#p&p hand? in my paladin? yeah...

[caemidraws]

Things we promised

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Princess of Starlight; Thranduil x elfling child reader

*Author's note*

Well guys this took me awhile to get around to making and a couple of weeks to write it all down but this weekend I finally had some time to fully sit and write it out and now it's ready! So @soralinklokidottirofmirkwood I appreciate your patience with me and I now present to you your request. Hope you enjoy it as well as any reader who catches this little gem.

Warnings: parental death, spiders (yeah those arachnophobes out there like me, BEWARE OF SPIDERS!!) mentions of infertility and stillborn children, some angst and fluff.

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@queen-paladin

@gay-and-ready-to-cry

____________________________________________________________

I managed to duck down into the root of a tree and quickly buried myself with some old leaves and twigs and stayed as quiet as I could until I heard the sound of their clicking and hissing.  I then watched as their shadows went past the tree I was hiding under, hoping and praying to the Valar that they wouldn’t see me.

After what felt like forever, the last of them finally walked passed my tree so I slowly peeked out clenching my father’s crystal necklace he had given me before he and mother told me to run and hide.  There was nothing but silence in the woods, no birds, no wind, not even the sound of running water.

Very carefully I decided to venture out of my tree in hopes of finding another place to hide, or maybe get out of the woods all together.  Suddenly out of nowhere I was pinned down by three long, hairy legs and heard a hiss-like roar behind my back.  I tried to fight but I felt myself being wound up in the sticky web of the spider that had me pinned.

Then as quickly as I felt it starting to wrap my up, it stopped.  I heard the whizzing sound of arrows being shot, blades being unsheathed, and the terrible sounds of the spider that had me pinned along with more spiders from above the trees.  Soon there was silence once again and I heard someone say in my language.

“How many are left?”

“I counted five more escaping during the skirmish my lord Legolas.” Said a female voice.

“Kill them all. None must be left alive. By order of the King.” The male voice said again.  The female then proclaimed an Elvish command and I heard some running away from the area.

“My lord Legolas, what about the victim?” oh no.  I tried to wriggle myself out of the web but it was so thick and sticky, I couldn’t even move my arms up that had been pinned to my side.  So like a warm, I tried to inch myself to a hiding spot (even though I could barely see through the silked webs) but I was soon stopped by another foot.

This was it, this is where I would meet my end. Not by spiders but by my own kin.  I felt as the webs were being cut away and I was now staring into the sharp, blue eyes of an elf in what almost looked like dragon-like armor.

“Stand down, she’s only an elfling.” He ordered to the few dozen guards that remained at his side.  Unlike the others who had either dark or red hair, this elf before me had blonde hair, just like my mother did.  I jumped out of my web trap and pressed myself against one of the trees and the elf told me, “It’s alright. No one will hurt you.”

Even though he looked intimidating, there was a comforting aura around him that I was sensing from him thanks to father’s necklace.

“Do you speak in the Eldar? Or do you also know common tongue?” he asked me.  But before I could answer, I noticed a large shadow slowly coming down from above.  It was one of the younger spiders whose feet are so light, they couldn’t even be detected by our Elvish ears.  One of the guards happened to look where I was looking and proclaimed.

“Hir nin Legolas!” my necklace soon glowed and I extended my hand out and a powerful wind blast sent everyone falling down including the spider.  It’s back slammed hard into the trunk of a tree before falling down on a spiked log, piercing it through it’s center and it quickly fell limp.  The elven guards plus the elf who had tried to talk to me, Legolas according to one of the guards.  They all looked at me in either shock or awe at what I had just done.

“I’m sorry.” I finally spoke to show that I knew both Elvish and common tongue.  “I didn’t want that one to hurt you. They’re more deadly than the bigger ones, nana and adar were attacked by one just like that. The venom spread so quickly mother barely had the chance to cry out.” Suddenly one of the guard withdrew his bow and arrow and aimed it at me.  I jumped back fearfully but Legolas stood in front of me, shielding me from the oncoming attack.

“Lower your bow Feren!”

“My lord, she had hurt you!” Feren snapped.

“It was an accident. She saved my life, and as such it would do you more harm than good to bring harm to my rescuer.” Feren without question removed his arrow from his bow and stood down.  Legolas turned back towards me and knelt back down in front of me.  “Little one, how do you know magic?”

“My father’s amulet. It just—glows whenever I feel high levels of fear and fires the magic. I didn’t mean to hurt you I swear it.”

“No apologizes necessary, may I be permitted to see your father’s amulet? Don’t worry I won’t take it from you.” I looked into his eyes and felt deep down he was telling the truth.  I reached underneath my shirt and pulled it out and held it out to him.  He gently took it in his hands and as he admired the crystal gem, I noticed how his eyes widened when he turned it around to look at the runes on the back.

“Am I—in trouble?” I asked nervously.  He looked at me and told me as he handed me back my father’s amulet.

“No penneth. But we would like for you to come with us, the King would like to know of your presence in our part of the forest.” The King? As in King Thranduil? I had made it to King Thranduil’s palace?! I had but lost hope that I would make it here.

Before I had lost my father, he had told me to reach the realm of Thranduil.  If I showed him my amulet, he could protect me.  Those were his last words before the younger spider got to him and dragged him off into the woods, never to be seen again.  Legolas kept his hand out for me to take it and so I did and he ordered the remaining guards to follow us.

As we walked, I soon began to feel the light of the sun upon my face as we reached a different part of the woods.  I couldn’t recall the last time I had felt the light of the sun or have been able to feel all of Yavanna’s great creations all around me.  The feel of the spray of the rushing waterfalls beneath us, the smell of the fresh air instead of the decaying one I had been under.

We soon came to a great fortress that had been built within the trees themselves.  Gates of iron stood before us as Legolas ordered the guards to close the gates behind us.  Once inside I was amazed at the interior of this grand palace.

Narrow walkways of tree bark and light that seemed to be glowing on it’s own from what appeared to be sap from the trees.  Elves all around were walking the various pathways that either were below or on top of us.  Soon enough, we came before a large, intimidating throne of wood and stone.

Large antler-like structures stood on either side of the throne that was at the foot of a narrow staircase at the foot.  And sitting upon the throne wielding a staff was none other than the King of all Mirkwood, King Thranduil.

He resembled Legolas almost to a perfect picture but his eyes held a harshness that felt like winter wind hitting you in the face.  A crown of autumn leaves stood upon his head and he wore robe of onyx and hanging off his shoulders was a blood red cloak.

“Legolas,” his voice held a deep booming sound to it that almost resembled thunder in the far off mountains.  “Who is this child you have brought before me?”

“My lord, this young elf was found within the outer boarders of your realm. The spiders had ambushed her and nearly had her killed. She in returned saved me from a spider that we had missed that would’ve killed me.” Thranduil’s eyes shifted to me.

Seeing him upon his throne lounging against it and his icy blue eyes staring down upon me gave me an intimidating feeling.

“And you had killed it? It wasn’t left alive?” he asked me.

“Yes, Great King of Wood and Stone.” I said bowed to him.

“The child has manners. And a great debt is owed to you for saving my son.” He told me.  Legolas is the son of the King?! I had saved the Prince of Mirkwood?!

“It is also best that you know this young elfling saved me not with a steel of any weapon, but of magic. A powerful magic that I had never crossed paths with before.” Legolas said again.  I watched as Thranduil slowly came down the steps of his throne and stood before us and told his son and the guards.

“Leave us.” They bowed and soon I was left alone with the great King of the Wood.  “Rise young one.” I got back to my feet and looked up at him nervously, fiddling with the ends of my tattered dress.  “How long have you been traveling in the woods on your own?”

“I—lost my parents what feels like an age. But counting from what I could tally in the ground and trees, it had been nearly a year and a half since I had been on my own.”

“And from where did you hail from in my kingdom?”

“The Southern borders of Mirkwood my lord. Near the fell fortress. My parents and I escaped the spider raid when they first came upon the lands.”

“What were your parents names?” he asked me.

“My mother’s name was Thessa, and my father’s name was…..”

“Orrian.” The King finished for me.  I looked up at the King in shock.

“You knew my father?” the king knelt down to my height and asked me.

“Answer me this, do you bear his family’s amulet? A clear diamond surrounded in silver?” I reached down into my shirt and pulled out the amulet necklace and Thranduil’s eyes widened.  “By the grace of Varda. You are her. You are Orrian’s young starlight. You are just as he described.”

“My father spoke highly of you, but I always thought it was because you were the King of our realm.”

“Not only that child but your father and I go back a long time into our elfling hoods back in our old home of Doriath. He was the youngest cousin to the Queen Melian. And my greatest friend. Oh the times we had together as elflings.” His voice held a warm, gentleness and his eyes that once struck me with a cold feeling now held a warm, tender look to them.  “I am sorry for your loss my dear child, but know that your father truly loved you. More than anyone, more than life.”

“That’s what he said before telling me to find you. Saying that you would protect me. I had but given up hope that I would even find sanctuary and that his and my mother’s deaths would’ve been in vain.” Thranduil placed a comforting hand to my shoulder and said.

“You need not think that anymore dear one, your parents can finally rest in peace knowing that you will indeed be safe here in my realm.” Then I did something I never would’ve thought I had the guts to do.

I embraced the Elven king.  He tensed up at the surprised hug but gladly embraced me back.

Later that night after being provided with proper lodgings, food and medical attention to the scraps and bruises from running through the thick shrubberies.  Thranduil sat down with me on my bed telling me all the stories of him and my father growing up.

“And had it not been for me, your father would’ve never had gotten the courage to ask a dance from your mother.” He finished the tale of how he had helped my father and mother begin their courting.

“Father always said he’d learn to thank you for giving him the proper push.” I fiddled with his amulet necklace.  My heart growing heavy with grief.  “I miss him and mother every day.”

“And they loved you dearly. They feared that they would go through life without being able to conceiving a child. Everytime your mother started to bear one, it was either a stillborn or she ended up losing it. But when you came along, there was something about you that made your father believe that you were the one. You were going to be the grace of Varda herself, and he was right.” He tucked some of my hair behind my ear and turned my chin up to look at him, “An elfling born with the power of the Stars and wind, and it is through that amulet that was brought down by his family line that helps harness your powers.”

“Yet they didn’t appear till after I had lost them. If only I was able to use that power to save them.”

“There is a saying your father used to say, ‘Yesterday is history, tomorrow’s a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present’. We cannot choose what happens in that time frame or what events will fall, only after what’s done is done, do we have the strength to follow through to the next event that may fall upon us.” I nodded and leaned my head against the king’s arm.

I felt his arm come around me, pulling me onto his lap as my head rested on his shoulder.

“I promise you (Y/n), you’ll never know fear or loneliness ever again. I swear on your father, I’ll try to give the same amount of love as he and your mother gave you.”

“Thank you my lord.”

“No more formalities. You may call me by my name when it is just us, okay?”

“Okay, Thranduil.” I felt him bring me closer to him in a loving embrace and he lay a kiss upon the top of my head.

For the rest of my life, Thranduil kept his word.  I was raised at his side like his own daughter and Legolas came to see me as his own little sister.  I was trained not only in weapons by my brother and father, I was also taught how to better control my magic.  Though for those lessons, I was sent to Rivendell where I was told by Lord Elrond that he and his wife were good friends of my mother.

Lord Elrond taught me of how to better control my magic and how to use it in combat.  Throughout the lands I became known as the Starlight Princess of the Woodland realm.  Any orc that I came in contact with was blinded by my powers of Starlight and shuddered in fear whenever the winds would blow, signaling my arrival.  And whenever I felt doubt or fear of forgetting what my parents looked like, my adoptive father was willing to show me old pictures of him and my father and tell me more stories of them and their lives together. And I never had to live with fear or doubt ever again, just as my adoptive father had promised.

[nolanel-corbeaux]

Nolanel Corbeaux | Basics |

Hello! Thank you to everyone for tagging me in this! It has been surprisingly difficult to finish, but I feel I know him even more myself. For one, I actually have the names of his parents written down now (they are not relevant to his story, at least not yet).

Anyways, yeah! I hope you enjoy my dear boy :)

B A S I C S

Name: Nolanel Corbeaux

Nicknames: Nol, hired help

Age: 36

Nameday: 1st Sun of the Sixth Astral Moon

Race: Duskwight Elezen

Gender: CIS Male (he/him)

Orientation: Pansexual

Profession: Sharlayan Researcher, Archon, budding Paladin

P H Y S I C A L A S P E C T S

Hair: A deep black with grey-white highlights

Eyes: Seafoam Green

Skin: Gray-blue with a slight reddish hue

Tattoos/scars: Archon tattoo on his right cheek, small scar on his left.

F A M I L Y

Parents: Vaullinne Corbeaux (mother), Glenont Corbeaux (father)

Siblings: None

Grandparents: Unknown

In-laws and Other: His wonderful partners Yein Que-Sae and Derrinall Evramont, along with their adoptive fae daughter Dinky Dinky.

Pets: An adoptive skink by the name of Bookmark and a new crow familiar given to him by Yein's hag brother Sacheo that he gave the name of Inkwell.

S K I L L S

Abilities: Proficient in the growing academic field of Dynamis, fledgling Paladin abilities, slight sensitivity to emotions, research and note-taking.

Hobbies: Reading, writing, cooking, dancing, petting skink, book collecting.

T R A I T S

Most Positive Trait: He embraces those around them and shares their burdens, wanting to be a positive light in those he cares for.

Most Negative Trait: Being a researcher from Sharlayan, and an Archon to boot, can have the downside of being slightly insufferable once he starts jabbering on a topic he is quite familiar with. I like to think he's getting better these days!

L I K E S

Colors: Blues and greens

Smells: Pages of a book, warm summers night, floral scents

Textures: Soft hands being worn from recent labor, smile lines that enhance his mouth, and new muscle gained recently.

Drinks: He loves his cool juice and hot teas, but also enjoys a nice whisky (not spicy please).

O T H E R D E T A I L S

Smokes: Nope!

Drinks: Yes, to enjoy with fine company.

Drugs: He would start to say no, but then remember he enjoyed this funky mushroom once.

Mount Issuance: He has never ridden a mount by himself! He would probably fall of the poor creature anytime he tried.

Been Arrested: No, but he has been given a stern talking to by professors in Sharlayan before. Does that count?

Thank you for reading! Now to tag some friends to try this out themselves...

I tag YOU! I want to learn all of this about all of your characters!

[wholelotofweird]

Meowdy, I hope you're ready to take a peek at all of the books I've read the last 3 months!

By read, I do also mean listened to. I'm a huge fan of audiobooks, because my brain is bad.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone - Benjamin Stevenson

I love a good mystery book, and this is a good mystery book. The narrator has a strong voice and is up-front about their unreliable nature. This book does a great job of making sure you are on the narrator's side, it never feels like they are purposefully keeping readers in the dark in order to pull a gotcha.

Pacing and suspense are SO well balanced to the point where I devoured this book in a day.

Paladin's Grace - T. Kingfisher

I was so prepared for this book to lean way more heavily into a fantasy world where I'd have to learn more terms and how social systems work, and just 1000 other things that can put me off of fantasy books. It's part of the reason I put it off for so long after getting it recommended to me (sorry, Ben.)

THIS BOOK, THOUGH, is not that at all. We don't have to learn new names for "church" or "palm tree". The author manages to thread the line between assuming that readers know the world already, and not creating a bunch of buckwild new words. The handholding though the worldbuilding is so light that you almost don't even feel it.

The setting manages to feel modern and fantastic all at once, which is just... The perfect food for me. The pantheon exists, but it isn't the focus.

This is a romance novel but not a bodice ripper, or overly erotic. I feel the depths of the emotions between the two main characters, which is what I really want.

My one gripe is that the final resolution feels very deus ex. Now, if I was going to pull out my fancy degree and analyze this, I could make an argument that the ending is supposed to feel that, for [spoilers]. But... I'm not sure how true that is. Maybe I'll have to re-read the book and keep that argument in mind.

Even with the ending, this book is lovely.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop - Meredith Katz

This book is short and sweet and a lovely look at an ace relationship.

I haven't read a book sub 200 pages in about a billion years, so many modern books are 600+ pages. Some of them! So good! Others!! Painfully long! This book manages to build an amazing world, atmosphere, multiple characters, and a believable romantic relationship all in the space of a few hundred pages.

Not just that, but the story happens to be about grief, and life, and what it is a person really wants. There are a handful of books I've read in my life that I connect with on such a deep level that I feel seen and changed, Convince Store Woman is one, and this is one.

Cults - Max Cutler

Taking a hard swerve into some non-fiction. I'll be honest, I wasn't sure what I was getting into with this one. I'm not HUGE into true crime (anymore, 14 year old me S U P E R was), so I was a little concerned that I was signing up for some grim, overly detailed, look into the crimes.

What I got instead was a thoughtful look at the psychology behind cult leaders. Yeah, there are a few sections that are pretty grim, but the book doesn't revel in them, if that makes sense. There is never a point where I feel like I am supposed to be ENJOYING the crimes being detailed.

The focus on not just the leaders lives pre-cult, but the lives of the cult members does a ton of work to unmythologize (.... new word alert) some of these leaders.

House of Salt and Sorrows - Erin A. Craig

So... I don't know. I didn't dislike this book, but I'm not sure I'm a fan. I will read the second one when I have access to it, but I don't know that I'd read this one again.

Here is a true fact about me - I don't read summaries of books or horror movies. This, as you may imagine, leads me to having to some WILD times with media.

Anyway, the point is: I was expecting a mystery period piece. What I got was a fantasy mystery period piece. It was fun, it was a little overly complicated. At the end of the day, I was definitely not the target audience for this.

I'm Glad My Mom Died - Janette McCurdy

Jesus. Christ.

When i-Carly was popular I was juuuuuust old enough to say I hated it, while watching it with my younger sisters pretty frequently. I didn't make sure to watch any of the big event episodes. I didn't see every episode, but the show was a constant in my life.

To get such a raw look at someone's life who was molded to be a 'peer' was WACK. Jennette doesn't sugar coat anything. Her experiences are raw and honest and it is probably the only way these experiences could be expressed.

Paladin's Strength - T. Kingfisher

You may be asking "why didn't you put this up next to the first book?"

Great question.

I'm putting this list in order that I read them, so like. Ease off.

I equal parts liked this book just as much, and had trouble getting through it. I am once again in love with the world and with the characters. During some of the middle of the book it felt like the book was 600 pages just to be 600 pages, and not because things needed to be said.

When I was in college I was accused of writing too many "stage directions" in my literature. I blame my years of RPing on Gaia Online and fan-fic writing on that. There is a definite style that comes from those writing exercises, a style where you want all of the readers to know everything from point A to point B. The thing is, not all of that is needed. I don't need 200 pages of sexual tension and flirting to believe in the relationship of two people. It's the "show don't tell" rule taken to the extreme.

There are some times when it's okay to tell and not show.

I like this book, I wish it was shorter, I will be reading the next one in the series because, damn it, this series is fun.

The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold

I don't tend to read fantasy books Like This anymore. When I was younger this type of book was my bread and butter. I've found that a lot of them (to me, at my advanced age) are tedious. And I'm tired.

This book! Manages not to be tedious and absolutely cradled me in the arms of fantasy I loved when I was younger. The book isn't, plot wise, comforting and yet I felt comforted reading it. I understand that the sentiment makes little sense. I'll say, though, if you were like me and were/are a big fan of Tamora Pierce's work - I cannot recommend this book enough.

Mrs. Sherlock Holmes - Brad Ricca

What is more cool than a woman lawyer, investigator, and social rights advocate in the 1900s? Basically nothing. This is another non-fiction book that truly brought to life the folks it detailed. I am OBSESSED with this woman.

I had never heard of Grace Humiston, which seems like an absolute shame, not just because she was cool as all hell, but because she spent so much time and effort protecting the underserved classes of 1900s New York. She was a lawyer who often worked for free to represent folks who could either not speak or write in English and were being taken advantage of.

She became an investigator, basically, because she knew the police were not putting effort into it.

The Salt Grows Heavy - Cassandra Khaw

This was another one that I didn't read the summary for before jumping in. I knew it was a queer book and I knew there was a mermaid, I didn't need any other convincing.

Here we have another sub 200 page book that tells an amazing love story. A story of personhood and growth and revenge.

It is not an easy read either in content or syntax. I haven't really put any trigger warnings with any of the other books, maybe that's a system I'll implement if anyone is interested. But this one: Body Horror, and Gore. If you have a weak stomach I would, sadly, not recommend this to you.

That said, this book is one of the more poetic ones I've read in a long time. Every word feels purposeful in a way that I don't run into often. Keeping the book short works perfectly for that style. If it were any longer I could easily find myself getting lost in the writing.

Legends & Lattes - Travis Baldree

This book has been on my TBR for... A While. It took my friend starting it and sending rave reviews for me to pick it up.

Here's another fun fact about me - My brain is broken. I have a hard time engaging with media that I KNOW I will enjoy, simply because. Because why? I don't know. To be contrary? Because I don't want to be disappointed? Because I'm scared I'll like it too much?

Who knows, don't recommend shows or movies to me and expect me to get back to you in a timely manner. You have to wait 3-5 years.

So, knowing that, I am glad I forced myself to pick this up. This is the coffee shop AU that we all love. The creation of this AU was treated with such love and care, it's clear the author knows what's up. All I want is a big strong character to fall in love with a smaller, softer, character and also run a little shop.

This book delivers on that and more. I cannot WAIT for the next book.

Leech - Hiron Ennes

I'm going to start with the easy stuff - This is a wonderfully dark book. I'm not usually a gothic horror reader, but wow. This book is about horror, identity, reclaiming the self. My library had it miss-tagged as romance which??? It is SUPER not.

The harder part is putting into words how I feel about this book. I like this book, it is complex and poetic. There were times where I felt like I was about to crawl out of my skin, in a good way. Emotions are so viscerally described that I could feel them in my gut.

The history of the world feels so deep, and the author does an amazing job at making me feel like that there are things going on outside the view of the character. That is an amazing skill to pull on, making the world around the character feel truly alive.

I told my friends when I finished it that sometimes "u read a book and the book read u."

I haven't put on my literature analysis hat on in nearly a decade. I would LOVE to spend more time to sit with this book and peel back the layers and figure out all of the ways this book makes me feel seen as a queer person. I don't have the words for that right now. Just know that I felt it.

Ghost Eaters - Clay McLeod Chapman

I don't know how I feel about this book. I think, overall, I like it. I think the plot is interesting, but the book isn't really about the plot, it's about the character. It's about grief and relationships and healing.

I felt like the first 200 pages were a real struggle for me. Unlike some of the other books I've read on this list, I did read a blurb about this one. I wonder if that was why the first 3rd of this book was a struggle. I was waiting the hook to find me. Instead, I had pages and pages of character exploration. I don't hate character exploration! But it wasn't what I was expecting.

The end... Left me feeling sad, and a little hopeless. Which, I think is the point. I think is why I don't read a ton of horror books. I love horror movies, I don't mind if the endings of those are bleak and hopeless. I think the difference is time spent. Reading a book takes so much more time and dedication and like... I want to be happy, is the thing.

I like this book, I think it's a wonderfully written look at addiction and grief and the ways those can eat a person alive.

Paladin's Hope - T. Kingfisher

I devoured this book in 5 hours. I... I opened it and did not put it down. I think this one may be my favorite of the three. I think the author managed to strike the exact right balance of tension, romance, and action.

Unlike Paladin's Strength, I never felt that there were these big empty spaces -- There was momentum.

I want to once again say that I LOVE that the characters are into their 30s. As a person also into their 30s it's just nice to see folks who feel real. Maybe I've been reading the wrong books for years, I simply feel a deep connection for characters similar in age who are just so... Normal (ignoring that some of them are paladin's of a dead god... you know what I mean).

[actress4him]

Black, Yellow, Blue, Green, Orange, Pink

...Red

Part 2. Keep an eye on the warnings, and let me know if you want to be tagged in future chapters.

Previous | Next

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: captivity, self-harm (scratching), torture, electric shocks, brainwashing, dehumanization, noncon surgery, guns, gunshot wounds . . They’ve decided that if he’s not repeating their mantra, he doesn’t deserve to talk at all.

The rivets in his arms have grown deeper, have multiplied and spread to his neck and the backs of his hands.

He’s only granted permission to speak when they come back for more, and he’s finally decided to take advantage of it.

He doesn’t even know why he was resisting anymore.

As soon as the electricity cuts off and releases his body, as soon as he can stop screaming, he gives in.

“You are not a Blade.”

“I-I am n-not...not a Blade.”

“You are not a Paladin.”

“I am...am not a P-Paladin.”

“You are not a person.”

“I am not...n-not...a pers-...a person.”

“You are nothing.”

“I a-am nothing.”

“You are worthless.”

“I-I am w-worthless.”

“Again.”

—————————————

Hunk whistles a tune his mother used to sing to him as he batters chicken strips - well, okay, they’re not actually chicken, but they’re from some sort of feathered creature and they taste close enough. Especially once they get dredged in Kaltenecker‘s milk and some kipopi flour with spices from Delpon and dipped in that blue sauce he concocted a while back that tastes almost exactly like ketchup… 

Oh, yeah. Dinner tonight is gonna be good.

He’s so caught up in his whistling and preparations that he almost misses someone entering the kitchen. A small shuffled footstep catches his attention, and he whirls around with batter still coating his fingers to see who it is. 

He only gets a glimpse of black hair before pain erupts in his gut.

After that the world goes hazy and tips over sideways.

————————————

A new mantra now. 

He’s perfected the old one, is able to say it many times through without stumbling, just like they want him to.

It’s easy, once he stops trying to be who he used to be.

Now they don’t even have to hurt him to get him to repeat the words, though they’re always poised and ready, just in case.

“You belong to us.”

“I belong to you.”

“You are a weapon.”

“I am a weapon.”

“Your job is to kill the Paladins.”

“My job is to kill the Paladins.”

“You must not fail.”

“I must not fail.” 

————————————

He’s failing.

No, no, he can’t believe that, not yet. He can still make this right. For some reason with both Orange and Yellow, his aim had wavered at the last second. But they will still die, they have to. As long as he ensures none of the other Paladins reach them, his mission will still be complete.

They’ll be angry, of course. He’ll be punished. Perfection is the only option, and he’s been far from perfect. But he can make it right from here on out, he can. 

He has to.

————————————

One day, out of the blue, after days on end of repeated beatings and shocks and repetitions of the new phrases, they arrive in his cell and drag him out for the first time, down a hallway and into a room full of medical equipment. He’s shoved face down onto the table in the center, and straps are tightened around all his joints and across his head and chest. 

He’s scared. He’s so incredibly scared to find out what’s about to happen. But he knows that there’s absolutely nothing he can do to stop it.

There’s no reason to give him pain medication, of course. He’s not a person. The next thing he knows, something sharp and cold is slicing into the skin on the back of his neck. He cries out, but it’s muffled through the leather on his face. 

The procedure is relatively quick. After the cut, something is shoved inside of his neck, and then it’s stitched back up.

He doesn’t know what it is. He doesn’t want to know what it is. It can’t possibly be anything good. 

The incision itches for days afterwards, but he doesn’t dare touch it.

————————————

“Did you hear that?” 

Allura spins around in the middle of the hallway, concern etched into her face. “I heard a strange sound...almost like a blaster.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Pidge shrugs. “You know you Alteans have better hearing than us humans. But if it was a blaster, maybe it was Lance practicing.”

“It did not come from the direction of the training deck. It came from this way…” She starts forward toward the kitchen, dining room, and lounge area of the ship, and Pidge trails along behind her, still mostly engrossed in the coding on her tablet. They don’t make it far, though, before someone steps out into their path.

“Keith!” Allura exclaims, halting. “I did not know that you were here.”

Pidge finally looks up and gives a half wave. “Oh hey, Keith. What brings you here?”

He stares at them for a moment in silence before sucking in a deep breath. “My mission.”

In a flash, he’s raised a blaster and shot Allura in the stomach. 

Pidge nearly drops the tablet. “Quiznak! What the -...” Allura is doubling over, dropping in slow motion to the floor, and Keith is still just standing there, blaster trained on her. She doesn’t know who to go to, what to do about either of them. Her heart races in her throat as she stands uselessly and tries to figure out what the heck is going on.

“Keith, what are you -?”

But the gun is pointing at her now, and she fears she’s out of time to decide anything. This can’t really be Keith. There’s nothing of the Keith she knows in this person’s eyes. But then, a flicker, of what, she doesn’t know - guilt? regret? - and his hand starts to shake. 

“Keith, please...don’t…”

Her vision whites out at the same time she hears the blaster fire.

[sophia-sol]

Books read in 2021

It's time for my yearly roundup of books I read over the last year! This time with links to my tumblr posts with my reviews for each book, aww yeah!

Under a cut for length, because a) I read a lot of books and then b) I talk about them a bunch.

January **** Boyfriend Material, by Alexis Hall **** Mirage, by Somaiya Daud **** Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang **** Strong Poison, by Dorothy L Sayers February ***** Winter's Orbit, by Everina Maxwell ***** I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder, by Sarah Kurchak - nf *** Court of Lions, by Somaiya Daud *** Rent a Boyfriend, by Gloria Chao ***** Elatsoe, by Darcie Little Badger March *** That Can Be Arranged: A Muslim Love Story, by Huda Fahmy - nf **** Paladin's Strength, by T Kingfisher ***** An Anthology of Russian Folk Epics, Translated with an Introduction and Commentary by James Bailey and Tatyana Ivanova - nf **** Measuring Up, by Lily LaMotte, illustrated by Ann Xu ** The Forgotten Sisters, by Shannon Hale **** Moon of the Crusted Snow, by Waubgeshig Rice **** Two Roads, by Joseph Bruchac April **** The Devil Comes Courting, by Courtney Milan *** Ring Shout, by P. Djèlí Clark *** Exhalation, by Ted Chiang May *** Act Your Age, Eve Brown, by Talia Hibbert *** The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu *** Cemetery Boys, by Aiden Thomas *** First Comes Like, by Alisha Rai **** Warrior Scarlet, by Rosemary Sutcliff **** Drowned Country, by Emily Tesh June **** Jackalope Wives and Other Stories, by T. Kingfisher *** Falling in Love with Hominids, by Nalo Hopkinson *** Sarah, Plain and Tall, by Patricia MacLachlan *** Skylark, by Patricia MacLachlan **** The Two Princesses of Bamarre, by Gail Carson Levine ***** Catherine's War, by Julia Billet **** Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse *** Raybearer, by Jordan Ifueko *** Legendborn, by Tracy Deonn **** The Empress of Salt and Fortune, by Nghi Vo ***** When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, by Nghi Vo ** Come Tumbling Down, by Seanan McGuire **** Finna, by Nino Cipri ** Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey *** A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler, by Lynell George - nf **** The Barren Grounds, by David A Robertson **** Fugitive Telemetry, by Martha Wells ***** Beowulf: A New Translation, by Maria Dahvana Headley July **** Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail, by Dave Arnold - nf **** The Vanished Birds, by Simon Jimenez ***** Black Water Sister, by Zen Cho **** The Space Between Worlds, by Micaiah Johnson *** Accidentally Engaged, by Farah Heron **** The Bombay Prince, by Sujata Massey **** The Witness for the Dead, by Katherine Addison *** The Relentless Moon, by Mary Robinette Kowal August *** Silk and Steel: A Queer Speculative Adventure Anthology, edited by Janine A. Southard *** Islamicates Volume I, edited by Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad ** A Mosque Among the Stars, edited by Ahmed A. Khan and Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad *** A Treasure of One's Own, by Lydia San Andres *** A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik ***** Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik *** The Girl from the Sea, by Molly Knox Ostertag September *** The Chosen and the Beautiful, by Nghi Vo *** The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison ***** The Raven Tower, by Ann Leckie **** My Remarkable Journey: A Memoir, by Katherine Johnson - nf **** Fence, vol. 1-4, by C.S. Pacat, art by Johanna the Mad **** While We Were Dating, by Jasmine Guillory October ***** She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan *** A Master of Djinn, by P Djeli Clark *** The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers *** Working on a Song: The Lyrics of Hadestown, by Anaïs Mitchell - nf *** Paladin's Hope, by T. Kingfisher ***** Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer - nf *** Care Of, by Ivan Coyote - nf **** Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier **** An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, by Chris Hadfield - nf ***** My Cousin Rachel, by Daphne du Maurier November *** Redemptor, by Jordan Ifueko *** Bayou Magic, by Jewell Parker Rhodes *** Superior: The Return of Race Science, by Angela Saini - nf **** Witches of Brooklyn, by Sophie Escabasse **** How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, by Clint Smith - nf *** The Last Graduate, by Naomi Novik **** Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad, by MT Anderson - nf *** Carmilla, by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu *** The Fire Never Goes Out, by Noelle Stevenson - nf **** Be Prepared, by Vera Brosgol ***** They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei - nf ***** Snapdragon, by Kat Leyh *** Heartstopper volume 1, by Alice Oseman *** Witches of Brooklyn: What the Hex?!, by Sophie Escabasse ***** The Magic Fish, by Trung Le Nguyen *** Operatic, by Kyo Maclear *** How Mirka Got Her Sword, by Barry Deutsch ** Jane, the Fox and Me, by Fanny Britt & Isabelle Arsenault December *** The Kingdom of Gods, by NK Jemisin **** The Awakened Kingdom, by NK Jemisin *** The Jumbies, by Tracey Baptiste ** The Dating Playbook, by Farrah Rochon **** Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki **** Heartstopper volume 2, by Alice Oseman *** The Prince and the Dressmaker, by Jen Wang This year I read 102 books! (As a result I'm not going to bother including percentages for any of these stats, as the straight numbers will be pretty close to the percentage of total.) Of the books I read, only 7 were rereads, which is super low when compared to past years; not sure what all factors played into that. Fantasy: 51 Graphic novels: 21 Kidlit: 20 Historical fiction: 14 Nonfiction: 13 Romance: 13 YA: 13 Science Fiction: 11 Old books: 4 Short Stories: 7 Memoir: 5 Famous/Classic: 4 Translated: 3 Mystery: 3 Literary Fiction: 2 Gothic: 2 Folk/fairy tale collection: 1 Poetry: 1 Books with male authors: 20 Books with female authors: 73 Books with nonbinary authors: 12 Books with authors of colour: 52 5-star books: 16 4-star books: 38 3-star books: 42 2-star books: 6 1-star books: 0 Books continue to be an important source of good in my life. I love reading books, I love figuring out what I think about a book and how to express it clearly in my reviews, and I love talking about the books I read with other people who have opinions on them - whether in the comments of one of my book posts, in the comments of their book posts, in person, in twitter DMs, in chat....it's great. I've also been working on feeling like it's okay for me to not write/post a review of a book when I don't actually want to though, for whatever reason, and I feel like this year I was successful at not pressuring myself to! (however: if you want to talk with me about any of the books I listed without a review linked, please feel free to, talking to people is different :)) The kinds of books I read in any given year are highly influenced by what sorts of kicks I end up on. Last year I read a whole bunch of poetry, for example, because I started reading Robert Service and couldn't stop. This year my graphic novel count is the highest it's ever been because I went through the the list of all graphic novel ebooks my library had to offer. Both last year and this year I've done my best to read my way through all the Hugo nominees in all the categories I can, which introduces books into my life that I might not otherwise have thought to give a try to, and which sometimes result in exciting finds and sometimes result in me going "ugh WHY THIS." I've been making good use of my library's curbside pickup this year instead of just relying on their ebooks like I did last year, which opened up more books to my availability even in a time when covid means wandering through the library on a regular basis isn't as safe as it used to be. I started tagging all my book thoughts posts this year with my star rating of them (...at least on dreamwidth, where tags work differently), which I think is a net benefit to my overall tagging/info-conveyance system. It makes it really easy to discover, for example, how MANY of the books I read are ones that I really do like. A good sign that I'm curating my own reading well. And I read so many good books this year! I say this every year but it's really true! There are so many amazing books in the world and I put LOTS of them in front of my face. What's my favourite of them??? How to even narrow it down! She Who Became the Sun absolutely blew me away, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain felt like it was written just for meeeeee, Elatsoe was a delight, An Anthology of Russian Folk Epics was fascinating, Beowulf: A New Translation was endless fun, Spinning Silver continues to be brilliant, The Magic Fish did a perfect job of marrying form and theme to enhance an already amazing story, My Cousin Rachel sent me basically feral for a week straight.....BOOKS!!! I successfully managed to not read any one-star books this year, go me. I think my least favourite would be either Upright Women Wanted or Come Tumbling Down, though it's possible that feeling like the Hugos made me read those ones made my feelings of dislike for them more intense than for the books I personally inflicted upon me. At any rate although both books emphatically did not work for me, they clearly have elements that speak to other readers, and honestly it's nice when my least favourite books of a given year aren't just irredeemable dreck.

[everlastingfable]

a jumbled mess of my thoughts about voltron

This’ll probably be the messiest post you’ll ever read. I’m done trying to finish this and edit it into something coherent, so I’m just combining the 3 drafts I have written out into one massive post. I doubt anyone will read this whole thing, but each draft is a sort of rewrite of the last, so there’s a lot of overlap. But there’s also a lot of new thoughts too as I kept thinking about this. There’s also a lot of unfinished thoughts.

There’s mostly negativity in this btw. This fandom had/has an amazing ability in making you think that this show was utter garbage. on par with riv//erdale or s//pn, but it really wasn’t. Like many shows they had weak points, it was never perfect, but it’s much better than we’re told to remember it as.

Intro from Draft 3 because I liked the way I started it:

This is all of my thoughts about Voltron, the show itself and the fandom. I have tried to write this post out for over a year or two now, so it was originally intended to be my final thoughts about the show. Obviously, it’s evolved since then into whatever this is. There may be some things that I’ll be wrong about, because I’m not about to dig through hundreds of discourse posts and old interview videos to prove a point that I doubt anyone’s gonna care about. This will 100% be based on my thoughts, opinions, and experiences.

That said, I don’t even know how to begin to describe how much I love this show. I’m probably one of the few people who have no regrets about enjoying this show as much as I do. I’d wholeheartedly recommend watching it, because it’s genuinely a good show. Voltron did the unimaginable for me. I don’t usually enjoy sci-fi stories. I especially don’t enjoy mecha stories. Yet somehow, Voltron combined the two and made a show that I loved so much I can’t stop thinking about it even though it ended over 2 years ago.

Draft 1: thoughts about a year after it ended without rewatching any seasons since it ended

It’s been about a year since voltron ended. I never wrote my thoughts about s8/the show then so here it is now. Because I decided to wait a year I honestly don’t remember a lot of specifics. But I still have a lot to say about it. This is very long and is basically everything I have to say about this show. I love voltron. It’s been an important part of my life during college. 90% of all papers I wrote were about voltron. But as much as I love it, I won’t deny that it fell apart at the end. 

Note: I tried to categorize these thoughts so I don’t get off topic and can talk about everything fully. But because they overlap so much there’s definitely some minor repeats when I connect two parts but decided to hold off talking about it all the way until the right section.

PRODUCTION

This is something I’ve expressed concern over while it was airing, but in a span of 2 and a half years, they premiered 78 episodes. That’s a lot, especially when you consider that production for s3 started after s1 premiered. There’s a lot of really good voltron review videos out there that aren’t just “oh I’m so cool I hate voltron” but there was one that talked about how the production was a mess and the writers couldn’t make up their mind for the endgame ship. And while that doesn’t sound like an important issue, it really does show when it comes to how characters are written together and (I think) the fandom war. 

Summarizing what that video said because I don’t remember who made it, the writers/producers never made up their mind on which ship was supposed to be endgame (klance, sheith, allurance, kallura). And this really does show in the show itself. I don’t like klance. I especially hate it because of my experience with the fandom, but I won’t deny that they were sometimes written romantically. The same goes for sheith. And that’s the problem. 

I don’t think the world building parts of the show was fully developed either. Shiro was supposed to be a teen like everyone else but then he was an adult. His and keith’s relationship was honestly vague for a good while. I don’t think anyone really knew how each characters’ relationships with each other was supposed to progress. Was allurance always supposed to be endgame? Because they didn’t really interact that much until like season 6, and then it was kinda sudden from what I remember. There was very little, if at all, parts where we were shown oh allura might like lance romantically. Keith’s relationship with the main cast didn’t exist for like 3 seasons. It was messy. 

Speaking of which, keith disappeared for a good portion of the show. I assume it’s because steven yeun was busy. Which is fine but then I think about how quickly voltron came and went, I wonder why they couldn’t slow down a bit so they could still have steven voice keith during those episodes. Maybe it’s because of how much I love keith, but he honestly felt like a central character to me. 

If I think about teen titans, for example, this show also had 5 main characters. Sometimes certain characters would get a spotlight for a season, but all-in-all they were fairly equally represented. It didn’t feel like robin was the main character. But that’s how I feel about voltron. Keith, and shiro to an extent are the main characters. A good portion of the plot relies on them. Shiro got kidnapped, keith leads them to the blue lion. Shiro is the leader with keith has his right-hand man and they mostly interact with each other. So when shiro “dies” and keith takes over, it starts to feel like keith is now the main character. Now he’s the leader and the arc is about him growing into becoming the black paladin and stopping lotor, who is his main enemy. But then he disappears. 

Again this is most likely because of my bias towards keith, but the episodes after that felt lackluster. Lance didn’t really get his character growth to become a good second-in-command. Because that development was supposed to be based around keith. :P. A big part of lance’s growth is to learn to stop needing to feel that he’s better than keith. And him accepting keith as the black paladin was a huge part of it. But with shiro as the leader again lance loses that development. Keith’s not in the picture anymore, and the person in-charge was already in a leadership position and has nothing to learn by being there. 

Before I go way too deep into my thoughts about the plot/characterization, I do want to mention the animation. The fighting scenes are amazing and one of the most beautiful 2d animation I’ve seen. That is, when it is actually animated and not just the camera panning on a still image. Here’s where my biggest concern over the time comes in. 2 years is absolutely not enough time to animate that many episodes. I was genuinely worried for the animation company because it could not have been a good experience. And yes, we got more episodes sooner, the quality definitely dropped and it’s a real shame. Who knows when we’ll get another american cartoon in this style. I love this animation style but it takes time and a lot of skills to do, so not that many companies do it. I honestly wished they took their time with the show not just to get more time to animate, but also to flesh out some of the plot.

PLOT

As hunk said in one episode, they don’t linger on dramatic events that just happened. This show is very fast paced, and that’s not a bad thing. But they never took the time they needed to really feel the weight of everything that happens. Keith’s galra heritage reveal was basically swept under the rug. So was the shiro clone, lotor’s death, zarkon’s death, naxzela, and so many more. In general, that was a big problem with how the episodes went. If it wasn’t for the sheer number of fanfics covering those topics, they were really swept under the rug. It honestly kinda felt like the writers didn’t know what to do with the aftermath of their reveals. But some of these were pretty essential to the plot of the story. 

Keith’s part galra! So he doesn’t look it but there had to be obstacles with voltron forming the coalition. He’s part of the race that caused this war. I honestly think we should’ve seen that reveal become part of the plot, or what was the point of it? They could’ve just as easily wrote keith to be a regular human just like everyone else. Taking the time to add that part of his character needs to have some significance in the story. And yeah, they had krolia appear but she wasn’t really a significant character except to kinda magically fix keith’s problems. In general it felt like they forgot parts that they were foreshadowing with keith. Why could he turn purple sometimes? Did that quintessence he was hit with fix him or help him hide the galra parts? Why does he look so human? What is up with him having that quintessence sensitivity? I’m all for shows ending with some questions unanswered because sometimes it’s impossible to answer it all and let it feel natural, but this just felt like they forgot or decided it’s too much of a hassle and just ignored it.

Okay going into more specifics now, s8 was kinda meh. It especially felt bad because it came out the same day as spiderverse which had a very similar villain motivation, but objectively done better. I think honerva’s motivation came out of nowhere. We see in the flashback episode that she was so intent on getting knowledge that it literally destroyed daibazaal. So, it was established that her motivation is knowledge. Even though she lost her memory and regained it, as haggar she was still very focused on quintessence. We know she was gathering a lot of it, and maybe they said it and I forgot, but we never knew why. Family wasn’t really shown as a motivation for her. Even with lotor it didn’t seem like she wanted to be a family again, but instead was using him for her own unknown motivations. Anyways, the season felt awkward. And the new dynamic they had really needed more time. The last season should’ve expanded to be at least 2 more. It would’ve fit a lot better imo. S1-2 would have zarkon as the main villain, s3-6 would have lotor, and s7-8 would have haggar, who was also the puppeteer throughout the entire show. But she didn’t appear for s7 and her motivations didn’t really make sense in s8 so it evidently felt rushed. There were also so many major characters in s8 we needed more time to see them interact. 

So the ending with allura becoming constellations. Gonna be honest that whole last part had me confused. Especially with the fact that I barely remember what happened, why are the old paladins like trapped in the lions? I could excuse the other 4 but zarkon? Especially a zarkon that’s not corrupted? It was weird and didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and that’s all I’ll say about that. I don’t even want to try to suggest an alternative because I think that whole last half of the season is so messy it can’t be fixed. But it was so obviously pandering to the fandom it hurt. Lance getting those marks was so obviously referencing when people wanted lance to be altean in response to keith’s galra heritage. The shiro/curtis kiss was very “look see he is gay and not just because we said so” while nice, was very weak (why wasn’t keith in the shot?).

Despite my complaints, I remember liking s8. I really liked the addition of the atlas, even though it didn’t feel like we were watching voltron anymore sometimes. S7 had to be one of my favorite episodes since s2. Not to say that s7 is better or worse, but I really like it because it felt like a genre shift. I usually don’t like space sci-fi or mecha stories. Voltron somehow managed to combine the two and make me love it. S7 did not feel like either of those. First, a good half of it took place on earth. And I believe two episodes didn’t even have the main cast, and when team voltron finally made it to earth, voltron wasn’t even there until the final battle. I genuinely loved it. I think it was a very well done invasion/apocalyptic story that doesn’t get told in animation that often. But if I think about s7 with the rest of the show, it was awful. It broke up the tone the show usually had and it was a very different way of storytelling that voltron didn’t have before. It wasn’t a space sci-fi mecha story, it was an apocalyptic action story. Voltron was so unimportant they sat on a moon for episodes. It stopped becoming voltron and started becoming a spin-off. 

I do have to add that I absolutely loved the color themes in s7. We already had purple for the galra, but in s7 it was very obvious that alteans are themed blue and earth is themed with orange. I loved it so much and it was great. I do like that they gave shiro something to do. Honestly not killing him off in s2 made him an awkward character afterwards. But I didn’t like that they brought back sendak. There was no explanation for it and it wasn’t good imo. He didn’t really do anything besides conquer earth then die. Haggar was also absent the entire season which definitely didn’t help her storyline in s8 because we didn’t know what she was doing the entire time except abandoning everyone who was loyal to her. 

I’m usually not a fan of time skips, it has the tendency to gloss over character development or create glossed over recap. Honestly I wish voltron spent more time over the blade of marmora massacre or just the bom in general. They received no rest. Literally everyone part of that group died except for kolivan. Speaking of that episode, there was no explanation for how keith was able to know where macidus was about to appear and that honestly bugs me. There’s so much about keith we don’t know. He has so many abilities we were just never told. 

Again a lot of problems within team voltron is that there was never any follow up on things that happened, like keith leaving the team. He becomes the black paladin and no one bats an eye. Lance did make one comment about keith leaving but then it wasn’t ever mentioned again. I get that the writers/producers wanted the dynamic the original had, but they didn’t take the time to work up to it. Keith wasn’t a natural leader, but he suddenly is because he spent 2 years on a space whale with his mom and a space wolf. Like I mentioned earlier, voltron feels like keith is the main character but then they dropped him for a few episodes, realized that he’s important and added him back in while saying “oh he went through a time skip so he grew into the role he needs to be in now”. It feels like a cheap pay off.

I’d like to specifically talk about my thoughts on each season and work back but honestly I don’t think I can remember s3-6 separately. So they’re being chunked together. 

Lotor had the potential to be a really great villain. But he had to be foiled with keith. They have a lot of similarities that I think could’ve really played off well together. Lotor isn’t really allowed to have a leadership position. Yeah he was technically in charge while zarkon was recovering, but haggar didn’t really allow him full control. But, he was a great leader. He knew how to read his enemies and form an alliance. Meanwhile, keith had a leadership position thrusted to him, and frankly he wasn’t a good leader. He tends to keep to himself so he never really has to make decisions with a team. It could’ve been great, but shiro had to still be in the story. I’m honestly conflicted about this because on the one hand, I think it really ruined character developments for the main cast, but then I loved the clone shiro plot line. I think keeping shiro prevented keith from growing. He was able to remain dependent on shiro instead of actually bonding with the rest of the paladins. And of course he had to just go awol. Also, lance didn’t really get to have as prominent of a role as I think he could’ve had with keith. 

These seasons are also when the lions stopped being sentient robots that specifically choose their paladins to just really cool spaceships. We don’t get that level of bonding that was so prominent in s1 and 2. That’s also something I’m conflicted with. I think the lion swap was a great way for character developments, but it also removed a lot of it. It kinda made the bonding feel useless. The swap also changed the dynamic of the group. Instead of shiro and allura being co-leaders, and everyone else feeling like they’re on equal footing, it felt like Keith was the leader with lance being a needed right-hand man. Hunk and pidge were off doing their thing and allura was a leader but also not. Maybe if they had spent more time working with this dynamic it would’ve felt better. But they didn’t and it didn’t. Voltron also implied that allura was the only one that could control the castle ship, but then she goes to become a paladin and who’s driving the ship?

I do wish we could’ve gotten more about the altean colony and the reveal about lotor’s plans, but that got overshadowed and forgotten by the clone shiro reveal. Maybe I just missed it, but I wasn’t sure what the galra empire and lotor were collecting quintessence for. Was it just to make mechs to rival voltron? Lotor’s death was also very unclear. 

The coalition was a much needed thing, but I think very badly executed. They were gathering people from malls. These people are regular civilians who probably don’t know how to fight or fly a ship. I thought it was really weird that they were just getting regular people (aliens?) to sign up like they’re applying to be part of the army. But we never see them maybe join the rebel force matt is part of to learn how exactly to help. I think about avatar and how they also had a rag tag group of people to fight against the fire nation, but these weren’t just regular people living in a village. They were either warriors or very skilled benders. The voltron coalition was just regular people. That genuinely annoyed me because the voltron show just felt like those army propaganda ads, but exciting. Not to mention it was a very hard to watch episode. 

It was definitely making fun of how the fandom complains about how characters are getting reduced to a certain characteristic. But it wasn’t done in an entertaining way like the ember island players episode from atla because some of those were legit complaints (like hunk being the fat/food guy) and that stuff wasn’t resolved. Like the ember island players made fun of sokka constantly talking about meat or katara crying all the time, but the show made it very clear beforehand that these characters are much more than that. Is hunk really more than the food guy? As far as the show mentions, the only things he’s done was make the machine to help find the blue lion, and help save the balmera. All of which was in season 1. After that hunk honestly took the backseat in voltron.

I mentioned earlier, but the time skip on the space whale felt like we were cheated out of keith’s character development. I mean we got development, but we didn’t get to see it. The vlog short showed that keith believes a lot of his problems stems from not having a mom (and a dad) in his life. But instead of seeing keith learning to trust and open up to people despite having so many people in his life leaving him, we get a cute montage of him with his mom. As if it makes sense that two years with his mom would fix everything. (side note, I know a lot of people were saying how obvious it was that krolia was keith’s mom, I genuinely did not know until she said so at the end of that episode).

I’m not gonna talk about my thoughts on s1 and 2 because I’m pretty sure I live blogged those and honestly I don’t think I remember it. 

CHARACTERS

Now I’m finally talking about the characters and I’m starting off with keith as if I haven’t talked about him enough already. I love keith. He’s undeniably one of my (if not the) favorite characters ever. And he’s obviously a fandom favorite if we’re considering the two biggest ships in the fandom. Or maybe he really is just the secret main character of voltron. We know so much about him, for someone who loves keith, it’s great. We basically know his entire backstory, and yet we know no one else’s (except maybe lotor but even that’s iffy).

I never rewatched a single voltron episode since it ended, and I can’t watch any of the connected shows (meaning shows that have the same ppl that worked on it or the same fans, think dragon prince and she-ra) because the fandom was the absolute worst one I’ve ever been in and parts legit trigger me. I am fascinated with fandoms. I love it. I chose my major because it was the closest I could get to just learning about them 24/7. But the voltron fandom was so incredibly toxic and over two ships? Honestly the fandom itself was a major reason why I couldn’t get super invested in the later seasons. I get afraid when it seems like a certain ship might happen. I actually hoped that certain characters just didn’t interact. (I’m not gonna get much deeper in this because I don’t want to touch this topic with a ten-foot pole, at least not now) Aside from that, I think that the plot and characterizations for voltron got really messy post s2. The lion switch was never handled well imo, and post switch the lions lost that sentient personality that was established in the first two seasons. It also didn’t make sense aside from the writers wanted everyone in the original lions. Or at least, we never got the proper character developments into those roles. Keith left right after becoming the black paladin. 

I think another major problem with the show is how some decisions felt like pandering. I remember hearing that they didn’t kill off shiro because he was a fan favorite, so he had to stay for marketing and to make more money. But then keeping shiro alive would’ve derailed the original plot idea. I wish I could see how the story would’ve played out with shiro staying dead.

Draft 2: rewatched the show then started writing this

So I wrote a draft of this like a year ago, realized I don’t remember the show much, so I rewatched the whole show and started rewriting my thoughts.

Pre-rewatch thoughts: It was a good show that was poorly executed

Mid-rewatch thoughts: it’s a really good show that just has some weak points (the second half of lotor’s arc, team voltron’s importance in season 4-6 it feels like a lot of filler episodes until keith shows up again)

End-rewatch thoughts: it's actually a really good show. It has some weak points and some really strong points. Season 8 was confusing though. I went through most of it going yeah okay I guess that can happen.

Final verdict: it's a genuinely good show

What went wrong

It ended on its weakest season, which was also the most abstract and different season. While the main antagonist changed throughout the seasons, it still continued to be the galra empire. Even when lotor joined, the team was still fighting fractions of the galra empire. Meanwhile, season 8 didn’t have any conflict with the galra. The antagonists were honerva and the alteans, who are very different types of villains compared to the galra. There was also little build up to that change. Sure, we got to experience that briefly in season 3 when they went to the alternate reality, but I don’t think that was built up well. Also, the protagonists and the audience are just not prepared. We don’t know how the alteans work like the extent of their abilities, but we were given dozens of episodes to learn about the galra. As a result season 8 just wound up with me feeling confused and thinking “uhh sure I guess they can do that, that makes sense maybe?”

It could not pick who its protagonist is. Yeah the five humans plus allura (and coran?) are the main characters but most shows with multiple major characters still focus one one character as the protagonist. Like atla has aang, adventure time has finn, umbrella academy has five. Voltron just never picks someone and the group constantly changes too, so you end up having to not focus on any character for the sake of time. Of course not all shows do that. Teen Titans had each season focus on a particular member of the team, and tbh I was wondering if that was what they were planning for the show, especially when season 2 was so Keith focused but guess not.

It feels like they did not have the time to fully flesh out the story. Voltron came and went so incredibly fast. They had 8 seasons (technically 6 if you group up the halved seasons). But also the show only lasted 2 years. It honestly horrifies me to think of the time crunch everyone on the team was going through, especially the animators. You can see the drop in quality as there were very few scenes that involved actual animation for the middle bulk of the show. So then, how much time did they have to develop the story, in addition to execs telling them what they can and can’t do. There’s so many arcs that seemed to start then get forgotten, and I don’t blame the writers for that at all. Although I wish we could’ve learned more about Lance and the Altean sword and Keith with his apparent quintessence sensitivity, they probably just didn’t have the time to plot those out.

It had too much outside influence. Such as, the writers wanting to kill off shiro, but then being forced to keep him on the show because the execs said to. And honestly, the fandom. For example, the whole last episode with Lance getting the Altean marks (an obvious omage to ppl wanting Altean Lance).

What went right

There’s a reason why the show became so popular (aside from being a reboot of a popular 80′s show) and it’s because of the characters. I’m not about the whole “we become attached to characters because the writers did them wrong but we fans can see the potential and that’s why fan works are better” bs that I see going around this site all the time. The first season particularly wrote these characters so well. They’re relatable but also intriguing enough for you to care about what’s going to happen to them. 

Some thoughts regarding popular fandom discussions:

It’s a plot-driven show with character-focused fans

I like to think of there being two ways to tell a story: by being character-focused or plot-driven. Plot driven shows are ones like atla, young justice, legend of korra, etc. There’s a conflict that gets introduced and the story revolves around that conflict. Character-focused shows are ones like adventure time or we bare bears, they’re less concerned about a plot line and focus more on the characters interacting with their world. Of course all stories incorporate both parts, just some focus more on one than the other. So, here’s where I think a lot of the issues about voltron and the fandom comes from. Voltron is a very obviously plot-driven show but the fandom is very character-focused. I won’t deny I loved the episodes about keith. Season 4 and 5 were hard for me to watch because I missed my boy. But that’s where the arguments come from. People get upset that their fav isn’t in the spotlight

It didn’t queerbait

I understand watching a show for representation, I really do, but voltron is not that show and that's okay. Not every show has to be revolutionary in its representation of marginalized people. I won't pretend to know the harmful tropes for marginalized people. My consumption of media is not usually diverse. But I will stand by my stance that a large part of voltron's later seasons is about the casualties of war. So of course a lot of people died. I also firmly believe that the producers had a much easier time adding diversity to their own created characters than the main voltron characters, because of rights and all that complicated nonsense. So as a result the ones who were more expendable and could die were also the same characters that they could add diversity too.

I’m gonna add the definition of queerbait here so we’re all on the same page:  Queerbait is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation.

But here’s the thing. We were told at comic-con or one of those cons that Shiro is gay, and he had a boyfriend. They actually gave us that. Yeah it wasn’t as explicit as She-ra got, but that’s another point for later. There was no lying about it. Shiro is canonically gay, and his boyfriend was Adam. If anything, this whole thing came out of wanting Keith in a relationship with Shiro or Lance. Yes. I will admit, there are plenty of scenes between Keith and Lance, and Keith and Shiro that can be read as romantic. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but did any of the cast members tease the possibility of Kl//ance or Sh//eith (VAs don’t count, sorry but they don’t really have a say in the story)? Because unless they did, and they did repeatedly, the fandom queerbaited themselves. So many people in the fandom were so certain that Keith would be in a relationship with one of them, there was basically an all out war. Even if there was a chance, did you really think the creators (who were pretty active in early fandom days) would continue that development? It was so so toxic they were forced to shut off any possibilities of that.

In regards to minority characters

Again, I'll admit vld is not the place to go for real, proper representation. Their characters tend to be characters that happen to be a part of a minority rather than a minority character. wtf does that mean? Well, you can swap (earth) races for just about any character and it wouldn't make too much of a difference in how they act. There's some lines that wouldn't work like Lance's "I'm just a boy from Cuba" but other than that there would be no significant change. Of course this goes down to preference. Would you want a minority character whose struggles reflect those in real life and as a result be defined by that aspect of themselves, or do you want a character that just happens to be a part of a minority group but whose life is not really affected by that? 

Draft 3: months after the rewatch, mostly an attempt to reorganize the previous two drafts

I’m gonna start with the negatives just to get the ranting off my chest. Season 8 was bad. Yeah. No argument there. Although I wouldn’t say it was bad in the same way Game of Thrones and Supernatural was bad. Rather, it was an interesting and complex premise that didn’t have the build up it needed and honestly needed a few more passthroughs to iron out some parts. At worse, I felt it was confusing to the point where I just accepted whatever new worldbuilding thing they threw at me. The issue with Season 8 vs Seasons 1-7 is that Season 8 had a completely different villain, and a brand new cast dynamic. We got 7 seasons (65 episodes) developing the Galra as the villain. We got to learn who they are, their motives, how they operate, etc. Not only that, but they were pretty basic and easy to understand villains. They’re conquerors. They don’t have any sort of magic, they really just use brute force to attack and enslave the planets. In striking contrast, the Alteans in Season 8 weren’t conquerors. They didn’t care about controlling the universe. They also had magic abilities that our main characters don’t understand and didn’t explore. Season 8 had villains who could create illusions, mind control, and manipulate quintessence. The Alteans are leagues beyond the Galra in terms of complexities as an antagonist, but they didn’t get nearly enough time to be fully developed.

Also, Season 8 essentially doubled the cast size. So despite the fact that we have yet to see much of Keith-as-the-black-paladin Voltron group dynamic, now that screentime is being balanced with the MFE pilots and other Garrison characters. Essentially, there were too many characters, and too little time to flesh out the ideas of this season. A side note, Haggar’s (Honerva?) motivations were lame. I think it would’ve been much more interesting if her plans were just to continue the research she did 10,000 years ago with the rift. That would’ve also brought back the rift monsters which we never got an answer for. What even are they? Instead, her goal to have a family again is really weak. Even in the flashbacks she never showed any care for the more familial aspects of her life. It didn’t make sense for that to be her drive. It also didn’t help that Season 8 came out on like the same day as Spiderverse and the antagonists for both had the same goal, but Spiderverse did an immensely better job.

Another thing that didn’t make sense to me was Keith giving the speech to the rest of the Galra. He is not the right character to give that speech. Sure he’s Galra, but he didn’t even know for most of his life. For him to say “we” like he’s also a citizen of the Galra empire feels so weird. He never grew up with the Empire’s influence, and we never saw him experiencing Galra culture with the Blade. He learned about the Galra as an outsider, and despite the fact that he’s part Galra (he doesn’t even remotely look Galra), I don’t think that gives him the authority to say a speech like that. The speech is similar to Zuko’s at the end of ATLA, and that makes me feel like it would’ve been a lot better had Lotor said it. I think even Kolivan would’ve been a better fit than Keith. 

The more I’m writing about Season 8, the more I’m remembering just how messy and confusing it was. Additionally, the last bit of Season 8 was so obviously pandering to the fandom it gives me second-hand embarrassment. Lance getting those marks was so obviously referencing when people wanted Lance to be Altean in response to Keith's galra heritage. The Shiro getting married was just to make it more obvious that he’s gay, but had no build up. (There were definitely more but I didn’t write myself a list and I’m not rewatching that season)

Second, “Voltron queerbaited”. [this was posted before here]

Speaking of which, Voltron premiered summer of 2016 and ended in winter of 2018. That’s about 2 and a half years where they aired 78 episodes. That’s stupid fast, especially for an animated series. I’m constantly worried about what the people working on that show had to endure. For sure, Season 3 with Shiro coming back wasn’t written until at least Season 1. I recalled the execs demanding that Shiro not be dead since he was a popular character. It’s honestly concerning how little time they had to work on the show, and it unfortunately showed. In the later seasons, a lot of the shots were just still frames that moved across the scene. And the plot line with Lotor could’ve used some work. Although, I think Shiro being forced in there was also a reason for it being so shaky.

I honestly hate Seasons 4 & 5. I cannot tell you what happened because my brain keeps erasing it. Obviously, the lack of Keith had a huge impact on my opinion of those seasons, but it also felt like a whole lot of filler episodes, and not the fun ones with character development. With Keith mostly out of the picture, and Lance becoming the right hand of Voltron, that should’ve been a great time to develop Lance to become a second-in-command. To have him go through an arc where he overcomes his insecurities. It would’ve also been an amazing time to develop his and Shiro’s relationship. But we didn’t get any of that. 

I genuinely believe Keith was supposed to stay the black paladin and Shiro wasn’t supposed to come back. Keith would be an amazing foil to Lotor. They’re both half-Galra. They’ve both been given a new leadership role that they don’t want. The middle arc always felt so weak to me, and as I mentioned earlier, the Allura/Lotor interactions were awkward. It feels shoehorned in because someone has to interact with Lotor and I guess the writers decided Allura was the best option?

Season 3-6 felt like the epitome of what happens when showrunners are forced to do whatever the execs say and have no time to properly develop their story. I’ll forever be bitter at all the character and relationship development we lost because of that. We never got to see Keith really learn to open up to the team and start to trust others. But Keith still had to get to that point, which is why I assume they had the time jump for him. It’s so disappointing because we lost what could’ve been a great character development. It also made Keith being the Black Paladin again feel cheap. We didn’t get to see the struggle he had to be the leader Shiro saw he could be. He was just suddenly leading them and they worked like a proper team.

Voltron also had a lot of plot holes. Now, I don’t expect shows to answer every question, because it’s impossible to tie everything up and leave no questions unanswered in a natural way. But, there’s a lot of things that felt like the beginning of a plot line or honestly needed some answers. Like, Lance shifting his bayard to a sword. What was the point of that if it was never mentioned again? It felt like that was an important start to an arc for him that just got forgotten. Also, what was up with Keith’s quintessence sensitivity? How was he able to sense where that druid was. How did he know he could summon his bayard to him. I think the part that bugged me the most was that Keith was the only one who did that. Also, Keith’s eyes becoming slitted during his fight with Kuron was never addressed, and I really wish it was. It felt like such a throwaway moment that could’ve been interesting to explore more. Although I’m not too upset with that one as I think we were given enough to piece together a reason for it. 

[bmblboop]

A Team Shattered - RWBY Fic

Immediately after the Fall of Beacon, Jaune’s team must remain overnight in Vale due to the general chaos and lack of communication.

Warning: Volume 3 Spoilers, Some Volume 4 Spoilers, Discussion of Character Death, and lots and lots of ANGST.

Basically, what happened after Jaune’s plea to Weiss the night Beacon fell, from his POV. Canon-compliant.  Posted to celebrate the JanuRWBY prompt ‘Missing Scene’. This is my first ever fic I’ve shared publicly.

--

“Please…”

His shattered scroll lay on the shattered pavement as Jaune fought to contain his sobs. He wracked his brain for answers. Everything happened so fast – the vault, the woman, then Pyrrha… Why? What did Ozpin tell her? What was that machine? Why was she in pain? Why didn’t anyone tell me?

One coherent thought surfaced from the spiral – I need answers.

From where the rocket-locker landed in downtown Vale, Jaune had no choice but to seek help on foot. He wanted, desperately, to run all the way back to Beacon, to Pyrrha, but fruitlessly wandered deeper into the city. He happened across the safe zone set up by Glynda and Qrow, and informed them of the situation at the school. The rogue robots, the Grimm Dragon’s appearance, and…

“Ozpin told Pyrrha to find you two, and that ‘the tower can’t fall.’”  

Qrow and Glynda looked at each other.

“P-Pyrrha is still out there, but I know she’ll need help –“

Qrow started moving. “I’m on it. Hold down the fort,” he pointed at Professor Goodwitch.

“Wait I can -” Jaune was stopped by a firm hand. “No,” Glynda said, “We have informed the other professors about the need for an evacuation. Our mission right now is to protect the survivors.”

Jaune opened his mouth for a comeback that never came. Instead he just watched the empty street, the distant cry of a crow fading into the night.

--

Jaune was too anxious to be bored. Everyone was in the dark about the situation at the school. He fiddled with the cracked remains of his Scroll, hoping it would turn on and hoping there would be enough of a signal to call Pyrrha and make sure she was alive. To call home and tell his parents he was alive. It was a hopeless hope, spurred by the regret of having smashed it grief and anger. When he thought about getting up to find a CCT terminal, Glynda announced that all wireless communication had come to a standstill and she had no answers for when it would return.

More and more airships landed and the building became crowded. Jaune began to look for familiar faces. Some students he’d recognized, some Vytal Tournament participants that had been fending off Grimm were getting bandaged and checked by the nursing staff.

“I’m tired of being the lovable idiot, stuck in the tree, while his friends fight for their lives.”

Those words came back to him, vivid and pained. That feeling of wanting to do more, wanting to be more, while looking at opportunities that have already passed. That feeling of uselessness that sank and turned to knots in his stomach.

A familiar pair of pink and green caught his eye and his legs started moving on their own. The second Nora’s eyes met his; she pushed herself off the table and threw her arms around his neck. She started talking, her face buried in his hoodie, but he couldn’t hear her over the ambient chaos of the First Aid stations. Only when she turned her face away from his chest could he tell she was crying.

“…we didn’t want to leave because we thought you were still in the school. And Pyrrha! And then Ruby and Weiss took off too. We lost Scroll signals during the flight so we couldn’t even reach anyone!” She took a shaky breath before letting go. Her blue eyes were streaked with tears. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Me too,” Jaune’s own voice catching unexpectedly in his throat.

-

Nora had suffered heavy bruising as a result of a punch to the gut from an Atlesian Paladin. One of Ren’s ribs broke, but it was an aligned fracture, a non-threatening crack that would heal on its own. Even still, Jaune came to find out that this half of his team made it out easy compared to half of Ruby’s.

Blake had been bandaged up at the school for her injury, and was hovering over an unconscious Yang. Her right arm, or what once was her right arm, was being bound in new bandages atop the ones she had already bled through. Blake was noticeably shaken up, but Jaune could not find the words to ease her fears. The other blond who arrived with them (I think his name was Sun?) was keeping an eye on the huntresses, so the three JNPR members let them be.

They sat in the hallway and exchanged their experiences. “…so I rushed over to push him out of the way…” Nora recounted, jabbing a thumb in Ren’s direction. “…and the next thing I know, I’m waking up short of breath and being rushed to the docking bay in front of the school!” She pouted. “Some help I was during that Paladin fight…”

“It was reckless, Nora.” Ren inhaled sharply at the memory. “I still ended up getting punched by that thing, so I wasn’t much help either...”

“Well, I knew I had more Aura than you, so I thought I could take it, but ooh-” Nora groaned. “What about you Jaune?”

He could tell in her eyes the real question. Where’s Pyrrha?

He wish he had an answer.

“We… went down into the school, into… it think they called it a vault? Pyrrha knew what was going on, but there wasn’t enough time to explain it. I was keeping watch until-”

She started screaming. That other woman showed up. We started running. Pyrrha-

It felt like a lifetime ago, has it only been an hour? Two? No matter how much he wants to understand what just happened, nothing makes sense. No one is telling him anything, not even Pyrrha told…

“Jaune?” Nora’s worried tremble broke the silence Jaune didn’t realize he’d left. Ren’s eyes are locked with concern. He had to say something, they are her teammates too.

Jaune swallowed stiffly. “Pyrrha left to fight someone. I think it’s the woman behind that message in the Coliseum.” What else could he say? The encounter in the vault was so brief he really didn’t get a good look at her face, but she had arrows, fiery eyes, and the ability to fly. Everything about her felt… unnatural.

Another airship landed, whipping the bricks with wind and shaking the windows. Jaune stood up. It was getting late and the building was already crowded.

“That’s strange. I thought all the evacuations were done by now?” he told his teammates.

The three of them stood and made their way to the main entrance. The automatic doors parted to show Qrow’s return, with Weiss trailing briskly behind him. He mumbled something to her, but Jaune was more focused on what he was carrying. Cradled in his arms was the tiny, cloaked form of Team RWBY’s leader.

“Ruby!” Jaune yelled as his team sprinted over. Qrow was gripping her shoulder with one hand and lifting her knees with the other. Her head lolled into Qrow’s shoulder, like a sleeping child. She looked so small, cradled in his arms like this. Her optimism and drive made her feel larger than life - it was chilling to see her so helpless.

“What happened, is she-?!”

“She’ll be fine, give us some room will ya?” The huntsmen turned his shoulder to push past him and marched into the empty sickbay. The team followed, a few feet behind, as Qrow found an empty room and bed to lay Ruby down in. He closed the door on the curious onlookers, who stood in the hall with uncertainty.

“I’m sure she’ll be okay.” Weiss broke the silence, but she didn’t look as confident as she sounded. She was holding one arm across her chest and hadn’t taken her eyes off the door. She wasn’t bruised or dirty from the battle, but her eyes were rimmed with exhaustion. The door on the opposite side of the hall squeaked open and a familiar face stepped out into the hallway with them.

“Weiss?”

“Blake!” The heiress turned and ran to greet her teammate. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine.” Blake said, but was hugging her stomach with a pained look on her face. “Did you and Ruby just get back?”

Weiss glanced down at the floor, “Yeah, sorry we took so long.”

“What happened tonight?” Jaune asked. Not to anyone in particular, but Weiss audibly sighed in response.

“We got back on campus and made it to the CCT tower at the same time we got your call.” Weiss glanced at Jaune. A flicker of hope rose in his chest. They were right there, maybe they saw what happened. Maybe they were able to help.

Weiss continued, gripping her sleeve. “Grimm were surrounding the base, so we had to cut a path through them. There was this loud crash and the Wyvern kept roaring.  I used my Semblance to propel Ruby’s climb up the side, but… she didn’t come back down. And the dragon stopped moving.” She paused as she looked at everyone’s faces. Glancing around, Jaune could tell everyone was feeling as bewildered as he was.

“Qrow nearly gave me a heart-attack when he showed up.” Weiss continued with a half-laugh. “We climbed the tower and found Ruby unconscious up there, in Ozpin’s – well… what’s left of the office.  I think that Grimm took the entire roof off.”

That’s how they found Ruby, and she was already out cold? Where did Pyrrha go?    

“Wait, isn’t that roof the CCT antenna?” Blake balked.

“Is that why communications are down?” Nora gasped.

Weiss nodded.

“That means communication is down everywhere.” Blake said, shaking. “Outside of Vale, no one knows what’s going on.”

“Yeah.” Weiss slumped. Jaune thumbed over his broken scroll again. At that moment, the door to Ruby’s room opened.

“Still here?” Qrow’s attempted scowl was betrayed by the underlying tiredness and concern in his voice. Closing the door gently, he continued. “She’s just exhausted is all, might be a day or two before she wakes up.”

Some of the tension visibly eased among the teenagers. “That’s good to hear.” Blake mused quietly.

Managing to catch Blake’s eye, Weiss asked warily, “How’s Yang?”

Blake looked away, and then turned her head toward Yang’s room with a gentle nod. Weiss hurried past her to the door and closed it behind her. Blake watched and turned the opposite way, walking out the main entrance and into the shadows of the night.

Qrow began walking toward Yang’s room, but Jaune reached out to stop him. “Hey wait! You were at the CCT Tower, the Vault, the… whatever! Did you find Pyrrha?” Jaune’s voice wavered.

Qrow stopped and was quiet for a minute. Turning to face Jaune, he said, “The elevator was busted, so we used Ms. Schnee’s glyphs to scale the tower. At the top, we found charred rubble and fallen gears in what remains of Ozpins office.”

Qrow dropped his gaze and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Kid, there’s no easy way to say this.” He reached behind his back for something. “Aside from Ruby, this was all we found up there.”

Qrow revealed a soft, folded red cloth sitting in a golden disc. Atop the cloth were three twisted scraps of metal and a golden circlet – a tiara. Jaune’s eyes widened in recognition. Her crown? The metal suddenly clicked too – it was red and gold like her javelin, but melted and snapped into thirds.

His hand fell on Jaune’s shoulder, and Qrow placed Pyrrha’s weapons in his hands.

“I’m sorry.”

Jaune felt as if he had been kicked in the chest. He struggled to breathe, and felt his knees going weak. He stared at her belongings – her shield, her sash, her crown – until his vision ran blurry. He felt a hand on each shoulder as he sank to the floor and squeezed his eyes shut. Gripping his last memory of her in his hands, the tears began to fall.

--

People rolled out mats and sleeping bags, everyone trying to sleep away the worries of what tomorrow might bring. The hall, like an empty cafeteria, felt awkward and uncertain – strangers sitting too close to each other in a large, repurposed room.

It reminded him of the first night they slept in Beacon.

Nora was restless, turning over and over, half-asleep. Jaune could sympathize; despite the emotional exhaustion, he couldn’t bring himself to close his eyes. Ren was sitting up, staring out the window. He could be listening to the distant skirmishes of Huntsmen and Grimm or just be lost in thought and Jaune would not know the difference. His calm demeanor seemed unbreakable.

Nora groaned and crawled her way over to Ren, resting her head on his knee. “Ren?” she asked in a frustrated, exhausted whine.

“Hm.”

“Can you do the thing?”

He moved his hand and rested it on her head, brushing her hair behind her ear. Starting at his fingertips, Nora began to change. It wasn’t dramatic, at first Jaune thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but her coloration began to fade. For a moment, her whole body turned shades of black and white, and then the color returned as she began to snore.

“W-what did-?” Jaune stammered, hoping for his own sanity that what he saw wasn’t some kind of illusion.

Ren looked to him, then back at his hand. “I can calm emotions, suppress turbulent feelings. It even helps with avoiding Grimm.” He gently lifted Nora’s head off his knee and onto his sleeping bag.

“That’s… so cool.” Jaune didn’t know what it was like to have a Semblance, but he could imagine it. A tranquility semblance like that would make it easy to evade or sneak up on Grimm. A great semblance for a Huntsman.  

Some distant explosions sounded off, senior Huntsmen fighting off Grimm, probably. They both looked up, a wave of dread returning them to this harsh reality. Jaune attempted to re-rail the conversation.

“So, how did you unlock it?”

“It was like tonight, when I discovered it.” Ren was still looking out the window.

Like tonight? The gears in Jaune’s mind turned. A Grimm attack? Or something more calculated? Ren looked at Nora, sound asleep on the top half of his sleeping bag.  “I unlocked my Semblance that… the night I met her.”

Jaune could tell he was avoiding the question, but if it was as bad as all …this… then no wonder he never brought it up. Ren never talked about his past at all, now that I think about it. Jaune turned to lie down, drop the whole conversation here, but Ren spoke up.

“Jaune, would … it be alright if Nora and I stayed with you for a while?”

Jaune couldn’t meet his eyes. Ren was still looking away, dropping his voice to a whisper.  

“We- we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Of course.” Jaune’s throat tightened, but pushed the conversation out of his mind quickly. He needs to be somewhat rested for tomorrow, and another cry will just keep him up longer.  But I promise, he thought before drifting to sleep, I won’t let you two down.

[could-be-calliope]

"Azu’s so good and the world should be good for her.”

[Audio transcript: An excerpt from Rusty Quill Gaming episode 96, in which Azu has been slightly poisoned while chasing down Howard Carter.

Helen as Azu: “There was a trap!”

Ben as Grizzop: “Yeah.”

Helen as Azu: “Mmm.”

Alex: “See, what Azu thinks she’s saying is ‘there was a trap.’  What comes out is [gibberish].”

(Helen laughs.)

Ben as Grizzop: “Ah.  You should come-- I think you’ve been poisoned.”

Helen as Azu, dismissively: “No…”

Alex as Azu: [incoherent moan]

(Helen laughs.)

Ben as Grizzop: “Yes, yes, you definitely have.  Come back, and we’ll sort you out, but…”

Helen as Azu: [unintelligible protests]

(Alex laughs.)

Ben as Grizzop: “I dunno, I’m gonna guess-- if you’re concerned for Sasha, she’s very suited to this kind of thing, she’s very competent, so I’m sure she can handle herself.”

Helen as Azu: [unintelligible protests]

Ben as Grizzop: “Okay, I can't understand anything you’re saying--”

(Alex, Helen, and Lydia begin laughing and continue to laugh.)

Ben as Grizzop: “--because you’ve really obviously been poisoned.  You’re probably gonna fall over in about ten seconds, so--”

(The sound of dice rolling.)

Ben as Grizzop: “I can’t carry you, so really, come with me before--”

Alex: “Azu collapses.”

(Helen cackles, and a sound effect of a massive orc collapsing to the floor plays.)

Ben: “On me, or…”

Helen: “Just on…”

Alex: “No.  No, no.  Backwards.”

Lydia: “Reflex save!”

Bryn: “Yeah, reflex save!”

Alex: “You know what, yeah.  Give me a reflex save, that’s fair.”

(Helen giggles.)

Ben: “Fifteen.”

Alex: “Almost on you.”

(All laugh.)

Ben as Grizzop, relieved: “Whoo!”

Alex: “Around you.  You find yourself in the midst of an Azu.”

(Helen and Lydia laugh.)

Ben as Grizzop: “Okay.  Right.”

Ben: “Spit on my hands.  Uh, yeah.  I cast Lesser Restoration.  Which, I didn’t know if it was gonna be effective but it absolutely is.”

Alex: “Yes!  It is.  Lesser Restoration goes off.”

Helen as Azu, struggling to speak: “There was a-- there was a p-- a person.”

Grizzop: “Yes, and Sasha ran after--”

Helen as Azu, struggling to speak: “Running, yes.”

Grizzop: “Yes, you got trapped.”

Helen as Azu, struggling to speak: “She can’t see!”

(Grizzop sputters helplessly.)

Ben as Grizzop: “So?  She’ll deal with it, she’s capable.”

Helen as Azu, struggling to speak: “She’ll-- but the trap!”

Ben as Grizzop: “Okay, look.  You can see, and what happened to you?

(Ben and Lydia laugh.)

Lydia, cheerfully: “If anything, it’s a distraction!”

(Bryn and Alex laugh.)

Helen as Azu, downtrodden: “It was hidden.”

(Alex laughs and Lydia makes high-pitched pitying noises.)

Ben as Grizzop: “Yes, traps-- traps usually are.  Now come--”

Lydia: “I just want to give Azu a continual hug!”

Ben as Grizzop: “Come with me, and we’ll get you back out.”

Lydia: “She’s so good, and the world should be good for her!”

(Alex and Ben laugh.)

Helen: “It will not be.”

(All laugh.)

Ben as Grizzop: “You can have a nice sit down, and we might be able to get you a cup of tea or something.”

Helen as Azu, almost comically downtrodden: “...okay.”

(All laugh and make pitying noises.)

Lydia: “My heart!”

Ben, overlapping: “So I-- I was, instinctually--”

Lydia: “Everyone take three heart damage.”

(Helen laughs.)

Ben: “I was, instinctually, gonna say ‘I... help Azu back,’ but I’ve just remembered that she’s literally three times my size.  I... wave my hands vaguely at Azu.  Kind of helping her… psychically.”

Lydia: “Supportively tapping the elbow from below.”

Ben: “Yeah, that kind of-- yeah.  Just reaching up.”

Helen: “Yeah.”

Alex: “I am gonna skip ahead to Hamid.  What is Hamid doing?  You’ve still heard or saw nothing.”

Bryn: “Still pacing.”

Alex: “Suddenly, Azu stumbles through, followed by Grizzop.”

(After each paladin’s name, a magical fizzle can be heard as they pass through the illusion.)

Alex: “Stumble being the operative word.”

Bryn as Hamid, overlapping: “Are you guys okay?”

Helen as Azu, slurring and incredibly downtrodden: “No.”

Bryn as Hamid: “Oh, Azu!  Oh, Azu.”

(All laugh.)

/end transcript]

[furymint]

💭! If you would like to! :>

send 💭 for my chara’s thought progression towards yours!

From L’selle:

The hell's that accent? Not Ishgardian.

I ain't takin' orders today.

Bet she'd stand in the rain just to see what it felt like.

No more mugs?

Shit. All aboard!

She steal them things from Rothe? I should do that.

Icey.

Yeah, okay.

Her brother gonna show up soon?

Hands up, drink up, sky's up! We all fall down.

She’s fast as a bolt.

Let’s get breakfast in you.

No more of that.

Coming from the man who's just an absolute mess of cultures: Serella's a mess too. He likes that abt her. What he doesn't like is that she outranks him (not difficult to do) in the Maelstrom. That muddled his willingness to interact w her at first--plus he focused too much on her tendency for reflection than on her more prevalent spontaneity. He felt better when it turned out she knew the difference between a main and mizzen. Also that she has a terrible affinity for puns. Language is supposed to be disrespected.

He thinks it's a bit of a shame that she picked Ishgard over Gridania orLimsa, but he tries to be understanding. Ul'dah is off the table at least. And he's gonna ignore the paladin thing bc paladins are self-righteous, not v helpful, and hella lame bc of that. Vigilante-ish justice helps no one if it's for reputation and tradition, esp from someone who looks for trouble when one isn't in it. And the WoL thing? It makes his head hurt to conceptualize.

So there's a lot he has to forget abt Serella. She's considerate and fun to be around--mostly at a surface level for him at first, though he treasures her. Until she gets more comfortable and becomes more vulnerable, plus once she stows her knee-kick tendency to accommodate others for a a real investment in him--whether that's with or without argument or discomfort--he can't and doesn't want to try inviting her to smth like his nameday party, which is p tight-knit lmfao. She can come over for All Saint's Wake though.

[tmae3114]

@valta-mus replied to your post “SPEAKING OF THE NEW QUEST UH LYNN? LYNN, SWEETHEART, WHAT WAS THAT?”

oh, DF does have champions, I remember it being given by Noxus during the Light Orb saga that the Undead Invasion that made Artix an orphan was because they were trying to retrieve him because he's the Champion of Darkness. They expand on it more in AQW, but it was established in DF as well.

(apologies for the two comments, the first one felt a bit long even without this second bit)

in regards to Gravelynn's attacks, I... haven't seen it yet... I'm more than just a bit behind, being unable to beat the Monster during the valentine's event made me leave the game for a while & I've been struggling to get back into it.

But yeah, Gravelynn does learn Darkness magic from her dad. It may vary a great deal from AQW, where she said she had difficulty even raising one undead, but she does know doomknight spells.

(sorry again for it becoming more than two)

Don’t worry about the multiple messages, it’s fine! I’m replying via this method this time because I’m pulling out images as evidence and you can’t put images in the other replies :p

(I apologise in advance for the length of this - I got carried away. It’s been a while since I properly stretched my AE lore muscles!)

On the matter of Artix; I’m afraid that you’re mistaken - that’s AQW lore, not DF lore. None of what you said about Artix’s backstory is stuff that was established in DF, that’s all AQW (and possible AQClassic, I don’t know enough about that one to say) 

Dragonfable!Artix’s backstory was established in the Darkness Orb Saga (the Light Orb saga was the Sandsea with Zhoom!) and differs quite significantly from AQW!Artix’s. The common factors are that they were both orphaned via the destruction of their villages, found by Lady Celestia in the aftermath, and later became paladins. That’s about it.

In the quest Green Mist, we learn most of the details of Artix’s backstory, including his & Vayle’s shared history and how he was orphaned. He tried to rescue Vayle when she fell in the river, they got washed downstream together, they ended up in the Guardian Tower and found the Darkness Orb, etc, etc.

What follows that is that that night, a mysterious Green Mist rolled into town and turned everyone but Artix and Vayle into zombies.

That is how Dragonfable!Artix was orphaned. He only survived because of his earlier contact with the Darkness Orb - and subsequent resistance of it - gave him an immunity to being turned undead.

And, as revealed in the later Quest Noxus Fumes, that Green Mist was created by Noxus for one very specific reason:

He wanted Vayle and Vayle alone. Noxus turned everyone in that town into zombies so he could get his hands on her and, through her, the Darkness Orb.

In fact, shortly after this is revealed, he mentions this:

Noxus wanted Artix just as dead as everyone else in that town. He actively says so. If he had had the slightest clue Artix survived his Mist, he would’ve found a way to kill him himself.

So, no, DF!Artix wasn’t orphaned by an invasion of undead trying to reclaim their Champion - he was orphaned by a necromancer who wanted the Darkness Orb and only survived because said necromancer had no idea he couldn’t be turned. The invasion is AQW lore, not Dragonfable.

DF!Artix’s unique abilities as far as fighting the undead go are explicitly stated to be a result of his contact with the Darkness Orb as a child ("My contact with the orb had changed me. I could now sense the presence of the undead, and I instinctually knew the best way to battle them.”, also in Green Mist) and, so far as we see, he’s perfectly capable of using Light-based magic. I vaguely recall there being mention on the forums at some point about that not being the case but as far as the text of the game itself goes, Artix is running around using Light magic all the time.

(Additionally, DF!Artix was raised by Celestia for a few years and decided to join the Paladin Order on his own, while AQW!Artix was brought to an orphanage run by the Paladin Order by her, iirc. That’s not important to this discussion, really, I just felt it was relevant to bring it up as another point of “these two have different backstories”)

So, yeah, as far as I know, we currently have no evidence regarding Elemental Champions being a thing within the Dragonfable timeline.

On the topic of Lynn:

I have no difficulty believing that Sepulchure is teaching his daughter Darkness magic, tbh, but, without spoiling specifics for you, what she did in this quest looked more instinctual than anything else

[returnn-of-the-mac]

I love the way you write the companions! Especially X6! Companions react to Sole giving them nicknames based on pre-war movies?

Thank you! X6 is one of my favorite characters to write (along with Ada and Danse)! Sorry this took so long, there were a few characters I struggled with (looking @u gage & preston). Also, again, I usually write a silent Sole, but I couldn’t for this one, obviously. Please enjoy!😄

Fo4 Companions React: Sole Giving Them Pre-War Movie Nicknames

Strong:

Strong and Sole where walking around Sanctuary when the super mutant heard rustling in the bushes.

“COME OUT, PUNY RADROACH! STRONG SMASH YOU INTO THE GROUND!”

Sole smirked, “Easy there, Hulk. It’s just Dogmeat.”

Strong scratched his head, “Who Hulk? He a Radroach?”

Danse:

Sole was in Danse’s quarters as the Paladin was trying on some new patriotic power armor he had designed. He stepped out in his red, white, and blue mechanical suit and twisted around a bit to show Sole.

“What do you think,” He asked, “Is it too much?”

Sole giggled, “You kinda look like Optimus Prime.”

“You mean Liberty Prime?”

“Nope. I mean Optimus Prime. He’s a Cybertronian from a pre-war movie called Transformers.” Sole explained.

“Cybertron? Is that like a synth,” Danse scoffed, “Cuz I’d be damned if I looked like a synth.”

“Well, no. Cybertron is the planet they’re from. It’s complicated, but it’s basically a fictional species of robots that can transform from ordinary objects. Like cars.”

A confused Danse gave his companion an acknowledging nod, “Ah, okay. That actually sounds pretty interesting. Maybe the Brotherhood could start crafting armor based off of these ...uh...’Cybertronians.’ You’re going to have to show me sometime, soldier.”

Nick:

“Hmm...” Nick pondered, looking over his latest case, “This Marowski fellow seems to be up to no good, yet again. His chem lab is more secure this time too...I’m thinking we’re going to have to tinker around with some scrap and invent a device to break into there undetected.”

“And what do you suggest we create, Inspector Gadget?”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Ha ha. Very funny. I happen to who that is, you know.”

MacCready:

MacCready and Sole where camping out at Outpost Zimonja for the night, lying under the stars, next to a campfire.

“You know what stinks,” Macready began, “Being an adult. So much is expected of you, and all the other adults are all just a buncha bullies.”

Sole gazed at their companion and he continued, “I swear, the kids at Little Lamplight were more mature than at least half the mungos in the Commonwealth. I wish I’d never had grown up...I wish I could’ve stayed a kid forever.”

“Okay, Peter Pan,” Sole laughed, “Growing up is a part of life. Everyone goes through it. Society wouldn’t thrive if people didn’t get older.”

MacCready was still caught up on the first part of Sole’s statement. “Peter...who? Who’s that?”

“Peter Pan. He was a mythical boy who never grew up, and he lead a group called The Lost Boys in Neverland. They’d go on adventures and stuff. It was a story that got adapted into a popular pre-war movie,” Sole explained.

MacCready was captivated by the description. “That seems...awesome, actually! Can you tell me more about it?”

Ada:

Sole and Ada were trekking through the wilderness just beyond the glowing sea when a RadStrorm hit. Adamant about making it to their destination, Sole continued to their journey, despite the wind, rain, and rads.

“[Sir/Ma’am],” Ada beckoned, “Being that I am non-organic, these rads don’t have an effect on me. You, however, might get sick if we continue.”

Sole ignored Ada and continued to press forward. Ada tried again.

“[Sir/Ma’am]? It is highly likely that you will not be able to successfully complete your mission if you were to fall ill.”

Sole, once again, ignored their companion and continued forward. Ada, ardent about keeping her companion healthy, tried a third time.

“[Sir/Ma’am]? I believe I saw an abandoned barn a few miles back. We could camp there for the night.”

Sole stopped and gave Ada a stern look. “C-3PO. Please. Be quiet for just a minute. I can’t even hear myself think.”

Ada beeped a few times. “I am unfamiliar who this model C-3-P-O is. My model number A-D-4.”

Piper:

“Okay, look. I think we’re really gonna get him this time, Blue,” Piper began, peeking through her binoculars at an unsuspecting Mayor McDonough, “Oh! Oh! Look! He put the toilet paper on the holder flap-side-up. Mm-hmm. Definitely a synth.”

Sole raised an eyebrow, “And what’s your master plan here? We gonna break in there and catch him in the act of changing his toilet paper, Lucy Stevens? Kinda not a good look.”

Piper cocked her head to the side, “Lucy...Stevens? Who’s that?”

Sole giggled, “She’s a reporter from one of my favorite pre-war movies.”

Piper smirked, “And what movie would that be?”

“Detective Pikachu.”

Gage:

Sole and Gage were building a raider base when suddenly Gage stopped hammering.

“Hey, got any more nails over there? Can’t see for shit with this eyepatch.”

Sole rolled their eyes and handed the raider the container of nails, “Why don’t you just take it off then? I know you have a fully-functional eyeball under there.”

“Yeah but it’s part of the image.”

“Alright, One-eyed Willie.”

“The fuck is that?” Gage asked, “You pickin on me, boss?”

Hancock:

Hancock and Sole were hanging out in Hancock’s quarters listening to the radio, taking hits of jet, and drinking whiskey.

“This is niice,” Hancock mused, taking a long hit of jet, “Sometimes ya need a break from running the city, yanno?”

Sole nodded.

Suddenly, the song changed and Hancock grunted. “I hate this one. It kills the vibe in here.”

As he got up to change the station, drink in hand, a random Goodneighbor resident barreled into the room, nearly knocking the mayor over.

“Woah, friend, I’ve got a beverage here.” It was then the ghoul noticed he had spilled his drink all over himself and the rug. “Ah, come on, brother. That was a new rug.”

“Easy there, Lebowski,” Sole consoled, standing up and putting a hand on their companion’s shoulder, “Whiskey shouldn’t be too difficult to clean off a rug.”

“Sorry Hancock,” the resident apologized, “But your friend here is right. I mean it is practically water.”

Cait:

Cait and Sole were crouched behind a stack of boxes, fully prepared to ambush a group of raiders who were holding an innocent settler hostage.

“Can’t wait to use this new machete ye gave me,” Cait gushed, excitedly studying the weapon, “Never have had the chance to use one of these before.”

Sole smiled.

“Ready darlin?”

“Ready.”

The pair sprung out from their hiding spot and began their onslaught. Sole took cover behind an old desk, shooting at the raiders with ease and Cait decapitated them with her machete.

“I’m just gettin warmed up, ye clowns!”

The redhead suddenly ran up a side wall and did a flip, slicing two raiders heads off at the same time. Sole lowered their weapon and watched in awe as their partner singlehandedly decimated the raiders with her melee weapon. When the last raider was taken out, Cait took a little bow.

“Damn, Uma Thurman! Leave some for me next time,” Sole joked.

“Couldn’t help it. This machete is way too much fun.”

Deacon:

Deacon and Sole were hiding in an air vent, preparing to take out some synths as asked by Drummer Boy, when Deacon started fumbling around.

“What are you doing?” Sole whispered harshly, annoyed by their partner’s commotion.

“I’m due for an image change,” Deacon answered matter-of-factly, taking his shirt off, “I’ve been in my Elvis Presley Wannabe disguise for two hours now.”

Sole clenched their teeth in frustration.

“What do you think I should go for? The intelligent Bald Doc or intimidating Street Punk?”

“How about the bumbling Austin Powers?”

Deacon chuckled, “Yeah bAbY! I’m flattered you would even suggest that. Such a cool character.”

Sole rolled their eyes as Deacon began to dress as the iconic British spy.

Curie:

Curie and Sole were walking along the coast of Salem when the synth suddenly stopped. Sole turned around, concerned.

“You okay, Curie?”

The synth looked at Sole and smiled. “Oui. I was just thinking...thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to exist in human form.”

“No problem! I’m just glad you’re happy.”

Curie nodded, “It’s not like I wasn’t happy being in my old body it’s just...I can do so much more now in this new body. Do field work, collaborate, share my findings and be taken seriously. That and...this body is very flattering. Much more attractive than metal and bolts.”

Sole laughed, “Hey, I thought your EVE form was adorable.”

“Eve? Who is that?”

“She was a character— a robot— from a pre-war movie called WALL-E.”

“I see...well, that is very interesting, [Madame/Monsieur]!”

Longfellow:

“Damn snow. I hate the North. Move me to the tropics,” Longfellow complained as he and Sole walked through a light snow flurry.

“It’s not even that bad,” Sole reassured, “Besides, what would Christmas be without snow?”

“I don’t care about Christmas. Got no family to celebrate it with anyway.”

“Oh come on, Scrooge,” Sole teased, “We can celebrate Christmas together if you want.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I am old Ebenezer. Bah humbug,” Longfellow grumpily muttered, taking a shot of whiskey.

X6-88:

X6 and Sole were on a mission tag a synth with a tracking beacon when Sole suddenly stopped.

“Is something wrong, [sir/ma’am]?” the synth asked, concerned.

“No it’s just...what would you look like without your glasses? I’ve never seen you take them off. Do you even have eyes under there?”

X6 nodded, “Of course I have eyes. The glasses make me look slick. More professional, if you will.”

“You look like Morpheus from The Matrix.”

“And he was an influential individual, was he not?”

Sole remained silent.

“Case in point, [sir/ma’am].”

Preston:

Sole had just returned to Sanctuary after a lengthy fight with some gunners with Preston beckoned to them.

“Another settlement needs our help,” he began, “The settlers at Nordhagen beach are complaining about a wobbly chair and—“

Sole raised their hand in the air, “Do it yourself, Fix-it-Felix,” they mumbled before retreating to their room for a nap.

Codsworth:

Sole and Codsworth were in their old house, assembling furniture and reminiscing about the past.

“This was such a happy home before the bombs dropped. I wish we could go back to it, [sir/mum].”

Sole nodded in agreement as they discovered old photographs in cracked frames. Codsworth hovered over to examine Sole’s finding.

“Ah! That photograph! That was the first day you adopted me,” the robot gushed, “I’m so glad you chose the name Codsworth and not any of the absurd names the [hubby/wife] was suggesting.”

Sole laughed, “But Codsworth was their idea! I was going to name you BB-8.”

“Seriously? Why? Just because I’m round and I’m a robot?”

“Exactly!”

Codsworth huffed in annoyance and floated away from an amused Sole.

[dreams-of-kalopsia]

Fictober Prompt 21

“Change is annoyingly difficult.”

Voltron fanfiction (Plance)

No warnings apply.

Read it on AO3.

____

Part 1 (Pidge): Timing

Part 2 (Lance): Intuition

Part 3 (Colleen): Grounded

Part 4 (Hunk): Change

Hunk senses something wrong the moment he lays eyes on his best friend. Lance is sitting alone at their usual table, elbow propped and sulking face resting heavily on his fist. His other hand pokes at his food with a spork.

“Stop that,” Hunk scolds as he takes the seat across, carefully placing his lasagna-laden tray on the table.

Lance stops. But only to give him a sullen glance.

He shakes his head in annoyance. That’s when he sees the half-finished tray of food beside his friend’s. Everything clicks in his mind.

Pidge was called away again.

“Who was it this time?” he asks without preamble.

Lance’s answer is a grumbled “MFE pilots.”

“Aww man, again?” Hunk groans. “We don’t see Pidge her first week of being grounded. She gets a little leeway, and Sam, Matt, and Slav drag her around with them for days. They finish whatever they were doing, and the MFE Division takes her away—with me, because apparently they’re big fans of Voltron’s tech team, but that’s beside the point—and now the MFE pilots want something from her again?” He throws his hands up. “What about us? We haven’t hung out for weeks!” He then points at Pidge’s tray. “Pidge didn’t even enjoy her food long enough to realize I made it, in celebration of our supposed hang out day!”

Another grumble. The weak reaction aggravates Hunk, and he crosses his arms.

“You didn’t notice either, did you.” A statement because his friend clearly hasn’t. “I’ll assume it’s due to Pidge bailing out on us and not my culinary skills.”

No response other than louder stabby noises and a sulkier Lance.

“Ugh. I miss her!” he gripes. “Don’t you?”

A flash of regret crosses Lance’s face.

It’s a stark contrast to the confused, embarrassed blushes he’s had for the past two months or so. Hunk can’t remember exactly when he began seeing the expression, but he’s pretty sure he hasn’t seen it on his friend until around three weeks ago. At first, he thought it was because Allura’s been spending most of her time with Romelle and Coran in the hospital wing, waiting for the Altean pilot of that Komar-robeast to regain consciousness. He didn’t even connect anything when news of scary Mrs. Holt grounding the Green Paladin of Voltron first reached their ears. But after repeatedly watching Lance make that expression at every mention of Pidge, Hunk is now sure that it’s a Pidge issue his best friend is having.

And he thinks he has enough facts to put together to figure out what’s been happening with his friends.

Fact number one: Pidge likes Lance. She told Hunk herself.

Fact number two: She used Hunk’s cheesy, thoughtless pick-up line—a fact that will forever crack him up—on his best friend. Lance told him himself.

Fact number three: Lance also said that he’d tried asking Pidge about what she meant but ended up taking her to Varadero for sunset watching instead. How he managed to turn an impending serious talk into a day trip, Hunk will never know.

Fact number four: Pidge was grounded the day after and disappeared for a week.

Fact number five: She’s been spending less time with Hunk and Lance since her reappearance. Okay, no. For the benefit of the doubt, Hunk will allow that she’s become so busy she barely has time to hang out. That still implicates her because she doesn’t make time for them. She’s not the only busy Paladin on Earth, after all; if he and Lance can do it, she should’ve been able to do it, too. So the benefit of the doubt doesn’t work for her… well, benefit.

Sooo something happened in Varadero convincing Pidge that Lance rejected her, hence why she’s limiting her interactions with him without making it obvious that she is—which, contrary to what she believes, she’s being totally obvious about.

“I wasn’t rejected, Hunk. I just decided to give up on him,” Pidge said around a mouthful of peanut butter cookies he’d given as secret bribe, during one of their breaks from upgrading the MFE units last week.

Give up? On Lance? As if.

As if Hunk doesn’t catch the longing glances she’d send their friend when she thinks everyone’s too distracted to notice. As if she doesn’t stare after Lance with a regretful expression on her face the exact same way he sees Lance do.

Yeah.

He chomps grumpily on a heaping spork of lasagna.

As if.

Hunk hates that he’s the only one who notices stuff like this. He hates it. But what he hates more is his inability to leave ostensibly well enough alone once his gut tells him that something’s off. And what he hates most is his perceived, reluctant duty to be the voice of reason that points everything out to everyone else. Because that’s how he ends up standing right in the middle of things whether he likes it or not, how he unwittingly advertises himself as mediator when things turn out to be a full-blown conflict.

It’s exhausting sometimes. Getting to say ‘I told you so!’ loses its vindicating satisfaction when one gets to do it all the time. Still, bringing up an issue so the people involved can address and resolve it is an awkward task he’d willingly undertake if it means they’d all get along again.

But that’s the problem with the current thing he’s embroiled in. There’s no issue. No conflict, no falling-out, no friendship broken. Just Pidge dealing with rejection in the maturest manner Hunk has seen from her and Lance acting like he’s lost her even though she never left in the first place.

It’s like watching two people dance expertly around each other. Except one twirls in pirouettes of classical ballet, the other breaks it down with hip hop moves, and neither of them is aware of dancing at all. As a frustrated spectator on the sidelines, Hunk is honestly starting to worry that his motion sickness will return one of these days.

A resounding stabbing sound causes him to jerk his head up towards the source. He finds Lance staring out onto the hallway beyond the mess hall’s window, fingers frozen and tines of his spork impaling a slice of lasagna rather morbidly. Following his friend’s gaze leads Hunk’s eyes to Pidge, who’s talking animatedly with Nadia and James.

Oh boy. Great timing, Pidge.

She meets their gazes and sends them a genuine, apologetic look, but she doesn’t spare them a minute to give an actual apology. In three seconds, she’s walked past the windows, disappearing on them again. She makes it look so easy.

“Gotta admit, that one hurts a bit,” Hunk says with a wry smile. His best friend releases a miserable sigh at the same time. He turns back to Lance in surprise. “Chill, dude! It’s just one missed hang out day. No need to be that dejected.”

The stabby noises resume with increased force. He resumes eating his food.

“Look, you’re being dramatic. It’s not as bad as that time Eliza Moreno rejected you—no, no,” he corrects himself, “You didn’t really like her; you just liked flustering her. Okay, so not as bad as when Noelle Page dumped—”

“I dumped her.” Whoa, a response, albeit grumpy.

“Yeah?” Memories of that messy one-sided breakup resurface in his mind. “Yeah, right!” He slaps his forehead. “How could I forget! Remember how she waited crying outside our bunk room until you talked to her? Even our COs couldn’t take her away.”

Lance’s sulky frown deepens. “I don’t think anyone could forget.”

“So not as bad as when Mila Chen—”

“She was over me by the time I became fighter class.”

“Oh. What about when Sophie Carson—”

“Turned out to like Madison Boyer?”

“…That didn’t bother you? You were courting her for some time, right?”

“To help make Maddie jealous and confess to her.”

“Ooh. An ally, I see.” Hunk raises his cup to his friend, impressed by this inside info.

Lance just scoffs.

“Okay, wait. I’m sure about this: Jenny Shaybon. The only Jenny who ever mattered to you. You had a really good thing going on for over a year before she left the Garrison to chase her dreams.”

“We parted as friends.”

“You did?” Hunk pouts, then sighs. “So I guess it’s not as bad as when Allura and Lo—” Lance strikes the table with his palms.

“Why are you going through my romantic history, Hunk?” he demands, still miserable but now also fed up. “Just tell me what your point is.”

“My point is that you don’t have to feel as bad about a missed get-together as a failed relationship.”

Though Hunk’s tone is placating throughout his explanation, his best friend shoots him an affronted look. “First of all, my relationship with Allura hasn’t failed; it’s actually just about to start. Secondly, I don’t feel as bad about this as you think.”

“So stop looking like you do.” The words seem to strike Lance like a direct, physical hit, and Hunk has this acute feeling that he just said the wrong thing at the worst possible time.

But why?

Before Hunk can begin to figure out what he said wrong, Lance gathers his and Pidge’s trays and quietly stands up.

“Uhh, where are you going?”

“I’m heading back to my room. Sorry, Hunk. Let’s hang out another day.” Lance walks out of the mess hall without another word, head bowed and shoulders slumped.

“…Wow. Left behind twice today,” Hunk grouses once he’s alone. “Leave me a third time, why don’t you. I feel the love.” He chews angrily while preparing for another bite. “What was that for, anyway? I just pointed out what I see.”

Why’s Lance so touchy when it comes to Pidge? She may (pretend to) have given up on her feelings for him, but it’s not like she’ll ever give up on their friendship. Besides, it’s not like he knows about how she feels. Oblivious when it matters, that guy. And yet he acts all broody as if he’s the one who got—

A sudden idea skews Hunk’s perspective and with it his spork of lasagna. The chunk falls with a small splat on the table. The metallic clatter of spork hitting food tray follows soon after.

The way Lance acts whenever Pidge is mentioned…

It’s as if he’s the one who got rejected.

“Hoooly crow,” Hunk mutters to himself, palms finding their way to his temples. “What?!”

He knows not when the change in his friend happened, only that it did. He also knows that it complicates everything. It adds unannounced contraflow lanes to a one-way expressway. It flips the script on itself after getting flipped once already. It turns a straight line into a triangle.

And this change…

“…is annoyingly

difficult

.”

____

Thanks for reading! Names of Lance’s non-canon exes credited to @artemisarya. You’ve been a huge help! ^u^

[mimir-anoshe]

💧&🔥

Just a bit of Cursed/Nimulot analysis… Cause I’m bored. And I might have found some interesting parallels/imagery watching it through for the 7 billionth time that I would love to share. If anyone enjoys writing meta… Which I mean I know some of y’all need your fix… Feel free to use anything/expand upon it. I would, but I’m a new fur-mumma and she’s taking up all my waking hours, so this little shit-post about this new hell hole of a ship I’ve dove headfirst into will have to do. The images are from a video and show produced by Netflix, I own nothing, so pls don’t be a bitch about it Tumblr.

***SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW!!! WATCH IT AND COME BACK!! OR DON’T? ANYHOO YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!!*** ⚠️  

- beware Tumblr app users, it may be your doom -

Where to begin, with the teaser? Or with…

THE SHOW! Here be just a wee few times the writers/director(s) through the writing/cinematography have mirrored these two ‘protect the kid - warriors till the end’ idiots. I’m sure others have picked up on them… Not in any particular order, here ya go anyway.

1x02 - 1x10

*Insert spiderman pointing at spiderman meme*

One scar made by an actual dark god tricking her when she was a child, the others by a very human evil tricking him when he was a child and the consequences for both lasting into adulthood.

1x02 - 1x10

Look at the years of trauma Anakin, look at it! They even use the same damn word! The phonetic tones of disgust! The outcast syndrome! Oof. (And it’s not like Nimue being called demon has to do with a general racial-slur from a human, that is a fey calling her that from her own village!) They both grew up viewing themselves as “demons”, the “abominations”. Even their expressions are the same, fear and sorrow and self-hatred. All they both want is to be accepted! (By their fathers especially). To be loved.

The two who are “cursed.”

1x02 - 1x01

*says nothing*

1x04 - 1x01

“Where to begin? With water or with fire?”

Where to begin? WHERE TO BEGIN??? *dies*

Water ☯ Fire

Sword up  ☯ Sword down

Light/Day  ☯  Dark/Shadow

Life & Death (Life around her, death in the water) ☯ Death & Life (forest fires make way for new growth)

Long bit: Both characters are associated to the elements of water and fire individually through the environment/cinematography/colour pallet/colour symbolism, and then water and fire is mirrored between them. She is overall water, he is overall fire; but they also have a bit of the other in each other.

For Nimue this symbolism is often done through her environment, showing her connection to nature as the fey queen and that she does not hide who she is if she can help it. She does not hide externally, so her elemental symbolism becomes EXTERNAL.

Whilst for Lancelot though he is often surrounded by fire, the idea of water/tears is either symbolised through the fairy tale style of the artwork or referenced for him through his name as “the weeping monk.” Hinted at in his characterisation of guilt and self-loathing, the way other characters respond to him (”the one who cries”/”you see it all through those weeping eyes”). His main conflict is an Internal fight between who he is and who he needs to become, so a lot of his main symbolism surrounding water (and even fire as pertaining to magic - ashfolk - and not killing fey) is INTERNALISED, hidden, cut off from the Hidden themselves. Symbolic of him hiding his connection to the fey and that other side of himself, the “human” (morally speaking) side, and therefore hiding who he truly is… Lancelot.

For Nimue, fire means life. Being chosen and her magic saving people. For Lancelot fire means Death, his deeds, “the fires of hell” and the destruction of the “ash” folk and his heritage. He believes hell fire is his fate, going by the “even if I am damned.”

For Nimue, water means death. In the water she takes revenge, where that Paladin almost drowned her. Into the water she falls, where they think her shot dead by arrows. The water is her fate as the Lady of the Lake. For Lancelot, water means life. Tears, emotions, taking responsibility, feeling the weight of his guilt and mourning for the things he has done/lost. For him, water - not ash -means a second chance to be better. To put out the fires and heal.

Though in the end, for both of them, water & fire most of all represent death and rebirth.

1x03

^If you don’t understand I can’t help you. ☯

1x01 - 1x07

Now this one I found quite interesting. Remember that even if Nimue directed the second one, it is still the Power/will of the Hidden at play. (Or should I say the will of the Writers/director) Chosen? Mirrors? Night and Day? Fire… Embers to Ashes? We shall see, but I think it was definitely on purpose.

^I’ll just leave that here, the fuckers kept missing each other for an entire season (WHICH WAS ON PURPOSE THE WRITERS DID THAT ON PURPOSE just as an fyi). The fact that there is this much sexual tension, anticipation, mirroring, fate, destiny and chemistry between two characters who have never even mET should be ILLEGAL! They affect each other immeasurably without ever even meeting, so imagine what will happen when they do...? *pterodactyl screech*

Whelp there ye go. Under the next gif I also did a bit on the Teaser trailer, as that just fucked me up a bit I have to tell you! Up to you whether you want to continue digesting my mad ramblings or not. *Shrug* Thanks for coming to my TED talk guys– 😂 Somebody fucking smite me down like the eldritch horror of writing I am dear god think of the children…

THE OFFICIAL TEASER TRAILER:

Arthur running for the Sword of Power, because you know, King Arthur.

“The Legend says…” The Legend of King Arthur and his Sword Excalibur/Caliburnus? The line is very meta, a reference to the in world legend that this story will create, but it’s also expecting the audience to be savvy of the actual legend of King Arthur and his knights. Both these ideas intertwined into one. Aka, the trailer expects us to have pre-decided expectations for the story we’re now being told, because we’ve already been told it before; this fairy tale of celtic myth/history. All the “spoilers” about Arthur, his lineage, Morgana, Guinevere, the Knights, even the lady of the Lake herself come with that knowledge. However…

Surprise surprise, the Weeping Monk (killer of fae)/ Lancelot (eventually Arthur’s most trusted KNIGHT) instead picks up the fae sword from it being embedded in the ground, subverting our expectation, it definitely fucking subverted mine, but not in a GOT way, in a ~good~ way. I was like, “Whosoever be this fine hooded fellow hath stole away both sword and my good sense!!! 👀”

Also harkening back to the legend of the sword in the stone (another expectation), which the action itself signifies that person be - as Merlin so eloquently puts - “The one true king.”

Ok… Symbolic wink wink nudge nudge towards his true nature (inside and out), saving Percival, potentially becoming the greatest warrior and protector of his people and eventually a Knight of the Round Table; and perhaps King of our Hearts??? Ok, sure thing “concept” trailer. I’ll bite.

Ok… *deep breath*

WHOMSt the fUCK decided to frame (fae “ashman”) ?Lancelot? with the ~SWORD OF KINGS~ (also of fae origin) A N D the line…‘the one true king’ ALL IN ONE… instead of Arthur?

‘BELONGS to the one true King?’ Belongs, hmm interesting word choice… This done in a worms eye view shot meant to make the viewer feel like the character is above/superior/basically we’re kneeling before them? (Which I mean sure? but…) Hmm??? HMMM??? I don’t understand CONCEPT Trailer what is the CONCEPT you’re trying to get across? One hand on his paladin sword and the other on “fae hope” Excalibur I get, he has to make an important decision, one that will either save his humanity (and his people) or destroy it (them), yeah yeah sure that’s F I N E…

…but what about the “KING” SHIT HMMM?? Is there something you would like to share with the rest of the class? *sips tea whilst staring straight into the camera*

it may mean nothing don’t quote me

…Anwaaaay… We all know in a fight Lancelot can kick Arthur’s ass so that’s not whats going on here. Arthur is P I S S E D. They’re not just bog standard enemies here. I mean WPM kicking him in the ribs was pretty “fuck you” and they were just enemies there. In this instance the sword is in play, Weeping Monk has taken something from Arthur that he feels “BELONGS” to him - in this case symbolised by WPM taking “his” sword - and that’s making it personal.

“You stole my sword ya bitch!” And what is the sword linked to? Power? Sure. The right of being a King? Yep. And also a certain Queen…  No no no, this is the Concept of rivalry. It shows that whatever relationship Arthur and his “Knight” will have in the future after all the “die die die” starts to sizzle down will - in its genesis - be a rivalry. Probably mirroring Gawain and Arthur when they first met to an extent. A rivalry for power? For something else? Who Knows!

*whistles innocently*

And down down down he goes. He’s FALLING. There are many metaphorical concepts associated to FALLING… Falling from “grace” (in the eyes of the Church)… Falling because he has a sky full of guilt crashing down upon him… falling for h… falling in Lo… into the Water!!!! Until he is completely submerged. Water, the idea of cleansing, of washing away who you once were/trauma/sins of the past so you may be reborn a better version of yourself. His old ideals are defeated, he submits to his true heritage and allows it to wash around him so he may begin to heal.

Though if we’re talking metaphors, water is - for obvious reasons - always associated with the LADY OF THE LAKE… Nimue. He has fallen into her world. (pss he’s gonna fall for the Chick in the Lake - I think - there ye go). Water is associated to memory/reflections and mirrors. And he is CRASHING through this mirror… This idea of reflections/mirror images is even more ironic when you’ve watched the show.  

And as he falls beneath the water with the sword of a King, she rises out of it, with the sword of a Queen… Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s in the biggest shipping hell of them all? Either these two are going to be really good at relay, or there’s some conceptual significance here. The specifics? No fecking clue, will need to wait for a season 2! There is also some interesting use of Z~oo~m in this last bit, but I’m sure it’s pretty obvious to you all. Summary: just visually in a concept “teaser” trailer, the zoom in on them both, the reverse mirroring, the literal and symbolic visual of water and the Sword (of rulers) connecting them frames these two characters together, that’s just in the concept trailer. Links their legend together. TBH IT LITERALLY LOOKS LIKE LANCELOT FELL INTO THE WATER AND TURNED INTO NIMUE  WHAT IS THIS GREEK SOULMATE SHIT I’M–

*calms down* This trailer and the show also definitely said to the original Arthurian Legend “RIP but I’m different.” I mean, Nimue is definitely not Lancelot’s mother figure in this one, that’s all I’m saying.

I think this legend might be a wee bit different 😉*cackles*

[wittyy-name]

June’s Third Patreon Exclusive Oneshot is Now Available

As part of the Special Offer I hosted in June, every patron of the $35 tier got to give me a prompt for a oneshot. These oneshots will then be patreon exclusive and available for all patrons for $3 and up.

————————-

Klance - Accidental Marriage au - 12,100 words It’s been years since the war, years since Voltron disbanded, and years since Keith took over the Blade. Voltron’s mission, however, is not over. The Atlas now travels around the universe, keeping the peace, cleaning up the wreckage, and convincing planets to join the Voltron Coalition Universe Peace Treaty. And sometimes, those planets like to host celebrations to commemorate the alliance with none other than the legendary paladins. 

It’s as good of an excuse as any for them to see each other, and Keith will take any opportunity to see Lance again. It’s been years, and this pesky crush of his has yet to fade.

But when a misunderstanding leads to him and Lance agreeing to get married, the two of them agree to roll with it to avoid offending their hosts. Keith tries to remind himself that this doesn’t have to be weird. They’re friends, they’re close, and they can play pretend for a few days.

But as it turns out, being this close to Lance doesn’t actually feel weird at all. It feels… right.

————————-

If you want access to this oneshot, many others like it, drabbles, early access to chapters, outlines, and other rewards, please check out my Patreon!

Reblogs appreciated! Excerpt Below…

Patreon | Ko-fi | Twitter | Ao3 | Instagram

[ E X C E R P T ]

The air is forced from Keith’s lungs in an agonizing rush as Lance does, actually, end up putting Keith on his back.

Keith wheezes, back arching slightly, vision going gray at the edges for just a moment. There’s pain at the back of his head, but he knows from experience that it’s not too severe. His own staff ends up rolling out of his hand as his grip loosens, and after the initial shock of the fall subsides, his body relaxes.

Then Lance is towering over him. One foot planted triumphantly on his chest. One end of his staff grazing Keith’s throat. His smirk is deadly. A shot right through Keith’s pounding heart. Lance’s chest heaves with every breath, and Keith’s own matches pace beneath the sole of Lance’s boot.

Truthfully, Lance had fought well. Really well, in fact. He’d surprised Keith completely, catching him off guard. And while Keith is usually used to keeping a level head during fights, always expecting the unexpected, that apparently doesn’t extend to the times when it’s his crush that’s proving himself a worthy adversary.

Because Lance? He was a good fighter back in the days of Voltron. He might have been ranged most of the time, but he was good. He was quick. He thought fast and kept on his toes. He was creative and wild, and moved on instinct. Much like Keith. He always thought training one-on-one with Lance would be fun, and he’s always regretted that he didn’t really get the chance.

He thought for sure Lance would have lost some of that after the war. After all, he spent at least a year on his family’s farm. But Lance hadn’t been kidding when he said he kept up training and kept in shape.

He’s looks good. Really good.

He fought hard, and it shows. He’s come so far, and he’s clearly proud of himself. Not in a haughty way, but in a way that’s less cocky and more filled with genuine delight at having laid Keith out, that Keith can’t really be mad.

And… okay, granted, he’s in a really bad position right now. It would take next to nothing for Keith to grab his foot and take him down, quickly reversing their positions. Lance’s dramatic flare and excitement have led him to pose, which has left him vulnerable to an opponent who’s down but not out.

But… he looks so happy, and Keith isn’t the hot headed brat he used to be. He can let Lance have this.

So when Keith uses the end of his staff to tap the underside of Keith’s chin, forcing him to expose more of his neck, smirk widening as he says, “Give up?”

He rolls his eyes, lets his hands rest on the ground by his head, and replies, “Yeah, I yield.”

Lance’s grin? Absolutely blinding.  His laugh as he tosses his head back? Fucking music to his ears.

Lance steps back, removing his staff and holding out a hand for Keith. He takes it, letting Lance pull him to his feet. He staggers a step, still a little dazed and dizzy, and he’s not sure if that has to do with the fall he took or the effect Lance has on him.

“Whoa there,” Lance says softly, putting a hand on his waist to steady him. His smile fades a fraction, brows furrowing as genuine concern leaks into his bravado. “You okay? Did you hit your head?”

“I’m fine,” Keith says, offering him a small smile. “That was a dirty trick though.”

Lance scoffs. “You once told me that it’s not dirty if you win.”

And, well, he’s got him there. Keith chuckles, offering Lance a hand. Lance takes it, the two of them clasping forearms. “Good fight, Lance.”

He doesn’t realize how silent the crowd has been until suddenly it’s deafening. The audience roars to life, loud enough to make him flinch. Truth be told, everything had faded during the match, leaving only him and Lance.

But their little moment isn’t as private as Keith had imagined. He steps away, heat crawling at the back of his neck, up to his ears.

“Congratulations!” Booms a voice. He doesn’t know where the announcer is, but their voice had also announced the start of their match, echoing around the stadium

The council members are all their feet, clapping their hands. Their friends are too, wearing expressions that hold varying degrees of excitement and worry. Which is… strange. Beside him, Lance is grinning, turning in a half circle and waving.

“The challenged has submitted to the challenger! The proposal has been accepted! Tomorrow we celebrate the union of the red and blue paladins of Voltron! Who have now joined us in celebration of unity and joined our ranks of newly mated pairs. We are honored that they have chosen us to host their wedding ceremony. May their lives together be happy and prosperous!”

Keith stiffens, and in the corner of his eye, he sees Lance freeze. Slowly, they turn to face each other, grins fading as confusion sweeps in, eyes wide with mounting panic.

Mated pairs?

Proposal?

“Keith,” Lance says slowly, so softly, and yet Keith can hear him clearly in the roar from the crowd. He’s always been able to pick Lance’s voice out of a crowd. He watches as Lance swallows hard. Watches as he licks his lips, glancing nervously at the crowd. “Did we… just get married?”

[olivewritessometimes]

Okay, so, I had to start my blog at some point...

and after procrastinating for around a month, I decided to release my first fic on Lance’s birthday. (Probably not the best idea since it’s filled with angst and is from Keith’s point of view.) Also, why not a bit of Klance to start us off, right?

Enjoy!

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

2.7K Words

Warning: Mentions of Self-Harm, Swearing

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

  As a member of the Blade of Marmora, Keith was able to visit many places, even if he couldn't call any of them home. 

  His favourite places included Arus, where his adventure with Voltron and the Lions began.

  It also included Olkaria, the new planet inhabited by the Olkari, after Olkarion was destroyed.

  There was also the new Daibazaal and the new Altea, which had been recreated after the entire ‘Honerva’s realities’ ordeal a few years ago.

  But his favourite place to visit, by far, had to be Earth.

  He enjoyed visiting his old shack in the desert, the only place he knew for a very long time.

  He liked to visit the Garrison, to see how the Holts and the rest of the staff were doing.

  He would also drop in to see Shiro. He was like a brother to him, so he insisted that Keith should come over every time he came back to Earth.

  And, although he would never admit it, he particularly liked going to see the McClain family farm, for reasons you can guess.

  A knock on the door announced his arrival.

  “Oh, good afternoon, Keith,” answered Mrs. McClain. “Lance is in his room. Please, come inside.”

  Keith nodded, and stepped through the door.

  This wasn’t any different from what normally happened when he came to visit, so he knew what to expect.

  “Keith! Keith!” yelled the child stampede from down the hall.

  As expected, they came roaring down the hall, jumping up and down, demanding to know what super-cool alien adventures he had been on since the last time he’d seen them.

  “Not really anything exciting, unless you count the giant Weblum that tried to swallow us whole!” Keith said, in an attempt to tell a story to impress them.

  “A Weblum?” “How’d you get away?” “Did he eat you?” came some questions from the kids.

  Keith had gotten better at socializing with children since he started visiting the McClains more often. 

  There were only a few simple rules to it. One, don’t make them upset. Two, keep them happy and they’ll love you. Three, don’t reject that love.

  “Yeah, it was no big deal. It only crushed about half the Marmoran fleets,” he continued, knowing that the cliffhanger would make them want to hear the whole story.

  Obviously, there was no Weblum that tried to swallow them whole, or crushed half their fleets, but kids love a good story, so Keith sat down at the kitchen table and began his tale.

  “So there I was, leaving a planet suffering from a drought after supplying them with enough water for a year, when all of a sudden, Wham! A Weblum comes out of nowhere, catches two ships in its mouth, and not three seconds later, they’re gone into the Weblum’s stomach.

  “I yell at the other ships to get away as fast as possible, but it's already right in front of us, grabbing every one who came too close. I swerve left, then right, and then left again, to try to get away, but then it catches around five ships in its mouth, eats them, then bites down on the wing of my ship.

  "I jiggle the controls to try to get away, but it's too late! The Weblum has me in its jaws, and it looks to be the end! I'm about to give up hope, when suddenly, the wing of my ship snaps off, so now at least I'm free from the Weblum, but I'm running out of oxygen in my ship."

  As he continued to tell the story, making it as dramatic as possible, he was so caught up in the adventure that he didn't even notice when Lance emerged from his room, saw Keith, and leaned against the wall to listen in as well.

  He was reaching the end of the story, where he ended up hitching a ride with another ship for transport back to Earth, when Lance finally spoke up.

  "You know, I don't think Weblums are that vicious." 

  Lance stood up from the wall and walked into the kitchen, as he continued. "From what I remember, they would only do that if they didn't even know you were there."

  "How do you know?" challenged Keith. "Did you ever have to collect scaultrite from its third stomach?"

  “Well how do you know that it was attacking you when you went to collect it?” Lance retorted. “It could’ve just thought you were a piece of rubble or something.”

  “Well how do you know that it didn’t know that I was a Paladin of Voltron, and that it wasn’t trying to kill me?”

  This banter went on for a while, until Lance’s niece, Nadia, started a little game.

  “Raaah! I’m a Weblum, and I’m going to eat you!” she yelled, chasing the other kids around.

  As Mrs. McClain shooed them out of the house, in fear they would break something, Lance mentioned something about feeding the chickens and walked outside.

  Keith let out a sigh of relief once Lance was out of earshot.

  He had refused to let anyone know that his admiration for Lance was more than simply being proud of him for helping him save all of the possible realities.

  Not even Lance himself.

  Shiro has known that he had a crush on one of the Paladins, and encouraged him to try to talk to them about it, but Keith assumes that he guessed it was Allura, since he stopped after she'd gotten with Lance.

  After that happened, Keith continued pining, but he'd started to lose hope, since Lance had been in love with Allura since they first met, and wouldn't be quick to break up with her.

  Not that they would ever have broken up, Lance was a nice guy, and Allura would never have wanted to leave him.

  After she died, part of Keith realized that Lance was now single, and for the taking, but he didn't act on it. That would be too cruel.

  Instead, he chose to comfort him, and try not to let his feelings for him get in the way.

  Which he was succeeding at, for the most part.

  He was snapped from his thoughts when Mrs. McClain walked back inside.

  “Would you like to stay the night? We live a while away from any hotels, and it’s getting late,” she offered.

  Keith looked at the clock on the wall, and noticed that it was too late for him to start heading back.

  He accepted, and she showed him the guest room, and let him know that dinner would be ready soon.

  He walked outside, since it was still light out, and sat down by the roots of a large oak, enjoying the view.

  He'd be lying if he said that he was looking at the rolling hills, and the flowers that cover them. 

  He also wouldn't really like to admit that the view he was enjoying involved Lance, the chickens, and the difference between him here and him on the battlefield.

  The Lance he knew as a Paladin of Voltron was a ruthless, self-sacrificing, adrenaline-loving sharpshooter, a warrior in his own respects.

  The Lance he saw here was a simple, kind man, who would maybe hurt a fly, but only if it was bothering him. 

  Lance's sister, Veronica, just so happened to notice the exact direction Keith's eyes were looking, and sat next to him.

  "Lance, huh?"

  Keith looked up, startled, then a confused look made its way onto his face.

  “What do you mean, ‘Lance, huh?’” Keith asked.

  “Well, I knew you weren’t coming just to say hi, you come over way too often for that. So I assumed you maybe like liked someone who lives here. I also guessed Lance, but it’s nice to have something to confirm it,” explained Veronica.

  “So, you were just making sure that you were right about guessing which McClain I like.”

  “Yep!” She exclaimed, popping the P.

  He rolled his eyes, before realizing that Veronica was the exact person he did not want knowing about it.

  “Oh my god, please don’t tell him. Quiznak, that’ll be awkward,” he pleaded, before realizing what he said.

  “Christ, I’ve got to get out of the habit of saying that!” He laughed, and Veronica gave a small giggle as well.

  She was about to continue when they heard Mrs. McClain yelling to anyone outside that dinner was ready, and to get it while it was hot.

  Veronica stood up, and as she helped Keith up, said, “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

  They walked inside, and headed to the dining room, where Mrs. McClain offered Keith a chair almost at the end of the table, seated between Lance and Veronica.

   Needless to say, it was a very awkward night for Keith.

 Later that night, Keith woke up with a dry throat, so he got up to get a glass of water from the kitchen.

  As he walked down the hallway of bedroom doors, he heard an odd noise coming from behind one.

  Not wanting to wake whoever was inside, he put his ear to the door to see if he could hear it better.

  It might have been the door muffling the sound, but Keith could have sworn that it sounded like someone crying.

  He didn’t know who it was, because he’d never slept over before, and didn’t know whose bedroom was whose.

  Keith then heard footsteps, accompanying the sobs, heading towards the door.

  He hid behind the door as it opened, not wanting to be seen.

  As the door closed, he could see that the one crying was Lance, but Keith didn’t stop him. He wanted to know why Lance was so upset at this time of night.

  Lance shuffled into the kitchen, still sniffling, and opened a drawer.

  Keith then knew that he had to do something when he realized that the object that Lance was pulling out was a knife.

  As Lance set the blade to his wrist, Keith put his hand on his shoulder.

  Lance gasped, dropped the knife onto the counter, and turned around, shocked.

  “Oh, i-it’s only you,” he said between sniffles. 

  “You shouldn’t have seen that.”

  He went to wipe away his tears, when Keith grabbed his wrist.

  For the first time, he noticed the scars.

  “Lance, it’s one in the morning. What’s wrong?” He asked.

  Lance’s eyes welled up, and before he could stop himself, he burst into tears and collapsed in Keith’s arms.

  Keith wasn’t expecting the added weight Lance was pushing onto him, so he ended up falling to the floor, not even minding the pain when he hit. Only taking caution that Lance didn’t hurt himself.

  “I miss her. There was so much more she could’ve done for the universe,” he said through choked sobs.

  It didn’t take much effort to tell he was talking about Allura.

  “I just can’t help but think that there was another way,” he continued. 

  “So that she might be here today, and that we might have started a life together, and that we might even have had kids, who would have grown up safe and happy, with everything they’d ever need, but she’s not. She’s-” he cut himself off, and buried his face in Keith’s shirt, weeping.

  Keith wasn’t really the kind of person who was best at this, but he was going to try his best for Lance.

  He didn’t really know what to say, so he started by trying to calm him down by running his hand through his hair.

  After a few minutes, Lance did start to calm down, and eventually started to lean into the touch.

  “I know Allura’s not here now, but I think that what she did was very noble. She sacrificed her own life so all of humanity could live. So you could live,” he tried.

  “She gave her Quintessence to bring the dead realities back to life, so if you think about it, her life force is inside every living creature in the universe, and even those in other realities. Including you.”

  Lance looked up, and it was all Keith could do to focus on calming Lance and not lose himself in those adorable eyes of his.

  “So when someone says that she’ll always be with you, they’re not wrong. Her life energy is what’s keeping us here today, so she’s technically still with us. Just not in the form of a body.”

  Lance was considerably less upset now, and other than how his eyes were still red, you could hardly tell he was crying at all.

  “Thanks, man.”

  He got up and put the knife away, which reminded Keith of something else he was wondering.

  “How long have you been doing that?” He asked as he stood. “Cutting yourself.”

  Lance rubbed the back of his neck and shyly answered. 

  “I started doing it while I was in the Garrison. Sometimes, the shouting from Iverson, the teasing from the other kids, it was too much. Hunk was the one who helped me quit, after it became a habit.”

  Keith was in awe at how young he must have been when he started.

  Lance continued. “On the Castle of Lions, there were loads of missions that went wrong, and like half the time I thought it was because of me. Whenever I was yelled at because of it, add that to some self-esteem issues, and you get the urge to slice your skin open because that pain will distract you from the mental pain.”

  He was about to go on when Keith interrupted.

  “Woah, woah, woah, self-esteem issues? What else have you been going through?”

  “Ah, well, there was the One Paladin Too Many issue, and it got me wondering, am I really needed on the team?” Lance explained. 

  “Just about anyone with good aim can use a gun, but you could probably find a more serious, sensible person to do it, rather than someone who’s just a goofball.

  “I knew you could replace me just like that, so I thought it was only a matter of time until the title of Sharpshooter went to someone else.”

  “Lance, no one ever thought that about you,” Keith reassured. “Your jokes were exactly what we needed to keep our spirits lifted, and we would be lost without you.”

  “But was that all I was good for? Comedic relief?” Lance retorted, tears starting to fall down his cheeks again. “Did you only keep me on the team for my jokes? For someone to laugh at? It's kind of the only thing I'm good at, might as well have been useful for something."

  "Lance-"

  "I'm a shitty pilot, the only weapon I can use is the easiest one to use, and I only ended up dating Allura for a few months before she died, because my stupid ass couldn't make a fucking move! If I can't even ask a girl out over the span of a few fucking years, then what-"

  He was cut off by Keith's lips on his own.

  Lance didn't register what was happening at first, but once he did, he relaxed, and seemed to melt under him.

  Keith pulled away with a soft smile, thinking of how long he'd been waiting to do that. 

  Keith knew his mind must be racing with anger, sadness, confusion, and everything in between, so he took Lance’s hand in his own. 

  “You need to stop. You’re hurting yourself, and you think that you’re fine on your own. Well, you’re not. You’re keeping this a secret from your family, your friends, everyone, when really, you should have come to us in the first place,” he explained.

  “We’ll always be here for you. I’ll be here for you. Just talk to us, we’ll-”

  He was cut off by Lance launching himself onto Keith, pressing their lips together.

  Keith didn’t even realize what was happening until he felt Lance’s hand holding his, fingers intertwining like magic.

  Instinctively, he wrapped his arm around him, finding a position in the small of his back.

  They stood there for a few seconds, then Lance slowly pulled away.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  He rested his head on Keith's shoulder, and he started stroking his hair again.

  At that moment, Keith finally knew where his home was.