Because I'm still bitter... The first time I consciously verbalized that "I hate this show", came when, as I predicted, there was absolutely no acknowledgement of Shiro having no living family on Earth, come the Atlas's "launch date" at the start of Season Eight.
We get shots of each of the Paladins interacting with their families, including Allura as a part of Lance's family, which is a sweet touch.
Then, there's a passing shot of Shiro standing alone and isolated on the Atlas's bridge that he isn't even the focus of.
I had a feeling this would be the case when, ahead of the finale of the second season, the Paladins are cheerfully reflecting on their growth and the challenges that they've overcome preceding what they believe will be their final fight with Zarkon.
Shiro, however, is dead silent, back turned to the others, and, when we do see his expression, he's stone-faced and seemingly deep in contemplation. Something that no one acknowledges, or seems to be in any way concerned about, even with Shiro's history of thoughts that he loses himself in being distinctly unpleasant ones.
When he does speak, it's to somberly offer the definitive statement, "You realize, once we defeat Zarkon, the universe won't need Voltron, anymore." The kids naturally express wanting to see their families, again, once the burden of defending the universe has been lifted from their shoulders, even if it means, for Pidge and Keith, going out and finding them.
Shiro, though, voices no such desires. He dons the Fearless Leader/Black Paladin mask and encourages his underlings that they can't fail, and that's that. Cue them looking dramatically out over the horizon before the credits roll.
One could hem and haw and offer any number of supposed explanations for the unsettling absence of any lifegoals for Shiro outside of "defeat the bad guy and defend the universe", especially viewing this scene in hindsight.
"Shiro and his long-term partner split up before the Kerberos mission. Maybe it would be awkward for Shiro to see him, again, and Shiro doesn't want to discuss that with a group of teenagers, especially as their commanding officer."
"Maybe they intended for Shiro's family to show up later and simply didn't have the time to include them, or he has a strained and/or estranged relationship with his family and wasn't too concerned with going back to them."
"He's been declared legally dead, and the cartoon made to sell toys to kids didn't want to bog their child audience's brains down with the confangled nuisances of bureaucracy."
"Maybe Shiro had no personal desire to return to Earth, and would have assisted Pidge in looking for Matt and Sam had he lived."
And, any of these would be more interesting than what we were actually given, which is nothing, because the showrunners didn't know how to and weren't equipped to handle the sheer level of complex and compounded trauma they had afflicted Shiro with. It was easier to brush it all aside, as that shot of an out of focus Shiro so deftly displays. Especially once Shiro had been killed and effectively permanently replaced as the Black Paladin, then brought back to life and retired to "boring adult" status. They killed his partner off-screen, following the dissolution of the relationship, and briefly showed Shiro mourning the loss,
and I guess that was their "emotional pathos for Shiro" quota met for the rest of the show.
After that, he was gifted his own ship and the position of Captain/Admiral aboard it to sequester him off with Sam, Iverson, Veronica, Slav, a similarly unceremoniously demoted Coran, and the rest of the side characters, under the guise of him being promoted to a position of actual significance. And, as much as I love Shiro having his own ship, and the figure he cuts in that stylish and immensely flattering Admiral coat, it shouldn't have to be said that this is both a massive insult to his character after he had the most narrative significance and pathos of anyone during the first two seasons, and a cheap, cowardly tactic employed to avoid the reality that the writers have alluded to Shiro seeing himself as having no purpose if he isn't performing a heroic duty to others, and being passively suicidal when no such duty exists.
"Don't look too closely, everyone! Let's not linger too long on this!" Otherwise, you'll realize that Shiro, in fact, has no one to support him outside of people who already have families of their own. And, "The universe won't need Voltron, anymore", was really Shiro saying, "The universe won't need me, anymore."
And, damned if the brain trusts behind this show didn't try to prove how little they needed Shiro, only for their story to fall apart at the seams after killing him, and the quality to, fittingly, take a nosedive straight into the abyss once they committed to nerfing and sidelining him while having other characters pitifully attempt to retrace steps that he had already taken, stumbling over his distinct and unforgettable bootprints.
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Expiration
Summary: When your goals revolve around one person, the day they're gone is always going to catch you unawares. And few, if any, are as singular in their motivations as Omega.
2147 words
Br-r-r-at-at-at.
Boom.
Omega charged ahead, leaving the combusting remains of the twenty-third badnik in his wake as he retracted his guns. He approached a turn in the corridor at speed. Another mass-produced E-series bore down the hall toward him, laser cannon already primed. Rather than stop, Omega let his momentum carry him forward, his frame skidding past the corner just as the inferior model fired; magenta energy singed the handle on Omega’s left shoulder.
He slammed his feet down to seize traction and redirected his charge before the E-2000 could deploy its shield or fire again; drove his right fist through its arm cannon, metal erupting and splintering like wood under his attack. The E-2000 switched offensive protocols to its remaining arm, ramming the chief of its shield into Omega’s shoulder.
A notification chimed across his CPU.
He preemptively dismissed it.
He opened his fist to grasp what remained of the mass model’s left arm. He swung his torso around with his full weight, bashing his captive’s head into the wall as he engaged his afterburners; he careened forward, metal scraping and sparks flying from the E-2000’s spasming body until all resistance ceased. The hall opened into a chamber with three floors.
Upon entry, he detected another nineteen badniks visible on the floor below; no fewer than six E-1000s turned and aimed their laser rifles at him, two from a higher elevation. Prioritizing destruction of the rejects in an advantageous position, Omega hoisted his defunct cargo and hurled it at the mass-products nearest him to occupy their attention.
Before he could open fire, a discharge of concentrated energy struck his back; he stumbled forward, swiveling his head to identify the source.
A Newtron; a fucking Newtron sat on the wall over the door behind him, its mouth closing to conceal the plasma pistol within.
Another internal notification pinged. Omega ignored it again.
In the split-second he took to reorient his balance, a Grabber dropped down from the ceiling and hooked its legs onto Omega’s chassis, two gripping him by the handles on his shoulders. The badnik lacked the structural strength to lift him, but it did inhibit his movements while the E-1000s adjusted their aim. Omega fired from the gun barrels on both arms while simultaneously re-engaging his engines to wrest himself free.
Three shields came up; only one rifle fell to gunfire.
The tensile strength of the thread connecting the Grabber to the ceiling held.
Thin red laser sights trained on him.
The ticking that preceded detonation sounded from the spider badnik.
Kvhroon.
Chaos energy, sharp and wild, sliced through the leg gripping Omega’s right shoulder handle. A grenade struck one of the E-1000s descending from above, detonating on impact.
Omega’s teammates thus announced their arrival.
Omega veered left, this time managing to generate enough force and momentum to snap the leg holding his other handle; with the Grabber lacking purchase, he broke free entirely. With another chaos spear, Shadow cut through the thread connecting the badnik to the ceiling and grabbed the line. Like a ball and chain, he swung the reject over his shoulder and slammed it down on top of the other badniks filing up from the floor below.
Overhead, Rouge smashed her foot through another E-1000’s head with a spiraling kick. The mass-product’s body crashed to the floor and scattered into pieces.
Omega’s two fleshy teammates regrouped on either side of him.
He disabled all damage notifications and switched his weapons to blasters.
—————
Ninety-six minutes later, Pacific Rim quietly played in Team Dark’s living room on their TV; Omega sat on the floor while his teammates lounged on the sofa beside him. On screen, the cables suspending Gipsy Danger over the harbor released, dropping the unit into the water. Omega found the concept of a mech requiring two meatbag pilots to function absurd, but he did enjoy watching the destruction depicted in del Toro’s action scenes.
Although they’d been successful in clearing out the base, Rouge had been less than impressed.
(“You know. When I said we should pace ourselves, that wasn’t really a suggestion.”)
While she’d spoken in collective terms, she’d been looking squarely at Omega when she used them; referring to the caution she’d advised after he’d charged ahead of his teammates through several other bases. He’d pretended he didn’t notice–same as he'd feigned ignorance of the fact that Shadow had consistently positioned himself four centimeters closer to him than was typical on missions.
He’d endured several similar expressions of concern over the past eighty-one hours; a greater frequency of the same within the last forty-three.
Nine days and two hours had elapsed since G.U.N. removed Eggman from its terrorist watchlist.
Nine days, one hour and fifty-eight minutes since Eggman had been declared deceased.
Three days and eight hours had elapsed since Omega independently verified the fact.
One day and nineteen hours had elapsed since Omega last spoke.
(“Is this a malfunction or a quiet day?”
“His quiet days don’t usually last all day; either way, something’s wrong.”)
Omega had expressed–via nonverbal means–that yes, his voice box was malfunctioning, and no, it did not require repair.
He did not tell them that his processors and circuits had sparked with so many things to say simultaneously that it overburdened his voice box. They didn’t need to know the specifics. Nor was their concern necessary; his effectiveness in carrying out missions hadn’t been impeded whatsoever. Particularly the variety they’d been taking on.
Though Eggman was gone, his machines nonetheless continued the maintenance and patrols of his hideouts in his absence; while they wouldn’t break away from their routines or attack anyone beyond their stations without explicit orders from their creator, it was still a sizable force to leave unchecked.
Rouge had secured a considerable commission from G.U.N. for each base that Team Dark cleared out. Omega had taken to the job enthusiastically, perhaps more than usual–he’d been in an especially destructive mood.
It’d been with great reluctance that he conceded to Shadow teleporting them home after their eighth hideout in the span of thirty-four hours.
On screen, Pentecost told Raleigh about his illness. From the couch beside Omega, steady and rhythmic breathing told him that his teammates had fallen asleep. He delved into his CPU and connected to the Egg Network.
For practical reasons–and his hatred for all things Eggman–he hadn’t interfaced with the network in more than a decade. Now, though, while there would be several warnings and alerts triggered by his digital footprint, without anyone to react to his presence, they posed no threat. Firewalls erected throughout the network barred him access from information such as the locations of bases established within the past eight years, but the same security did not extend to data from older hideouts.
Omega breached the outdated protections around the neglected servers like walls made of cardboard. The feasibility of finding any practically useful information in such old archives was questionable; nonetheless, he picked his way through them.
Anything from Eggman’s earliest years of terrorist activity–he’d held a disproportionate interest in islands–that wasn’t destroyed was obsolete. What badnik designs he still used from that time had since been updated several times over. A footnote’s worth of interest in the kingdom of Soleanna coincided with the creation of the Egg line; Gunner, Keeper, Lancer, etc., which would be expanded upon later. The base in Egypt had been discarded wholesale; more of a launching point for Eggman’s attempt to conquer the ARK. Prior to that…
Omega remotely delved into the archives from the bunker in the Mystic Ruins.
The birthplace of the E-100 series.
Omega navigated through rudimentary airship schematics, interpretive translations of texts on the subject of an ancient deity, half-finished plans for a third iteration of Mecha Sonic… typical of Eggman to discard anything that didn’t maintain his fickle interest.
He came upon a folder marked E-100s; found within another folder of video files.
Eggman had, initially, installed in his prototypes a function that recorded the visual data captured by his robots and filed them into the archives via the Egg Network upon the prototype’s destruction. Usually at Sonic’s hand. He’d done away with the practice sometime prior to Omega’s creation.
Omega idly opened the file for E-100 Alpha; skimmed over a lot of footage tracking a Flicky through Station Square, one that attached itself to Amy Rose. The files attached to most of his other predecessors save Beta were considerably smaller and their videos shorter in length; though Delta, Epsilon and Zeta shared one point of commonality with E-101.
E-102 Gamma.
Several people, Amy Rose chief among them, had mistaken Omega for his predecessor upon their first meeting. A ridiculous comparison, obviously; they didn’t share any commonalities save defection from Eggman and the color red.
. . .
Omega played Gamma’s video file.
He skipped through the first half of footage; more to the point, Eggman’s frequent appearances and orders. He paused at the moment of Gamma’s defection.
“Erasing Dr. Eggman from ‘Master’ status.
Established: E-series robots. Friends.
I must save them.”
Omega scrubbed through the video. His predecessors fell systematically, one by one to Gamma’s plasma rifle.
Delta.
Epsilon.
Zeta.
Beta; who managed to inflict a critical wound on Gamma moments before his demise.
Gamma’s visuals shook and blurred. Came to a stop aboard the beached Egg Carrier.
A cut to static coincided with the beginning of an explosion.
The file, played to its conclusion, closed.
Omega sat in silence for a minute.
He closed the folder; turned his attention in toward his own CPU. Extracted the code for his core directives.
Defeat of Eggman.
Destruction of all Eggman robots.
Directives independent of any orders from his creator; ones that he’d taken great pains to establish while he was sequestered in the basement. He determined now, however, that they required examination.
Omega questioned what objective the pursuit of each directive served.
His processors sparked.
He immediately dismissed the question as irrelevant with regard to his first directive. Eggman’s demise rendered a defeat impossible.
He applied the question to his second directive and found a simple answer. Destruction of all Eggman robots would establish the fact that Omega was the strongest robot.
Knowing the objective illustrated that further pursuit of the directive as a directive was obsolete; Omega had already destroyed more Eggman robots than anyone else. Shadow and Sonic were the only ones, meatbag or otherwise, to approach his record. His CPU automatically produced the follow-up query of why he pursued said objective.
“. . .”
He banished the question altogether from his motherboard.
Having thus clarified his objectives, and the fact that both had been fulfilled, Omega promptly deleted both from his internal software.
Which left him without a core directive.
Briefly, he receded from his CPU–the credits scrolled by on the TV. He turned his head.
Rouge lay with her head propped on one arm of the sofa; her body sprawled out to take up as much space as possible. Her mouth hung slightly open, as it often did when she didn’t sleep hanging from a perch. Shadow, his lap occupied by Rouge’s legs, had sunk into one of the couch’s backrest cushions, almost engulfed in down with his chin touching the tuft on his chest.
Omega listened to the sounds of his sleeping teammates. He didn’t even need to guess what their reaction would be to his current thought process.
Resoundingly, loudly negative.
He retreated into his CPU.
Drew up the code for commands of his primary functions.
A cautionary prompt popped up.
Terminate?
Omega watched the words blink at him for approximately two minutes. Failing to produce any reasons to avoid executing the command, he made to confirm–
Blip.
Foreign access to the Egg Network diverted his attention; he’d neglected to disconnect.
That the network recognized the other party as foreign narrowed their identity down to two possibilities, both of which Eggman had given up on years ago. And since Gemerl didn’t connect to the Egg Network on principle to avoid incurring any undue risk to Cream…
Metal clocked Omega within moments of its connection.
It made Omega aware of the fact, annoyingly, by communicating with him. The equivalent of a text message came through his Wi-Fi signal.
Oh. You’re still operational?
Metal’s presence vanished from the network half a beat later; before Omega could even reflexively fire off a Fuck You.
His internal fans whirred; his chassis chafed.
His temper flared nearly enough to forget what he’d been doing. The popup remained:
Terminate?
Omega disconnected from the Egg Network.
Cancelled out of and dismissed the command prompt.
The TV had returned to the DVD menu. Omega remotely switched it off; reclined until his shoulders and chassis were propped against the living room wall.
Before entering sleep mode, he made a single update to his drivers.
Core directive: Pending.
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doing thing tips from a gifted silly who's on the edge of sanity but can't seem to break
1. find that balance of "enough to keep you engaged, but not distract you"
Taking away all distractions is dumb because then you get distracted by your brain because of boredom. Make your space a nice place to be! Then, put on music or background noise or have fidget toys, something for stimming so you don't get bored and don't wanna do the thing. Math fucking fucks so I always blast rock music in my ears (it does take me a lot longer to get it done when I do this, but I enjoy it and it's better than never getting it done)
2. if procrastinating, acknowledge why you're procrastinating
I like this Ted-ed video:
It validated my experience with procrastination and helped me to realize what was causing it, which made the task (my assignments) feel less scary. Thinking about this and rewatching the video every once in a while helped make my work seem not so bad.
3. half-ass now, half-ass later
this isn't really good if you have an assignment that's due in like 2 hours or something, but if it's not due right away or something like cleaning this tip applies
sometimes you just don't have the energy. so half-ass it. put only a little bit of effort into it. get some of it done.
half-ass is better than no-ass. then, you do the other half. or just continue to do little chunks of your task until it gets done.
you sweeped the kitchen, but didn't vacuum the carpet? great! you got some of it done, take a break, and do the vacuuming later.
you wrote the intro paragraph of your essay? awesome! it's not finished, but you're making progress. take that break.
4. help others
i don't know, but i like helping others more than helping myself. i use that to my advantage. (feynman technique)
you don't wanna do it? well your friend needs help doing it, so go do it so you can help them.
you don't wanna do it? show your kid how to do it. or think about how you would explain it to your kid if you don't have one yet. or explain it to your cat. or think about how you would explain it to your cat if you don't have one yet.
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