#vld 2x06

[kcwcommentary]

VLD2x06 – “The Ark of Taujeer”

2x06 – “The Ark of Taujeer”

We open with the Galra hassling some aliens who look like large tardigrades that speak with a robotic voice. They’re trying to escape a planet that is becoming uninhabitable, but they have only one ship with which to do so.

Allura still thinks Zarkon is tracking them through her. Lance obnoxiously flirts with her despite Allura being clearly in a state of distress. That Lance is like this again and again and there are no consequences for him doing so is infuriating writing/directing/production. How the creators of this show think that it’s okay to behave like this, I don’t know. Keith counters with the possibility that Zarkon is tracking them through Zarkon “imprinting on [him] during [their] fight.” Pidge counters both saying they don’t know how Zarkon is tracking them but that it could be through the Black Lion. You think? Shiro proposes they stop running from the Galra and instead attack them.

Shiro tries to get Keith to open up to him about whatever’s bothering him. It’s a small moment at the end of much larger scene, but there’s actual emotion in it. I wish this show had more, bigger interpersonal scenes like this. It’s one of my biggest complaints with this show, especially the further we go into the show: too often, the characters don’t feel like they’re actually friends. Moments like this are vital to building bonds between characters, and thus giving weight to the events that happen.

Keith dreams that he’s attacked by the Red Lion, that he ends up dressed as a Galra, and that he can hear Zarkon proclaim that he can find Keith anywhere. He keeps pondering the blade and what it means that he has something Galra. He tries to sneak away, only to run into Allura. They both are acting in somewhat self-sacrificial ways, and they leave together to see if they’re what Zarkon’s tracking. It’s a bit odd to me that they go in a pod rather than in the Red Lion.

Of course, Lance responds to Allura and Keith leaving by being jealous. Ugh.

Seemingly out of nowhere, while the crew on the Castle Ship are talking to Allura and Keith on their pod, something from a debris field hits the Castle. How in the world the Castle ship got where it is, with the image of the planet looming large on the giant display screen on the bridge, and neither Coran, nor Shiro, nor Pidge, nor Lance, nor Hunk saw it, I don’t know. This is sloppy direction for the episode. 

The leader of the Taujeerians tells Shiro that the planet is “dissolving.” It’s one thing to say the planet is becoming uninhabitable; that’s a simple, easy statement that doesn’t require you to make any scientific statements. But to say the planet is “dissolving” means something specific: that the solid material of the planet is being incorporated into the green liquid. The planet is a rocky one; even with the glowing, green liquid seen on the planet, there’s not enough of the liquid for the far greater quantity of rock that makes up the planet to dissolve into. Also, even if the rock dissolved into this liquid, it would not cause giant chunks of the planet to overcome the planet’s gravity and float off into space to create the debris field. (Potentially, the debris field could be caused by a collision of a really large solar system object into the planet, but that would liquify much of the planet, so there’d be red, hot molten rock all over the surface, not this green liquid.) The episode should have just kept it simple and just have it be a thoroughly undefined something happening rendering the planet uninhabitable rather than trying to act like smaller scale chemistry can be uniformly upscaled for a planet-wide event.

The Taujeerian says, “We’ve known for years that our planet would eventually lose its outer layer.” No, gravity would prevent that from happening. Even if the planet could dissolve into what Pidge says is acid, then the planet would just be a giant ball of acid. You wouldn’t have mountainous chunks of rock floating off into space. This loss of an outer layer suddenly becomes a “shedding process,” per the Taujeerian’s repetition of Lance’s simile. The Taujeerian says that the planet’s population was going to evacuate to the planet’s moon and wait until the “shedding process” was over. So then, the problem isn’t that the planet is dissolving? If it’s dissolving, you’re not going to have a stable, rocky surface post-shedding, but the Taujeerian, through saying they were going to “wait out the shedding process,” sounds like the plan was to return. All of this is inconsistent and nonsensical.

The Taujeerian says this is a plan they’ve been implementing for several years. Why would they evacuate the population in one, single, giant ship instead of multiple relocation missions over the course of those years? And why is this single ship the only sign of a civilization on this planet?

The episode remembers that Hunk is an engineer this time, and Shiro assigns him and Pidge to try to get the Taujeerian’s ship working. Hunk is even confident in himself, declaring that they can get it “flying in no time.” More of this Hunk, please!! Trouble with the surface of the planet beneath the ship causes problems though. For some reason, what looks like insect-like legs of the ship break at the point where they connect to the near top of the ship just because the ground shifts beneath it. I don’t get how the structure is brittle enough to snap like that, but whatever. Hunk’s follow up – “Would you settle for upright?” – is a funny line though.

Keith and Allura remain waiting. It’s nice to get another interpersonal scene like this. Allura demonstrates the weight of responsibility she feels. Keith expresses a willingness to not think any species/race/culture (however you want to define/label it) is uniform in a simplistic declaration of being bad people. He cites Ulaz’s sacrifice, but Allura can’t see past her biases against the Galra and says Ulaz’s death might just have been “a ploy.” I understand why Allura has her hypercritical opinions, but her personal history is blinding her. She declares one life doesn’t mean anything to Zarkon, and Keith retorts, “It means something to me.” Thank you, Keith. Allura effectively says that even if there are good Galra that they’re not worth trying to work with because they haven’t been able to stop Zarkon. Again, I understand why she’s like this, but it doesn’t make her obstinance and short-sightedness less frustrating.

Zarkon has returned to his old ways. Last episode, he had transitioned from standing off in the distance and instead directly challenged Voltron. This episode, he’s back to standing distant and sending other Galra to capture Voltron and bring it to him. That’s a step backward for the greater arc development.

Team Voltron decides to try to stop the planet from “shedding.” Pidge asks, “How do you stop a planet that’s coming apart at the seams?” And Hunk answers, “By sewing it back together.” The plan is to use the Green Lion’s plant cannon to stitch the “cracks in the planet” together. Are you kidding me? Yes, the roots of plants help prevent erosion, but again you cannot take something small scale like that and upscale it. Plants wouldn’t hold a planet together. To deal with the plants being destroyed by the acid, Pidge suggests freezing the plants. Why not just freeze the cracks in the planet then? No need for plants whatsoever. This plot makes no sense.

Keith continues his discussion with Allura, raising the question of what they should do if one of them are how Zarkon’s been tracking them. Team Voltron needs both of them for their respective skills and abilities. These are very good questions for them to be asking. I like that they’re thinking through the situation.

The Taujeerian ship starts to launch only to be attacked by the Galra. Coran moves the Castle to respond and contacts Allura and Keith to let them know Zarkon is not tracking them through either of them. Keith moves to get him and Allura back with the group, but when he uses the booster Pidge added to the pod, the pod’s engines explode, which causes the forcefield that seals the pod (apparently, they can’t make pods with windows and instead use a forcefield) to deactivate, and Keith and Allura are ejected into space. (Why/how they’re ejected, I don’t know. It’s not like there’s air pressure inside the pod to blow them out into space once the forcefield goes down. We know there’s not because Keith and Allura are wearing helmets.) Keith and Allura end up stabilizing themselves and float in space. They try to communicate with Coran, but there’s no response.

The Lions attack the Galra ship with their jawblades, which I still contend are so small that their damage is less significant than when my cat scratches me. I assume the jawblade is a hold-over from the old Voltron show? Whether it’s old or new, it’s ridiculous. The Galra blast the surface of the planet, which in part showers rocks down toward Hunk. How these smaller rocks are being pulled down by gravity to be a danger to Hunk while larger chunks of rock are floating off into space away from the planet in defiance of gravity makes the larger chunks floating off even more absurd. This quite an inconsistency. For that matter, why is the Taujeerian ship even falling down and needing to be held up by Hunk? Why isn’t it just floating away the same as the huge chunks of the planet’s surface?

I admire Coran’s willingness to pilot the Red Lion so that the team can form Voltron. Of course, he changes into a caped costume. What really gets to me is when Coran says, “Finally Alfor, I will walk in your footsteps.” There is so much potential in that one line. I don’t really remember this show doing much exploring such a desire of Coran’s to live up to Alfor’s memory like this. This is very different than Coran looking after Allura or the Castle Ship or working in the effort against the Galra with an awareness that Alfor would want him to do those things. This is much more personal between Coran and Alfor. This one line is very compelling, and I would have loved for the show to have done more with it.

The Red Lion, however, blasts away on its own. This explains why Keith and Allura left in a pod rather than in Red. It’s the writing being contrived. Knowing they wanted to have this moment with Red going to get Keith, they needed to have Red remain behind, so they have Keith and Allura in a pod. It’s not that I dislike Red going after Keith – I like it a lot, actually – but there needed to be something to justify Keith having not gone out in Red in the first place in order to keep this from being contrived. Red rescuing Keith demonstrates, not just that the Lion-Paladin bond extends across significant interstellar distances, but also that Red is bonded to Keith. Red coming for Keith makes Keith becoming the Black Paladin later in the series sad and frustrating because look at how Red cares about Keith! And the show never spends any time on what it means for Keith and Red for their bond to be ignored so that Keith can become Black Paladin. It’s like, what if characters who are close, good friends stopped talking to one another – oh wait, they did that with Shiro and Keith in season 8 too. It’s like this show doesn’t actually respect/understand personal bonds between characters.

The situation causes the Yellow Lion to suddenly develop special claw add-ons to help stabilize Yellow’s grip in the rock. At this point in the show, I’m starting to become numb to the Lion’s waiting until the most plot-dramatic moment to demonstrate previously unseen function. It’s not really a surprise anymore, and thus isn’t dramatic.

Keith, Allura, and Red show up. “Is the Princess with you?” Lance asks, and when Keith says yes, Lance continues, “Like ‘with you’ with you?” Are you kidding me? Lance’s concern isn’t for Allura’s wellbeing but whether she’s in a romantic relationship with Keith? All while they’re all still in the middle of a crisis? Lance’s behavior isn’t cute, and it isn’t funny. Lance has the potential to be a very interesting character, but this is ridiculous.

The Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow Lions all psychically tell their Paladins to use their bayards, and it results in Voltron’s sword becoming huge, which they use to destroy the Galra ship. This upgrade in capacity feels timed so much better than Yellow’s claws earlier in the episode.

With the Galra taken out, Voltron lifts the Taujeerian ship off the planet, and that’s very quickly (a little too quickly) the end of all that.

Allura and Keith apologize for leaving. Allura reaffirms Shiro’s stronger-together perspective. It’s a nice moment that reinforces Shiro as the leader of the group. The episode ends with a statement of confirmation that Zarkon is tracking them through his connection to the Black Lion.

The narrative beats for this episode are solid. Lance aside, there are some nice character moments. I just wish this show wasn’t so scientifically senseless.

[zhansww]

Shiro and Lance in season 2 [← | →]

[shiroallura]

do you ever cry abt how much allura loves shiro with every fibre of her being and how she would literally die for him and his safety means the world to her

all the damn time like listen when they’re about to be captured and she’s straining to close the door and he’s trying to help her seal it shut but she knows they’re running out of time and she never wanted him to come on this mission anyway because it was going to be dangerous, and she tells him to go and he refuses and she launches him to safety knowing what the galra did to him knowing what they’ll do to her knowing that if he’ll take care of the team and make the right choices but she’s scared she’s also so scared but then she sees the sheer devastation on his face and the fact he’s safe sinks in and she thinks he’s going to be the last person she sees that she cares about and so she smiles at him like this to reassure him because he’s safe and that’s all she wanted and

and then when ulaz comes she has every reason every damn reason not to trust him because her father had trusted the galra before and look where that got him but she knows shiro is nothing like zarkon she knows him she knows the team doesn’t believe him that there are a million other explanations that it could be fake a distorted memory a dream and the rest of the team agrees with her even keith agrees with her and if they trust ulaz they could all get blown to bits she hates the galra more than anyone but she also loves shiro more than anything so she trusts him

and she checks up on him afterwards because she knows the loss hit him hard and when she’s exhausted she trusts him to watch over the bridge for her and when she can’t sleep she goes to try and alleviate his burden and when she thinks he’s dead she can’t stop herself from signalling him out because she has to know and then he responds and she’s shocked and then she loses him again and holds him in the same esteem as her father and the paladins of old and wears pink to honour him and knows no one and nothing could ever replace him

and then they’re fighting and she doesn’t know what to do but she does her best not to argue with him and even when everything goes on and lotor kuron betray her and she doesn’t know why she just knows it’s not shiro’s fault and she’s so desperate to find him and know if he’s okay and then she carries his soul in her body and pours a bit of her own quintessence back into him and brings him back to life and immediately comforts him because she knows he’s done enough just by being here 

and she stays by his side the whole time while he’s sleeping and does everything she can to keep him alive and is devastated when she thinks she’s going to lose him again and when they get back to earth she has a million things on her mind the war diplomacy resources paladins lions but she still thinks of him even when no one else does and uses her already limited time and energy to build him a new arm because she cares and loves and pays attention to him and when the arm goes haywire she’s horrified and she realizes what she can do to spare him pain and save him and she does so without hesitation even though it’s the last piece of her mother she has the last piece of altea she’ll still sacrifice it without flinching for shiro because he is worth more than all that to her

she loves him more than anything and anyone and i’ll never be over it

[purpleplaid17]

Pidge 2x06 more

Shiny glasses / Ugh never mind / Smug / Unimpressed / Glowing bayards

[sage-nebula]

Do you have any advise, tips, or general guidelines for creative writing? I'm writing a Fan fiction for the first time but outside of basic rules for writing I don't really know what I'm doing. Mostly how to pace a scene and deal with tone. thank you for your time.

Hm, well, yes and no . . .

It’s difficult, because while I have trained for this (in the sense that I pursued a degree in this---my B.A. is in English with an emphasis in creative writing), so much of what I know I learned through practice. I’ve been writing for the past seventeen years, and in that time I have written a lot of stuff. Sure, a great deal of it---maybe even most of it!---was garbage, but the important thing is that I wrote it. I still wrote it. And through writing it, I learned what worked and what didn’t. This learning wasn’t necessarily conscious; although I of course have received feedback over the years (both informally through comments on my fics, as well as more seriously in the form of creative writing workshops), learning any art form is a matter of subconsciously picking things up as you go along. You always hear “practice, practice, practice!” for a reason. The more you write, the more you improve. The same goes for drawing, for music, et cetera.

So when it comes to things like pacing, or tone---that’s something I just sort of . . . do. I mean, your narrative voice isn’t something you can be taught, anyway. That’s always going to come from you. But when it comes to the pacing of a scene, to the blocking, to the dialogue . . . I don’t really plan that, I don’t have strategies for how I have that come across, I just do it. Of course, I can read over a work and pick apart what works and what doesn’t, and I actually can’t help but do this when I read something nowadays (it was drilled into me in my advanced fiction workshop specifically, I can’t turn it off), and in that sense I could say, “The pacing doesn’t work here, and it might be better to rework this part so that it reads like [suggestion] instead,” but that’s specific advice for a specific piece of work. It isn’t something that applies generally, because every piece is different.

So to that end, I’m sorry to be disappointing, but I can’t think of any advice to give. If someone asks me, “How do you construct your narratives?” or “How do you set your pacing?” I draw a blank because I don’t entirely know. I just do it. It doesn’t always work, and often times I want to chuck my entire laptop into the sun, but it’s still something that I just do, as I’ve been doing for the past seventeen years, and as I tried to refine in my various creative writing courses (but particularly my fiction workshops, and especially my advanced fiction workshop). It’s something I take very seriously, but at the same time it’s not something I feel I can really teach.

But that said, I don’t want to leave you with nothing, so some general tips:

When writing, stay in the room. This advice comes not from me, actually, but from Ron Carlson in his book Ron Carlson Writes a Story. In that book, Ron explains the “stay in the room” philosophy, which is essentially that, once you start writing, you do not get up from that desk until you’re done writing for the day. You don’t get up to get coffee, to go to the bathroom---you don’t let yourself browse the internet or look up names for your characters. Use placeholders if you have to, use gibbersih, but just keep writing. It’s very, very solid advice that I’ve found helpful ever since I”ve learned it. Removing yourself from the story even for a moment can mean losing your train of thought. As tempting as it is to get up and jump around sometimes, you can’t let yourself to do that. You have to have discipline. Stay in the room. 

Do not use epithets. Many, many, many fanfiction writers do this, and it is always a mistake. They are unnecessary and yank the reader from the story. So for instance, if you’re writing a VLD fic, you may be tempted to refer to characters as “the green paladin” or “the Altean princess”, et cetera. Don’t do it. The only time you should use epithets is if your viewpoint character legitimately does not know the name of another character, and thus has to refer to them by some sort of physical description. Otherwise, your reader knows that Pidge is the Green Paladin (for instance), and thus does not need to be told. It’s distracting. Don’t do it.

If you’re writing fanfiction, do go back and revisit the source material again, and again, and again. If you want to properly portray a character’s voice, you have to get in their head, and the best way to do that is to study them in their natural canon. Pay attention to things like body language, facial expressions, speech patterns and verbal tics. Yes, there are obvious things like having Keith cross his arms, but pay attention to the way his voice goes very soft whenever he speaks to Allura or Shiro, and the way that he always starts a lie by avoiding eye contact, yet then glances back up at the person he’s lying to, as if he’s either catching himself looking away and is trying to force himself to maintain eye contact, or as if he’s trying to gauge whether or not they’re buying his very shoddy lie. Lance gets shrill when he gets emotional, Hunk stammers as he trails off, Keith is known for being blunt and temperamental, but outside of his circumstances in 3x03, he never snaps or yells at Allura even when they disagree (e.g. 2x06, 3x04), and so on and so forth. Revisit the canon not just for plot points, but to really observe and pay attention to the characters. Get to know them and the way they tick, and remember: If you can hear the voice actors reciting the lines in your head, then there’s a good chance your reader will be able to as well.

Write a lot, and have fun. Don’t worry about getting it perfect the first time. You’re a brand new writer, you’re just starting out, and fandom (however often certain fandoms forget this) is supposed to be about connecting with people who have the same interests you do, and having fun. Most of what I write is, by my standards, garbage. But even if it’s garbage, it’s at least garbage that exists. I write it because I want to write it, and you should, too. I’m not saying that what you write will be garbage, of course. I’d never say that. But I am saying that you shouldn’t let yourself get too hung up on things. Do the best you can, and have fun with it. The most important thing is that you’re doing something that makes you happy. So long as you’re having fun, so long as you’re happy, you’re good to go.

[mustlovelance]

hey there! i was just wondering what you thought were the quintessential alllurance eps of vld (minus s8 bc I'm too distressed over that).

if you want an exhaustive list, i recommend skimming through my allurance ship manifesto and picking the episodes that have at least one scene of screencaps.

just from skimming that myself:

1x01 (meet cute)

2x02 (”mrs. blue lion”)

2x03 (lance staying behind with allura)

2x06 (lance saying he’d cross the universe for allura and being jealous of her running off with keith)

2x07 (allura wants something sparkly!)

lance’s vlog (like half of it is devoted to allura lol)

3x02 (allura telling lance to accept red)

3x03 (allura trying to flirt with the blue lion, lance supporting her)

3x06 (lance being in awe of allura’s whip, allura picking him up by the collar)

4x06 (lance being the first to reach allura when she’s zapped, lance inspiring allura with his speech, allura thanking him)

5x01 (lance being the one to grab allura for the meeting, lance standing closest to lot/or before he even mentions marrying allura)

5x03 (allura walking in on lance training with his sword and reassuring him, lance reassuring her in turn) 

5x06 (lance freaking the fuck out because he’s worried about allura on oriande..........hah...................) 

6x01 (DO I EVEN NEED TO EXPLAIN WHY?) 

6x02 (lance being sad about lot/ura, allura being conflict about lance’s indirect confession) 

6x03 (dnd episode! lance saying they have fun together and allura agreeing)

6x06 (lance consoling allura about loto/r’s betrayal, the huuuuug)

6x07 (for the ending scene when lance is crying and allura feels it’s necessary to smile at lance before reviving shiro)

7x10 (veronica teasing lance about allura being pretty, allura blushing at lance and telling him to come back safe! lance blushing back and denying the significance of this when veronica teases him! glorious!) 

7x13 (lance looking over at allura after they’ve won, allura looking back at him and smiling softly, allura having that card that lance likely made for her in her hospital room)

i bolded the episodes that i’d consider quintessential. 

[shiroallura]

god i love being endgame: 4/? → krolia/keith’s father + shiro/allura “the mission,” apologies, and leaving

Splitting up the group makes us far more vulnerable, come back to the Castle immediately. I’m sorry Shiro, I cannot do that. [...] You understand, I could never live with myself if Zarkon was finding us because of me. I must know. We face such a dire threat from the Galra. [...] I'm so sorry for leaving. Me too. We thought we were doing the right thing. But clearly you were correct, Shiro. We are always stronger together. 

//

 I must go. I thought you’d seen enough war. If they found the Blue Lion once they’ll find it again. I need to report back to the Blades and stop the Galra from the inside. I’m sorry. But this is the best way for me to keep you both safe.