thestarsalign

[thestarsalign]

Welcome to the Glim Glams Part 2

This was my second attempt at a glamour inspired by the Blade of Marmora and this time I opted to just go for a more form fitting top instead of the robe. Unlike the first attempt, this set can be worn by all jobs. This was my primary glamour for my main, Bard, at the end of Stormblood going into Shadowbringers (hence the screenshots in front of the Crystal Tower.) Only real problem I have with this set is the mask cannot be turned off via the visor so if I want the hood up I have to have the mask on, but hey, at least it’s a hood for all jobs.

Pieces Used:

Head- Scion’s Traveler’s Mask  Body- Scion’s Traveler’s Jacket (Dyed Soot Black) Hands- Faerie Tale Princess’ Golves (Dyed Soot Black) Legs- Leonhart Bottoms Feet- Expeditioner’s Thighboots (Dyed Soot Black)

[thestarsalign]

“Shiro’s bad at relationships”, so he learned from his past to keep the one he loves.

[thestarsalign]

3 times season 8 could have given a moment

Continuing my salt, thinking about the three episodes where we could have not only just had a Sheith moment, but a scene with Shiro being a fucking person and not just the Captain. Yes, what Shiro does in his role is important, but the Paladins and more specifically KEITH were his family and thus he treats them differently. So here is some thoughts on what could have been in those three episodes.

Launch Date- Keith, Shiro and Kosmo sit atop of the Black Lion. They are close together, leaning on each other and just talking about their races from back in the Garrison days, Keith smirks; “I still need to be beat you in a race one day. So when we get back, you and me okay?” Shiro smiles softly with a soft chuckle; “You’re on.” Shiro’s data pad pings, so he checks it and it’s a message from Sam Holt, Keith looks over Shiro’s shoulder; “What is it?” He asks, which Shiro responds; “The Altean woke up. I need to get back.” He stands and sees Keith moving to get up as well, but he places a hand on Keith’s shoulder, smiling that smile that is meant just for him; “No, I want you to rest. I’ll be back in a bit.” Reluctantly Keith agrees and Kosmo teleports Shiro back to the Garrison and comes back to be with Keith. Then Lance shows up.

Day 47- Kinkade in the gym doing his thing when a crowd breaks out from their normal exercise routine to watch the Captain of the Atlas and the Leader of Voltron spar. There’s a seriousness to it, but when Kinkade zooms in to get a good look in their eyes he sees they are having fun. And in a surpise move, Keith pins Shiro beneath him, he grins; “I win.” Shiro laughs and Keith follows. The crowd starts to dissipate, Keith gets up off of Shiro and helps him up, there is a lingering look, their hands still in one another’s. You hear Kinkade clear his throat turning the camera on himself saying; “Well this is private… Let’s go see what’s happening in the mess hall…”

Clear Day- Keith relents and goes with Shiro on his relaxing and have fun instruction. They find themselves at the arm wrestling match. Keith smiles at the determination from Shiro as it was assumed he didn’t have strength JUST because of his arm. Keith gives a sly smirk; “Count me in too.” He says. After they sign up they shake hands, a mischievous smile play between them. “I know what you’re capable of Keith,” Shiro says; “I better see you in the finals.” Keith’s smirk grows into a grin as he stares into those steel like eyes; “And I won’t give up on you, so you better win.” Match after match the two clear, then comes the finals; Captain of the Atlas vs Leader of Voltron. The Paladins and Coran are cheering them on. It’s even, going back and forth, back and forth, their eyes never leaving each other. Sweat beads down from their temples another smirk plays on Shiro’s face; “You’re toying with me.” Keith smirks as well; “I can say the same for you…” he lets out a low chuckle; “Lets give it everything we’ve got.” It was no longer an even back and forth with a few close call pins on both sides, but Shiro ends up being the one victorious. Breathless the stand, but Keith then lets out a loud laugh as Shiro declared the winner and lifted up by the other Paladins. Keith looks up, happy and overjoyed; “I’ll get you in the next one, Old Timer!”

[thestarsalign]

Welcome to the Glim Glams Part 1

As like with most players in FFXIV I love making glamours and though I can’t get anything quite exactly the way they would look in the series, I did make some glamours inspired by Shiro and Keith (mainly Keith).

The first one I ever made (which I no longer have in my glam plates) was one inspired by the Blade of Marmora, particularly the Elder/Senior Blade uniform worn by Kolivan and later Keith.

Now again, the armor in FFXIV won’t match exactly, so my goal was to have a uniformed robe with a hood. The problem with this is that the only job(s) that seems to have a hood as a separate head piece are the healers, thus this was my healing glamour for awhile. (Side note you see my character as an Au’Ra here as apposed to my normal Miqo’te. My husband and I decided to swap races for Halloween.)

Pieces Used:

Head- Replica Dreadwyrm Hood of Healing (Dyed Jet Black) Body- Uwagi #55 Hands- Faerie Tale Princess’ Gloves (Dyed Jet Black) Legs- Harlequin’s Tights (Dyed Jet Black) Feet- Expeditioner’s Thighboots (Dyed Jet Black)

[thestarsalign]

Worst Cook in the Universe

Or did we? So earlier this week I had seen people on Twitter talking about unpopular opinion on some headcanons and the one that popped up the most (or rather had more of a lengthy discussion) is the one I am starting with; Shiro can’t cook.

When I first got into VLD and a little later Sheith, it was the first headcanon I saw, but it wasn’t until I saw a tweet that listed it among other headcanons, stating that there are fans who didn’t know where they came from, that I realized I never heard the origin of it. So I asked and laughed when they gave me the answer. Apparently it stems from this alternate cover from the comics by Lion Forge; 

Poor Shiro, you tried....

I personally love the HC that he can’t cook, to me it shows that he isn’t perfect and even though it’s played up for humor, it doesn’t mean he can’t work on it. The idea of his fellow paladins or even those around the Garrison going off about Shiro being this amazing pilot and leader, but then you have Keith (because he is the one who knows Shiro best) hearing this and being all “The man can’t even make toast” or something akin is kind of funny, but the idea of him working on getting better is one I adore, whether it’s for himself or someone he loves depends on your narrative, but watching him learn and enjoy the process is such a delight to read and think about.

Do I like the HC that he is a really good cook? Oh hells yeah I do and who’s to say in the pic above he isn’t? For all we know something just went awry. As someone else mentioned on Twitter, his food looks more like a chocolate cake fell apart rather than burned. Even if burned, somethings just go wrong in the kitchen and you don’t have to be perfect all the time. Look at Hunk, he made cookies from Scultrite because he couldn’t read the bag. No one gave him crap about it (especially since they came in handy) because they know he knows how to cook and things happen.

So as we see, using the picture above, both HCs are valid and I adore them both.

[thestarsalign]

The Thing

I had been thinking about this for awhile now and well, here’s the thing; vld did actually include lots of kinds of people and handles them rather well in some cases. However, my mind kept drifting to a piece of art LM had done where the paladins are in sets of two holding a sign. I had seen some say “remember when LM did this and confirmed that Lance and Shiro were LGBT”, but the truth is she didn’t. Take a stroll with me for a moment and venture to look at this another way.

So here is the art piece I am referring to (credit again to Lauren Montgomery). Yes I can see where people could see that both characters are representing said banner/sign, but in terms of narrative I can see something else unfolding here.

See the signs represent the thing that is stated on said banner; one person is the thing and the other helps them with the situation in some way.

Let’s start with Pidge and Allura; Pidge is female who is hiding the fact she is a girl early on and the only one to know her secret is Shiro and the mice. The mice then tell Allura and Allura finds herself wanting Pidge to be honest with who she is and that it’s more than okay that she is a girl. Though it wasn’t until an episode later where Pidge came clean about it, Allura still wanted to help her.

Then we have Keith and Hunk with the Race sign. Though Hunk is a PoC, the VLD narrative gave us the reveal that Keith is half Galra. So in this case, Keith is the one who is the thing and Hunk is the one who helps. In “Enter the Weblum” it’s Hunk and Keith who take the mission to the Weblum not long after Keith’s Galra reveal and Hunk is genuinely curious about Keith’s heritage. He’s never mean or rude about it; awkward sure, but never cruel. This was the show’s way of displaying that his other friends didn’t have a problem with his bloodline and still accepted him for who he is no matter what. Keep in mind it was also Hunk who wanted to learn more about the Galra (or at least what Verpit Sa meant) and I can honestly see him sharing that knowledge later with Keith.

So now we reach the final one with Shiro and Lance. I had seen a lot of stuff back after Shiro’s reveal that people thought Shiro was going to help Lance with discovering he was bisexual and more or less that follows a little bit with what I had said about the first two, accept Lance was never revealed to be bisexual in the show. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the hc of bi Lance, but Shiro is the LGBT rep. Thus we have Shiro is the thing and it’s Lance who is to help somehow. Sadly this is where this falls apart in actual cannon because we never see Lance help Shiro with this, which is a question in of itself; how would you help someone LGBT in a narrative that has nothing to do with the stereotype/cliche of coming out of the closet? Well it’s not about Shiro’s sexuality as a label, but about who he loves and love is what it comes down to.

For sake of argument I am using Sheith as the example here. With how season 8 ended, minus the epilogue cards, we are left with a mourning Lance after Allura had sacrificed herself. “Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all” or so they say. He understands heartbreak, but he also knows he would have regretted it if he had never confessed to Allura how he felt. So the best advice he can give to someone, in this case Shiro; who is pining and afraid he’ll mess something up, would be to not overthink it, to go for it and not waste any more time because you never know when it could be your last moment with them. Shiro’s behavior of being distant in the final season could then be explained a way due to fear of losing someone close; i.e. Keith.

It’s an interesting way to look at this piece and think about it a little differently than what is directly in front of you. Nothing is ever black and white and it’s okay to view things differently, but ultimately we all just need to respect each other.

[thestarsalign]

The Past Can Hurt...

And they decided to run from it… Seeing more salt lately so I thought I would bring this back, connecting with the previous post of Shiro’s family I thought it would be good to talk about backstory or lore. I feel I need to state as well that I am talking about everything from a creative and narrative standpoint.

So we all know and probably have asked this question; what happened to Shiro’s story? And frankly it’s a damn good one that I have no logical and creative answer for. For starters we know Shiro suffers from PTSD as shown in Crystal Venom back in season 1. Sendak taunts him, saying “they don’t know what I know” and the question I am left with is; what do you know? What did Shiro do in his time in the arena? Was he forced to fight other prisoners like himself? Actually have the blood of innocence on his hands? In his tone, Sendak sounds like he is mocking Shiro the entire time, no matter which encounter. This insinuates that there is a connection between the two, but sadly for us it is never shown. It’s unfortunately the first of many in either flashbacks or just in a scene discussing the situation that could have been something great for not just Shiro’s background, but for the world building itself. We know Zarkon was evil, but truthfully we never get a fill glimpse of it aside from destroying Altea and the mention of what the arena was.

Then we go further into his story, after his death, in which it was stated by the EPs that Shiro is no longer sick since he is now in a new body. This brings up two questions with the narrative choice. 1)Why so many clones? Now, yes, the obvious answer is if one dies you send another, but Honerva didn’t seem to be stupid, so the what if scenario; if Kuron were to die, in front of the Paladins, would she just send another? It doesn’t make sense, does it? She says he could have been the perfect weapon and I agree, the logic here would have made sense to use them as some kind of army; whether it was powering the Acolytes or more effective soldiers than the drones. Putting a twist like this would have had so much more impact on not just us as the audience, but all of the characters. And 2) Why bring up Shiro’s illness in season 7 if it is gone within the same episode so to speak? I love A Little Adventure, especially because of those flashbacks, but putting them this far into the series was a bit of a misstep in terms of storytelling. His illness was a part of him, yes, and I appreciate that we get to see him struggle with it more or less and learn something about him, but it kind of becomes a moot point since the clone was designed to not have it. So, why was this not said in cannon after he was revived? It could have been in a couple spots along their way back to Earth; Allura or Corran looking at the pod data, maybe bringing up that they saw something from before when he was healing in episode 3 of season 2 saying that it was now gone. Or have Sam bring up that Shiro would need to go under testing before surgery cause maybe his heart wouldn’t be able to take it and find it gone. There were opportunities for that part of the story to come up in the show itself and not just in an interview. I know those flashback scenes were meant for season 2 and they would have made a lot more sense there or at least the part with Shiro’s illness because from that point on we would have been left wondering how long he has or just in general how he is feeling.

Then there is the question about Shiro’s bond with Black. I myself was unaware of the interview at the time, in which it was stated that when Allura took his soul out of the Lion it ended up severing his bond with it. And we all have the same question; why? From everything we have seen, Shiro should have had the strongest bond with his Lion, hell, he’s the one who really EARNED it by fighting Zarkon for her and wanted to protect her. Add in that he was technically one with her inside the Astral Plane and you have a bond that shouldn’t be broken. If it was an excuse for Shiro to get the Atlas, I again have to ask why, and also ask; did Keith and Lance lose their bonds with Red and Blue when they switched? Lance had quite the bond with Blue, but nothing was comparable to how inked Keith and Red were. So how could something that powerful and something that was meant to be sacred and special just vanish, like “nope, not my paladin anymore”? Losing such a bond like that I would imagine there would be a sense of loss and feeling of sadness or emptiness, but we see nothing like that with any of the three who technically lost their Lions.

These are just some of the questions I have on this topic. There was so much more we could have learned, whether it had been about Lotor and the colony, more about Allura growing up on Altea, or even actually learning about Altea itself. Stories have layers and as creators it’s our job to make sure holes are filled so that everyone and everything is smooth and rounded out.

That’s not to say I am not grateful for some of the holes, its given the fandom a lot to play with. ^.-

[thestarsalign]

I Thought Family Meant Something

Was gonna space this out, but feel the urge to keep going, so let’s dive into the next question. In the interview it was said that telling about Shiro’s family would have been “repetitive” which could translate into boring.  All the other Paladins, including Allura, had mentions of their families, so why not Shiro?

Now to be fair, The Holts and Krolia had bigger parts to play, even Veronica gets some screen time. But they still give Hunk a family, a large one at that, and Lance is shown not only talking about his own big family, they get shown when he returns to Earth in season 7 and get actual interaction with them in season 8. Other than being driving forces to get home, the family members held no real weight (The Holts and Krolia withstanding). So why not say something about Shiro’s family?

This was a man who went into the military/space program, which I would think is a big deal and he excelled at it, but at the same time was fighting for his life in a matter of speaking while being ill. You can’t tell me his family didn’t have problems with it and maybe sided with Adam in the matter or were actually supportive of what he wanted to do. Either way, something in passing could have easily been said; a small scene of the Paladins getting to know each other early on or even in a flashback with Keith  pre-Kerberos. In a previous interview, one of the EPs said that Shiro’s disease was a hint as to what happened to his family; so are we to assume his whole family succumbed to that illness too? Both his parents, grand parents, possible siblings? That’s a horrible thought to say the least.

But let’s run with it; if he his family died off that makes them coming back to Earth that much sadder. Keith knew Krolia was away with Kolivan, so he had no one waiting for him on Earth, but he didn’t expect to. Pidge was reunited with her mom at least so she knows all of her family is safe (even Bae Bae), Lance gets mobbed by his large family and though Hunk’s were held captive, they did return to him safe and sound at the end of season 7. But Shiro was all alone! No one was waiting for him and then when the scene shifts we see a 60 second (or there about) scene of him saying sorry to Adam. He was ALL ALONE and had zero time to grieve. Yes, there was a war, but everyone got to see and talk to their families and Shiro can’t get a proper scene to let out his sadness or possible regret?

So now let’s say Shiro did have family. I know we have JK’s HC that he was raised by his grand parents and most fanon (including me) runs with it, but for this let’s say he has his parents and a brother. Imagine the horror they felt when hearing about the pilot error only to find out he is alive and not only alive, but that he no longer is sick. Shiro who had the heaviest of backstories would have had a happy reunion and possibly would have had people with him when visiting Adam’s plaque, providing comfort he sorely needed after all this time. Hell there could have just been a small scene with a phone call to show he was talking to them. 

But no, instead they give him more heartache to get over.

Aren’t the Paladins his family? Well of course they are, the thing I loved about the show early on was the aspect of found family. Shiro and Keith were certainly that from the pre-Kerberos days all the way through season 7. But even found family wasn’t there for him when they returned to Earth. He introduces Coran and Allura, who also know no one on Earth, but then is left alone. Though they did not know Adam, having them in the scene at the wall would have been even more emotional cause they showed they cared. And honestly, when the screen pans to show Iverson I was so disappointed. Though Iverson has probably known Shiro since he was a cadet, there really isn’t a family kind of vibe with him. Due to not having family on Earth and knowing Shiro, along with Shiro’s romantic relationship with Adam, it should have been Keith to go to him. Time and again we have seen both of these characters let their guards down for each other. This would have been one of those times that it was needed as Shiro himself had tears in his eyes as he said he was sorry. We never see anyone really comfort Shiro, but he is there for everyone else.

There are two different kinds of family that we see here and as we see with Keith’s character arc; knowing where you come from is important. For us as the audience I feel that it is important to know little things about the characters to round them out. Even if something like an immediate family that isn’t meant to be the focus, hearing that they have one is important and it is just something you learn about the character. “Oh Shiro has a brother!” or “Aw, his mom died to that same illness”. We want these reactions because it means we care about the character and are invested.

In terms of the found family, I feel that his love and comfort doesn’t go both ways, save for Keith and Allura. We see him comforting Pidge early on and he even gives her the choice to leave Voltron. Whether he could read Lance’s insecurity or not, he still gave the praise of “that’s why we bring our sharp shooter”, making him happy. Hunk, honestly had no real interactions with him and that’s a shame cause them cooking probably would have been hilarious. But going the other way? Nope. When Keith was grieving their thoughts of Shiro were rather one note. We heard Lance once before say Shiro was his hero and though Shiro might have heard that lot from people, seeing Lance actually talk to him about why he looks up to him would have been a nice pick me up for him due to everything that happened before he crashed on Earth. Or Pidge feeling sad about not being able to find Matt and Sam; having Shiro tell some stories about the mission to help ease her mind and in turn have her go off on how he was a legend at their house, again, would have been a nice pick me up, to help ease his confused and aching mind.

When Keith finds him and proclaims he’ll save him “as many times as it takes”, in a Form Podcast episode, it was said that the other Paladins did go and see him while he recovered. However, same episode cause the scenes were back to back, the line of “you’re looking better”, was originally Keith’s, but they changed it to Lance. Due to us not seeing the others talking to him or even talking with each other about Shiro, it would have fit more for Keith to say it instead. This is just one of many things that don’t quite make sense unless you go behind the scenes like that.

So how could us finding out about his blood family or having other moments with his found family been boring or repetitive, when they gave us an entire episode showing Honerva’s backstory in season 8 and most of that we had already seen from a previous season? Shiro was already a complex character, us just finding out about his family in away would have just been another tidbit about him.

[thestarsalign]

Can I Ask You a Question?

Me too… Me too…

This final interview just leaves me lost. I am baffled beyond belief in terms of thought process and how older interviews say one thing, but this completely states the opposite. For awhile now, since S8 fell, I have been thinking about a few things and quite honestly have yet to come up with a good enough answer that isn’t “it’s just bad writing.” So I want to voice them now with the show over and what was hopefully the final interview. I don’t want these to get too long, so I am just gonna go with one thing at a time, so I am gonna start with something I had brought up in another post; the age gap, but more specifically Shiro’s age.

It wasn’t revealed till later what the official ages of the Paladins were, but in an early pitch for the show it was stated that the Paladins were “five teenagers”. Yes, things can change along the way, but why place Shiro at 25, his mid 20s, among teens? LM had said that it was a safe zone, but as we have seen in the fandom it has opened a can of worms. Before we get into the shipping aspect of that, let me ask you; would it have changed Shiro’s character if they made him younger?

In my honest opinion the answer is no. Shiro is who he is no matter what. He had dreams of shooting for the stars and wanted to see that through before his clock ran out. He is the best pilot in the Garrison, was the YOUNGEST to pilot into deep space. He’s kind, understanding, sweet, smart, sometimes silly and just overall loving. His age has nothing to do with his character. He still could have been the oldest of the original five Paladins. So lets see what happens when you de-age him a couple years and start from when he meets Keith.

Instead of Shiro being 22, we de-age him a few years, say 3 or 4, making him 18 or 19, when he goes to Keith’s school. He was the youngest at 22 to fly in deep space, him being in his late teens and much closer to the kids’ age he was trying to recruit makes it more appealing for them wanting to apply. It makes them think “wow, hes not that much older than me! I can do that too!”. Shiro has always worked hard and him being just slightly younger would show just how much and that he truly earned being the Garrison Golden Boy; after mastering the basics, he probably skipped classes and went to some more advanced training. His records are that much more impressive because he’s someone so young.

His age being lower also makes for something more dramatic when it comes to his disease, but just for the fact he is younger; it still changes nothing upon the narrative itself. You still see him fighting against the clock, him keeping it a secret from Keith. Maybe you could see him get more emotional over it, but that is possibly a stretch because he still had time to “get used to it”, of course that’s supposing he was diagnosed with it at a very young age.

His leadership skills don’t change and again as stated above with the recruiting he can still inspire others. Him being Black Paladin, according to Allura with how the Lions choose their Paladins, still fits. He would still be the more “responsible” one as well, because of everything he had been through upon the Galra abducting him, not to mention growing up so fast to beat the clock as it were. 

Well what about Adam? Honestly I doubt much changes. Due to them making him apart of the Garrison instead of having an outside life makes this a little hard for me to rationalize. I always pictured Adam older than Shiro so I have to wonder if there would have been an outcry against a 7 year gap between  the 2 of them. But again, in the narrative, I doubt anything changes; he still tries to stop or reason with Shiro over going to Kerberos vs his health and gives him the ultimatum.

So now let’s talk the age gap and Sheith for one second. If Shiro was only 3 or 4 years older than Keith, would the outcry from the you know who’s have been so loud? I am almost thinking it wouldn’t be. Keith being 18 at the start and Shiro being 22-23 is nothing, in fact my husband and I are 4 years apart. And lets not forget Keith’s time in the Quantum Abyss, which aged him 2 whole years. If we are to take to heart what the EPs said about that time skip, that it was so he could spend time with his mother, than it just so happened to age him so he was now only 1-2 years apart from Shiro, which is REALLY nothing at all. The outcries would have just been lost in the background.

What about Keith calling him “Old Timer”? Well that’s a hard one since I don’t quite get why he did it in the first place. Honestly 7 years isn’t THAT much. But I had been thinking about it and honestly I now HC that he one day he saw a few white/gray hairs and started to make fun of him. In the Paladin handbook there’s a note as if written by Shiro saying “stress will do that” in referring to the white forelock. (Yes, I know the handbooks are not official, but it’s the only example I have)

Now I will say again; nothing about his character changes if you make him younger by a few years, so why make him 25?