (heh) to do what he can. And he follows through with one decisive flick of his finger.

But that edges into the dark side of the gun. While there’s definitely the trait of cool-headedness associated with gun users, this can also toe the line of cruelty. Characters with guns can be lone wolves and cold-blooded killers– the distance from their opponents makes them more able to detach from the act of killing. There’s also an aspect of cowardice to it, as the user often doesn’t face their opponents head to head.

I’d say that the narrative tosses that set of traits aside for Lance, though. When saving Slav, Lance goes for the warden’s arm, not a killing shot. Lance uses his gun to minimize damage, not cause it-- he often shows a preoccupation with the well-being of others (like when he reminds Keith to be careful with the Balmera because they’re alive). And Lance is definitely pretty brave (like when he pushes Coran out of the way of that bomb). His talkative personalty also subverts the lone wolf trope. However, the fact that his weapon requires distance can be a reflection of the loneliness he feels (he thinks he’s a seventh wheel :’( ).

Last, but definitely not least, we move onto Allura:

Alright, so the thing about Allura is that she doesn’t actually have a bayard. She does, however, have a weapon of choice, which is a staff.

(more… phallic imagery…….)

I’ll be honest, my knowledge of martial arts is limited and my English classes don’t typically cover staffs (heh), because none of the characters in the books I’ve read so far actually like… use staffs to fight. BUT I’ll try my best lmao

The staff has an interesting duality to it: on one hand, it’s a very firm weapon that requires strength and a good, firm stance to wield, while on the other, it’s a very flexible weapon that allows its user to change direction and move. This matches Allura’s character well. She can be really stern and really stubborn (when she insists on going into the ship in season 1, when she runs off with Keith, when she refuses to work with the BoM, etc.), but she’s also adaptable and flexible (when she wakes up and is like “yeah okay I guess I slept for 10000 years,” when she trains the paladins despite their being young and inexperienced because hey, they’re what we’ve got, when she works with the Blade of Marmora despite the fact that the Galra killed her entire people, etc.). Allura digs her heels in at times and lets herself go with the flow at others.

The staff is a weapon of strength and steadiness, one that has the ability to withstand blows. Allura goes through like. So much through the story, what with her losing her home, her people, and then her father’s AI. But despite that, she doesn’t crumble. Girl’s strong as hell.

But, on the flip side, it’s also a weapon of lightfootedness, a la Aang from Avatar the Last Airbender. I mentioned mobility and flexibility earlier, and that’s absolutely relevant to Allura. The staff allows its user to maneuver quickly. Similarly, Allura facilitates travel for the team: she provides wormholes so they can move around the universe to fight / ditch Zarkon. She’s a mobile, versatile fighter.

The staff is a weapon that’s close range. It has you get right up in your opponent’s face. So, like the sword, it requires that its user be confident and able to respond to attacks quickly. It’s a reaction-based weapon.

However, while it’s close range, the staff also allows the user to keep its opponent at a certain distance if they choose. This quality of the staff reflects Allura’s tendency to “strategize on the fly.” She’s close to her opponent like Keith, but can keep them at a farther distance than he can, like Lance. So she can, if she wants to, step back and get a broader look at the situation. As a result, Allura can rely on both instinct and observation.

It’s also an avoidant weapon, whose main strength lies in parrying the opponent-- it’s built for weathering blows and getting in strategic counterblows. As previously mentioned, this is the strategy of Team Voltron in the war: they attack Zarkon where they can, but otherwise avoid and regroup. It’s a strategy of wearing the opponent down.

The staff’s a difficult weapon to kill with. It doesn’t have a blade like the sword or bullet like the gun. It’s a weapon whose main purpose is to protect, not maim. This is reflected in Allura’s tendency to prefer diplomacy to violence.

Staffs also bring to mind balance. Allura is balancing a lot between helping train the new paladins, running the castleship, and organizing resistance against Zarkon. She’s a character that has to juggle several responsibilities, and she does so expertly.

Some more fun things about the staff (@quillowl thanks for the info!!) is that it can symbolize either a cane or a scepter. The scepter has close ties with responsibility and royalty. As the Commander of the Castle of Lions, Allura is charged with... basically running this whole Voltron show. And, she’s a princess, so, royalty.

As for the cane, it apparently has ties with the traits of wisdom and age. Allura is quite literally 10000 years old, so there’s the age part. And she’s a very wise leader (though she sometimes jumps the gun). The cane also denotes support. 

Alright, this is already getting really long so we’re gonna jump to the good part. What does this have to do with the lions?

Allura states here that the quintessence of the lion matches that of their pilot. I’m basically 99% sure that there’s going to be a lion swap in season 3, what with Shiro out of the picture (for a while at least??), and the three lions that are most likely up for grabs are Black, Red, and Blue. The three people that will most likely fill one of those positions are Allura, Keith, and Lance (though for Allura to do so they’ll have to find a way for Coran to pilot the castle without her).

The Black Lion is the decisive head of Voltron, and requires a born leader who is in control at all times. Its related element is Air.

The Red Lion is the most temperamental of the lions and requires a pilot that relies more on instinct than skill alone. Its related element is Fire.

The Blue Lion’s traits are not stated outright on the show, but the Voltron website describes it as the friendliest of the lions, the most accepting of new pilots, and one of the most confident. Its related element is Water.

So who’s going where?

Well, each of these characters has the decisiveness required of the Black Lion, but personally, I think that Keith fits the Red Lion’s traits a bit too well to be moved from it. Keith fights with his instincts more than his head, which serves him well in battle. He’s agile, like his lion, and quick to charge into a fight (even when it might not be wise to do so). Plus, his relationship to the motif of brotherhood makes it hard for me to believe that he and Red will be easily separated. I think that Keith’s sense of duty to Shiro will make him try to pilot the Black Lion for at least a while, but his deep bond with Red will probably prevent him from keeping the role. However, he would be a good fit if the job if they did keep him in the Black Lion. The sword is a weapon of leadership-- Keith would just have to learn how to hone it. 

As for Allura, if she is put in a lion, she has the friendliness of the Blue Lion, seen in her tendency to use diplomacy where she can. Her adaptability is consistent with that of the Blue Lion’s element of water– she “goes with the flow.” Plus, the staff is a weapon that is more difficult to hurt others with, and water is the element of healing. The Blue Lion is also a very well-balanced lion stat wise, reflecting Allura’s preference towards weapons that are balanced. And Allura has the steadiness and strength that a leg of Voltron would need to support the team, just as Hunk does.

On the flip side, that firmness and strength would also serve her as the Head of Voltron. Her adaptability makes her the flexible leader she already is, and the Black Lion is also a very well balanced weapon. Her ability to juggle so many things reflects a leader’s ability to balance and keep track of their team. Plus, the interpretation of the staff as a scepter calls to mind leadership, dignity, and responsibility-- all of which the head of Voltron should have. The staff is also, again, a weapon of lightfootedness, which is a definite argument that Allura’s native element could be Air, aka the Black Lion’s element.

As for putting Allura in the Red Lion, the agility and mobility her weapon provides would suit Red well. However, Red is a temperamental lion, and while Allura is passionate and fiery in personality, the staff errs more on the side of defense than on attack. Red would appreciate Allura’s willingness to step forward and attack, but might become frustrated with her tendency to keep distance from the opponent and strategize in the meantime.

And that leaves Lance, who’s a little weird. He’s been in the Blue Lion this whole time, but his weapon doesn’t really seem to match Blue’s flexibility as far as I can tell (the gun is too… constricted, you feel me??) or friendliness (guns require distance from others!!). It also doesn’t really match the impulsivity and instinct of the Red Lion, either. It’s very likely that Lance will, at first, be moved to the Red Lion, but I can’t see him fitting the role well. His weapon doesn’t have the agility and mobility of the Red Lion. And, as we’ve said, the gun isn’t a weapon that really works instinctively– when Lance takes that shot in season 2, there’s thought put into it. Impulse + guns (according to the above interpretation) = not great. His tendency to distance himself from problems and think things through even a little would probably piss Red tf off.

However, his decisiveness and patience could be a good fit for the Black Lion. Shiro has told Keith, “patience yields focus” and the weapon of the gun requires both patience to aim and focus to fire. Plus, Lance’s observational skills are befitting of a leader: he’s familiar with the strengths of the team and is quick to tell when something is wrong. The fact that his weapon requires distance shows a tendency like Allura’s to step back and look at a situation to diffuse it, also what a leader would do. He’d have to work on staying on task though lol.

Anyway yikes this got long but my point is that the weapons of the paladins might have been telling us more than we thought!! I’m not completely certain these three are gonna swap for sure or anything, or if Allura is going to get a lion in the first place given the fact that the castle needs her, but I think that if they were to do it, Black Paladin Lance, Red Paladin Keith, and Blue Paladin Allura would make the most sense based on this particular analysis (though keep in mind that I’m biased because I love Lance haha).

But hey the show writers could be interpreting their characters another way, in which case I just wasted like 2 hours I probably should have spent studying but oh well lmao

[herotheshiro]

i wanted to post this online somewhere but didn’t know where to put it (not really something to put on any of my IG accounts and if you stay w me for the rest of this post you’ll know why i didn’t put it on twitter) and i almost forgot tumblr existed and no one really uses it (i.e., my sibling doesn’t follow this account. was going to put this on my personal blog which my sibling also doesn’t follow but i feel like this blog is better in the end) so good place to put it and let me release my thoughts. [put it under cut bc it’s pretty long lol]

but basically one of the worst decisions i’ve made in the last half yr is become active on twitter. i made an account back in october to try to order some hipmaic merch from a proxy which ultimately failed and had unexpected personal blowbacks as well... that in itself should have already indicated the dumpster fire that twitter would become for me (from the bad vibes of that failure i mean) but unfortunately in the time before i knew the proxy was going to fail, i got absorbed into fandom twitter. for whatever reason i have this weird thing of wanting to become fandom famous or like fandom well-known, which i think is partially due to me wanting to be like my sibling who sort of became a recognizable name due to their fanworks in some of their fandoms in the past. i feel like i used to kind of have that kind of recognition back during the young deviantart days but since i don’t really produce/publish fanworks anymore, i’ve gotten to liveblogging/livetweeting as my attempts to fame. ik some ppl have succeeded off of that, based on some of the ppl i’ve followed for a number of fandoms in the past few years, so i thought i could do it too ... but alas as y’all know, the internet is a big place and it’s hard to get ppl to care abt your one voice. and ppl noticing you also sometimes happens in unwanted ways, like that whole thing i got stressed over re: a/3 which i think i blogged abt on this blog before ... i mean still not even 100% they were referring to me specifically w that vague tweetinig but i was stupidly anxious over dumb shit like that.

also, as everyone knows, once you really get into a fandom, there is always the absolute mess of “problematic” content/call-outs. sometimes it’s valid critiques of the series content, sometimes it’s over stupid ass petty inter-fan drama. and even if you’re not involved in the drama itself, it’s so tiring to have to witness all the passive aggressive (or sometimes outright aggressive) tweets ... esp in this current global pandemic situation where we’re already getting negative news re: our real lives. i’m writing up this post really in response to me reading through threads of ppl calling out the problematic ways hipmaic handles hip hop/black culture which is definitely valid and basically something i’ve always been aware of even when i first came into the fandom bc non-black iterations of hip hop culture (esp overseas) usually do not hit the mark .... even though i’ve been aware of all this shit, it’s so tiring to read through and then the guilt of still consuming the fandom even w its flaws (which is still something you can do as long as you acknowledge the flaws and problematic aspects. but it also depends on the series i suppose, like imo a/o/t is just shit that prob shouldn’t be consumed lol, which is also funny bc i used to consume it a long time ago but that was like way before the timeskip like when the anime first got released ... i mean this kind of opinion/perspective is fraught w so many asterisks so i’m not going to go into it further but hopefully you get what i mean even if you’re not hearing all of my personal footnotes)... like i don’t think i’m going to give up hipmaic yet, bc i still do enjoy some of its music and i do enjoy seeing character content, but adding twitter to my life was honestly a goddamn mistake. not only for that one case of anxiety re: a/3 but also just me purposely consuming fans’ content that i literally KNOW will piss me off but i still do anyways. it’s tiring to read some of the comments hipmaic fans say, and a few months ago i wanted to interact re: headcanons and stuff but now i’m like you know what. keep your frankly incorrect and inaccurate headcanons to yourself (partly sarcastic but you know when you read a thinkpiece and you respect them for voicing their opinion but it’s also “wrong” at the same time...).

like recently i’ve gotten to thinking to literally just blocking any twitter account that talks abt hyp mic and just restricting my twitter to non-fandom stuff or japanese twitter accounts where i don’t understand what stupid shit they’re saying (if any). and also let’s not get into what a time-suck scrolling through twitter has become for me ... i’m already depressed and completely unmotivated to do work, and twitter is just a major procrastination device to continue wrecking my academic and professional lives and productivity ... i don’t have the app, but i can still access it through safari so of course it’s still a stick in my wheel. i really need to follow what my sibling said and try to rarely go on it and if i do, just stick to my dash and don’t stray too far out (i.e., looking up shit in the search bar). tbh, IG and twitter are both huge time-wasters for me, and i seriously need to consider deleting social media in general or at least for a good chunk of time which is something i wanted to do literally 2 yrs ago but just never did ... ik some of my friends are relatively inactive on social media (they do have it but they just never post or anything) and i really really need to be like that. everything for me (like many ppl at this time i assume) is remote, and i know from past experience that i am VERY BAD at being productive when doing remote working. and having IG/twitter drains is definitely going to make that worse, especially since they’re already major distractors when i AM physically going to school/work. i feel like i’ve tried to cut cold-turkey before, but i usually never keep up the block for long ... it’s also due to a lack of motivation in general (this is a whole other monster of a topic that should be put on my personal blog LMAO) but i need to just try to cut things that i have some control over that could further contribute to my lack of productivity.

tl;dr

fandom twitter truly is a dumpster fire

twitter itself is helping ruin my life (not bc of anything happening on it but just its presence)

i am just purposely consuming bad news and shitty takes and making myself feel worse and i need to stop