#Voltron is the only series where I got to the point of saying 'I give up' 'I cannot tell what will happen next' OUT LOUD while watching

[sailormew4]

Fanfic Writer Interview

Thankyouuu to @earthtodora for the tag!!

Tagging: @m34gs and @vulpixen

wow this one is a bit long oops.

How many works do you have on ao3?

I have 28 works currently on ao3!

Your top 5 stories by kudos/likes:

Outside In: One, if not the first BNHA fic I uploaded. I'm honestly surprised this one is the one that made start to get known in the BNHA fic atmosphere. The plot is based on that one Teen Titans episode where Beast Boy and Cyborb go into Raven's mind. This time, Bakugo, Uraraka, Todoroki, and Iida go into Midoriya's mind. This is BakuDeku Fic. Fun Fact: This is actually the first time I did something like this, in fact I did something similar for the Voltron fandom right here on Tumblr. Status: Complete

Add Water: THIS IS MY SECOND MOST KUDOS FIC? So context: This is an H2O: Just Add Water x Voltron crossover fic. The premise is Lance is the grandson of Cleo and Lewis from the original H2O series. It's still canon compliant so he's in space trying to hide his mermaid secret from everyone. Gosh, this right season three I wrote this, I haven't touched this fic since 2018 (Voltron Depression am I right?). I might actually go back to my VLD fics. This one does contain Klance. Status: Ongoing.

Mariposa: A MIRACULOUS FIC? DAMN I DIDN'T TOUCH THIS SINCE 2019! So, typical Marinette gets akumatized cause GOD DAMN IT I STILL NEED THIS! I want her to reach her villain era lowkey and give Chat Noir the spotlight he STILL deserves. Status: Ongoing

Friendship in Flames and Curses - OHOHO! Now this one I hoped would be in top five. This is simply a crossover between Blue Exorcist and Jujutsu Kaisen. Rin gets taken by Sorcerers by mistakenly being seen as Curse User. Him and Itadori becomes BESTIES! The comments in this became so crazy, I recently finished this not too long ago on 11/18/24. No focused romantic relationships until the sequel (currently in the works). But I love this fic SO MUCH. Status: Complete

Forget About Love: - Oh my gosh, I'm exposing my Klance Days. This is probably one of the few Klance fics I finished. The premise is after Keith leaves for the Blade of Marmora, Lance is hurt and misses him to the point he takes a potion to make him forget the hurt which makes him forget Keith and his love for him - which fundamentally changes for the worse. Fun Fact: The title comes from an Aladdin 2 song, but the premise is inspired by an episode from the show of Once Upon a Time. Status: Complete.

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

I LOVE responding to comments. I used to reply every chance I got to them, but took only replying after I update the fic. I got tired of constantly getting comments to update. But, I always screenshot my favorite comments.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angriest ending?

... define angry ending? Cause I can tell you which fic I wrote with the most anger? I always strive to have happy endings, maybe bittersweet. But the only one I can confidently say I wrote in anger was my fix-it fic for Voltron Season 8 End to a Beginning. That shit I wrote almost 22k words from spite from the finale. I still plan to update it cause I was really excited but uh chapter two is still kicking my ass.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Well, almost all of them have a happy ending. I would say the most happy would be either JJK x Blue Exorcist fic cause its a happy note and had a pretty humorous ending, but there is also my UsaMamo fic Homey Touches where Mamoru realizes Usagi makes his home.

Do you write crossovers?

HA! Did you read my top five? Two of them ARE crossover fics, well they're more AU adjacent kinda. You'll see what I mean. Some others ones I've written are

Legacy of the Moon: A Sailor Moon X BNHA fic. After the death of Sailor Moon, another thousand years passed and Luna finds Bakugo and says he's Sailor Moon, but he refuses to believe it. A BakuDeku focused fic as well. It's still ongoing and the latest chapter is currently being written

An Alien Device: A BNHA x Ben 10 fic. In the summer before the last year of middle school Midoriya is forced to go on a vacation with Bakugo and his Dad. On the first night, an alien device crashed landed to reveal the Omnitrix and stuck itself upon Izuku's wrist. This is also BakuDeku.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

... have I? This is a genuine thing. I'm mostly bad with social cues, so I could never tell if something was out of hate or confusion. I probably did, but just don't remember it or simply ignored it.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I.... do not. It's mostly because smut itself to me is kinda just... there. Maybe its the demisexual in me, but when I read fics that have smut. I do kinda just... skim it over. Like I'll read it for the genuine emotion but not the actual well physical stuff.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

If I did, I do not know. I do know that I have a now long abandoned fanfiction.net account (I should move some of my How to Train Your Dragon fics I had there to Ao3). But if I did, I don't know about it.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

... I have been offered. One of my fics was offered, but I had to turn it down cause it wasn't going to be published on Ao3 but a different sight. I just didn't feel comfortable with the idea of having it out there without me knowing what's going on.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, why with @vulpixen with a Gravity Falls fic. I was in high school, so I couldn't write as much as I wanted and since I was using her OCs we decided to just co-write together. She did most of the heavy lifting while I did most of editing and stuff. I'm always open to now co-write more often now, in fact I did have a fic being written with Codi ( @collisiondiscourse ) for a BNHA fic. But they're busy with Uni. They do draw me the most amazing cover art for some of my fics tho!

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

... Soooo this is kinda a loaded question. See, I don't have a singular OTP that dominates. I have a Mount Rushmore where I will eat any content of them like its the most delicious bowl of curry ever and it influences all future ships. Those being UsaMamo aka Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon and Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask. This was the start and I will always think of them when comparing any current ships I have. Next would be of course BakuDeku aka Bakugo Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku from BNHA. I don't think I need to explain this one. This sucker got me by the neck when Kacchan got kidnapped and I ain't ever leaving. Next is Klance aka Keith and Lance from Voltron Legendary Defender. By god, if you see me now and think "Wow she's super into BakuDeku"... you have not seen me at my most FERAL and potentially insane. In fact, I did not realize how much this ship STILL holds me its claws until the recent news of it being taken off of Netflix. And the final one *drumroll* is MadoHomu aka Madoka Kaname and Homura Akemi from Madoka Magica. Now this ship, while I don't talk about as often as I like is because their story is still going and I want to see how it ends. Doomed Yuri at its finest.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Any fic, I haven't updated before 2023. I love all my fics to bits but sometimes, hyperfixations come and go. I do plan eventually especially with my resurgence of Klance love, but it might be a while.

What are your writing strengths?

I think its dialogue. I often say my own dialogue aloud when writing to get the tone right. Plus, I'm very much a word person. So I think is my best.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Probably a lot. I know I'm my own worse critic, so I'm harsh. One that I try is conveying words through actions or setting the scene essentially. I can't quite get the tension right in my opinion, but maybe that's because I know how it ends. I haven't really asked what it could be from others.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

So I watch anime and read manga. So my thought process is write how the character would think, so for example in my anime fics, I use honorifics if the character does in speak, but in thought its just the name. When there's multiple language at play like say my Voltron fics where I make Lance use Spanish, I just use the Spanish and give translations at the bottom.

What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

So damn, can I say any of the ships I have yet to write for or ones that have like "dead" fandoms. Take Tokyo Mew Mew for example, I want to write an IchiSaya (Ichigo Momomiya x Masaya Aoyama) fic so bad because back in my middle school days THAT was the rare pair despite being canon.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh definitely Legacy of the Moon and Friendship in Flames and Curses. I love Sailor Moon and BakuDeku so much and that one is still so fun to write. As for my JJK x Blue Exorcist Fic, that one is simply fun to just write and have fun with no boundaries, like its purely self indulgent. You can probably tell how much I enjoy a fic by how fast I update.

[x-i-l-verify]

20 Questions For Writers

Was tagged by @kuraiarcoiris and decided why not. :V

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

35. I have more on other sites, but since I've made my AO3 account, that's how many I've posted there.

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2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

656,547. Give or take a couple thousand.

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3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently? Dream SMP. But I also have an Inscryption WIP and a couple Kpop WIPs that I really should get back to one of these days. orz But I've written for all sorts of fandoms over the years.

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4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

5) Its Suffering Was Real [Inscryption]

This is the one that came as the biggest shock to me when I went and looked at my kudos count in preparation for this write-up. Like, really? People like the fic where I torture the sassy robot trapped in the body of a stoat for 7k words that much??

4) A Shoulder to Lean On [Avatar: The Last Airbender]

WHERE did all these people come from, I have like 6 comments on this thing (not counting my replies)??? I mean, I'm flattered, but ??!!?!

3) Accepting Amelioration [Voltron: Legendary Defender]

I mean, it's a Voltron fic posted back when the fandom was in full swing, it doesn't really surprise me the kudos counter is considerable, though I am still surprised it got that much traction considering the fic is gen and not shippy. Am still proud I made the first daemon AU in the entire fandom, though, if this is my claim to fame, then I'm ok with that. :p

2) Temporary Shelter [Astro / VIXX]

I seriously have no freaking clue how this little self indulgent Kpop crossover fic became so popular, I really don't. I mean, Kpop crossovers are niche at the best of times, and these two groups aren't exactly the most popular Kpop fandoms on AO3 if you know what I mean. It basically started as "wouldn't it be fun if my two favorite Kpop groups were secretly friends all this time? How would I have that happen, tho?" and then snowballed from there. I, uh. I'm glad so many other people like it, ig? 0_0

1) Paved with Pawprints [My Hero Academia]

Of course it's the MHA pet AU fic. Of course. OF COURSE-

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5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Absolutely. It's only fair I reply if someone takes the time to read on my work and actually give me feedback about it, wouldn't you say? Plus, like most authors, I enjoy talking about my own work, so sue me. >:p

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6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't usually do angsty endings; I prefer happy or at least bittersweet ones. I guess by default, it has to be the fic where I slowly killed off America and China from Axis Powers Hetalia for 13k words, while the rest of the cast had already been dead for centuries at that point. So yes, the entire cast of that series was dead by the end of that fic. :))) IN MY DEFENSE, ok, I was actually trying to give them a bittersweet ending by reuniting them with all of their old friends and family by finally letting them rest after so long alone, but it still turned out really sad. TT TT It's basically my only fic where I can't go back and reread it more than once every couple of years, because I still end up a sobbing mess by the end.

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7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Well, I guess that's what you define "happiest" as. The most cathartic? The one with the least amount of trauma and extreme bodily injury incurred by the characters? 🤔 I guess by the latter definition, it would Kaleidoscopic Perceptions, a very fluffy USPH college AU that I actually enjoyed writing a lot despite me not usually enjoying romance or college AUs.

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8. Do you get hate on your fic?

No, thankfully. I've gotten a couple kinda weird comments, and of course the obligatory "It's been X months since you updated were you aware?????" comments, but no outright negativity.

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9. Do you write smut?

LMAO. Absolutely not.

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10. Do you write crossovers?

Yes! I really love crossovers. I have a few common fallbacks that fit with a lot of fandoms (daemon AUs, Firefly AUs, etc.), but I also enjoy fandom-specific crossovers when I can figure out how to pull them off.

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11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No idea. I hope not!

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12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Just once for this Gravity Falls fic.

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13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes. It had a few ups and downs, but it was overall a really positive experience, and I think it turned out really well!

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14. What‘s your all-time favorite ship?

idk that I have an ALL TIME favorite ship, especially since I hardly ever ship anything, but Frobin is pretty choice, I gotta say.

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15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Er, none of them, hopefully? I hope that I eventually get to finish all my WIPs at some point, even if it might take me awhile. >.>; But I suppose if I had to pick ONE to abandon, I'd probably pick Written In, my D&D Inscryption crossover AU. I like the IDEA for it, but writing it out is like pulling teeth, and after the first installment where the party gets together, I don't really have a lot of ideas on where to take the plot. :/ Like I have the general overarching idea but no plot structure or anything but small disconnected story beats.

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16. What’s your writing strengths?

I like to think I do a pretty good job with descriptions while not bogging the story down too much with too much detail?

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17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

Uuuuuuuuuuhhhhhh, staying motivated ig. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ if you're asking my weakness about mechanics, though, uh... exposition, I guess? Dialogue in general, sometimes.

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18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If there is actual information included in the other language, then you better provide a translation. If it's just for flavor, though, have at it.

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19. First fandom you wrote for?

TMNT, specifically the 2003 show. It's never been posted anywhere on the internet and never will. :)

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20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Becoming Real, a Kpop fanfic based on VIXX's Voodoo Doll MV. However, it can easily stand on its own as its own original work. I consider it the most accessible story I've ever written, and it also was just very easy for me to write. Writing is often like pulling teeth for me, but not this story.

Tagging: @breezy-cheezy, @quicktothebatjalopy, @hiding-in-the-vault, @variablememory, @bleue-flora, @theriu

[skalidra]

Fic Writers Showcase Game

@there-must-be-a-lock tagged me!

Rules: Go to your published works on AO3 and list the first fic you ever published there, the last fic you published, any fic that you wrote for a fandom/ship only once, your favorite fic you wrote in the fandom/ship that has the most works, the fic you wish more people read, the fic you agonized over the most, the fic that sprang fully formed from your mind without any effort, and a work you are proud of—for whatever reason.

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First fic published on Ao3: That would be The Other Side of the Mirror, an Earth-3 continuity mess with a JayDick main pair, featuring Roy as a 3rd PoV. First chapter was posted in September, 2014, currently 200k, 20 chapters , and as of yet unfinished, though I think as it stands it ends on a decently hopeful note. I do still recall the main plot points of where it goes, and would like to finish it someday.

Last fic published: I posted the first chapter of Five Finger Discount just yesterday, which is the 5th piece in my Worth Counting series, an alpha!Slade/alpha!Jason series exploring a variety of kinks but with a focus on non-formal dom/sub vibes, competence/strength kink, and mostly-play fighting. (The last finished story was Shifting Into Fourth which is the 4th piece of that same series, so, I'm a little bit on a theme here.)

Fandom/ship I only wrote once: I uh. I wrote Hamilton/Jefferson/Madison room-where-it-happens porn. For the Hamilton musical. It's called Do Whatever It Takes and I think it is still the thing that makes me feel the most sinfully dirty of all the things I've ever written. So there's that.

I also have Let's Be Clear, which is my only fic set anywhere in the MCU, and is a Daredevil oneshot of an asexual!Wesley being invited to join a Fisk/Vanessa relationship, as I vibed real hard with Wesley as a character and never really got over his unfortunate demise.

(Honorable mention to my four stories that are technically fandoms of their own, but all fall under the 'DCU' umbrella, being for the Arkham games, two shows in the CW Arrowverse, and the Teen Titans cartoon.)

Favorite fic in most popular fandom/ship: This is a little hard to quantify. Technically 'DCU (Comics)' comes in at 93k in stories, which would make JayDick the most popular pairing, which makes my favorite story Captain's Privileges. It's a Star Trek mirror!verse fusion with Captain!Dick and Engineer!Jason and so many unhealthy relationships everywhere, and I love it.

However! 'DCU (Comics)' is a very broad umbrella and it's not really fair to say it's my biggest fandom, since the slice I belong to is much smaller. Which means the more accurate winner is Voltron, at 85k stories. I technically have a Klance story but given that it is a big poly clusterfuck dark!fic I really have to actually give this to the second most popular pairing by stat, Sheith. Out of those, I think my favorite is I'm Not That Man, which was an early false-memories/brainwashed!Shiro fic set just before the wormhole split them all up.

Fic I wish more people read: An Extra Shot, hands down. Come read my gen, Wilson-family-focused exploration of what happens if Adeline dies during the attack on Joey! Come read Slade Wilson being forced into confronting the fact that he is a terrible dad and also now a widowed dad of three kids! Come read Billy trying his best to bludgeon all the terrible communicators of this family into actually working things out! READ THIS. THERE'S A SEQUEL IN PROGRESS. IT'S GOOD I SWEAR.

Fic that was hardest to write: I think the award for this has to go to Me, Not Her, a CaptainPan/CaptainSwan piece which I was apparently so frustrated with at some point that I straight up deleted the file. Four years later (no I am not kidding) I had the vague memory of it. Some sketchy thing I could maybe expand, now that I was having thoughts about OUaT again. I pull it out of the (then eternal) trash of Google Drive. It is five thousand words long and needs no more than pretty basic editing and a little padding at the end to round it off. I don't know what the hell was happening with me when I deleted it, but wow, lesson learned.

Fic that popped out fully-formed: I don't recall any that were explicitly like this, but I also don't tend to write like, neat little packaged stories all that often. If I'm writing oneshots they're usually for events. So my best answer to this is probably Fucking Androids? It's a Reed900 relationship origin story that blazed its way out of me during NaNoWriMo one year, named entirely for the sex pun and then in the end absolutely refusing to have any sex in it, so it won that fight. I remember at least most of it coming really, really easy.

Fic I'm proud of: Pulling out a weird little one, here. I'm going to say Take a Ride. It's a JayDick, Gotham City Garage story that I wrote for Firefright's birthday one year, and on reread I actually still really, really like it? It's just a neat apocalyptic-desert vibe relationship building thing, set in the criminally under-explored and rushed GCG world, and I really like how I put Dick together in this one. I recommend it.

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Not tagging anyone specific, but if anyone would like to do this as well, feel free!

[poscoposco]

My Honest Take on Trigun Stampede

Now that I've had time to come down from the high of watching the season one finale, I think I'd ought to talk about the problems I've had with the series so far. While I enjoyed it a lot -- for the animation, character design, and music -- Stampede is riddled with issues indicative of narrative impatience.

One thing I've always noticed in media is the narrative's spatial awareness. It sounds strange, I know. But a show's ability to convey to the audience where in the world the characters are is an important aspect of both world building and pacing. Some shows that do with very well include Avatar the Last Airbender, Voltron Legendary Defender (shut up, I know but it accomplishes this aspect very well,) and, of course, Trigun '98. I don't just mean that we see these characters travel, but the way they travel, the time it takes, and the changes scenery create the illusion of distance. We constantly see Vash, Meryl, Milly, and Wolfwood utilizing various methods of travel throughout '98, including busses, taxis, hitchhiking in cars, and, most notably, the sandsteamer. These not only move them from place to place, but have a temporary aesthetic effect as well.

I think my biggest gripe with Stampede is how the squad just pops from one place to another. They have a car, sure, and that works to an extent, but how did they get to Ship 3? How for is Ship 3 from July? How far is Ship 5? We saw Vash ride there in the past.

This has a real effect on the pacing. And what results is a narrative that feels like it was written for moments with no idea how to connect them. I love those moments; I really do. They're excellently done. But I need bones to go with that meat. It isn't enough to see characters I love doing cool things, I want to see how they got to the cool thing.

Back to that "characters I love thing" for a sec. I also have an issue with this version of Wolfwood. One of the things that made him so endearing in '98 was his immediate chemistry and rivalry with Vash. He is, in essence, the perfect foil. I can't really speak for the manga because I haven't finished it (the volumes are thick and I have a thing about ruining the spines of books, so be patient with me) but a lack of chemistry between main characters is a problem no matter how you look at it. Also give him his nose back.

I am a firm believer in never redoing something that you have no intention of changing. It's why TMNT works as a franchise. It's why Voltron works. It's why Star Trek works. Every time they do it again, something changes. Whether it's characters, genre, plot points, theming; it's never the same twice. Otherwise, what's the point of doing it again?

I'm glad Stampede exists. I think it's taking a unique look at the story and changing it to say something new. I really like this take on Knives and how they've set up the next season. I think showing us the July incident was an effective introduction to what I can only imagine will be a more traditional Vash. The manga and Trigun '98 are still available for anyone to pick up and enjoy. Hopefully, this new version will get more people interested in the franchise as a whole.

[threewaysdivided]

Yes, the weak writing in TOA is what mellowed me out on the series. Despite my distaste for all the decisions after the first third of the movie I can't say it disappointed me because no matter how excited I was I didn’t have high expectations because I know what it's like. It's funny because I never completed the series. I got through half of Trollhunters and 3lbelow before I just had to leave. It took me a month to finish Wizards and that one's my favorite. So yeah.

(Following on from this ask.)

That's fair. Like I said before, I'm in a pretty similar boat when it comes to Tales of Arcadia. Trollhunters was good and - barring a couple of episodes which I fast-forwarded through because the tropes/ execution of the premise wasn't for me - I had a really enjoyable time with it. But then it reached the end and it felt like there were a lot of questions (changelings etc.), worldbuilding (heartstones etc.) and general complexities (Merlin as he was talked about throughout the series vs Merlin as he appeared at the end) that were left hanging to a frustrating degree.

Now, in fairness, I tend to experience "wait, that's it?"-ism at the end of a lot of TV shows that run for more than a single season - it's probably just the nature of the medium/production environment that makes it hard to match the impact of hours of build-up in just a handful of final episodes, especially since a lot of shows won't know they're on their final season until that season - but with Trollhunters, it was a very intense feeling of "wait, that's it?".

Part of the reason why I initially watched 3Below was that I had hoped it would continue building on the unanswered lore questions from the first series (a fairly common thing for sequels/ spinoffs to do) but instead it took a hard right-turn into aliens and sci-fi. And - much as Douxie is probably my favourite ToA protagonist - by Wizards it became clear that even when we were going back (heh) to the more Troll-adjacent fantasy world, most of those questions still weren't going to be satisfyingly answered, if at all.

Part of me wonders if this might be a small blind-spot of Del Toro's when combined with Netflix, since outside of ToA most of his resume is film, and film has different structural/ worldbuilding/ storytelling conventions due to the much shorter run time. A 'film ending' would probably feel underdeveloped at the end of a TV series because shows by necessity have to add and flesh out more concepts to fill their run time. Just speculation through.

By about halfway through 3Below I was definitely watching more out of a sense of analytical curiosity and 'might as well see it through' than because I was still invested and suspending my disbelief. If I'd made it dedicated watch (rather than something to have on while sewing the Purrloin Plush) I probably would have stopped at about midway through 3Below, so I totally get where you're coming from with that.

As a sidenote: The way Wizards handled the Merlin/amulet/Morgana's-hand point from Trollhunters felt almost like a cop-out to me. Like they were trying to walk back/ distance Merlin from the morally callous nature Trollhunters both showed and suggested in some antagonists' dialogue, by making it seem like far less of a deliberate scheme from him, having her turn 'bad' for unrelated reasons ahead of time and someone else being the one to actually cut her hand off. Which kind of retroactively makes it weird that she claims he "took her hand" in the first series. That line made it seem more morally complex (that maybe she became a villain' because she was directly betrayed/ wronged by one of the heroes) but then her character gets weirdly flattened. Tales of Arcadia's moral stance on Merlin is just very unclear and strange in general.

With all that said though, I think there is value sometimes in going in to something with no expectations - or knowing/ expecting it to be bad - as an exercise in analysing storytelling. One upside is what you said; because you're not really invested/ aiming to become invested you don't end up being as disappointed by bad writing. (It's that weird sort of optimistic pessimism - if you expect the worst then you'll either be right or pleasantly surprised).

Consuming media with the intent to dissect it from the start does give a different experience... but then again no-one watches True Crime Documentaries or Mayday: Air Disaster because they want to experience a perfectly normal day where everything goes well and no-one gets hurt. Some days you just want to watch a train wreck in slow motion and try to work out what went wrong.

I actually did this with Dreamwork's Voltron - I went in having already read discussions, watched a full analysis and knowing it was going to go downhill, because I was curious to see how it was going fall apart so thoroughly that the fandom almost unanimously agrees that it's a mess. Funnily enough I was kind of surprised: not because it wasn't bad (although the first three seasons are genuinely fun) but because it got bad in ways I didn't expect. Most of the discourse I had seen was ship-related so I'd sort of expected a generically mediocre story with some 'Kataang vs Zutara' level character chemistry fanning the flames, but no - the central narrative and structure of Voltron just completely falls apart. It's wild.

And - much as it's always is sad when a series doesn't live up to it's potential - I kind of prefer when a story 'shows its hand' so to speak fairly early on in terms of writing weaknesses. For me, it's almost more tolerable to see the flaws and accept that you have to look past them as the price of entry. It lets you manage your expectations - you're consuming the story in spite of known problems, so it doesn't feel as bad if/when those flaws get big enough to make the story not worth continuing with.

Call it honesty, or maybe just closure, but I'd rather a series that's kind of stupid from the start to one that starts off strong/competent and then gets really unexpectedly stupid all at once. The former tends to sting a lot less.

[headspacedad]

opinion on the upcoming live action Voltron? i really wish i was joking but this is a serious question and not some darker timeline shit

lol I know, I know. It's all good. When I first heard the rumors I figured it would just be some talk and eventually blow over when studios realized its wasn't really processable. But now it looks like there's some actual SERIOUS bidding going on and an actually script, so who knows? I understand that there's a HUGE drive for nostalgia bait in Hollywood these days, both for: lack of originality, nerd culture suddenly being profitable (or at least Hollywood realizing it is), a freak ton MULTITUDE of streaming services all popping up and wanting to get something people are going to pay them money to watch and simply the generation that grew up with OG Voltron being financially fluid (or more so) . But after the way VLD crashed and burned so spectacularly you'd think they'd give Voltron a longer cool off period. Here's the thing though -

MOST Voltron remakes are BAD. Like if you're lucky just short and bad and if not, they're 'long and muddled and lost their plot' bad. Even the original Voltron was - it was really good for its time but a lot of especially the Lion Voltron doesn't hold up as good. Vehicle Voltron would make a GREAT Netflix series but no one remembers Vehicle Voltron so everyone always just grabs for the more popular lions. Point is - Third Dimension - horrible animation, terrible story. Voltron Force - look, personal opinion only but I couldn't even make it through the first episode and the memory of it is what actively turned me off from giving VLD a crack when its first season aired. VLD itself? Great start up, long ugly spiral downward as the seasons went on until the trashfire pit that was the last few seasons of utter nonsense. I'm going to be wild right now and just say it but -

Voltron has a habit of turning out BAD remakes.

And yet - its still getting remade. Voltron seems to be one of those weird amphibious cars that never really works but people keep talking about how cool a concept it is despite that. Don't get me wrong - I adore Voltron. I grew up on the original and even after years forgetting about it, I still perk up when I hear the word. I LOVED VLD until I utterly hated it and - that's kind of the thing. How many of us hated how VLD ended and yet we're still here, years later, sharing fan art and fic and talking about the show and getting emotional about talk of a remake? Granted, a lot of it is fueled by spite but that doesn't really matter. There's still VLD chatter even after the crash and burn of it YEARS after the fact. I rarely see GoT chatter, its like most people want to pretend it never happened but here we are - worrying about a Voltron remake despite VLDs last seasons.

Somehow, Voltron is one of those rare cases where a BAD version (multiple BAD versions in fact) doesn't seem to put off the sell-ability of the brand name. And as long as Voltron gets buzz and seems to hold a very permanent place in people's nostalgia, Hollywood is going to keep milking it. Honestly, I can't even complain. Whatever movie version comes out it won't be the VLD version. Whatever script they come out with (and we've seen some doozies kicked around over the years) its probably going to be a brand new take on the Voltron concept with some cribbed notes from previous ones. YET ANOTHER remake in a long list of remakes.

If Voltron's track record holds, I'm going to assume its going to be bad and I probably won't make any other judgement call until we're far enough down that well-tread road to have some trailers. I have what I liked from VLD to keep me occupied and I don't think whatever new version that comes up will be a VLD rehash. I think its going to be a 'new idea on an old story' so it should be removed enough from my VLD scars that they won't pull or ache too much. If things go through and we start to get actual trailers though?

Honestly I was pretty burned by how good VLD started and how bad it ended so I'll probably be more tempted to want to sit there with popcorn and watch it all burn -

but you never know. Maybe whoever gets the script by the time the bidding wars are over and everything's been shuffled into rewrites and new directors fifteen times will pull off a Into the Spider-verse and surprise us all. I get why people are worked up.  VLD burned us all pretty badly and we’re still emotional about it. They’ve got every right to feel feelings right now.  I personally just don't have the emotional energy available to spend this early on in the process with everything too nebulous for me to get worked up either by being bothered or by being excited over. I'm just going to sit on my proverbial porch at this point and watch the traffic accident on the road and once it starts encroaching on my lawn I'll probably get up and decide if I want to wave a stick and yell at it or meander over to see what its doing.

[fill-me-with-your-memes-daddy]

Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭😭😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.

[kydrakinetic]

Why hello there, it seems we are both feeling bitter about Voltron today/tonight/whenever. SO. If you were tasked to rewrite Voltron, what would you change?

I would like to preface this by saying that I spent way too much time and far too many words on this. You have been warned

1. The theming holy crud

The more I think about it, the more I realize just how big the difference is between what should be the emotional effects of the canon events and actual canon (this is more egregious imo with events not shown and only told, although I have a bit more stake in off-screen events, see #4). Beyond that, they strayed really far from the original themes of friendship and family. I would instead try to work the show around the idea of Becoming An Effective Team And Family Whilst Being Mostly Minors In A Hellish Space WarTM. Not only would that give enough room to make it still (debatably) family-friendly, it would also provide a good avenue through which to explore darker arcs and more emotional issues.

2. Discussion of trauma and PTSD

I fully agree with you with what you said Shiro's PTSD. First they forget about it, then they put him through more hell, then he gets shoved aside, geez louise give the man a break or therapy. Better yet, both. There's also everything the rest of the cast goes through which uhhh

3. The clone thing

I watched the show relatively late, so to speak, in the summer of 2020. I had heard through the grapevine that it wasn't good, but I also wanted to know why and no one could give me a straight answer so I watched it. Seeing as I hadn't gone farther than that, I had no idea that the Clone Shiro/Kuron theories existed so when it popped up I was crazy confused. Also I don't like it because it destabilizes the structural integrity of the show in the middle seasons and it seemed to be an easy way for the writers to absolve weak writing while incorporating a popular theory. If it was planned from the beginning, more power to them but I still don't like it sorry.

Instead, I would cut down the length it all and have Shiro simply go missing. Cue paladin mix-up. Eventually the Black Lion reveals to Keith that Shiro's consciousness is up there, but she doesn't know where his body is, sending the team on a search find his actual body/whatever body is out there. This is when they find the clone, quintessence bullshit happens, yadda yadda, Shiro is back in his body but not really by the end of s3 to help the paladins out and reclaim his place for the Big Epic Fight. He also keeps his original design because I said so

This also means that the team is fairly operational by the end of season 3, which means there's enough emotional room to get in a good bit of angst for...

4. Matt Holt

It's just like the classic (/j) saying goes; one does not simply watch voltron without gaining a blorbo. Matt Holt happens to be mine. Yes, it's just as terrible as you'd expect.

My qualm with the way he was written is that he's very underused considering he's the primary core of Pidge's character arc. Coincidentally, due to the nature of his experiences in space and Holt family's tendency to fake their deaths (whether accidental or intentional), you can also get a lot of angst mileage out of this guy.

He's in a weird position too in terms of timeline, because we know where he was at the start of the series obviously and in seasons 4, 5, and 8 (not counting 7 because he only had like 3 frames and a dust bunny), but we don't know how he got there or how he's changed. There's a few events scattered in there but other than that there's a collective, what? 5 years' worth of timeline that's fair game?

So I say up the intensity of space war hell in his timeline a little, or leave it be but follow through on the mental consequences of what happened to the Kerberos guys, and then deal with that. A good starting point would be through his connections to the paladins. Maybe throw in something about the way Pidge and Shiro (even Keith if you're feeling fancy) remember the pre-Kerberos days and the comparison to how he and by extension they have changed, which would be a nice tie-in to the theme as stated in point 1.

I've got more to say about this little guy but I'll cut it here for everyone's sanity. God this man gives me brainworms I hate it

5. Season 7

There are definitely better things to talk about than this one but this is my askbox and I make the rules.

See the I think trouble with season 7 is that there's too many characters. They're struggling to make everyone fit and yet contribute their piece to the story. First part of fixing this in a way I like is either A) cutting the MFE pilots and making Veronica the ultimate girlboss as is her right, thereby allowing her more time to develop and actually get fleshed out or B) giving more time to the Earth cast instead. Unpopular opinion maybe, but I like the MFE pilots so I'm going with that one.

I'll admit it's been a bit since I've actually watched the show so sorry if none of this makes sense but I would open s7 with the Earth cast upon Sam Holt's arrival. Instead of doing flashback episodes we start with a 4-6 episode mini-arc from MFE pilots' pov about their training and behind-the-scenes Garrison drama. This gives enough time to focus on the pilots' personalities and ability to work together as an effective team with a different structure and dynamic than the paladins, making them stand out more.

Maybe frame it like a conspiracy theory (because it is actually the aliens), with the pilots trying to figure out what's going on and why a dead guy is training them. Maybe get Adam in on it, because like you said, he lives, obviously. The Garrison's been shown to cover their asses no matter what, so it's not too much of a stretch to say that they would do it again and not tell anyone jack.

Once the mini-arc is complete (at the beginning of the invasion) we cut back to the paladins with their journey home and their side quests. Except now the suspense is up as you wait to find out what happened when the invasion started. They get home, both the audience and the paladins are shocked at what happened, Adam or a Holt gives the team a very fast version of the events of the invasion.

The rest of the season proceeds the same expect for Adam lives and the Atlas doesn't exist anymore. (As a mecha with Thic Thighs. I have no idea what I would do about s8 here because I've blocked it from my memory, but if she was needed, she would be like. A carrier ship with a nice particle barrier. Or she still wouldn't exist if the Castle was around. Dunno) Tbh, I forgot what happens in the rest of s7. Gonna put a nice large question mark there. But I really like the idea of Earth becoming an interplanetary embassy community of sorts. Culture shock could be an interesting subject to tackle, but it wouldn't be an out of place one here. It might be nice to have some time devoted to that and everyone's recovery. Give them a bit of fluff, as a treat.

6. The transformation cutscene

It's now skippable

[kalteneker-is-acow]

Things I think of at 3 in the morning: Voltron Edition.

Well, sometimes I like to think that the Blue Lion is a kind of mother for her paladins.

(this will be long, my dear)

Blue is an important part of the team, because as a leg, her mission is to keep the team on their feet (with the Yellow Lion).

If we are talking about the poetic definition of the word "mother", maybe we could think of someone always present for her children, who is there for give them the love they need ... and the confidence too. A mother will look inside her kids to understand them, Above all, a mother will see in each of her children something unique and special.

In some way, that's what Blue does with her paladins. She chose them because she see something bigger inside them, and she commits herself to make that shine. If you remember Blaytz words in s8, that's exactly what she did for him.

I'm sure we all know about Lance's insecurities at the begining of the show, at least me, I always have the feeling that he didn't see something amazing enough in himself. Blue, as a lovely mom, supports Lance in his ideas and actions.

You can see this ideas somehow reflected in the paladins. They are based on confidence and in trust each other. Security is an important requirement on a team.

Blue paladins were usually rejected by other people because they weren't good enough, or maybe they suffer from something in common: underestimation.

But thanks of Blue, sometimes they realize how much they are worth, and that's when it comes the next point.

They are a support.

The blue ones learn from their own feelings how to support people in emotional trouble.

They are there to be the voice that makes you notice how special and strong you are, based on things they learned along the way to stop being underestimated and squash their own insecurities.

Maybe even they try to be that person they DIDN'T have when they needed it. And yes, I know that Allura and Lance had someone by their side before the war who was always there for them, but that doesn't take away from the fact that they've been pushed aside a few times and no one has been able to comfort them enough.

Let's go back to Blue and Lance relationship.

Sometimes I wonder why the Lion regrets Lance in that way when Red chose him, but now I think I can calm down my brain.

Blue not only hones and brings to light the skills of her pilots, but also prepares them for something BETTER.

Everytime when I watch the scene this days, I see it as a mother watching her son leave the house, I don't know if you understand: You know that the time has come to let him go further without you, and that he will have to face challenges alone, but you prepared him for this. Even if it hurts to say goodbye.

Now,

Why she chose Allura?

Boy, my brain is never tired.

If we go back to my theory that blue paladins are supports, maybe we could have an explanation.

The Lion saw exactly that hability in her when she encouraged Lance to try Red, making him realize he deserved it.

Allura hide all her pain and bad feelings just for help somebody else, that's what a blue paladin does. She wanted to be the Red paladin. In that moment, she was frustrated and sad.

Maybe it is not that noticeable, but many times Allura was treated as someone weaker or incapable than she really was.

A blue paladin conveys confidentiality and trust, as well as helping to increase your self-confidence.

(added part) Well, I had this idea while I was having lunch today, so...please forgive me.

Another thing the blue paladins have in common is their appreciation for their home planets. Lance miss Earth the same way that Allura miss Altea. For example, we can say that Hunk also misses the Earth, but it seems to me that he misses his family above all else, that is, if he had to leave the earth but taking his family with him, he will do it.

For Allura and Lance, family is something completely important, but their home planets are too. Lance will miss the rain, and the princess the flowers. Nothing will be the same as their initial home.

Last point! :)

Have you even heard about the Black paladin's curse?(Maybe I'm going to talk about that later) Well, I think the Blue ones have their own too.

They never feel complete.

Ironically, those who know the most about comforting people are the most insecure and those who receive the least comfort.

We can see the blue paladins showing their insecurities when Lance talks to Keith or Allura with Lance(in many situations). We can conclude that they are the ones who show them the most to other people.

However, the following happens to them (so to speak) :

"If I tell you 10 good things about you and one bad, you will pay atention to the bad one"

When they make a mistake, even if it's not completely their fault, that small or huge things is going to chase them forever.

For example, Allura:

When Lotor turned out to be a traitor, she felt hurt and completely guilty of the current situation, having fallen for his tricks and falling in love with him in the process.

Although we can see that Lance tries to make her feel better, in s8 we can clearly see that she still feeling guilty about what happened.

Sometimes they trust a person to be comforted in some way, or just that person makes them feel comfortable and powerful in some way.

And then, we he or she leaves, they lose part of the trust they have been winning thanks to that person. A blue paladin will never leave you, because is in their blood. But they use to choose someone who doesn't have that thing incorporated, meaning that this special someone could leave them with no problem in every single moment.

Lotor's ghost was literally chasing her because of the guilty, and Honerva took advantage of that.

A blue paladin can be very affected by someone's abandonment. They need a support too.

So, I think Lance and Allura were always(as Olivia said) one step foward and three steps back. And I don't mean the issue of their relationship, that is already apart.

Unfortunately, we couldn't saw a season where we could explore Lance's self problems, but with the things we have about him, maybe we can say that this applies to him too.

But don't be sad for this.

Maybe I'm just someone who spends a lot of time thinking about details of a children's series, and in another universe Allura and Lance got married, or separated and later found THAT special someone and whaterver.

Again, thank you for reading and sorry for my english lmao.

[lilhawkeye3]

We need to talk about Captain Rex (CT-7567)

Alright everyone. I wanna start out by saying this is not an attack on Rex’s character or anyone who likes him as a character. This is merely meant to be educational and point out some concerns with trends in popular content. That said... I know I’m probably gonna get a lot of hate for this.

So. Captain Rex. Leader of the 501st, arguably one of the main characters of The Clone Wars series. So beloved, he even carried on into Rebels, and now The Mandalorian. And there’s one thing in specific about him that made him catch everyone’s eye— his blond hair.

(FYI: “Blond” is the masculine form. “Blonde” is the feminine form. Please don’t comment to say I spelled it wrong lmao.)

This was a big deal. They’re all supposed to be clones of Jango Fett, right? He’s got black hair. The clones we saw in the movies all had black hair. So here comes along the leader of Anakin’s battalion, the one we are most meant to follow and remember.

And this is where I introduce you to the “dark skinned blond” trope in media.

The dark skinned blond is... a bit complicated. As a whole, it is part of the larger issue of exoticism and fetishization of dark skinned characters. The white/blond hair allows them to stand out more, but also gives them a sense of Eurocentric features: thus, they have a sense of mysticism to the audience.

This can be best seen with the most well-known character that falls into this trope: Ororo Monroe aka Storm from X-Men. Her white hair sets her apart so much that the Africans in her village saw her as a goddess, and it was used as just another thing that set her apart from being normal (for context, she is a mutant).

Another time this is shown is with Princess Yue from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Here, her hair is shown to turn white when the literal moon spirit heals her as an ill newborn. The white hair is meant to show she is blessed, setting her apart from the other introduced water tribe characters and having the audience know she is someone to remember.

(Disclaimer: Yue and Storm can also be included in the ‘magical white hair’ trope, which can also include light skinned characters like Elsa from Frozen).

Most recently, another character in this trope is Usagiyama Rumi, aka the rabbit hero Miruko from My Hero Academy (Boku no Hero Academia). She is one of the top 5 heroes, thus someone important to remember, and... alongside Storm, is subject to a very large amount of fetishization in comparison to the other characters in their series. (This could be further exacerbated due to Miruko being one of the only dark skinned characters in the anime series as well).

A few other characters that fall into the dark-skinned blond trope are Aqualad and Artemis from Young Justice, Allura from Voltron, Agni in Black Butler, and even Butler in that awful new Artemis Fowl movie. It is all done in an effort to make them more ambiguous, more exotic, so you can’t really tell where they’re from but you’re sure to remember them.

[Image: Storm aka Ororo Monroe, Princess Yue, Miruko; Aqualad, Artemis, Allura, Butler. All have dark skin and varying shades of blond hair (white, platinum, yellow).]

So then we get to Captain Rex. Here we have this lead character we know nothing about at the start of the show, but he already stands out because he looks different, despite being a clone. It really doesn’t matter what the in-universe reason is for his blondness (I know people debate if it’s genetic mutation vs bleaching).

The point is this: his design is used to set him apart from the rest, to make him seem more exotic in comparison, and thus, make him the one the creators force the audience to remember.

Honestly... I don’t know. I have mixed feelings about this trope. For characters like Storm and Yue, at least there’s magic to explain it. At least you know it can’t be real. 

With characters more like Rex, who is meant to be normal (not magical)... it feels different. It felt like the creators-- specifically, the white creators-- thought he wouldn’t be good enough for the audience’s attention as a brown man unless there was something special about him. Something eye-catching. Exotic in comparison to the other clones.

It’s a strange feeling, because overall, it’s not something outwardly racist with the character development (like with Jar Jar Binks). This is far more subtle, so subtle that it’s hard to even fully verbalize. But it’s still there, and it’s a pattern, and it’s a bit worrisome, especially when concerning a character modeled off of a real person (Temuera Morrison’s appearance was not altered for his clone roles in the prequel trilogy, and Rex’s design came afterwards.).

I wish I had a conclusive ending to this mini-essay. I don’t really. There’s nothing that can be done about Rex or any of these characters’ appearances. Just... keep this in mind for the future. Often with visual media in particular, even how a character looks can influence your perception of them, often with years of history and reasoning behind it.

This has been Tea Time with Hawk. ☕️🦅Thanks for reading :)

Part 2 here.

Why I don’t think Rex’s hair is bleached.

[actress4him]

ahhh I'm so excited for the whump bingo series! can you do pidge in either 'caught in a snare' or in 'clawing at own throat'? ^^

This one...fought with me. I knew right away what kind of trap I wanted to use once I saw it online, but I had a hard time figuring out what scenario exactly to use that made sense and wouldn’t be too long or too short. But here it is, I finished it, and I hope it’s to your liking, Anon!

@badthingshappenbingo

Prompt: Caught in a Snare

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: near drowning, death mention

.

.

“I hate the outdoors.”

“Yeah,” Lance replies drily. “You mentioned that. A few times.”

Growling, Pidge kicks at a piece of rotting wood in her path. “It’s getting more and more true by the minute.”

The trek continues in silence for a minute, though she hardly notices the lack of conversation for all the rustling and tweeting and whatever other disgusting natural noises are going on around them and all of the furious thoughts pouring through her head. That is, until Lance decides to speak up again and say,

“You know you’re supposed to be like, the Guardian of Nature, right?”

“Shut up, Lance, I literally never asked for that title!” she hisses, narrowing her eyes at him briefly before returning her gaze to the path. Her luck, she’d end up tripping over something. “I mean don’t get me wrong, I love Green, but I’m much more into the curiosity and technology part, not the nature part.”

Silence again. “For what it’s worth,” he offers after a minute, “I’m not enjoying the situation, either.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’d be concerned if you were.” After all, when the two of them had agreed to come here to look for some rare fruit Allura and Coran wanted to trade with another potential Coalition planet, having all of their electronic devices - including Green - fail them so that they had to hike through the freakin’ jungle was not exactly part of the plan.

Her head and ribs still hurt from the rough landing. Nothing broken, thankfully, but she’s pretty sure she’s got some nice looking bruises. So, sue her if she’s a little grumpy. She feels she has the right.

And what jungle is cold, anyway? Not cold enough that she needs to keep her helmet sealed, but much colder than a jungle should be.

Space is so weird.

“Hey, I think I hear water over there.” Lance points somewhere to their right, through the endless trees. “If it’s a river or a creek we should try following it.”

Sighing, Pidge nods. It’s a good idea, and she’s not sure she would have thought of it. Wilderness survival isn’t really her forte. “Yeah, okay. Maybe luck will be on our side for once today and we can get a drink, too. I’ve still got that tester thing Coran gave me to see if it’s safe.”

“A drink sounds amazing right about now.”

There is a river, a rather large one at that, and it doesn’t take them long to find it. The vibrant turquoise color is a little off-putting, as is the steep embankment, but Pidge is determined to test it anyway and try to get them that drink they’re both craving.

“Over here, I see a path down.” She heads out in front of Lance, picking her way through the underbrush to a spot where it’s slightly less overgrown. Likely either animals or locals have been using the spot to get their own drinks from the river.

“Don’t fall!” Lance calls good-naturedly from a few yards behind.

Pidge is just about to throw a snarky response over her shoulder when something latches onto her ankle and her feet are suddenly yanked out from underneath her. Her already sore body slams backwards onto the ground. Vaguely she can hear Lance cackling at her, but she doesn’t have time to focus on it.

There’s some kind of twine wrapped around her ankle, and there’s a boulder tumbling down the embankment next to her toward the water, and somehow the two are connected and she’s being dragged swiftly down the hill with them.

It all happens in a matter of seconds. She throws her hands out, grasping at plants and roots and anything else she can find, but all she ends up with is a fistful of purple leaves and a ripped glove.

Right before she reaches the water Lance’s laughter turns into yelling. Then the boulder hits the surface with a loud splash, and she follows right behind it. It’s like being plunged into an ice bath. Automatically her mouth opens to gasp from the cold, but she stops herself just short of actually inhaling.

The river is deeper than it looked from above. The rock is still sinking, and it’s still pulling her with it. Down, down, where the water becomes less turquoise and more murky grey. Pidge fights against it, tries to swim upward, back to the surface, but the rock is far heavier than she is. Even when she kicks on her jet pack, it just sputters and barely halts the downward progress. There’s no way she’s going to be able to tug the rock back up with her.

Looking down, she can just barely see the twine where it wraps around her ankle and disappears into the darkness. If she can’t swim back up with that attached, then obviously she’s going to have to get rid of it.

Her lungs are already starting to ache.

Releasing a few bubbles, she bends over and pulls at the twine, but it’s so tight it would be cutting into her ankle if not for her armor. She can’t get even a fingernail underneath it.

A muted splash echoes through the water, and she lets a little bit more air out when she looks up to see Lance diving swiftly toward her. His eyes are wide behind his sealed faceplate. Pidge gives a pointed tug on the twine, and he nods, swimming with practiced ease down to her feet. Grabbing it with both hands, he attempts to break it, then moves up to her foot and finds out the same thing she did, it’s too tight to slip off.

There’s not much air left in her lungs, and most of what’s there slips past her lips without her permission. Her chest is beginning to burn.

Lance is making weird motions at her with his hands, but she’s having a hard time focusing on them past the black dots dancing in front of her eyes. Those are...probably not a good sign.

Finally he swims back up next to her, patting her hip as he leans in close to her ear. “Bayard!” she barely makes out.

Oh. Yeah. She’s gonna blame the lack of oxygen for not thinking of that herself.

She can barely see anymore, but she summons her bayard to her hand and attempts to lean down toward her foot. At this point she’s gonna be lucky if she doesn’t slice her leg off accidentally. But then Lance’s hands are wrapping around hers, and he’s guiding her downwards. Just before the black spots completely take over and her body goes limp, she feels the tension on her ankle release.

The next thing she’s aware of is lying on her side in a patch of dirt, coughing violently and spitting out gross river water while something slaps her on the back. She only realizes that the something is probably Lance’s hand when he leans over into her face.

“Oh, thank goodness! I thought I was gonna have to do rescue breaths and put my lips on your lips and I just -”

“Lance, please.” She coughs again, and wonders briefly if maybe she swallowed some seaweed or a fish or something because it feels like there’s one stuck in her chest somewhere. “I’m trying...not to throw up right now. I don’t...don’t need that visual.”

“Yeah. Same.” He falls back onto his butt, staring at her with traces of fear still on his face. “I would have done it, though, to, you know...save you. That, uh...really scared me. I barely got it cut before you passed out and the bayard went back to neutral and then you were like, dead...well, not actually dead, obviously, but you looked dead and then you weren’t breathing and I -”

“Lance.” Another cough, and a shiver racks her body. “Thank you.”

He screeches to a halt, then relaxes into a smile. “You’re welcome. Sorry I, uh...kinda laughed at you. I thought you had fallen down right after I said ‘don’t fall down’, and...yeah.”

The shivers are getting worse now. “Technically I...did. Just...not my fault.”

Lance’s smile morphs into a frown. “We’ve gotta get you dried off and warmed up somehow.”

Finally gathering her energy, Pidge pushes herself up to sit, wrapping her arms around her body as if it’ll somehow help dispel the ice that has taken over. “N-not sure how that’s...gonna happen...in the middle of the...quizn-nacking jungle.”

Glancing back over his shoulder as if a solution will magically appear - and well, they are in space, stranger things have happened - Lance sighs and moves to stand up. “Maybe we should keep moving. That might help you warm up, and eventually we have to run into some civilization, right? Coran said there were sentient aliens on this planet.”

“Yeah, and s-somebody had to have set up th-that trap.” Moving is the last thing she wants to do right now. Her headache from before has multiplied exponentially in strength, and her ribs did not appreciate all the coughing she just did. She wants to curl back up on the ground and not move again for a century or two. But she allows Lance to throw her arm over his shoulder and pull her up to her feet, even if she groans dramatically in the process.

“Well, I think we should just keep following this river - not quite so closely this time - and see wh-”

This time he cuts off without an interruption from Pidge, and she looks up to see what he’s staring at. It’s aliens. A whole pack of them, bipedal and four-armed in multiple shades of green fur that almost blends in with the trees, and they’re armed with spears and axes.

They’re probably the ones that set the snare, and now they’ve come to see what they caught. Which, unfortunately, is them.

“Uh, hi guys,” Lance squeaks. “We’re, um. We’re the Paladins of Voltron. Any chance you’ve heard of us?”

This sets off an immediate wave of whispers through the group. The alien in front straightens from their defensive position and steps forward. “Voltron? The rumors are true, then? Voltron lives?”

Pidge can feel the tension leave Lance’s body. “Yes! Yes, Voltron has returned! We came here in one of the Voltron Lions to look for supplies, but something on your planet has interfered with our devices. We need help to contact our team and to find what we’re looking for.” He glances over at Pidge, whose teeth are clenched tightly to keep them from clacking together. “And she needs to get warm before she gets sick.”

The lead alien turns to have a whispered consultation with the others before nodding at Lance. “Very well. Follow us, and we will assist you.”

Another removes their heavy-looking cape and approaches carefully, draping it around Pidge’s shoulders. Immediately she melts into the warmth. “There will be a fire waiting for us in the village.”

“S-sounds great,” she manages.

Lance smiles, pulling her in a bit tighter. “Thank you.”

——————————

Instructions for requesting a square here!

[icecreamchick45]

It’s like a month later but fuck it, I’m still thinking about Wondering Isles and specifically my girl Eris Darkwater (what a queen and what a wreck). Here’s all the headcanons i have for her epilogue times.

-She gets really good at hustling people in bars (to the point she gets banned from doing it at Xarus’s bar)

-All the drinks she orders are incredibly sweet and incredibly cursed

-She uses teleportation necklace almost exclusively to fuck with people or visit her sister

-When Ari moves in with Nyx those two things combine

-There’s a period of 5-10 years after Nyx leaves the Delrose where she visits but not as frequently as she does at other points in her life. She doesn’t know for a while what role she’s allowed or should have in her sister’s life. On one hand, despite having love in other places and finding romantic love later in her life, Nyx is her greatest love and soulmate. She doesn’t know what kind of person she would have become without her sister and she really hates thinking about the time her sister was dead. (When she has to refer to this time she just says that Nyx took a break and it’s one of the biggest deviations from what happened from reality in her book.) On the other hand, she knows what kind of life she lives and how for all their childhood they were all each other had, shouldn’t Nyx get to find a world where she’s able to find herself without Eris. A particularly insecure part of herself wonders if the real reason Nyx left the Delrose is because she just couldn’t handle Eris anymore and figured it wasn’t worth it. (That part usually silenced by reason and knowing that isn’t true, but it takes a while before it goes anyway entirely.)

-Eris does enjoy seeing lots of different planes and has gotten kicked out of about 6. (Only three of them were permanent)

-When asked what her position is on the Delrose, she remains that it’s the gunner despite the fact the Delrose doesn’t have canons

-Eris is pan or as she refers to it: “I’m just into really REALLY hot people.”

-Eris ends up having a great romantic love in her life. It starts out as a rivalry with the first mate on a different ship. The rivalry isn’t technically her fault, but she definitely made it worse. The rivalry starts when she’s about 25 and they don’t end up getting together for another decade because they’re both stubborn motherfuckers. It takes another 5 years before they’re even on the same ship. (Her girlfriend is a half-orc multiclassed assassin rogue/trickery cleric.)

-Her name is Tyche (named after Greek goddess of luck)

-She eventually as an insanely extravagant wedding in her forties with practically everyone she ever met invited

-She asks about 5 years after the big fight, if Eva would want to contact her husband/twins dad (Nicole can’t remember name)

-The teen zone is established and continues for the entirety of Eris’s life. Much past the age she’s technically allowed to be in it per her own rules.

-While no biological children, she ends up taking in any children/teens who are in similar situations that the twins were in. There’s about three of them that she considers truly hers (one of which does refer to her as mom)

-Eris is the type of adult who likes for kids to think they’re being really tough and scary while she’s behind them actually being threatened to stop anyone from giving the kids shit

-Slowly realizing that Eris is just slowly becoming a mix Adam and Keith from CaffeinatedFlumadiddle’s Voltron is (Basically) a Disaster series in her epilogue (to be fair this is a great fanfic)

-Has and will kill people for trying to use mind control magic on her

-For a period of about two to three months in her mid thirties, she was mind controlled to basically become a killing machine for some wannabe Castellane. The party came together to save her (along with her “rival”). The man who kidnapped her got perhaps the most gruesome death anyone there had ever seen when Eris was done with him.

-While they don’t get together directly afterwards, this does mark a turning point in the “rivalry”

-Eris spends a solid two months living with Nyx and not adventuring after this

-With a mix of her rival, Nyx, Thalia, and the rest of her friends and crew she’s able to get out of her own head

-She has an obnoxious wedding where she forces Ari and Lian to a kids table

-She briefly marries the prince to make Tyche jealous

-She dies in her early 70’s, it’s not so much a fight but a sacrifice for some child who she felt deserved it. Her last words are commenting on how the narrative difference of dying in a fight vs dying via sacrifice makes a difference to her. (Someone who always thought she would die via pirate fight)

-She spends her afterlife in the plane she did seances in, in essentially an endless seance

[starrykitty013]

Sneak Peak!! This will be a Cake Walk (oneshot)

Here’s the full fic...finally: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33658105

This takes place in my JGLEH universe (https://archiveofourown.org/series/1415002) but this oneshot could be read as a standalone :)

Enjoy!

August 7th, 2019.

That was the date that this year’s birthday fell on. Technically it was the first wednesday of August, since this month started on a Thursday, but it was basically the second week of August, so they’d let it slide. Besides the 14th of August seemed like a good date, but Ned and MJ were just so anxious to finally be spending a birthday with their best friend, because it had been 2 years since they last had - well more Ned than MJ, MJ was cool with anything.

So here they were, lounging around Peter’s - and his parent’s - little apartment/penthouse/whatever-this-place-they-were-living-was-classfied-as in Stark tower, eating junk food and marathoning Voltron - every variation of it, eating a slightly melted ice cream cake MJ bough - they bought an entire sheet cake this time, instead of a small one because Ned and MJ got paychecks now and Peter has the metabolism not to waste it.

Different location, same traditions. Sure the atmosphere of the tower was not as cozy as Ned’s cramped living room or MJ’s box apartment, but they made do. They dulled the settings on the floor to ceiling window that took up an entire wall and viewed over the city. They cuddled in blankets and made an entire pillow fort, and they made it surround them so they were forced to be closer together.

They would’ve invited everyone else in the tower, but his official birthday wasn’t until the 12th and Peter’s sure they had something planned. He kind of just wanted to keep this serenity of the three of them, even if he felt a little guilty about being exclusive. It was worth it.

It felt right.

Keeping his old traditions while preparing for the new ones that he was bound to make this year.

He hadn’t celebrated his birthday with the Avengers last year, because it was the date of the trial and he hadn’t been living with them at the time, even if like a week later he was. Everything had been so hectic and moving too fast that his birthday had barley been on any of their minds. He had spent the night with Wade and Matt goofing off in and out of their costumes though - the aults getting thoroughly plastered and Peter thinks it was only 60% for his amusement.

It was an enjoyable night. Or at least it it was shaping up to be. He liked the chill vibes that they had managed to create. It was almost like they were hanging out just like any other day, and not celebrating Peter being one year away from being a legal adult - in America at least.

His parents had walked in around 11:30ish, and they just were about to pass without looking twice at the kids lounged around and the mess of stolen blankets and pillows they probably didn’t know they owned - and they didn’t own most of them, again they were temporarily stolen, he’d give them to their respective owners again...eventually...maybe.

Ned had greeted them absently, because he was polit like that, and Nat smirked fondly at them, watching them out of the corner of her eye, while Bucky turned and nodded in acknowledgment, lips quirking up for a second at the scene. MJ gave a salute as she had a chip half in her mouth.

“Russian → ”(Hey, guys.) Peter said absently, not really looking at them as he leaned forward to grab another slice of melted cake. And that’s when Natasha paused for a second, looking frozen. Bucky had just barley managed to ram into her. It was a slight action but it made Peter pause and look up in confusion and slight alarm. His spidey sense wasn’t going off, but Nat had that look on her face where she kept it carefully neutral to not give anything away. Peter turned his head to them and sat up a bit, Ned and MJ seemed to pick up on his vibes because a moment later MJ had shifted into a slightly more alert slouch and that was followed by Ned swiveling his head to look confusedly between everyone while trying - and failing, but it’s okay Ned you are still a precious bean child that will be protected by everyone here - to be subtle about it, his anxiety kicking in a bit. “What’s up?” he said trying to maintain a casual tone. If it was an emergency, he’d know, they would’ve been more on edge. It was more likely that they had gotten taken off guard by something - which was only barley more comforting, since they usually were never taken off guard by much.

Bucky had trained his eyes on Nat, so Peter did the same. She darted her eyes quickly to something next to him and then back to Peter, Bucky followed her gaze and kept it locked on the thing she was looking at. Peter slowly moved his head to where Bucky’s eyes were trained and looked down to see the mostly melted cake, with the watery, sloppy lettering that was supposed to spell out “Congrats on not dying spider dweeb” and then a messily drawn spiderman logo, but they had eaten the cake in a way that it said “C---ats o- ying- ider dw-b” and part of the logo was cut outso it was only the lens’ of the mask showing. Peter then moved his eyes back up to Natasha, still confused over why she was so still about it.

“I thought you're birthday was the... 12th.” Her tone was still carefully neutral, but Peter could detect some tension that his friends probably didn’t pick up on. Bucky definitely did though. It almost seemed like it was hard for her to get that out, for some reason.

Peter cocked his head. “Well yeah officially.” he said. Something seemed to click for Bucky and he looked to Peter and his friends again.

“It’s the 7th.” Bucky said, in a much more genuine neutral tone.

“Yeah, it is.” MJ said sarcastically, but she seemed to tone her usual snark down a bit. Peter was inexplicably grateful for that, for some reason.

“We celebrate it on the second Wednesday of August though.” Ned explained. He had told them the story of how he officially got his birthday with Wade and the army camps earlier that day, because Ned had asked if there was a story he was previously unable to tell them. He had told them the whole truth and they accepted it without any preamble. At this point they had heard so many messed up stories about his childhood that the initial shock and horror reaction had dialed down. At first - when he first started telling them about his past that he had to keep a secret, even without all the spidey stuff like the White room and Special Forces - Ned had been in tears nearly every time and MJ would close off almost to the point of dissociation. But after nearly a year the most reaction he’d get was MJ’s concerned eyeroll and Ned’s shift so they bumped shoulders or they were closer. Still, the birthday story did get a hug out of Ned and MJ to shift a tad closer.

Bucky’s eyes flicked to Natasha and his shoulders slumped like he was holding in a sigh “Why?” Bucky asked after a beat of silence, maintaining the same casual light tone.

“Some stupid thing Wade made up.” Peter shrugged and fought the urge to look away. Why did he feel so weird about this? “Something about sticking it to the man, or society or the government or whatever.” he said looking down at his cake and putting a small bite in his mouth that he could talk around. “We did it every year and then we did it with Ned and MJ and it just stuck. It’s not a big deal, we just chill.” he mumbled more than said. There was a long pull of silence between them, with only the sounds of Allura explaining some complicated space matter to the team of palidins on the screen.

When Peter finally had the urge to look up he found himself looking at the tail end of his mother going into her bedroom and quietly shutting the door. He looked at the door for a moment then at Bucky who was doing the same, but he sighed and shot him and his friends one last supposedly reassuring smile, as if to say ‘as you were’ - it did not have it’s desired effect- and then follow after his partner, opening and shutting the door softly.

That was weird.

Peter just looked at the door for a few moments, not really sure how to feel about that. He felt his friends’ gazes on his back, and it almost felt like they had no clue what to do with that strange interaction either. It hadn’t left bad vibes, but it hadn’t really left any good ones either.

He turned back to the movie, MJ and Ned seemingly following his lead and going back to marathoning. But instead of listening to Keith and Lance’s 143th argument of the show, he was listening to the quiet murmurs coming from the room. Loud enough that Peter could pick up on the sound with his enhanced hearing but too soft to actually make any words out.

Eventually, after about 10 minutes of not knowing what was up and the feeling something was off still lingering in his mind, he stood up and made his way to the door. HIs confused friends’ gazes followed him up and to where he was walking.

“Be right back.” he said absently before entering the room and closing the door just a quietly as his parents’.

[chibi-pix]

Okay guys, I finally did it. After watching Voltron: Defender of the Universe, both the lion and vehicle forces, I finally got to watch Fleet of Doom. And I actually ended up sitting there to watch it instead of drawing. I know, surprising.  Now then, let’s go!

Kinda glad they brought Cossack along for the ride in this. He may be a bad guy, but he amuses me.  And seeing the Vehicle team again. I know it wasn’t that long ago, but I missed them. Even with that slight, momentary error I think I saw in Cliff’s uniform being the wrong colour. OH well. I will admit, it was strange that Zarkon and Lotor seemed to be on decent terms. Weren’t y’all wanting each other dead before? You know what, screw you two. Like father, like son. Both idiots.  “I hope you Drules keep up your end of the bargain.” I mean, Zarkon says it as though they aren’t the same race. I know technically they aren’t with their source materials, but still. No matter...  And them wanting to conquer the other. Typical idiots. 

Continuing on, I just adore Pidge’s excitement, especially about his brother. And that flashback was even more adorable since I’ve literally only seen like two stills from it. I loved it! And Lance and Wolo pulling Cliff into the pool. That was amusing. If I were Cliff, I wouldn’t trust them around a pool again. Or push them in the next time for funsies.  And Allura wants girl time with the ladies. Yes, let her enjoy girl time! 

Seeing Keith’s childhood memories/dream. Poor baby. He needs to be hugged and told that it will all be okay. I expected a normal princess kidnapping. I did not expect Haggar to steal Allura’s spirit. Good way to catch me by surprise, Voltron.  But can I just say Pidge listening for Allura’s heartbeat? I mean, it’s pretty innocent, but boobs. Resting his head on her chest. You were quick to decide that, Pidge, instead of checking for her pulse in general. But we still love you, buddy. And with Alfor taking Keith to find Allura, his “yes” as they disappear was just way too creepy. It did not sound right... And Keith taken to a forest. Be brave, Keith! With such a place being conquered by courage and imagination, I’m  sure I’d be fine. It’d be a walk in the park. 

Allura really doesn’t give up on others, huh? Always hoping for the good in others. Good for her, though, at least she still tries.  Though Haggar used to be good? And it was Zarkon’s fault she became who she was? Huh. Intriguing.  When Lance, Hunk, and Pidge were in trouble thanks to Cossack, I had honestly hoped that the vehicle team would show up and assist them. Lance finding a way to fight back when Cossack tried to turn them into a crane game was good, too.

It was nice being able to see the two Voltrons side by side. I’d love more of that, but alas. I shall live with this.  And Lotor making his own robeast Voltron... it just has me thinking of VLD with Lotor making the Sincline mech. Now seeing this, I’m definitely seeing the reference there. Very nice. I’mma be honest. Coran and Hawkins should have gotten their rears in gear sooner to protect the planet/base and fight off the Drules. They shouldn’t have waited for the others to point out that they need backup in keeping things safe. Really dudes?!  Lotor shouts out his moves though in control. He reminds me of an episode of Pokemon where Meowth was battling for his right to keep Togepi. And then he has the nerve to complain about the others ganging up on him being unfair. Dude, you’ve never been fair before. Pot, meet kettle. 

Haggar going to trick Zarkon, making herself young and beautiful. Zarkon is a total creeper. Though I wish I knew what happened next with that. I want to know how that interaction ends. Though I guess I can daydream and assume. 

Ah, and everything ends, everyone is happy and shaking hands. But I sure wish we had more Pidge and Chip interactions. I love the lads. 

Anyway! That be it! Voltron: Defender of the Universe and Fleet of Doom is complete! I surprisingly got through all of this. I’ll admit, sometimes my brain just screamed, especially at voices or 80s frequencies, but I made it through. And I actually enjoyed the series overall. 

Well, until next time!

[f-117-nighthawk]

Playlist Update? From MY Brain? More Likely Than You Think

can't remember the last time I posted these all together but I just put a few new songs in. I've been playing Arknights bc STARSET songs keep being used in the trailers, and then I was listening to Transmissions while making dinner, and uhhhhh there's two new Transmissions songs on the playlists, plus whatever else the spotify links needed to update to my ever-changing apple versions.

This is just the main playlist, because this one is now 3h 40m, and the other three playlists are about an hour each. I’ll give them their own post tomorrow. Under the cut, because it's also Write Random Snippits and Include Important Lyrics time

Dark Matter

Surprise surprise, this one’s got probably the most work done on it. A lot of that is moving things around, a few deletions, and the additions.

DM now starts with Your World Will Fail, Dark Matter, and Eater of Worlds. Turn the Lights Out still kinda applies, but I stopped vibing with it starting everything, and wasn’t really sure where else it should go so it got dropped. It’s role is sort of picked up by a UtA song later? Anyway, the opening three are still very much about not only the birth of [REDACTED], but the birth of the universe itself. And that’s why it feels better to start out with YWWF. Because it is the start.

(Your world will fail my love/It’s far beyond repair/Your world will fail my love/It is already there)

(Bring me your soul/Bring me your hate/In my name you will create/Bring me your fear/Bring me your pain/You will destroy in my name)

(Can’t imagine the violence/The rage and the love in my madness/I am the eater of worlds and I’m looking for someone to feed me)

Remnants of Stars is a hook to Filaments at this point, but stays way up here because the thing it’s about connects back up to those three ^ and is something slowly realized by the Paladins throughout the series. There’s kinda three different points that they realize something new about this (at the moment, I Am the One, Cosmic Vertigo, and Centigrade).

(Shed all you know and make way for a galaxy of light/Answers found hidden inside the smallest stone/Bringing forth a new way of life/Open your heart to the sky)

Apocalypse 1992 hasn’t changed. Still about The Fall, still the turning point for the entire damn war. Still about poor Krolia. Still the Rogue One of DM. It happens between parts of Awakenings, detailing the rise of [REDACTED] and the final hours before the destruction of everything sentient species knew beforehand.

(Fly high through apocalypse skies/Fight for the world we must save/Like tears of a unicorn lost in the rain/Chaos will triumph this day)

Apex is the final moments of Apocalypse 1992 from the Red Lion’s perspective, and connects nicely (just as in the albums lol) to the next UtA songs. Which we’ll get to in a bit.

(Brother mountain/Now we sleep/For a thousand years/I will see you again/Something is coming/Coming for me)

You Keep What You Kill covers the slow degeneration of the Empire between The Fall and the Battle of Arus. The knowledge harshly taught by the Thuanial War is forgotten under the influence of Zarkon, Haggar, and [REDACTED]. Marzin and Galraasa quickly rise the ranks as the Empire’s left and right hands, like omens of destruction before them. The four are the ‘holy half-dead,’ the ones who shape the devouring of the universe before them.

(Defying dimensions/These ruthless creatures will steal your soul/Breaking away from the chains of mortality/They won’t be taken down/Bow now to the holy half dead/The master to death mongers calls)

The Glory and the Scum is partially here bc I missed having Delain, I’ll freely admit that. (Delain split up! Like six months ago! I’m still sad!) Here, it’s (most) of the reason why Krolia isn’t around until MGHM. Think Winter Soldier-ish. It’s also from Krolia’s perspective as she’s talking to Kolivan in a conversation I implied in Shatterpoint. Perhaps it shall see the light of day.

(Look at what we've done/Take a step back/Shake your head at what we have become/We're the glory and the scum)

The Seven Sisters is about Keith, mostly, and connected to Closure via its influence on Child From the Stars (Lost in the Dark) and also to Memories of a Girl I Haven’t Met. Also the thing about the Pleiades has kinda become A Thing associated with my two favorite halfbloods.

(I cast my hope upon The Pleiades/The Seven Sisters who would come for me/They’d fall to Earth to grant a child’s dream/But I’m still waiting)

Starlight is the Adashi song. Here, it’s the sad part, based around the time that the SFSS Genesis launches for Kerberos. It also is sort of about Shiro’s thoughts throughout the war as he watches ‘from distant skies’ (and influences String Theory kinda)

(At night the earth will rise/And I’ll think of you each time I watch from distant skies/Whenever stars go down and galaxies ignite/I’ll think of you each time they wash me in their light/And I’ll fall in love with you again)

Waking Dream and Abyss are Awakenings. They’re specifically the Red Lion waking up on Sendak’s ship to her new Paladin, but also sort of the rest of the Lions as they find new Paladins for the first time since The Fall (and, also, an accidental hook to the end of Filaments just by virtue of being on the same UtA album…)

(Centuries like flowing streams as years go rushing by/Waiting in the dark for afterlife)

(Open my eyes in a daze/How long has it been? Am I so out of place?/Warmth I can no longer feel/My mountain is gone, I’m surrounded by steel/The strangest of structures arises ahead/Seems to be held up by nothing/Where have I gone, do I dream?/How can the stars be all I can see?)

Who Will Save You Now is about the Paladins in First Contact. It’s the video messages they send to their families, the warning that Something Is Out Here that they need to prepare for. It’s a declaration of protection for Earth, but a recognition that the Paladins may not be able to do what they say.

(I will not take from you and you will not owe/I will protect you from the fire below/It’s not in my mind/It’s here at my side/Go tell the world that I’m still alive)

Then there’s The End of the Beginning. Which is, well, the eponymous fic. And don’t forget the String Theory connection! Fun fact: part of the last chapter leads directly into part of String Theory at the moment.

(Every night I die just a little/All this time, I’m caught in the middle/All your life, you fought with no winning/This is just the end of the beginning)

A Simple Plan is about anything but a simple plan. Lotor is making his secret bid for the construction of the Sinkline ships, but there’s one more thing he needs before it can come to fruition. Haggar has suspicions, and knows one thing that she needs to keep from both him and Voltron. Team Voltron is still struggling to fit into their new roles, especially with a Black Paladin who adamantly does not want to be Black Paladin, and is in desperate need of one thing to fix the last of the damage done during the Battle of the Sarnan Nebula.

(How long can we hold off ending?/How long can we pretend we’re ok?/No one goes on fighting it forever/I know I’m better this way)

Memories of a Girl I Haven’t Met. Such a short song for such an important fic. It skips all the way over Naxzela to the Mission to the Baaria Shipyards, the first major offensive that isn’t somehow connected to canon (even if only a very very small part of it is actually at the shipyards lol). This is also the song that solidified Keith’s very queer identity in Dark Matter. And more Pleiades stuff!

(In this lonely place, bathed in silence and thoughts of you/I can’t see your face but I’m trying to envision you/So are you really out there? Are you awake with memories/Of a boy you haven’t met yet who’s wished upon the Pleiades?)

There’s another fic in here that I’m still waiting for a song to catch my ear, but it’s pretty big so I’m putting it in here. For the moment, it’s called MGHM 2.0: Electric Paladinloo. Featuring the Whispers, Voltron, and a few mullets.

And then. Hoh boy. The beast of beats. TRIALS (reimagine), Dark On Me, String Theory, and I Am the One. We’ve got [REDACTED], we’ve got [spoiler], we’ve got the first major turning point in the entire war, and the first revelation of the true nature of [REDACTED]. Hence the honor of being the separation point of my two main DM folders. TRIALS is the first part, the horrifying realization. Dark On Me and String Theory itself are from Shiro’s perspective. I Am the One is… an image song? I guess? That’s all I’ll say on that. (I would like to note that the STARSET songs bar OWtT tend to be about the Shiroganes…)

(Hear me from the bottom/Forged in regret, I'm the silversmith/Doomsday, you we had it coming/Marching the streets with an iron fist/Obey no more in silence/The steel in our hearts will be monuments/Today, they'll hear the violence/We'll rise from the dark like Lazarus)

(You're the cause/The antidote/The sinking ship that I could not let go/You led my way, then disappeared/How could you just walk away and leave me here?/Light the night up, you're my dark star/And now you're falling away)

(You don’t believe in space/You don’t believe in light/You don’t believe that anything is well beyond your might/We walk across the sky and beneath the ocean floor/We’re never going anywhere we’ve never been before)

(I am the one/I am the architect to rule your fate)

House on Fire is the aftermath of String Theory, and a large vibe of We ARE Struggling Together! It’s about family, never letting go of something you care about, and the slow act of trusting.

(So I’ll just hold you like a hand grenade/You touch me like a razor blade/I wish there was some other way right now/Like a house on fire we’re up in flames/I’d burn here if that’s what it takes/To let you know I won’t let go of you)

Belgrade is The klance song! It is a) a bop b) always stuck in my head because it is That Good. The line in the chorus about ‘sweet songs of seduction’ is eternally funny to me bc a)they’re both ace and b)QPR’s don’t usually involve seduction. Belgrade also leads almost directly into…

(We pretend in the darkness/We pretend the night won’t steal our youth/Singing me the sweet songs of seduction/Let me be the fool, fool, fool/Who will live and die for you)

Here to Save You is about Sam. Mostly. It’s also about Pidge. And Zaivorge cannons.

(A slave for humankind/I made sure I would survive/To stay alive/Now it’s time to move on/When there’s nothing left to prove/I’m coming to get you)

Iron is the third Closure fic (the second is End of the Beginning, forgot to mention that. They’ve slowly moved away from actually being related to it in anything but name and general idea). It’s about Keith coming to terms with parts of himself, and learning how to use them to great effect. Also has a huge info dump about the Blade.

(You can’t live without the fire/It’s the heat that makes you strong/‘Cause you’re born to live/And fight it all the way/You can’t hide what lies inside you/It’s the only thing you know/You’re embracing that, never walk away)

The second major turning point in the war is Monarch, Birthright, and Firewall. I really recommend reading the whole lyrics for Monarch, because the entire thing is very much a Lotor song. I had a bit of trouble picking a lyric to use here. Monarch is here because Lotor is also the ‘singer’ of Birthright, and both songs are to a very specific high-level target of the Coalition. Firewall is a little different as it’s a Team Voltron song not a Lotor song, but happens because of the same thing the other two do. They’re all not exactly a direct result of Iron, but they wouldn’t happen how they do without it, and then [REDACTED] swings back into the fray and things learned in String Theory/the framing story for Through Apocalypse Skies hit in full force.

(I am not the person you remember from before/The one you patronized and stepped on, the one you hurt/And I have pulled the arrows, now my skin has become stone/No longer am I prisoner to your empty fucking words)

(The voices in my head have all begun to sing/(The voices in your head have all begun to sing)/And they sure as hell hope I am listening/(I sure as hell hope you are listening!))

(They come to your dreams with illusion/They come to bring shape to your mind/You know how to stop the intrusion/We all have to fight for our lives)

and then, The Day the Earth Collapsed

(How much time has been elapsed/Since the day the earth collapsed?)

Here Comes the Reign doesn’t come into full effect until several months after Birthright/Firewall, but starts with The Day the Earth Collapsed. It’s largely about Haggar and [REDACTED]

(You made something they can’t take away/Now bring the fire of the burning sun on everyone)

Supersonic is here… kinda as a placeholder? Things have shifted around since its original purpose, and frankly it’s here still as a framework for what I like to call The Meme Battle. It’s generally about the increase in Coalition support and general winning as they go after warlords in the aftermath of Feyiv, culminating in I Need a Hero which is, of course, The Meme Battle.

Yes, it’s the Shrek version. It’s the Meme Battle.

(Supersonic, polyphonic, this is our war/Mustering the armies, marching faster than before)

(I need a hero/I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night/He's gotta be strong, and he's gotta be fast/And he's gotta be fresh from the fight)

But Tonight We Dance isn’t exactly a klance song, but it’s here for them. On a diplomatic mission gone wrong, the Red and Blue Paladins of Voltron uncover a literally-buried government conspiracy, a rebel cell, and nearly die. A normal days work for the two of them. But they’ve really gotta stop having relationship milestones in the middle of a warzone.

Another reason it’s here is Tonight We Dance is a very aro song to me. “A language universal, but I speak not its tongue” hits hard. I felt like I needed a bit in here to remind listeners/readers that romance isn’t a language Keith speaks. And it becomes very explicit in this fic, just like Belgrade.

(Tomorrow we might wake in servitude and silence/I will give you everything if only you would have me/Tomorrow we will sweat and toil/Our hands will quiver, caked with soil/Tomorrow we'll give it one last chance/But tonight we dance/But tonight we dance!)

But Tonight We Dance is the last of the Closure fics, which is why it’s here. Closure in general is a lot of Keith’s character development and some of the struggles he goes through to accept his place in the universe and the fact that yes, he does have people that care about him. The last fic is me shining a brighter light on Closure’s chorus and taking a ‘last goodbye’ as never needing to say it again

(I am the child from the stars/That got lost in the dark/Between heaven and hell/I am forced to live on/I am the cause when you sin/I am the demon you skin/But there is no more tears to beautify/This is my last goodbye)

Then we step back into the universe-level action with Soulbound. Revelations from String Theory and Firewall swing back in with a vengeance on a joint Whispers-Voltron mission, leaving them reeling and Krolia questioning her very identity.

(Soulbound, endlessly forever/Locked between the darkness and the light/Don’t drown in the swarming, blackened rising/Hold on to humanity and fight)

About three months after that is My Darkest Hour and Faster Than Light. Haggar realizes something and goes searching for her fifth [spoiler], sending the Blade and the rest of the Coalition scrambling. These also lead directly, and I mean directly, into…

(When the sun comes crashing down/When the world is spinning round and round/I will face what must be my darkest hour)

(Once more we’re flying fast as light/Dark matter passing in the night/Pursued by a force we can’t outrun/As we hurtle towards a dying sun/We maneuver through the remnants of a moon/On the solar winds of supernovas/There is not a place to hide, the Matriarch is close behind/It’s plain to see she’s coming for us all)

Cosmic Vertigo and Other Worlds Than These. Together they are the second of two revelations in what, exactly, is [REDACTED]

(Banish me like burned down planets/Write my fate with sparkling lies/I am the universe; you're just one sky)

(Pull the wool out from your eyes/It won’t shade your frail belief/In the end we cannot hide/There are other worlds than these)

Godhunter is Team Voltron, well, hunting for gods, even as one of them disappears.

(She’s been watching for a century/With hatred, and with scorn/If you know the hunter’s coming/Then you hide or keep on running/'Cause she’s slain the gods before)

Trophy Hunter, Ember, and Redemption are the culmination of Godhunter. I’ve been thinking of them as akin to the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2, if that gives you an idea of what the hell they run into. Also I switched which specific Redemption is on the playlist, because I was listening to Red Handed Denial again and their Redemption was vibing way more than the Hammerfall one. They link up to Godhunter and Soulbound in subject matter, and lead directly into…

(You, you won’t escape me, I’ll rise from the deep/In this final moment, no words left to say/I can’t let you be when a life fades away/You, you won’t escape me ‘cause I’ll set you free)

(Dark matter falling from the sky/Dancing flames reflecting in your eyes as you watch them burn/Watching all your riches witches burn)

(Remember me not for the mess I’ve made/But who I could have been/Finally I’m going home)

World On Fire, This is a Call, The Reckoning, The Wind That Shapes the Land, and Louder Than Words. Switched the order up a bit so it makes more sense chronologically, because the message ‘sent by forces beyond salvation’ has to get there before the reckoning can begin.

(World on fire with a smoking sun/Stops everything and everyone/Brace yourself for all will pay/Help is on the way)

(This is a call to action/This is a call to arms/All lives for one, together/There are no false alarms)

(I see your face, find peace of mind/Between the madness and the sadness and the fire burning/The end of war, the great divine/We’ll see the day of reckoning)

(Search within/Uncover the will to win/Turn against the tide that washes o'er/Find the strength to fall and rise again/Open up the gates, unleash the force/I am the wind that shapes the land/Old as time and twice as strong/Oceans arise at my command/I alone can carry on)

(We have the force to fight/We have the blinding light/A war is more than heard/Coming in louder than words)

[eastofthemoon]

A Paladin in the Fire Nation

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

Rating: PG

Series: Voltron Legendary Defender/Avatar the Last Airbender

Summary: After the fight with Zarkon, Shiro accidentally gets tossed into another reality where humans have the ability to bend the elements. His best shot at returning home is with someone called the Avatar, while he waits he might as well take on the job of being the Firelord’s bodyguard.

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

Shiro had been fearful Jee or Ling would question him further, and he wouldn’t have easy answers for either of them. Thankfully once he was safely back in his cell and his cuffs were removed, Jee instructed Ling to guard him and said nothing else.

The two sat in silence which suited Shiro just fine. It gave him time to think about his situation.

It was possible this was just a planet that had never encountered Voltron or the Galra but they looked like humans, and the guard had even said they were when Shiro asked.

But this place isn’t Earth, he thought. Wish the rest of the team were here.

His fists tightened. Was everyone alright? Did they survive the fight or did Zarkon capture them all and they were-

A gentle growl rumbled through his mind.

Shiro froze. “Black?”

Ling glanced up. “What?”

Shiro choked and waved a hand. “Oh, uh nothing.”

Ling raised an eyebrow, but gave a shrug.

Shiro leaned back and took a deep breath. Black?

Black purred. The voice wasn’t as strong as she normally was, but the fact remained she was still with him.

Okay, so I’m assuming something happened during the fight with Zarkon and I got transported to this place by accident?

The Black Lion purred again.

Is the team alright? Are they safe?

Another confirmed purr came and Shiro breathed just a bit easier.

Alright, so I’m going to assume I’m not on Earth, am I on a different planet?

He felt a growl this time. Then images of the astral plane along with words of ‘different’ and ‘reality’.

Shiro froze. I’m in another reality?b  

The Black Lion purred again.

Shiro took a deep breath as he ran a hand through his hair. That was a lot to take in.

Don’t suppose you can send me back?

The Black Lion growled and this time the words ‘too far’ echoed through his head.

“Figures,” Shiro muttered as he crossed his arms. So he was stuck here until he could find some way to get home. His eyes narrowed at the cell bars.

They were just made out of iron. Shiro could break out of this place easily, but he still didn’t know the layout of it. Besides, he had no idea what this reality was like.

I better just lay low until I can figure out what this place is like, Shiro thought as he drummed his fingers against his knee. Not sure how I’m going to do that though unless I get the Firelord to trust me.

Suddenly, he heard a door open. Shiro quietly watched Ling leave, heard mummering and came back with a tray of food.

“Lunch,” she decreed as she took out two bowls for herself and slipped the tray under the cell for Shiro.

Curious, Shiro pulled the tray closer to him. He wasn’t sure what kind of food this place would have.

 Let’s see, looks like a kind of soup and-

Shiro blinked. Slowly, he picked up the second bowl and stared amazed at the contents. “Is that rice?”

Ling raised an eyebrow with her own bowl of soup in her hands. “Um, yes, last I checked.”

Shiro took the chopsticks and carefully picked up a mouthful of rice. He almost moaned in pleasure. Shiro had never been a picky eater, but it had been almost two years now since he’d had rice. Hunk would probably be crying if he was here.

Shiro swallowed, only to realize Ling stared at him in puzzlement.

“You..know that rice is overcooked?” she said. “And I’m fairly certain a day old.”

“I...haven’t had rice in a long time,” Shiro said slowly and forced a smile.

He couldn’t exactly explain he hadn’t had rice since he got captured in space.

Ling raised a wary eyebrow as she sat and reached for her bowl of soup.

“You are weird,” Ling replied but then shrugged as she ate more of her meal, “but I’ll take guarding you over having to watch Ozai.” She cringed. “That man gives me the creeps.”

Shiro had no idea who this Ozai was, but kept quiet as he ate another mouth.

Ling sipped her soup, but then coughed. “Arrg, really, they forgot to heat it up again,” she grumbled as she held the bowl over her right hand. “If your soup is cold, I would be willing to warm it up for you.”

“Um, thanks,” Shiro began, “but I don’t-”

A flame ignited in her hand. Shiro froze as the chopsticks slipped from his hand. Ling smiled as she held the bowl over the clearly burning fire in the palm of her hand. Once steam started to rise, the fire went out and she sipped.

“Much better,” she commented and suddenly noticed Shiro staring at her. “What?”

“How..how did you do that?” Shiro said as he pointed.

Ling blinked. “Do..what?”

“Hold a fire in your hand and not have it burn you?” Shiro asked, stunned.

Did these people have some kind of magical ability here?

Ling tilted her head. “Um..I was just bending.”

Shiro continued to blink in puzzlement.

“Fire bending,” Ling continued as she sent down her soup and waved around her arms. “You know bending.”

“I..I really don’t,” Shiro continued. “Is that some kind of spell?”

Ling’s jaw dropped as if Shiro had just said he’d never seen the sky. “What, no! Great Agni, how do you not know what bending is?!”

“For any truth that everyone knows a thousand people learn it everyday.”

Upon hearing the new voice, Ling sprang to her feet and bowed.

“Prince Iroh, forgive me,” she said as she bowed. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

Shiro frowned as the voice approached and saw it was the older man that had sat alongside Zuko earlier from the meeting.

He gave a reassuring smile as he waved at Ling. “Nothing to forgive,” he laughed. “My old bones are not creaky just yet.”

The man then turned to Shiro as he tucked his hands into his long sleeves. “We were not properly introduced,” he greeted. “I am Prince Iroh.”

“Uh..Hello,” Shiro said slowly as he stood and tried to give a bow like Ling had.

If he was stuck in this place, he had to try to stay on good terms with these people. Although, why was this man here?

Iroh nodded and then frowned upon seeing Shiro’s food tray and looked to Ling. “Is that his lunch?”

“It’s what the chef gave me to bring him,” Ling replied with a shrug.

Iroh stroked his beard. “The quality of the food seemed to have degraded since my time in prison.”

Shiro raised an eyebrow. Did he just say prison?

“I will have to have a word with the kitchen later,” Iroh continued as he returned his gaze to Shiro. “It is just as well then that I extend my invention to you.”

Shiro narrowed his eyes. “Invention?”

“To join me for lunch in my chambers,” Iroh said smiling.

Shiro raised and lowered his hand, unsure how to respond. He had wondered if perhaps this was a local custom he wasn’t aware of, but judging by Ling’s equally shocked reaction it likely wasn’t the norm.

“Your chambers?” Ling said. “Sir, the Firelord made it quite clear the intruder was to remain in his cell.”

“I am aware,” Iroh said as he patted her shoulder, “although, I do believe it is not a realistic request.”

“What do you mean?” Ling asked.

Iroh pointed to Shiro. “I mean, I am quite certain this young man could break out of his cell whenever he wished but is only reframing from doing so in order to be customary to us.”

Ling’s eyes widened and glanced into the cell. Shiro rubbed the back of his neck as he gave a sheepish shrug.

“He’s..not wrong,” he said as he held up his cybernetic hand.

“Ah,” Ling replied slowly but then regained composure. “But Firelord Zuko-”

“I will handle him and take full responsibility,” Iroh said with a smile. “Now, can you please release Mister Shirogane?”

Ling looked hesitant and sighed. “Alright, but only if I’m allowed to escort you and him to your room.”

“That would be acceptable,” Iroh said with a smile as he stepped aside.

Shiro watched bewildered as his cell door was opened. He glanced at Iroh and his body tensed as he left. There was no way he was doing this on a lark. The man had to have some ulterior motive.

Ling went to the wall to fetch the handcuffs, but Iroh stopped her.

“There is no need for that,” Iroh insisted.

“But, Prince Iroh,” Ling began but quieted when Iroh shot her a look and pulled back her hand from the wall.

Iroh’s smile brightened as he tucked his hands behind his back. “This way please. I already informed the guards on route to avoid confusion.”

That made Shiro feel a bit more at ease. He’d rather not have the guards jumping at him for ‘escaping’ his cell. However, he still kept vigilant as he followed Iroh and Ling stayed close.

They walked in silence for several minutes until they reached what Shiro could only assume was the destination.

“Thank you, Ling,” Iroh said as he entered. “You may return to your post.”

Ling looked reluctant. “But shouldn’t I stand guard?”

Iroh gave her a smile. “I believe it would be better if you are at the cell in case the Firelord comes, and do not worry there are guards down the hall if I require assistance.”

Ling frowned, but sighed as she gave a bow. “Yes, Sir.” She glared at Shiro and pointed at her eye then his own. “Don’t try anything funny.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Shiro replied as he watched her go.

He debated if now would be a good time to try to escape, but he still didn’t know the layout of the place. Would he get that far?

“If you wish to escape that is fine,” Iroh commented, “but you might as well fill your stomach first.”

Shiro jumped slightly, but quickly regained his composure. No, it wouldn’t do much to escape now. Besides, talking to Iroh might be his best chance at learning more of where exactly he was.

The Black Lion growled in encouragement as Shiro entered.

Iroh’s quarters were certainly larger than Shiro’s cell. There were some furniture items, some states and artwork on the wall. There were maps, but Shiro didn’t recognize any of them. A low table with food and bowls sat in the centre of the room.

Before Shiro could speak Iroh suddenly shoved some articles of clothing into his arms.

“Here, these seem more fitting and comfortable than the robes you were given earlier,” Iroh said and pointed to a folding screen. “Change behind there.”

“Uh, thanks,” Shiro said as he went to where Iroh directed.

Shiro removed the robes but decided to keep on his paladin undergarments for added protection as he slipped on the sleeveless shirt. It was bright red with yellow along the collar and edges. The pants were simple black with a red sash to tie around his waist.

Once he was finished, Shiro stepped out and saw Iroh was sitting at the table. He smiled in approval.

“Ah good,” he said as he reached for empty cups. “I wasn’t sure if they would fit.” He held up a teapot. “How about a fresh cup of tea? It goes well with the komodo chicken.”

“Before that,” Shiro said as he sat across from Iroh, “how about you tell me the reason I’m here.”

Iroh shrugged as he poured a cup. “To have lunch of course.”

Shiro raised an eyebrow. “I’m not familiar with your culture, but I have a hard time believing inviting a stranger to lunch is a tradition here.”

Iroh laughed. “No, not really,” Iroh said as he set down his cup and poured another. “I merely thought this might be a more comfortable setting for asking questions.”

So he’s doing his own interrogation, Shiro thought. That explains a few things.

Iroh held out Shiro’s cup to him, but saw he didn’t move his hand.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Shiro said.

Iroh gave a laugh. “If you are worried I slipped something into the tea, I promise you I didn’t. To ruin tea in such a way would be a disgrace.” He set the cup in front of Shiro before reaching for his own and taking a sip. “Ah, that warms the old spirit.

Shiro frowned and eyed the cup. He should be suspicious, but something told Shiro the old man was being honest.

Gingerly, Shiro picked up the cup and took a sip. He froze as the flavor hit his tongue and old childhood memories struck him. He knew this taste!

“Is this jasmine?” Shiro asked, stunned. This place may be an alternative reality, but Shiro never expected to see so many familiar things from Earth.

Iroh beamed. “Why yes,” he said and laughed. “It is my favorite blend. Fellow tea lover are you?”

“Not really,” Shiro replied as he stared into the cup. “My grandfather drank it all the time when I was a kid.”

There were times Shiro swore his grandfather had tea water instead of blood in his body.

“Oh, a man after my own heart then,” Iroh said as he picked up his chopsticks. “He must have great taste.”

Shiro gave a bittersweet smile. “Yeah, he did.”

Iroh’s smile softened understanding the use of past tense and took a piece of komodo chicken. “Do you have chopsticks where you are from?”

“Yes,” Shiro said as he picked up his set and tried to ignore his stomach growls and gathered his own chicken. “I haven’t used them for awhile though.”

Iroh laughed. “Then it is a good time to practice.”

They then ate and Shiro had to admit the komodo chicken was delicious. It didn’t taste quite like chicken from his reality, but there was an earthiness to it that was intriguing. He felt guilty the other paladins weren’t here to enjoy it, especially Hunk.

I hope they’re alright, Shiro thought as the Black Lion responded with a comforting purr to the thought.

They ate in silence. Shiro assumed Iroh was trying to be polite, but became puzzled when half the food was gone, Iroh set down his chopstick and patted his stomach.

“Nothing like a good meal,” Iroh said as he reached for his tea. “Would you not agree?”

“Yes,” Shiro replied slowly. “It was delicious, thank you.”

Iroh smiled. “Then perhaps I should send us some dessert? I believe there are some tea cakes in the kitchen.”

Shiro frowned as he lowered his own chopsticks. “Um..perhaps we better get to the reason why I’m here.”

Iroh frowned, but then gave a nod. “Yes, of course.”  He set down his cup and tucked his hands into his sleeves. “What would you like to know?”

Shiro  blinked. “What?”

“I said what would you like to know?” Iroh repeated gently.

Shiro tilted his head. “Like to-”  He pointed to himself. “Excuse me, Prince Iroh, I’m confused. You said I was here for an interrogation.”

Iroh shook his head. “No, I said it was to ask questions.” He gestured to Shiro. “And I meant for you to ask me.”

“For me to ask?” Shiro asked.

Iroh nodded as he stroked his beard. “I assumed there would be less confusion if you understood how this world works before the firelord started to question you again.”

Shiro froze and slowly his eyes widened at his meaning. “You..you know?,” he said slowly.

“That you are from another world?” Iroh asked and nodded. “Yes.”

“But how?” Shiro asked.

Iroh’s eyes hardened. “There had been theories in the past that the Spirit World is a gateway to other worlds or even universes very different from ours.” He reached out for his teacup. “Having my own experience with the Spirit World, it’s a theory I fully believe and it explains much of your behaviour and the odd armour we found you wearing.”

Shiro’s eyes narrowed. “So, you’ve never heard of Voltron?”

Iroh shook his head. “No, but let’s set that aside for the moment.” He gave a small smile. “And please call me ‘Iroh’. I do not care much for formalities these days if I don’t need to.”

Shiro’s shoulders relaxed. “In that case, I prefer being called ‘Shiro’.”

“Very well, Shiro,” Iroh said as he poured more tea into his and Shiro’s cups. “So, to ask again, what would you like to ask first?”

Shiro took the cup, took a sip as he thought and then leaned over the table. “Please explain to me what bending is?”

Iroh gave a smile as he began to answer.

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

Sokka reached for the last piece of komodo chicken until Toph’s hand took it.

“Hey,” Sokka cried as he watched Toph gulp it down. “I had dibs on that.”

“Really?” Toph said as she swallowed. “I never saw it!”

Sokka glared as she grinned at her own joke before he grumbled.

She snorted as she leaned back. “Besides, you got my tart at breakfast.”

“Because you stole my snack the night before!”

“That doesn’t count! That seal jerky was way too dry!”

“That’s how you know it’s done right!”

A clearing of a throat forced both of them to stop and turned their attention to see Zuko standing in the doorway.

“I have to say, it’s a relief to see the saviors of the world to have grown up into such mature adults,” Zuko said with his arms crossed and he sat down next to Sokka.

Sokka pouted. “You jest but food is a very important discussion and- Toph if you steal my dumpling I swear!”

Zuko sighed as he resisted slapping his hand to his forehead. There were times he had wondered how these guys were some of his best friends? He glanced around and frowned.

“Katara isn’t here?”

“She had to stop by Jang Hui first,” Toph explained. “She wanted to check and see how the river restoration project there was doing.”

“Oh,” Zuko replied softly. “That makes sense.”

Katara was always very passionate about ensuring the small villages of the both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation got the assistance they needed. It was one of the reasons Zuko had managed to be popular among his lower class subjects and he couldn’t deny Katara held a huge hand in that.

“She’ll be here tomorrow morning,” Sokka replied as he frowned. “So, is everything okay? Your letter just said to get here as soon as possible.”

Zuko sighed as he tucked his hands into his sleeves. “It’s complicated, it might be better to wait until Katara is here so I can just explain it once-”

“We can just repeat things for Sugarqueen,” Toph replied as she sat up and narrowed her eyes. “What’s going on?”

Zuko rubbed his neck. “Intruders have been sneaking into the palace.”

Sokka raised an eyebrow. “What kind of intruders?”

“Not entirely certain but possibly assassins,” Zuko asked but quickly raised a hand, “and before you ask I’m not the target. They haven’t come after me.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Sokka muttered.

Toph tilted her head. “Then who has been the target?”

Zuko cringed. “It’s Ozai.”

Silence fell upon the room, until Toph flopped back on the floor. “Oh, is that all? I say let them.”

Sokka coughed. “Uh Toph, this is Zuko’s dad we’re talking about here.”

"Who is also the bonehead who burnt off half of Zuko's face.  And also tried to burn, what was it," she snapped her fingers, "right, the entire world.  I don't have any sympathy for the guy."

“Nor do I,” Zuko replied, “but I can’t sit back and let him be killed in cold blood-”

“Whoa, whoa, let’s backtrack a bit,” Sokka said as he patted Zuko’s shoulder. “When did this start?”

“A couple of months ago,” Zuko replied as Toph sat back up. “The guards located some trespassers, but they escaped. We thought they were simply thieves, but they reappeared a few weeks later.”

“And did you arrest them?” Sokka asked.

“We tried, but they got away again,” Zuko replied as he reached into his pocket and brought up a rolled up parchment. “However, one of them dropped this and it’s a map leading straight to where Ozai is being held.”

Sokka took the map and his eyes narrowed as he rolled it out. “Is it possible they were trying to free him?”

“I had wondered as well,” Zuko replied, “but the intruders were Earth Kingdom, one was even an Earth bender.”

Sokka grasped his chin. “Okay, yeah, can’t see why anyone from the Earth Kingdom would want Ozai free, but it’s not impossible.”

“If you ask me,” Toph said as she leaned forward, “the best way to find out is to let them get near Ozai. They either kill him, or they break him out and then you kill him.” She clapped her hands. “Problem solved!”

Zuko buried his face into his hands. “Toph, I can’t let them kill Ozai.”

“I still have yet to hear a decent reason why?”

“Because he is still a Fire Nation citizen,” Zuko retorted. “Prisoner or not, if I let another nation come in and kill him there’s going to be outrage.” His eyes hardened. “Some would even argue it as an excuse to go to war with the Earth Kingdom again.”

Toph paused and growled. “Alright, fine that’s a good reason.”

Zuko’s shoulders slumped. “Granted, I’m not surprised it’s come to this.”

“What do you mean?”

Zuko shut his eyes. “The other nations have been ‘requesting’ I fully punish my father.”

“But he is punished?” Sokka replied. “He’s in a cell and got his fire bending taken away by Aang.”

“To them it’s not good enough,” Zuko said.

Sokka blinked and then chewed his bottom lip. “You mean execution?”

“The diplomats here aren’t that direct,” Zuko said, “but it’s clear that’s their meaning.”

“Why are they only bringing it up now though?” Sokka said as he reached for his drink. “The war has been over for 3 years.”

“I’m guessing cause it’s been 3 years,” Toph replied, “and they figure things are settled enough for you to do something.”

Zuko nodded.

Sokka drummed his drink as he took a side way glance. “Um...have you..well consider…-”

“I can’t kill him either Sokka,” Zuko said as he stared at the ground.

Sokka sighed. “Look, I get he’s your dad-”

“It’s not just that,” Zuko replied. “Aang didn’t want him to die, remember? He’s the Avatar. How would it look if I go against what the Avatar decreed.”

Toph shut hugged her knees. “Yeah, I can see Twinkletoes not being happy with that, even if it is Ozai.”

The room went quiet for a moment, until Sokka cleared his throat and set down his drink. “Let’s put that heavy stuff aside for a moment.” He looked at Zuko. “These potential assassins, do you know anything else about them?”

Zuko’s smile brightened. “As it so happens we caught one this morning....we think.”

“You think?” Toph replied.

“He looks different from the other intruders,” Zuko continued. “He wore this weird white armour and even has a metal arm.”

“Um..if he looks different how do you know he’s connected to the others?” Sokka asked.

“We found him unconscious in the royal garden,” Zuko replied.

“That only raises more questions,” Sokka replied dryly.

Zuko shook his head. “He claims his name is Takashi Shirogane and that he is a ‘Paladin of Voltron’.”

Both Toph and Sokka gave him baffle looks.

“What the spirits is a Paladin?” Toph asked.

“No idea,” Zuko replied with a shrug.

“And where is this Voltron?” Sokka asked.

Zuko’s frown tightened. “I don’t know and I’ve looked on every Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom map I have.” He had even questioned the map maker of it, but she had never heard of the place either.

“But that’s not the weirdest thing about him,” Zuko continued as he rose.

“How is not knowing where the guy came from not the weirdest thing?” Toph asked.

“I think it’s better if I just showed you,” Zuko said as he tucked his hands into his robes.

He led down the hall, and unlocked the room where the stranger’s armor was currently spread out on the table.

Sokka raised an intrigued eyebrow as he approached and lifted up the helmet.

“Whoa, okay I’m starting to see what you mean?” Sokka asked.

“Details?” Toph grumbled.

“It’s all white with black markings,” Zuko said as he brought her hand over to touch it. “I’ve had my best engineers examine it, but they’ve never seen armour built like this before.”

None of them could even guess what nation it was from. Some had been eager to take the whole apart to better understand it, but Zuko denied the request for the time being. At least not until they had a better idea who Shirogane truly was.

Toph was silent as her eyes widened and drew back her hand. “Okay, what is this armour made out of?”

Zuko raised an eyebrow. “I would assume metal..isn’t?”

Toph grasped her chin. “Kind of, it feels a bit like metal except it doesn’t feel like there’s anything for me to grab onto. There aren’t any impurities in it.”

“The style is also weird,” Sokka said as he examined the helmet. “It doesn’t look like Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation.” He tilted his head. “At best...maybe it’s Water Tribe?”

“A Water Tribe assassin?” Zuko asked.

Sokka held it up. “It’s white, so maybe it’s for blending in the snow for sneak attacks?”

Zuko gave him a dry look. “And so he decided to wear it to the Fire Nation where it never snows?”

“I didn’t say he was a smart assassin,” Sokka continued and frowned. “Although, if I’m honest this stuff really doesn’t have a ‘here to kill’ vibe to it.”

“That’s what Uncle said too,” Zuko commented.

It was durable, but no hidden compartments for weapons. Not even a pocket for a dagger to hide. It’s as if the person wanted to clearly display they come bearing no weapons.

“So, this intruder was wearing this?” Toph confirmed.

“And unconscious,” Zuko confirmed. “He claims he means no harm, but what was he doing in the palace then? It makes no sense.”

“Well, why don’t we ask the guy,” Sokka replied as he set the helmet back on the table. “Where is he?”

“In the dungeon,” Zuko said as he turned. “I tried to ask him questions already, but I didn’t get much.”

“Well, you got the ever pervasive Sokka in your corner now,” Sokka said as he placed an arm around Zuko’s shoulder.

“And if that doesn’t work,” Toph said as she punched a fist into her palm, “just let me have a crack at him.”

“I rather his bones remain unbroken,” Zuko added dryly.

“I wouldn’t break them,” Toph said with a shrug, “well not intentionally.”

Zuko shook his head, knowing Toph was joking..well, mostly joking as he led them to the dungeon.

Ling was at the cell and stood straight as soon as she spotted them. “My lord, I did not realize you were coming-”

“At ease,” Zuko said as he raised a hand and looked into the cell. “I just merely wish to question-”

He trailed off as he stared into the clearly empty cell.

“Uh...is this the right place?” Sokka asked.

Zuko took a deep breath and shut his eyes to calm himself. He knew Ling, and she wouldn’t just stand there guarding an empty cell for no reason.

“Ling, where is the intruder?” Zuko asked.

Ling sweated. “I take it you have not been informed yet?”

“Informed of what?” Zuko asked, trying to be careful to keep his temper under check.

Ling rubbed her neck. “That your uncle insisted on inviting the intruder to lunch?” 

“HE WHAT?!” Zuko cried.

“Huh,” Toph said as she crossed her arms. “I had wondered why Iroh didn’t join us.”

“Think they got extra komodo chicken?” Sokka asked.

Zuko ignored the comments as he stepped up to Ling. “Where are they?”

“In Prince Iroh’s chambers,” Ling answered.

“And you left them alone?”

“I argued I should remain, but Lord Iroh insisted,” Ling replied.

Zuko groaned as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course he did.”

“Forgive me, my lord,” Ling said with a bow. “I should have-”

Zuko raised a hand. “It’s not your fault for following orders,” he said. “You did nothing wrong.”

Ling nodded. “Do you wish me to escort you?”

“No, thank you,” Zuko growled as he stomped away. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to have a talk with my uncle about safety.”

“Before or after you murder him,” Toph snarked as she followed.

“I’m debating,” Zuko muttered darkly.

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

This world was ‘unique’ as Shiro quickly discovered. Apparently, in this world some people had the ability to control the literal elements,  and they had just ended a hundred year war. Shiro was quiet as Iroh gave him what he could only assume was a quick summary of the events.

“So, the Avatar is the only person that can control all four elements,” Shiro replied.

Iroh nodded. “Yes, Avatar Aang, who is currently the only remaining air bender from the war.”

“And the current Firelord, Zuko, helped him overthrow the previous Firelord who was his father,” Shiro repeated.

“Again, correct,” Iroh said as he grimaced. “You will have to forgive his behaviour earlier, we have been having a bit of a ‘tricky’ time with intruders lately. With your sudden appearance, it seemed to be a logical conclusion you were one of them.”

“No, I understand,” Shiro muttered as he stared into his cup. “I can imagine it wasn’t easy having to rule a nation at such a young age.”

Not to mention trying to make amends for a century-long war, Shiro thought. Willing to bet not everyone was happy with him ending the war.

“With that said,” Iroh continued as he sipped his tea, “I believe Aang would be the best person to assist you in returning home.”

Shiro frowned. “How so?”

“Earlier, when I mentioned the Spirit World? The Avatar is a natural bridge between our human world and theirs,” Iroh continued.

Shiro’s eyes widened slightly but then they narrowed. “I can understand your reasoning, but I’ve never crossed through a spirit world.”      

“Are you certain?” Iroh said as lowered his cup. “All worlds have a special place where spirits dwell.” He stroked his beard. “Although, I imagine it looks very different and perhaps goes by a different name.”    

Shiro shut his eyes in thought. “I can’t really think of a place-”

The Black Lion growled in his mind and an image of an endless sea of stars appeared in his head.

Shiro froze. Oh, right.

“You thought of a place?” Iroh asked.

“Maybe,” Shiro muttered as he rubbed his neck. “It might be a bit hard to explain-”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    “UNCLE!”

Shiro jumped, but noticed Iroh remained as still as a tree.

“Ah,” he said as he lifted his cup and sipped. “I believe that would be my nephew.”

“Nephew?” Shiro asked, but was swiftly cut off by the stomping of incoming feet. He whirled around in time to see a furious Zuko storming into the room.

His hair wasn’t as neatly as tied up as he had during the questioning and his robes were much simpler. Shiro noticed a boy in blue robes and a short girl wearing green entered.

The pair kept their distance as the Firelord locked his furious gaze upon Shiro. He looked ready to yell, but forced himself to take a deep breath.

“What are you doing in my uncle’s chambers?” he asked in a brisk tone.

Shiro blinked and then suddenly Iroh’s earlier words dawned on him. He pointed at the angry young man and turned to Iroh. “The firelord is your nephew?!”

“Why yes of course,” Iroh began but then paused as he stroked his beard. “Oh dear, did I never mention that?”

“Someone better answer me,” Zuko sharply cut in, refusing to be ignored.

“He is here because I invited him to share a meal with me,” Iroh stated calmly and shook his head. Shiro recalled his own grandfather doing inappropriate behaviour. “On that note, you are being very rude to our guest.”

Zuko choked as he kneeled next to his uncle. “Our guest?! UNCLE, HE IS AN INTRUDER!”

“Who has currently done nothing to earn such hostility,” Iroh corrected.

“Do you realize how much danger you put yourself in?!”

Iroh laughed. “I appreciate the concern but we both know I am quite capable of defending myself.”

“That is not the issue here!”

Iroh frowned. “Did you forget to eat? You are always more grumpy when you have an empty stomach.”

Zuko’s eye twitched as the two began to bicker and Shiro wondered if they had both forgotten he was present.

However, the other two people clearly hadn’t as the boy approached and sat next to Shiro.

“Hey, name’s Sokka,” the boy greeted, “and this is Toph.”

“Yo,” the girl waved.

“Um, hi?” Shiro said slowly.

Sokka pointed to the arguing uncle and nephew. “So, they’ll be at that for a bit, and I have a question.” He then pointed to Shiro’s cybernetic arm. “Who made that, and is it possible for me to get one?”

“That’s more than one question,” Shiro replied, “and unless you want to have an arm cut off I wouldn’t recommend it.”

Sokka gave a frown, but then sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”

“What are you talking about?” Toph growled as she pointed to her eyes. “Blind, remember?”

“The metal arm Zuko mentioned,” Sokka said. “It’s right next to you.”

“Got it,” Toph said and before Shiro could stop her, she placed her hand on his cybernetic arm.

Suddenly her eyes widened as she whipped her head around. “What the great spirits is this thing made out of?!”

“I just said metal-” Sokka continued.

“It’s not any metal I’ve felt,” Toph snapped  and she drew back her hand and stared into it. “It’s weirder than the armour. It almost feels like a meteorite but-”

“How about we change the subject,” Shiro said gently.

Even if he wanted to answer her question, he barely knew what kind of metal his arm was made out of anyway.  

Toph gave a pout, but was cut off as Zuko growled.

“Enough,” Zuko snapped and pointed to Shiro, “Shirogane’s going back to the dungeon.”

“His name is Shiro and he will do no such thing,” Iroh said calmly and grinned. “Especially when he was just about to grant me a fascinating conversation on what his world is like.”

Dead silence fell into the room as Shiro felt all the eyes slowly turn to Iroh.

“I’m sorry, what?” Sokka asked.

“Our friend here is from a world, a whole universe in fact,” Iroh continued.

Zuko took a deep breath. “Uncle, if this is a joke it is not one of your better ones.”

“It’s not a joke,” Shiro said slowly as he turned to him.

“Ookay,” Sokka replied as he raised an eyebrow and a hand, “and you are in our world because?”

Shiro sighed. “That’s where things get complicated.”