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entrepy · 2 years ago

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tl;dr: Shiro’s family are people he would not only die for, but people he has unwavering belief in and has given a part of who they are, to create who he is, and likewise, they contain a part of who he is, within them.

Shiro is second generation American. I headcanon Voltron to be set roughly around 100 - 150 years into the future. Shiro’s parents were drawn out to America to join the rest of their extended family who also made the move throughout the years, though leaving behind Shiro’s grandparents on his father’s side. Shiro’s mother was pregnant with Shiro’s older sister, Toshiko, during their move. Shiro was born 3 years later, in Sacremento, where they’d settled down. ( I also imagine migration is a lot less of a hassle in this time ~ but I’ll make a post of how I imagine the VLD post-modern world would differ to our current reality later. )

The four of them were extremely close. Shiro grew up loved and supported and getting up to mischief with his big sister. Shiro was extremely close to his mother when he was young. His father was a little strict and slow to understand some Western constructs, but was overall open-minded if he could see that it was what was best for his children. Shiro could confide in his sister literally anything under the sun. This bond only began to fracture when Shiro was diagnosed with MND*1 at age 16, during his first year at GG.

VLD doesn’t mention Shiro’s family at all. Not at the Kerberos launch, not in his visualisation during lion bonding, and not when the group return to Earth. These facts are what has prompted the headcanon that Shiro’s parents and sister are no longer alive.

~I haven’t hashed out the circumstances around this too much but here’s a brief timeline of the events - He loses his mother at age 6 due to terminal illness - He loses his father at age 20 due to a hit and run - His sister is caught in the Galra cross-fire, leaving behind her husband and two year old son*2.

Shiro is no stranger to loss, starting with the fading memories of his mother. Life keeps taking and taking from him. Every moment of success or happiness, seems only to be rewarded with pain and more suffering. And this cycle continues for him as we are introduced to him in VLD i.e. reaching the edge of the solar system - only to be captured by the Galra, finally escaping and returning to Earth – only to be launched back into space and having to fight in an intergalactic war, finding a semblance of peace with new friends and new purpose – only to die, is brought back to life – only to live with the debilitating guilt and dysphoria of living in another’s body. And so on.

A year or so after his father’s death is when I headcanon that Adam proposed to Shiro. The accident was a reminder of how unguaranteed life really is, and they already felt like they didn’t have enough time with the imminent worsening of Shiro’s illness. Adam was Shiro’s family. Adam made Shiro happy. At this point, Shiro had begun to notice the pattern of happiness and loss, and a part of him was expecting to lose Adam. (This may or may not have played a minor part in Shiro’s decision to go on the mission. Just a minor part, but significant enough to mention, all the same).

Shiro always had a close friend in Keith. There was something in him that called out to Shiro, and his gut instinct turned out to be right. The fact that they both understood loss beyond their years must’ve helped the understanding they had with each other, though they never spoke about it beyond the conversation we saw in VLD about Keith’s father. Keith is Shiro’s family. While in space, this bond only strengthens as they face the hardships of war and hard decisions together. Keith becomes an irreplaceable part of Shiro’s life.

Pidge, Hunk, Lance, Allura, and Coran are an unlikely group of people that are thrown into Shiro’s life path but find a place nestled in the twists and curves of it. Without a common cause to fight for, they may never have even met, let alone become a united front, an understanding forming between them that can come only from shared experience, impenetrable. But life isn’t about what doesn’t happen, or what could’ve happened; it’s about what does happen and it’s outside of your control. There’s a closeness he feels with them that can’t be manufactured by any other means apart from trusting someone with his life, and having them trust him of the same.

He feels a special closeness with Allura. She, too, has suffered and lost, in greater quantities than even Shiro can fathom. She, too, has had leadership placed upon her, based sheerly on the fact that there is no one else to carry the burden. Sometimes they butted heads, but they always believed in each other, and more importantly, they believed and wished wholeheartedly for the same future. Their bond strengthened when Shiro’s soul passed through Allura to enter his new body – something that also allowed him to receive Allura’s Altean crystal as the energy source for his cybernetic arm, and perhaps even pilot the Atlas as a mecha-tron. Allura was is Shiro’s family.

In summary, Shiro’s family are people he would not only die for, but people he has unwavering belief in and has given a part of who they are, to create who he is, and likewise, they contain a part of who he is, within them.

*1 Please see Shiro’s illness headcanon - to be linked. *2 I didn’t want to stray too far from canon, but I’m also holding onto the headcanon of Shiro having a sister. So in my canon, he asks Commander Iverson about Toshiko when the crew return to Earth who informs him of her fate ~ he doesn’t find out about his nephew until later. In any non-canon AUs, Toshiko is alive.

#files & about & headcanon ft. shiro.#ooc.

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artsyjesseblue · 3 years ago

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THE TWO ALLURAS

So, here’s a little detective work I did on some (suspected) altered scenes in the last episode of Voltron Legendary Defender. I’m very new to this show (yep, years later… I know… facepalms, better later than never) - I watched it for the first time a couple of months ago and since then I’m obsessed with finding out more about the true finale of the show.

Before I start doing a little slideshow proof of altered animation in S8 last episode, I’d like to give a little intro into my journey here.

- I come from being a fan of an 80’s anime called Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs (my avatar name here pays tribute to one of its characters), to being an even bigger fan of VLD. Not by pure coincidence. SRatSS is owned by WEP, and going down the Netflix “suggested” shows, DotU sent me to VLD. It grew on me really fast. Like binge-watch fast. Unfortunately, the ending completely clipped my wings.

- The first reason why I started feeling (first it was a feeling) that something was wrong was the complete mismatch between the tragic finale of Allura, a goddess leaving the show with the saddest drawn face (and a missing in action Lotor, for that matter) and the super-cheesy optimistic, last minute slapped ending slides showing the ‘successful’ future lives of the Paladins, completely at odds with their previous careers (Keith, a rebellious half-Galra now running a humanitarian relief organization? Lance the sharpshooter with a rake in his hand?? What the heck, man? Shiro, the larger than life figure in the show, marrying some random guy we never learned about before? Seriously, I kept saying at the end: “Is this a joke??” It felt insulting on so many levels, rushed, like “let’s end this and get over with it” )

- Another big reason why I felt this was not supposed to be the real finale was my absolute gut feeling that a kids’ show needs a different kind of moral closure, based on classic arcs that would fit stories I’ve been used to reading in my childhood. After all, it’s rated 7+ . In my opinion, from the perspective of a 7 year old kid, S8 is a horror story, glossed over with a ‘happy’ ending. Thus, it should not be rated 7+. But hey, maybe I’m just too old-fashioned.

- In my frantic googling about VLD, I stumbled upon TeamPurpleLion’s website, which completely opened a new level of information and confirmation for me. The first article I read was the one about the The Dark Youth and Heroine’s Arc, which went straight to my pain point, confirming my intuitions about how a well-written story for children and teens should look like. Then, the ‘Seek Truth’ article about all the animation edits totally solidified my beliefs. Then followed the analysis about the Feud episode, the Clear Day episode and the ‘meta within a meta’ stuff going on there… All the foreshadowing, the purple lion toys, the parallels between different heroes’ arcs… The VLD staff tweets and instagram posts in total contradiction with the release of the season… The last nails that hit the coffin were the interviews with LM and JDS and their own “feud” with the inter-dimensional beings at the top of the ladder, which were absolutely eye-opening. It made total sense now, and I immensely appreciate the work that TPL has done unearthing all these facts. I feel like the EP’s need so much more recognition for the work and love they poured into this show. Not to mention the animation, which is a work. of. art. Studio Mir forever.

- Anyways, here’s me, 4 years later, rocking a boat that has long sailed away… Being so late (I usually am late to a lot of new things haha) I feel like I’m sort of lonely in my quest.

—————

But recently, I found out that the FreeVLDS8 party is still alive and kicking, so I’m emboldened to throw in some of my own discoveries as well. If this stuff has already been unearthed, disregard my little detective work that I did here. But if it’s useful new stuff, I hope it will benefit somehow in the grand puzzle you guys have set about to solve.

In the past couple of months, I’ve read tons of articles and metas, interviews, videos. Pros and cons about the EP’s, about the animation, interviews with actors, tweets, etc etc. All the good stuff piled up in the past 4 years that I completely missed. My head is spinning right now.

So rewatching the last episode and being aware of all the edits discovered so far, I stumbled upon some animation flaws that I believe Studio Mir would not let out their door. Disclaimer: I am a professional artist myself. I do not work in animation, but I did illustrate kids books for a while, and being a graduate of an Art School, I believe I have a bit of knowledge about the laws of perspective, proportions and character design. Keep a pin in each of these three, because there are flaws about every one of them in the next two screencaps. Plus more flaws on top of these three. Whew!

________

Let’s look at a couple of screen shots I did from S8 final episode, when Allura and the Palladins talk to Honerva. Go to the scene where Allura starts saying “there is beauty in their flaws” (first screenshot below - I will call it Screenshot A)

And now take a look, a minute later, when she is doing her mind meld with Honerva (Screenshot B). It’s supposed to be the same scene, but the image is terribly zoomed in, with Lance almost completely cropped out. There is a slight camera tilt effect, but the image remains zoomed with a piece of Lance on the left. Who would do that in cinematography?

So I tried to see what will happen if I “un-zoom” and add Lance back into the picture. I approximated where the original shot was relative to the whole image by keeping Honerva in the center line of the image, to make sense compositionally. And voila (Screenshot B zoomed out below)

Here’s Screenshot A, also zoomed out, below:

Now, in both recreations, Honerva is right in the center. Before, the center of the image was somewhere between Allura and Honerva. Doesn’t it make more sense now, with Honerva in the middle? It makes sense compositionally, but also from a storytelling point of view. We, the watchers are positioned right behind Honerva, at her eye level, seeing the Paladins “through her perspective”. A very empathetic way of making the viewer feel closer to her character.

And now, of course, you’ve all noticed the big red ‘elephant’ in the room, in the newly created space to the right. I am not making any speculations who it might be, because things are actually more complicated than they seem. Wait, Hunk wants to say something:

“Uh, guys, did you notice Pidge next to me looks shorter in B than in A? And what’s up with her not standing up straight in A? Draw a line from her nose to her belt clip. Since she’s facing you full front, it should be vertical, right? Um, well, it’s not.”

Hunk is right. Pidge tilts towards right, she looks like a crooked sticker, plastered on a wall.

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OK, let’s move on to the next issue. The “Alluras”. Here’s where proportions, character design and perspective come into play. I will call them Allura A and Allura B, from their corresponding screencaptures.

Let’s start with proportions. First, scroll back up to the first two image captures, take a look at them, and then come back and look at this:

I juxtaposed the two Alluras, rescaled so that both of them have the same shoulder width, so X is equal to Y. The desaturated Allura is B, and the colorful one is A.

I placed both of them with their belts at the same horizontal line. Behold, what do we have here? Z is not equal to T, so Allura B has a longer upper body than Allura A. Also, look at the hips, and where the crotch starts.

Now, some of you might argue that this is a perspective distortion, because Allura B is the one that just walked forward a few steps, toward the viewer, so she should grow taller and the proportions might get warped a bit. Well, if it were a forced perspective, from a very close angle, I’d partially agree. But this is not the case. There are tons of forced perspective shots in VLD (especially fight scenes), but this is not one of them. So in this case, if Allura comes forward, she does indeed grow taller, but she should keep her proportions, so X/Z =Y/T (Pidge just confirmed, my math is solid). (and no, please don’t tell me that Allura shapeshifted, just because she’s Altean and decided to do that, without reason).

Moving on to the next issue within the same image above: character design. Compare the two Allura faces… One is round, one is more elongated. Why this sudden transformation, when this is supposed to be one continuous scene? I doubt the studio animators would do something like this. Which one looks more like Allura? I’d argue that the Allura A (the colored one) does. She has a more round, feminine face, with a sweetness in her features. Then who’s that guy in B? Oops, I said guy. Because the whole physical appearance is that of a man. Tall and slim. Wondering who he might be? I’d humbly guess Lotor, but if you find me a more important tall and slim Galra or Altean character that would get access to the Connected Consciousness, then go ahead and write a fanfic story about it.

A little thing I just noticed: Allura B’s neck is crooked, not going up straight from the shoulders into the head. Drawn in a rush? Drawn over Lotor in a rush?

The third issue with the Alluras, and with the other Paladins as well, is perspective. Here’s a little sketch I did over Screenshot B, to understand what I’m talking about:

The horizontal red line is the horizon line. That is the line where our (the viewer’s) eyes are . At the same level with Honerva’s. The vanishing point should be right in the middle of the line. On the right side, in red, I sketched the paladin suits, with their collars as they should look if properly following the laws of perspective. Anything below the horizon line should look like the collar below, anything above should look like the one above, in perspective. Check out which ones match… And then check below if Allura A fairs better:

Indeed she does! And doesn’t she look so natural? Coincidentally, she is Allura A, the real one, not the redrawn Lotor. But oh, wait, Lance, Shiro, and Hunk don’t have correctly drawn collars. What a mess! (this reminds me of Slav saying: did you wear the right socks today?) Let’s play a game: how many of them are wearing the right ‘socks’ in these images?

Again, some of you might say, “c’mon, such a tiny detail, the illustrators and animators probably didn’t even think about this kind of stuff.” Oh no, no, no. This is basic skill. Like, the ABC of drawing. You don’t mess up basic perspective drawing, if this is your daily job. Again, I am convinced that Studio Mir did not release this version. It was altered post production. If I’d have to guess, because this is one of the last animated scenes of the show, they were getting very close to the deadline. They were tired, overworked, most likely dissatisfied that they had to butcher a wonderfully crafted show that everyone worked so hard on. I can even imagine some red-eyed employee with a big cup of coffee, at midnight, in an empty office, tracing over Lotor’s drawing.

Whew, are you ready for another weird flaw?

Look at their eyes. Where is each of them looking, both in A and in B? Well, some of them are looking up, some of them at Honerva. What is up there, that Shiro and Keith seem to watch intently in shot A? Another mishap during animation? Or, they’re just stock images plastered like Pidge? Not sure. Although, at a closer look, Keith in image A is wearing the right socks - his collar is drawn in the right perspective. I’m just speculating, but it seems they’re looking at a tall structure. At that point in the plot, it’s probably Honerva’s mech or Voltron. Who knows.

Honestly, this puzzle is missing so many pieces. Are all these Paladin drawings basically reshuffles of a scene that evolved from us looking down at the Paladins from a higher vantage point (probably Honerva in her mech) and then gradually descending until she is on her knees and we’re looking up at the Paladins? Because judging from the perspective of their collars and the fact that their eyes are either looking up or down, it might seem so. And, as per previous analysis articles, someone said the transition from their fight for realities to them all being in the Connected Consciousness plane looks very abrupt, so there must have been some other action going on there. This seems like the most reshuffled muppet show of the S8, down to the last character on the screen.

Also, a few more things and I promise I’ll wrap up.

If we assume that Allura B was actually Lotor, then it makes sense that Lotor goes and does the little “mind meld” with Honerva (forgive my nerdy Star-Trekky reference). He did say, somewhere in S6, that when the time will come, he might have pity on her. This would beautifully close the circle of that arc, but would also mirror Allura’s mind-meld with Zarkon, when she did her little trip into Honerva’s mind, I can’t remember which episode. This would also not look cheap at all, because right before the mind meld, after each Paladin does their own plea, Honerva says: “You think your words mean anything to me?” No, their words don’t, but Lotor’s words and touch DO. And knowing how vitriolic she can be, I bet she won’t accept Allura touching her so easily, but coming from her son… I bet she would. She looks surprised and not irritated at all. Would she be like that with Allura, after she just fought them almost to death and told them that their words mean nothing to her? But Lotor touching his mother, it makes more sense, doesn’t it? The wayward daughter of Altea heals the father, and the lost son of Daibazaal heals the mother. How beautiful. Psychology at its best. Oh, but these are just my speculations…

I’m not sure if Allura’s VA was called to record more lines back in 2018. If she was, then the lines she said about Lotor who may have been misguided but ultimately wanted to preserve life might be just a way through which the creators left the door a little open to interpretation about Lotor. But if that was the actual original, unaltered line, then Allura is talking about him in the past tense. So then… was the Lotor behind Allura B just a ghost, like Zarkon and the old Paladins in the other episodes? So, just a supposition, completely unsupported by any palpable facts, but it’s fun to explore: Lotor lost his body, but Allura rescued and redeemed his consciousness, not from the Sincline, but actually from Honerva’s mind (I’ll explain in just a sec); and then together they fight through all realities and defeat Honerva. And then Allura rejoins him in the afterlife. And this is the end of a coherent story. If I remember correctly from a previous episode, when we saw Honerva standing in front of Lotor’s melted corpse (which makes no sense to throw in there from a narrative standpoint unless something else happens further along), didn’t she say something like “soon, we’ll be together, my son”. What was that all about? Did she actually trap his consciousness into her own mind like she did with the old paladins? Was that her possessive way of being “together” with someone? And then Allura goes on and frees him from the trap and THAT’S when Honerva goes ballistic looking for another Lotor in another reality, because she lost the object of her obsession. And that would explain why they ended up in the Connected Consciousness in the last episode, to heal her of her vicious possessiveness. Just a weird thought, I might be completely wrong.

If anyone has the patience to untangle who is who and who goes where in these two images, go on, give it a shot. I know I’m too tired. But nevertheless, have fun!

I noticed these glitches but wasn’t convinced that anyone is still out there to read my ramblings, after so many years. Now I believe there are still people that care, so I decided to go forward with my little analysis.

Thank you @leakinghate for relighting the flame of the FreeVLDS8 in 2022. Wishing TeamPurpleLion all the best in their new effort! It means so much to me, especially coming in as a fresh fan of VLD.

#voltron #vld #allura #FreeVLDS8 #voltron season 8

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sundayswiththeilluminati · 3 years ago

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The unplanned fourth part to my apparently-a-series on Essek Thelyss in the context of real-world espionage (parts 1, 2, and 3), today we look at an aspect of his story that doesn’t always apply in a D&D world: how do you prosecute espionage?

Psych! That’s not the real question. The real question is: do you prosecute espionage? The answer is a) not as obvious as it might seem; and b) going to differ between D&D and the real world, because D&D governments are storytelling tools and IRL governments are...not.

The benefits of prosecuting espionage are obvious: the interests of justice are served, the person responsible can be punished appropriately and in accordance with the law, the full extent of their crimes are revealed (including potentially exonerating other suspects), counterintelligence gets to chalk up a win, and other people thinking about committing espionage themselves are hopefully discouraged. But there are a surprising number of arguments in the “against” column.

Some agencies that identify enemy assets want to leave them in place for their own purposes. For about 20 years during the Cold War CIA reserved the right to just plain not tell the Department of Justice if they had proof someone was engaged in espionage because they wanted the opportunity to turn them as double agents, feed them misinformation, etc. rather than outing and punishing them (President Gerald Ford ended this arrangement by executive order in 1976). This isn’t necessarily a good idea IRL, but it forms the bread and butter of RPG espionage storylines and is definitely something to think about in a D&D context.

In the real world, ideally someone can only be found guilty of a crime and punished accordingly after a trial, and an agency often finds itself with sufficient evidence to doubt a person’s trustworthiness but not enough hard proof to take to court. In those cases agencies may decide to leave that person in place but cut off their access to classified info. Ironically, sometimes this means promoting them - moving the person into a higher-ranking job in a different area that just so happens not to deal in secrets. Sometimes the asset realizes they’re close to being rumbled and goes along with the effort, maybe taking retirement early or changing jobs before they can be pushed, and the whole matter will quietly lapse without anything so formal as a trial. Sometimes someone makes a mistake and sidelines a loyal, competent employee. That’s a judgement call.

In the real world, ideally someone can only be found guilty of a crime and punished accordingly after an open trial. Given how severe the punishments are for espionage, civilized countries do try to stick to that even though holding such a trial carries risks. Providing proof that someone stole secrets generally requires talking about said secrets, which means revealing classified info in court, which may negate trying to keep the information secret in the first place. They may also not want to reveal in court how they figured out that person was a spy, especially if it was a double agent or cryptographic source that fingered them. In D&D-land where monarchs are common and still wield judicial power, fantasy rulers may hand down whatever punishment they please based on whatever evidence they (or the DM) will accept, so this isn’t as much of a concern.

Even a D&D monarchy that doesn’t have to worry about revealing secrets in court might think twice before publicly punishing a high-ranking spy, though, because the only thing more embarrassing than failing to convict a major spy is succeeding. A government having to admit that its people were compromised, especially high-ranking people, is a body-blow to its standing both at home and abroad. It damages trust in the government, makes the public feel unsafe, and makes allies hesitant to share information lest their secrets be leaked as well. Lower-ranking government employees may think, “My boss is selling secrets, why not me too?” or “Why bother to follow security protocol when some mole will give it all away?” Every decision and contribution made by the asset becomes retroactively suspect, even those that had nothing to do with whatever secrets they leaked. The foreign nation to whom they passed information inevitably gets drawn in as well, negatively affecting those relations. And of course everyone involved looks very, very bad.

All of which leads me to say I think there’s a chance - maybe not a good chance, but a chance - that Essek could privately confess the affair to the Bright Queen without major public repercussions. Leylas Kryn could simply declare him a traitor and order his public execution without justifying herself, but it would raise a lot of questions and none of the answers would help her or the ruling dens; Den Thelyss allowing Den Kryn to unilaterally execute a high-profile member - a child of the umavi - without explanation would stoke ferocious rumors about what Essek might have done and cast a major shadow over the entire den. But publicly declaring what Essek had done also doesn’t do the Dynasty any favors. It makes everyone involved look very bad - how could they miss a spy at the highest level? so close to the Bright Queen herself?? who can be trusted??? - especially Den Thelyss, which might lose its place among the ruling three as a result. Publicly outing such a high-ranking Kryn official as compromised might set off the Dynasty equivalent of a Red Scare, too, since the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount mentions the constant and well-justified Dynasty fear of agents sent by Lolth to destabilize the Kryn out of sheer spite that they got away from her.

By the time Campaign 2 ended the latest clash between Empire and Dynasty had been settled and neither side seemed to want to stir it up again right away. The fact that both stolen beacons have been returned also bolsters the case for letting the matter lie. A confession from Essek clears up remaining doubt on the Bright Queen’s end - while he doesn’t know every Empire agent in the Dynasty, he can tell her exactly how the beacons were stolen and who else was involved, probably clearing the names of many currently under suspicion. Essek would have to resign as Shadowhand, of course, and leave the Dynasty (at least for a couple centuries), but he never seemed interested in being Shadowhand and he wants to go exploring anyway. Den Thelyss definitely wants the whole affair swept under the rug and would go along with whatever story made that happen. Other than Verin I don’t get the impression many people would miss Essek except as a lost opportunity. I hope they’d give him long enough before leaving Rosohna to pack up his cool leyline-weathervane though. He could totally mount that on Yussa’s tower. Or Allura’s!

And that concludes this particular train of thought re: Essek Thelyss in the context of IRL spies and espionage. Again, all of this is only as relevant to the campaign as the players decide it is, so don’t go giving people crap for being “unrealistic” about their versions of how the beacon trade went down. Frankly the last thing you should want here is realism, because “realistic” espionage is a callous world of deception, manipulation, and general human pettiness with no sense of narrative flow.

None of what I’ve talked about is an excuse for Essek’s actions. But it is a reason. It’s why and how a person entrusted with precious national assets could get into a headspace where it seems reasonable, even necessary, to trade them away to foreign enemies. It’s how a person of otherwise decent character & beliefs can end up committing terrible crimes. It’s why that person might sincerely regret what they’ve done, and not just because they fear punishment. The Warmind Rasputin paraphrases Octavia E. Butler saying, “Misdirected by accident or intent, intelligence can foster its own ecstasies of growth and decay.” In other words: sometimes you get too far into your own head. Without an anchor to reality, without perspective, your own mind gets twisted up. Sometimes you just need a friend (or seven) to grab your arm and say, “Breathe.”

(This accidentally turned into a series on Essek & IRL espionage: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4)

#Critical Role #Critical Role spoilers #not really but just to be safe #Essek Thelyss #CR meta #hey let's talk about Cold War espionage!#trufax #And That's What I Think About That.#words words words #I hope you like words #this poor foolish drow #bless this dumbass #it's been a long pandemic

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erithel · 3 years ago

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The Lion's lore is just a mess. "It's the lions who choose the paladins" but did they really? Only Blue had a real choice (krolia? texas? keith, pidge, hunk, shiro were also there) while the rest of them went along with whoever found them first. And then the whole lion of destiny gets retconned in 20 episodes anyway, when black just lets keith fly him and then again with kuron just having to ask. Not to mention Alfor picked Red and not the other way around.

I read a comic once where I believe it was Lance and Keith just chilling and Lance asks something like "Hey, do you think Allura chose our lions based on the color of our shirts?" And I think Keith has one of those "What are you – oh shit, I think you're right" responses. I feel like the lion's lore suffered a similar fate as the scene when they're all in Keith's cabin. Apparently there was a big explanation as to how he discovered all the blue lion stuff he had on his murder board wall, but it didn't have a great reception with a test audience so the showrunners decided to just have him say "I was drawn to this place" (or whatever the actual line was. And honestly? That's another thing that makes the lions lore confusing, because why would Keith – the paladin "destined" for Red be drawn to the Blue lion? Wouldn't it have made more sense for Lance to go wandering off into the desert like he was sleepwalking, and that's how they all ended up converging? In my opinion, the minute it was revealed that Alfor built the lions, any lore went out the window for me. Because in the beginning they were treated as these wondrous, ancient, sentient beings – the stuff of myths and legends – and then it turns out they were just…built by Allura's dad? I mean at that point – and based on what the original paladins were wearing – I think the lions were just drawn to people wearing their color. -_- I've read so many fics where the lions' sentience is conveyed, as well as their deep connection to each paladin, and I wish that had been canon. But this, like many other aspects of the show, seem to be whatever they needed it to be, depending on the scene. One of the biggest flaws in many stories that contain magic of any kind is that it's used as the deus ex machina: Magic can do whatever you need it to do whenever you need it. And that makes it purely a plot device as opposed to an actual system with its own rules and disadvantages. They needed the lions to act on their own? OK cool. Have the lions inexplicably forget they can do exactly that. Yeah, that works better for this scene here. Have Black – who once took Shiro on an entire astral plane journey where he fought to gain Black's acceptance – not know that Shiro was a clone being controlled by Haggar??? You have to pick one thing and stick to it. And then when you run into obstacles, you have to find other ways around them – not just come up with new rules that fit the current situation.

#ask #erithel's hot takes #series critique #vld #voltron lions

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vldkeith · 3 years ago

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keithtober💢🎃🌟 prompts #7 and #8: with allura🌷 + arcade👾🕹

a/n: ok i know i said i wouldn't combine them but i lied. im combining them. i think it turned out well tho so yknow enjoy :-)

🔗read on ao3

content included: romellura, klance, alcohol, suggestive joke, mortal kombat. keith takes allura to an arcade :-)

🎃🔪💢🎃🔪💢🎃🔪💢🎃🔪💢🎃🔪💢🎃

For the past ten minutes, Allura has been firmly planted at the Mortal Kombat arcade cabinet, playing as Kitana against the myriad of other people coming through the barcade and winning each and every battle. She’s so skilled at the game that she’s drawn a small crowd; Keith hangs outside of the fray, sipping on his drink, watching with part-annoyance, part-amusement as Allura beats another guy, who high-fives her after the fact.

Allura sways a little in response, shouting “THANK YOU!” loudly amidst the crowd. Right, Keith forgot to mention—Allura is also drunk while doing all of this. She’s a goddamn force of nature.

Unfortunately, Keith fancies himself a weatherman at this time, and he needs to pull Allura away from Mortal Kombat and her competitive streak before she inevitably(?) loses and decides that the best way to take the loss is to engage in a bar fight. People who call Keith impulsive and violent have clearly never been around Allura when she doesn’t get her way.

“Move,” Keith shouts forcibly, stepping into the crowd and shoving them aside so he can get to his distracted friend. Her boozy cherry-slushie is long gone, hanging forgotten next to her on a shelf, and Keith plucks it up and puts his own glass inside of it before tapping Allura insistently on the shoulder.

She waves a hand, shooing, like she thinks he’s an insect. Keith rolls his eyes and knocks this time, something a bug could never do. Allura, startled, finally turns to him, but the moment she realizes what he’s doing here she resolutely returns to her game, waving him away.

“I’m not done yet, Keith,” she says loftily, only slurring her words a little. “I am about to engage in battle with this nice man, Derrick, I think his name is, and I must behead him with my fan or else Shao Khan will have an in with the earthens’—”

“Oooooookay.” There’s not much Keith can say when Allura has just come off of reading the Wikipedia article for the Mortal Kombat “story” and feels the need to truly play the part of Kitana. He can, however, do something to break her out of it. Asking didn’t work; time for Plan B.

He takes out his phone, feigning surprise.

“Oh my god!” he exclaims, waving it around behind Allura, who remains unperturbed. For now. “Romelle is calling. I wonder what she wants?”

At that, Allura tilts her head toward the sound of Keith’s voice; her focus falters, and Derrick lands a hit on her. She curses and keeps going.

Keith raises the phone to his ear with an exaggerated gasp. “Hi, Romelle—whaaaat? You’ve lost all of your clothes and are just waiting at home on the bed for someone to help you find them? Well, geez, Romelle, Allura’s playing this game, so I don’t know if we can do anything…”

It’s like clockwork. Allura’s head whips around the second Keith mentions that Romelle has lost her clothes, and it’s not long before she’s making hasty excuses, ending the match early, and struggling back over to Keith amidst sighs of disappointment from her adoring fans. She approaches him slightly out of breath. Keith lowers the phone from his ear, smirking.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear, um—is Romelle okay? Something about her…clothes? Being gone?”

“You are so predictable,” Keith says, dangling his phone in front of her face. “Knew that would get you out.”

Allura merely blinks at Keith for a moment, confused, and then the wires spark together in her brain, and she gasps in betrayal.

“You liar!” she cries, pointing at Keith incredulously. Keith dissolves into giggles. “I knew I shouldn’t trust you! Why would Romelle call you about such a thing, anyway?”

Keith doesn’t bother with a response; he’s too busy laughing. Allura pouts at him, but even she can’t keep up the façade of anger for long.

“Oh,” she says, weakly flicking Keith on the shoulder as he laughs, “as if you wouldn’t have responded the same way if I’d pulled that with Lance. Please.”

“I would’ve already left by now,” Keith replies, finally quieting down with a smile. Still tipsy, he slings an arm around Allura’s shoulders. “But, y’know, I mostly just wanted you to play that Ninja Turtles game with me. Care to ditch your fans?”

Shaking her head (but still smiling with amusement), Allura ducks out from under Keith’s arm, plucks his own drink from his hand, and takes a swig. “Fine, but only if I can be Donatello.”

“I can’t tell the difference between them, so, y’know. Right on.” Keith shrugs, and grabs Allura’s hand, pulling her toward the cabinet. “C’mon!”

Allura, for once, allows herself to be guided, laughing along with Keith’s antics. Pink is, after all, just a lighter shade of red.

🎃🔪💢🎃🔪💢🎃🔪💢🎃🔪💢🎃🔪💢🎃

☕️ko-fi - so i can GO TO MORE ARCADES 🥺

#keith kogane #keithtober2021 #klance #romellura #voltron #vld keith #renfic #dont know if i will keep doing the 'content included' thing. but u know. maybe.

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willadisastercry · 4 years ago

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More than ‘just a little tired’: the aftermath part 2

tw: lil bit of gore described, burn wounds, collapsing, lots of pain described, muscle relaxer used and effects described, slight paralysis ensues, emotionally heavy towards end.

Keith finally let’s his friends help him but his adrenaline is fading rapidly and everyone is still focused on fussing over Pidge. Lance is distraught with how cold Shiro is being, he doesn’t understand why no one is listening to him while he’s literally supporting Keith with his own body as he crashes. Hunk needs to look at something other than the blood and gore so he tries to find Coran’s magic cream and is just proud he only threw up once.

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

“Woah, Hunk! He’s going down!”

Lance dropped to his knee as he struggled to keep Keith from falling further out of his grasp, his face now deathly pale and pressed against his shoulder as he took in large, shuddering breaths to try remain conscious.

“We’ve gotcha bud,” Hunk’s hand snaked around his waist then as Lance righted himself and they brought him back onto unsteady legs, his right not even strong enough now to put much weight on without buckling.

“C’mon we gotta go...”

With his arms slung over either boy’s shoulders and their hands hoisting his hips up by the supply pack on his utility belt, they made their way to the med bay relatively quickly, a feat of which was only possible because at some point Keith had stopped trying to keep up and allowing himself to be dragged was surprisingly a lot faster.

The whooshing of the med bay doors after what felt like an enternity was what startled Keith into opening his eyes again.

“Oh, hey guys...” Shiro said, sparing only a partial glance their way before continuing to pour over Pidge with Coran and Allura. She was awake and fighting the helping hands.

No one seemed to notice Keith’s prone form held up entirely by his friends who stood frozen in the doorway, a bit at a loss for how to proceed.

“I think I’m fine, guys! Seriously. All that’s left is already half healed and not nearly deep enough to warrant a freaking pod!”

“Maybe, but you still lost a lot of blood that will need to be repelenished...” Coran pointed, his mustache twitching as he attempted to convey the necessity of the percaution and failed.

Keith’s legs hadn’t been contributing much to the effort of keeping him standing but admittedly had some part in it because the longer they remained where they stood the more they seemed to melt into jelly.

The adrenaline had almost entirely worn off by then, leaving his body buzzing as the pain slowly intensified.

“G-guys...” Keith whispered weakly, his voice was barely audible.

“What’s—“

“Need to sit... like now...” he managed before his legs were wobbling dangerously, suddenly devoid of all the strength that remained in them.

“Alright, that’s okay. Over there, Lance,” Hunk assured, his injured leg completely useless as he transferred even more of Keith’s weight onto his hip to make up the difference while they ushered him towards one of the chairs across the room.

“Uhhhh, how much longer you guys gonna be with Pidge?” Lance questioned nervously once they’d settled Keith down, his heart clenching with fear for how grey his face had gotten, his hands never leaving his drawn up shoulders out of fear of what would happen if he did.

Hunk was already across the room tearing apart medicine cabinets for the burn cream he’d mentioned and Keith was finding it increasingly difficult to support his own body weight.

“Woah! Okkay—that’s okay, just lean against me,” Lance offered when Keith couldn’t keep himself from swaying as he narrowly avoided leaning back against the chair, nearly tilting out of it before Lance righted him and guided his head to lean against his hip.

“We’ll be done as soon as Pidge stops being difficult... why?” Shiro asked, his eyes still scanning the partially mended slash across the smaller girl’s stomach.

“Just uh, Keith is sort of not doing so well.”

Lance wasn’t entirely sure he understood why everyone was being so curt and dismissive, not tearing their eyes away from a clearly fine Pidge, who yes, at one point had been not fine at all, but was now.

And Keith wasn’t.

The blasts on his back were... bad.

Bad enough for him to be in so much pain he was forced to accept his friend’s help. Lance also figured the haunting glaze of exhaustion in his eyes and purple bruises beneath them had a good deal to do with lowering his defenses, the realization of just how tired he was sending another jab to his chest.

The material of his suit looked like it had melted into his skin, lining the edges of the puffy burns with a smokey black. Some were larger than others but there were at least a dozen and they were all bleeding steadily, the constant rise and fall of his chest making it impossible for any of them to clot.

“I’ll come check him out once—“

The burns were so deep, like little caverns carved into his skin and Lance was suddenly concerned about how zapped the nerves must be that he didn’t even realize he’d been injured this severely.

They looked so painful.

Breathing looked painful. And sitting, and talking and the way moving air brushed against them.

Shit, Keith.

“No, Shiro...”

The words came from deep in his throat, his voice low and serious, a stark derision from his usually charming vibrato.

“I think someone needs to check him out now. We’re talking about Keith here! You should know better than anyone that when he’s says he’s not okay, he means it.”

Shiro’s shoulders dropped as he straightened up, Lance couldn’t even find it in himself to worry about getting told off for his tone with how angry he was, his irritation justifying itself as he watched Keith’s breathing devolve into something more and more erratic.

The room seemed to silence all at once after he’d raised his voice. The inflection of it, shrill with fear and frustration is what got Shiro to finally look their way, his already weary expression falling further at the horror of how Keith looked against Lance. Slumped and panting, his features tight in anguish as blood dripped steadily from somewhere and collected in a now sizeable puddle on the floor.

Pidge was being forced to lay back down when surging up to see what was wrong had her keening and clutching her middle, Allura remaining at her side while Shiro and Coran raced over to the boys.

“What the fuck happened?!” Shiro demanded, his eyes grey pinpoints that bored into Lance with a sort of accusation until the two men reached the pair, both gasping simultaneously when they got close enough to take in the sight of Keith’s back.

“I don’t-I don’t understand, you said you were tired Keith!”

“Plasma blast burns... most of them 2nd degree it looks like...” Coran offered, his eyes flicking wildly as they scanned the burnt and bloody skin.

“He is tired...” Lance assured, turning his gaze back to Keith’s shaking shoulders. His trembles seemed more like spasms then, each jerk prompting a fresh gush of red from the wounds.

“He’s fucking exhausted but was too stubborn to tell anyone he was hurt...” he continued as Coran left muttering to himself in search of supplies, joining Hunk in his endeavor of locating more than just the burn cream now.

“S-sorry... really thought it was just one...” Keith explained before Shiro shushed him, crouching down to run his hand through his hair even though it was slightly damp with sweat.

His eyes weren’t open so he tensed when the hand first fell into place but soon softened under Shiro’s touch, the cold weight of the galra metal oddly comforting.

“It’s not on you, bud. I should’ve checked in more thoroughly, looked you over myself...”

Lance seethed at that, Keith was feeling guilty when Shiro was the one who had fucked up by ignoring him. He didn’t even sound sorry.

“Damn right you sh—“

“What’s that?” Shiro entreated, cutting him off and lifting his head to face the younger boy with something so fierce in his eyes that Lance had to force himself to look elsewhere.

As much as he wanted to tell Shiro how royally he’d fuck up he knew it wouldn’t be productive. Knew full well that the last thing anyone needed was more chaos.

But before Lance had to take actual precautions to contain his anger, Keith made a noise as if he wanted to respond but all that came out was a defeated whine as his chest stuttered which pulled even more at the mess of his back, sending him into a fit of flinching and hissing.

“Hey, you’re alright—“ Lance cooed, the additional hand on Keith’s neck centering him while he tried to ride out the pain without causing more “—that’s it, just take a second to calm down...”

But Keith couldn’t calm his breathing in time to avoid the waves of agony that followed such harsh breaths, eventually becoming desperate enough to clamp his lips shut and hold his breath until his heart let up with its incessant pounding.

This admittedly made the general haze clouding his mind so much worse, sending black dots dancing across the floor as he stared at it against Lance. He hadn’t realized when his hands had traveled up to clutch at Lance’s stomach but they were there now, clawing at the unwavering material stuck to his torso like glue for something to hold onto.

There were so many hands on him but he couldn’t feel much of anything other than the heat on his back and strain in his lungs as he continued to restrict his breathing. It had come to hurt so badly he was afraid to even try to breath normally again.

“-ith!”

Voices sounded so weird and distant then, like they were calling to him from across a noisy room.

“KEITH!”

It wasn’t until someone was knelt down next to him and nearly screaming in his ear that he could understand anything.

“Stop doing that, you have to take deeper breaths or you’ll pass out...”

But he couldn’t manage anything other than short and rapid inhales that weren’t nearly enough. He didn’t care if he passed out. It wouldn’t hurt so bad if he were unconscious and it had gotten to a point where he sort of wished for that kind of relief.

Coran was speaking to Shiro over them then, of which Keith had only ascertained from the way Shiro’s hand left the base of his skull to rest more on the crown of his head just as a dull and disordered humming began.

His hearing had abandoned him again once Shiro left his position, reducing the conversation to unintelligible murmurs drowned out by the rumbling in his eardrums. The static spotting his vision not letting up as the blast wounds burned relentlessly on his back. It felt like there were literal flames licking up at even the slightest movement and marring deep as the fire only seemed to spread.

The entire expanse of his upper body had gone numb with it, his arms slack at his sides and his neck weak under the weight of his head as he put all of his concentration into slowing his breathing and keeping it as controlled as possible. He didn’t even feel the hands slipping under his armpits or fingers tugging at his supply belt, only the scorching stretch of his body straightening as he was pulled to his feet.

Lance and Shiro shifted around him with care, Shiro guiding his head to rest on his shoulder when it rolled limply, Coran hovering anxiously as they struggled to lift him to his feet without jarring his injuries. In reality, it was entirely unavoidable but hey, it’s the thought that counts.

Keith really tried to hold his own weight this time, but as soon as he was upright, his back lit with a new fury that had his vision whiting. Soon he couldn’t even be certain his feet were still on the ground as his body went lax and the darkness that had been teasing him descended quicker than he could process.

He assumed he had screamed bloody murder since his stinging throat was the only pain he could pinpoint as he lost consciousness, but by then he wouldn’t have been able to hear his own voice if he spoke so he wasn’t be sure. All he knew was that he’d pitched into a slew of arms like his bones had spontaneously emulsified, blissfully unaware as to how the whole room seemed to cry out when he did.

Pidge was near tears with Allura struggling to assure her that Keith would be fine, and Hunk was so startled by the commotion that he had nearly flung the supplies he was organizing on a sterile tray.

“Let’s get him settled comfortably before he comes to,” Coran ordered, his voice sharp and anguished as he motioned towards where Hunk was stood.

Together and with considerable effort the three dragged Keith’s limp body to the other side of the room, careful to keep his torso straight and his injured leg from bending so they didn’t inflame his wounds further, depositing his lifeless weight onto the table on his stomach where all of his injuries could be tended to.

“We have to get as much of the suit off as possible... some of it will of course take a little more effort,” Coran sighed as he poked at one of the darker blast marks with a wider radius than most of the other. There was a ring of molten black around it that looked like it had dripped into the pit of missing flesh from where the material of the suit had melted off. The sentry that shot him there must have been only a few feet away.

“Alaran...” Allura gasped out as she made her way to the group once Pidge had calmed down enough to be left alone.

“These are going to need extensive cleaning before we can put him into a pod.”

“I know, Princess. Let’s get started, maybe we can get the bulk of it finished while he’s still uncioncious,” Coran postured, distributing the supplies Hunk had gathered to everyone.

The task was harrowing and had everyone slightly queasy, but the urgency to complete the process before Keith woke up prevailed everyone’s gag reflexes, even Hunk’s.

Being enveloped by the black that had teased him so long wasn’t as bad as Keith had imagined it would be. It was warm like this, more absent of cold than possesing a distinguishable heat. Pleasant. Peaceful even. A more than welcomed improvement to the inferno he was slowly being consumed by when he was awake and alert.

Sounds started coming back to him slowly as his body recovered from the shock of his plummet in blood pressure. His friends’ words sharpening gradually to where he could almost make out what they were saying.

“...suction... yes, that bit has to go as well...”

He still felt floaty and numb from the pain but knew he was laying on his front and could feel a sensation of tugging and pulling on his back.

“...keeps moving... waking up...”

It wasn’t so much painful as it was uncomfortable in his state of semi-consciousness.

“...dangerous to... sedative before a prolonged stay in the pod...”

His brain was just too fuzzy, still replenishing the blood supply to his brain.

“...looks like he’s in pain...”

Each moment he remained in limbo he grew more restless.

“...Coran I can’t... this piece... tearing the skin...”

The in and out of everything was making him anxious, he’d rather just be entirely out or entirely conscious.

“...should will help with any discomfort...”

Whatever was meant to help wasn’t. He was aware he’d probably been given some sort of drug or medicine but still he couldn’t relax.

It didn’t matter that he was utterly exhausted, his body was reacting to the anxiety bubbling in his stomach whether he had the energy to support such a reaction or not.

“...easy Keith...”

That’s the thing, he couldn’t take it easy. His mind was wired and his body was going into shock once again as things clarified and he woke up more.

“You’re alright number four... steady now, just breathe...”

If he thought it was hard to breathe before it seemed like it was absolutely impossible now.

“-us? Keith...? Keith, can you hear us?”

He could. He could hear everything now. It was all so loud and piercing, everyone’s voices, the tools clicking, his heart beating, the tear of medical supplies packages. Everything was so crisp and right there, the smallest noises sending tingles down his spine that made him want to cringe and he struggled to surpress the urge to.

“Quiznak! Coran I’m gonna hurt him if he keeps squirming!”

He was panting now, his mouth hung open against the towel folded under his face that was catching the blood still leaking from the wound under his eye. A hand came down on the back of his neck and he jumped.

That did it for the pain that seemed to have been numbed, not gone, just too far away for him to register. It was just as close as all of the sounds were now.

Hands clutched at his shoulders and forearms and hips as he wailed, pushing him flat so his flailing didn’t make it worse. He sobbed loudly and unabashedly as the pain surged its way back to the forefront of his awareness, a strange warmth similar to the one he’d felt when he had passed out taking the edge off but not staving it much.

“Keith! Listen to me, you have to relax. I know this is torture, but you’re only going to make it worse if you keep struggling,” Shiro urged, his voice the closest.

Shiro was right, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t in control of his movements anymore, because if he was he would listen. He didn’t want to hurt anymore but his body didn’t seem to give a shit.

“Coran,” Allura said sadly, her eyes looking at him with a sort of heart breaking resolution.

“Okay, Princess,” he agreed, his expression falling dejectedly.

“What-what is it? What just happened?!” Lance asked worriedly, knowing something had seemingly been decided but no idea as to what.

“We’re going to have to give him a muscle relaxer to keep him still, but it won’t take away his pain. We simply cannot risk putting him in a pod while medically sedated, we couldn’t be sure he would ever wake again if we did.”

For the second time that evening a collective silence fell over the room, one filled with such aching and regret and fear that it was as if it wasn’t silent at all.

“Do whatever you have to,” Shiro advocated, handing the tools he’d been using to Hunk.

“But he’ll be in pain Shiro?!” Lance noted desperately, his indignation back in full force.

Shiro just looked at him sadly and moved to drag a stool over to the other end of the table where Keith’s head was, his face twisted up as his sounds of pain continued.

“How can you be so heartless? It wouldn’t be so painful if Allura had partially healed him too! If you had given enough of a shit to notice sooner! To notice at all!”

The sound of Lance yelling bore into Keith’s skull sickeningly, his body unable to contain the shiver that overtook his muscles at how bone deep the sound irked his now oversentive ears.

“Lance—“

“No, Allura. He’s right, this is my fault. I was too focused on the fact that Pidge was hurt to notice that he was too and now he’s worse off because of it. I didn’t listen to him when I should’ve. Administer whatever you have to Coran, I’ll help him through this, it’s the least I can do right now...”

Coran didn’t have to be told twice, skillfully pulling liquid from a vile with a syringe that he poked gently into Keith’s neck.

Hunk nudged Lance’s arm to break his death glare at Shiro and get back to freeing one of the wider wounds on his shoulder as the medicine took affect almost immediately.

“Sh-sh-shir-Shiro...”

“I’m right here, shhhh, don’t speak. Just relax, I’ve got you,” Shiro soothed, grasping Keith’s hand tightly as he took shuddering breaths that grew more and more shallow as whatever control he had left over his body slipped away from him.

With some last few twitches he sagged completely into the table. The hand clutching Shiro’s released its grip and the older boy started to thumb assuring circles into the limp appendage since he could still feel it.

“This is gonna suck, but just focus on me okay?”

Keith couldn’t nod, couldn’t move his exhausted body at all now, so he sighed instead. The tears that had welled at his eyes falling defeatedly and mixing with the blood staining his right cheek to make a slightly pinker mess on the towel beneath him.

“Just focus on me...”

#voltron fandom #keith angst #keith voltron #keith whump #lance and hunk to the rescue #protective lance #bad shiro #voltron fic #voltron whump #voltron fanfic #voltron pidge #hunk is here too #he doesn’t throw up this time #vld #whumpee #emotional whump #whump fic #voltron #burn wounds

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fureliselost · 3 years ago

Text

VLD rewatch ep 3 let's gooooo

- I knew his armor was red, why is it purple in the beginning?

- "The most powerful weapon of the universe"? Voltron? *remembers the latest seasons* hmmmm i don't think so

- 2 mins in and we're already gonna start with the screencaps of keith and lance being close for no reason

- the whole coran tryna do an airplane on shiro thing

- Allura: an arusian | Lance: cute! | Keith: *ready to fight it*

- Shiro conveniently has memory ugh

- keithhhhhhhhhhh sworrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd

- ohhhh yeah, the whole katie reveal, i remember that

Ep 4

- ohhhh, i like this ep

- 1 minute in and we already got Keith and Lance screenshots

- Keith I love you, i love the Vol-Voltron scene

- ugh, sendak, this annoying bitch

- "Pidge is a what" then proceeds to show pidge doing "Boy things", like, c'mon, let girls be laid back y'all

- Lance, Lance my baby, my baby misses Veradero Beach

- Coran coming to solace Lance I love this

- Keith is angre

- the fact that they got the news out without lance and coran

- LANCE IS SMART HE RECOGNIZED ROVER WASN'T ROVER AND SAVED CORAN THE SELFLESS IDIOT

- Lance is on the ground, Allura goes "the crystal!" and only stops when lance is literally on her feet and she can't ignore it dsbgldsibfgldu

- Pidge: casually turns the pod into a bomb

- OK, now I remember how there was an entire part of the VLD fanodm dedicated to screenshots of their asses and it's because they were *so* beutifully drawn

- DAm I love Coran

EP5:

- dam pidge got flashbacks

- "I could charge you with treason [for watching a classified feed]"

uhmmm, I think the fuck not

- it's cool that the mice are just chilling the whole time

- i really hate rax, ugh, annoying bitch

- I like that Coran mentions the Weblums and then it gets used later (unlike Lance and Keith's mysterious past)

- Yes, Lance, you're a fighter pilot (yk, it would be pretty funny if Lance used to be on the same team as Keith, considering K was a fighter pilot and Lance was cargo)

- Hey, are you telling me that the interaction in the first ep between the trio wa the very beginning of their friendship? (with pidge at least)

- DAm i love Shay and Hunk interacting

- "you're the one who's been causing all this trouble? a child?" "i'm not a child, i'm a paladin of voltron!" excuse me, you're, like 15, you're a child

- they literally had Shiro be electocuted on screnn i love it

- Coran is great, he doesn't give up the cover

Nobody said you weren't, Lance........ unless

#vld #vld rewatch #voltron #voltronlegendarydefender #eli rants #voltron legendary defender

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tbartss · 3 years ago

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Well since you asked so nicely, here is everything I wrote so far :’))

There was one memory Lance kept going back to whenever the world around him seemed too real. It was a long time ago, but he remembered it like it was yesterday.

He was back in Cuba, sitting on his surfboard on the mellow waves, his knees on either side as he stared up at the stars. He was 10 years old, and had yet to hear about the phenomenal school that was the Galaxy Garrison that would spark the beginning of his destiny. Now he was just a simple, normal citizen of Cuba, riding the dancing water and tracing the lights in the sky with his Tìo.

His tio, for all his remarkable self, was a strange man, and Lance had always thought so. It wasn’t in the way he spoke or gestures or walked or anything like that. It was in the things he said, sometimes, to seemingly just Lance.

Once he had thrown Lance one look and said, “I have only one debt, and that is to the stars.” What he had been doing to make him say that was the part he didn’t remember, but it wasn’t the important part.

His tio was his mother’s brother, but even she couldn’t make sense to what he was saying. When he had asked Raquel if she had heard him say anything like that, she’d shaken her head and looked at him as if he was crazy.

“You probably just dreamt it.” She’d said, but Lance was sure it hadn’t been his imagination.

“No way! My dreams are nothing like that.”

“You can’t control your dreams, tonto. Besides, Tio hardly ever speaks, and for him to say something like that is just downright loco.”

But Lance wasn’t convinced. He hadn’t really noticed until then that Rachel was right about one things though. His tio hardly ever spoke, but Lance had just chalked that up to adulthood. He had thought that the more you grew up, the less you needed to say. But now that he thought about it, his mother didn’t seem to hold back on any words whatsoever. Not to mention the very expressive way she spoke with her hands, that Lance had inherited. It was hardly believable that they were related.

“The stars are calling you again, eh?” He said now, staring at Lance, who was in turn staring at the stars. It was one of his favourite pass times, and his tio was one of his favourite people to do it with.

He wanted to ask what he meant, but he knew it was no use. Ever since Raquel had come with that comment, he’d begun to see that his tio was a man of few words. Lance had never heard him repeat himself and he knew it was futile to ask him of it now.

He’d said to Lance once, when he’d held a gun for the first time, that a man should think like he only has one bullet left in his holster. “One target. One shot. Once you pull the trigger there is no going back.” He was starting to think he wasn’t only applying that to his shooting.

So, Lance shrugged as an answer to his question. When his tio got like this, usually late into the night, Lance didn’t know what to say to him, most of the time. It was like he expected something from Lance, but Lance had no idea what, much less how to give it to him.

Nevertheless his tio nodded sagely, like Lance’s shrug told him everything he couldn’t say with words. His feet were wading the water under them calmly, causing small ripples that rocked Lance a little, like a soothing lullaby. He asked, “Leandro, how do they make you feel?”

Lance tore his eyes from the constellation his mother had named Orion, tilting his head. “Huh?” But it was useless, he knew, because his tio, instead of repeating himself, turned back to the night sky.

His eyes turned soft, and he breathed deep as if he could smell the galaxy from here if only he breathed deep enough.

Lance, feeling again like his tio was expecting something he didn’t know how to give, poked the water a couple of times. Once there, once here. And before he knew it, he was tracing his finger in the same shape as the constellation. The water rippled until his fingers stilled, and Lance saw that the Orion he had drawn was mirrored in the water.

How did the stars make him feel? How would he know? He was ten.

“What am I supposed to feel?” He asked instead, as he started tracing Andromeda in the water. When the image got too blurry he paused his finger to let the water still before he continued.

“You’ll know when you know, Lancito.” His voice was a soft timber in the quiet of the night, and Lance thought about how his tio was probably the closest he came to a father.

He listened to him breathe for a while, feeling a weird sensation in the crest of his chest, tucked somewhere deep inside that he didn’t know how to name. And lance, when he had added the last star to Andromeda, said, “Tio?”

He hummed in answer, not taking his eyes off of the stars.

“How did you know you wanted to work at the range?”

His tio looked at him in question. Just like how he was a man of few words, he also never said anything unnecessary.

Lance swallowed and looked away, suddenly feeling the need to fiddle with his fingers. “It’s just that at school, they asked us what we wanted to be in the future and I have no idea. Raquel knows she wants to be a teacher, and Marco has that internship and Veronica has been at that flying school a million years. But I have no idea what I want to be. What I want to do.” He looked up at his tio desperately, but he was only looking back as if he was deep in thought. “The only thing I’m sorta good at is shooting and fútbol. Do you think I should work with you, at the range?”

His tio seemed suspended in time, his body so still he caused no ripples in the sea below them. The wind carried his hair; it was dark brown, like Lance’s mother’s, like his father’s. Like his own.

And then slowly, his tio shook his head. The wind carried his voice like it would the single petal of a dandelion. He said, “Your place is not here, mijo. I think you know, deep inside you, where you belong.”

And then he said, “There is a part of you that is still sleeping. Once you wake it, that’s when you’ll know.”

He really hated his mysticism sometimes. He wished he could be a little clearer in what he meant, but then he thought about how he would feel if someone wished he could just understand things in a normal way. Lance had noticed he needed the extra step to understand certain things, elaborations if you will, but he didn’t think that’s the part his tio was talking about.

No, when Lance finally understood what his tio had meant, he’d stood on the frontlines of an intergalactic war.

***

When Lance had first laid eyes on the castle he’d thought, now that’s a house. He envisioned himself laid back with his hands resting behind his head, being fed grapes by the very attractive subjects that served him as he kicked back and relaxed like a king. He thought that the castle was his dream in reality, laid out bare for his very own eyes to see.

The other’s hadn’t been as impressed. More likely, they had been scared shitless. When he looked at Keith he saw only stone cold exterior. He bet himself that Keith was thinking the exact same thing he was. Too bad this was Lance’s dream, and he was going to seize it for himself.

The Blue Lion ship had really helped with his confidence. With that machinery, a weapon answering only to his command, he was basically unstoppable. He had the world at his feet, the stars in his hair. No one, not even Keith, could take that from him.

Shiro had taken charge, but he was okay with that. He knew what he was doing, and honestly, what is a dream without some comrades to die for, right? He had his best friend, his midget of a communications officer, and his rival in the same boat. There was no adventure, if he had no one to share it with.

The others looked around while Lance tinkered with the central controls in the room they were in. He pushed a few buttons and then laid his hand on the handprint, almost missing the hissing machinery that resulted from his improvising.

And boy, did he want to share his dreams.

When he had first laid eyes on Allura, a falling princess, landing in his arms, he’d thought, now that’s a woman. He envisioned them both sitting together, laughing together, standing at the alter as his family cheered him on, and Lance was wearing the biggest smile in the universe, really, NASA could capture it with their satellite. He thought that Allura was his dream come true, a fair maiden falling into his arms.

She was like a memory pulled from his mind.

A strong one, and quite hurtful.

“Ow, ow, ow! Careful, my skin is very delicate!”

The princess did not let up her hold on his ear, and he tried not to hear the snigger he knew was coming from Pidge.

***

“This castle must be ancient.” The hallways were so empty and wide his voice was carried across the distance. He whistled to test out the acoustics. He heard his own tune for another ten seconds before it disappeared further down the hall.

“100.000 years to be exact!” Coran said cheerily behind him. His voice carried far, too.

The first tour around the castle wasn’t very impressive. All of the doors were closed and it looked like no one had walked down these halls forever — which he supposed no one had, now that he thought about it. The control panels and light bulbs beside and above every door, respectively, were covered in dust.

With Allura walking down the hall in front of them though, the light turned on, running like veins horizontically along the wall until the hallway disappeared beyond the eye could see. These hallways were massive. Lance thought it’d be quite lonely for only two people.

“Amazing,” Pidge gushed, staring unblinkingly at the lights that turned on. Allura looked over her shoulder to smile kindly at him.

Hunk squinted at the lights, too, and poked them with his pointer finger. “How exactly does that work? I don’t see any electricity outlets.”

Coran laughed loudly, the sound of his merry filling the entire hallway. Lance thought it sounded a bit like his tio. “Oh, the simple human and their wonders,” he said. He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “The castle’s power source, my young earthling, is connected to Allura’s energy. She is the only one who can control this ship and everything in it with her alchemy.”

“Alchemy?” Pidge piped up, sidling alongside Coran. “As in equivalent exchange?”

“Wait, wait, wait. How were we then able to get in with the Lion ship?” Hunk asked, touching the light along the walls.

Honestly, Lance was getting bored with their conversation. Blah, blah, something about Altean magic, and ancient knowledge, whatever. What Lance wanted to know was what was behind all of these doors. There were so many, Lance doubted each of them housed an Altean court person back in the day.

He walked to the nearest door and squinted at the control panel beside it. The inscription was in Altean, which he obviously couldn’t read, but there was also a very big red button. He wondered if…

The doors whooshed open the second he pressed the button on the panel. Inside was what Lance would assume was the Altean equivalent of a broom closet. It was bigger than his house. Like massive. How many bathrooms was the toilet paper in this closet supposed to cover?

He turned around to keep walking, when he stopped in his tracks. Everyone was staring at him.

At the sound of the doors opening, Coran had stopped talking immediately about something or other, Lance wasn’t really paying attention. Allura was also looking at him and the door, seeming in shock.

Lance raised his arms and took two steps away from the door. “It wasn’t me, I didn’t do anything.”

No one said a word, for a while. Shiro was looking between Coran and Allura, probably to try and figure out what they were thinking, or if this had been inappropriate somehow. Keith looked about ready to downright murder Lance.

After some time of staring very intensely at Lance, Coran hummed and stroked his moustache. “The controls must be rustier than I thought. It has been 10.000 years…” he muttered, more to himself than anyone. He must have decided it wasn’t worth mulling over, his wrist flicking like he was swatting the topic away. “Anyway,” he continued walking, “so the crystals in this castle…”

And that was that. Allura and Coran kept walking, and Shiro, sensing there were no consequences happening, started to walk, too, prompting everyone else to follow his lead.

Lance breathed a sigh of relief, and made sure to close the door before he followed with them.

“Stop touching stuff, you’re going to get us in trouble,” Keith hissed beside him. He must have slowed his pace to Lance’s. Just to tell him off? Tch, Lance didn’t think so.

“Relax, Mullet,” he answered and pocketed his hands in his jeans. “These people aren’t going to harm us. I mean, look at how gorgeous— I mean forgiving the princess was.”

“We’re in the middle of space with flying cat ships that are controlled by the very people that could incinerate us in a matter of seconds, or did you forget?” He added, “And it’s not a mullet!”

Lance shrugged. “Ay, stop being so paranoid. If you tighten up any more you’ll probably die a non-heroic death by boredom.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“And that will be your downfall. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“What? That doesn’t even make any sense!”

***

*lance and hunk sneaking out of the garrison to go clubbing. Lance stops and stares at the stars. Maybe something happened earlier with Keith.*

“You okay, man?”

“Huh? Yea, was just thinking of something my uncle said once.”

“About space? Whatd he say?”

“I don’t even know, man, he didn’t make a lot of sense. It doesn’t matter, let’s go meet some girls WOO!!”

***

“How do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what? I’m just pressing buttons.”

“Yeah, that open doors that aren’t supposed to open.”

“Maybe the castle just likes me the best.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Enough talk. Let’s swim, mullet! I’ll race ya!”

***

The thing about the Galra is that they are both persistent and resourceful, and when you mix those two things together, they become near unstoppable. It was probably why their reign had lasted for as long as it did.

#my writing #voltron #lance

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raziroo · 4 years ago

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Chapter Two | I Swear I Don't Do Drugs

Pairing: None

Genre: Angst, Crack

Warnings: Panic Attacks, Hyperventilation

Word Count: 1,124

It’d been some time since Shiro announced that I woke up in the cockpit of a legendary war lion machine. After that announcement in my room, which was quite dramatic, you’d think that I would have some shock or surprise. My answer had been a simple, clueless, confused, but still to the point, ‘…What?’

But then I met the other Paladins, and Allura and Coran. I pointed out the markings on the cheeks of the two Alteans, and in response I was told that they were aliens from a planet that had been destroyed 10,000 years ago by some evil purple alien. I just furrowed my brow and gave them my ‘Really?’ look. They told me I was in space, in an advanced castle that could fly as well as be parking or the “Lions of Voltron”. I responded by telling them they were all high, then proceeded to question them about my whereabouts, really, and why the hell they thought it was acceptable to kidnap me and tell me the plot of some Power Rangers movie.

They showed me “space” through a window. I wondered out loud about what lottery I’d won to get to roam on the set of the next big space show. They all looked kind of exasperated. A guy with shaggy raven hair asked Shiro if he should just open the window and prove his point; Shiro fixed him with a glare, but a couple of other people didn’t exactly seem opposed to the idea.

Allura asked me how she could prove that she was an alien. I answered by asking her to do some alien-y thing. Guess what she did.

She shape-shifted.

Well, not exactly shape-shifting; she just grew, like, half a foot taller, and her skin became purple, but that was enough to make me nauseous once more.

She then walked to a couch and lifted it with ease, followed by making her hands glow. I was convinced I was high, just unaware on what, because I didn’t know a drug that could make you see people shape-shifting and displaying Superman worthy weight lifting.

After a bit more convincing on their end and refusal on mine, a short – girl, it seemed, although I wasn’t so sure – asked me which planet I was from.

I was sure I looked way more confused than anyone ever should, and said, ‘Earth. Where else is there to live on?’

The people before me exchanged looks. I was certain each glance had a meaning behind it, but to me they were just glances.

‘But then, how -?’

‘Wait, Pidge,’ Shiro said. He turned to me. ‘If you’re from Earth, you must’ve heard my name, right? Takashi Shirogane, pilot on Kerberos mission, who disappeared along with Matthew and Samuel Holt?’ I must have still looked utterly lost, because he prompted me more. ‘Kerberos mission, year 2311, Galaxy Gar-’

‘Wait, hold up, what?’ I blurted, catching onto the year he mentioned. ‘What year, again?’

Shiro frowned just the tiniest bit and said, ‘2311. Three years ago.’

I was pretty sure the incredulousness on my face was either beyond comical, or just plain old hysteric. Judging by Shiro’s expression, it was safe to assume it was the latter.

At the moment, I wasn’t sure whether to ask him if he was alright, or get myself checked, because as much as I felt the right thing to do was the former, the looks the people had on their faces told me I was the one in the wrong, information-wise. Their looks weren’t confident or something, or the look someone dons when they want to convince it’s Thursday instead of Wednesday to mess with you. It was just… indifferent, you could say? Just think of the way you look when someone tells you something that’s obvious and just, very not exceptionally important.

‘…But…’

My eyes must have portrayed how I felt because Shiro dropped that little bit of tension in his eyebrows and gently, very soothingly, asked, ‘What is it? You can tell me.’

‘…I - but, no – isn’t it 2021? Aren’t we in the middle of a pandemic?’ my eyebrows furrowed, helplessness practically radiating off of me. Why hadn’t the pandemic come to my mind earlier? What was wrong with me? I knew I wasn’t on some drug, I felt completely normal, as your body should feel. That had sort of just been an excuse, I guess, at the time, but now it really did feel like something was wrong. The earnestness in Shiro’s composure, the genuine confusion he displayed when I mentioned the year baffled me more than it did him.

‘Look… I can assure you, it’s – it’s not 2021. That was around…’

‘…300 years ago…’ I completed his sentence. I hadn’t even paid attention to his robotic arm yet. ‘But how…? How is it possible? I – I was literally sitting in my room before that wave of nausea -’ wait. I wasn’t so sure about that, either, like almost everything right now. A part of my memories seemed to be glazed over, as if someone had drawn on part of my memory with black ink and I couldn’t wipe it off. Did that make sense? I didn’t know, nor did I care. There was just something very wrong right now, and the panic overtaking my senses proved to be faster than the bile rising in my throat.

I didn’t even realize I’d begun hyperventilating when my eyes began to sting and burn – upcoming waterworks. Shiro grabbed me by the shoulders, asking me to breathe, look at him, breathe with him, but I just, I couldn’t. It was so hard. I don’t know why, I didn’t know why I was having a panic attack, but when I felt the distant thwacking pain of my knees hitting the floor, that’s when the burning and hotness in my eyes got to much and tears escaped me as I gasped desperately for breath. The people around me were speaking to each other, panicking for me, maybe looking for a solution – I didn’t know. The voices were just a distant hum, a buzz that didn’t bother me enough for me to attract my attention. Maybe I should’ve paid attention to it, as Shiro’s voice trying to calm me down was among the other sounds forming the buzz, but I didn’t. The blackness seeping into my vision was welcome. It was definitely better than the spots, and the fact that it would lead me to pass out once more wasn’t especially discouraging either.

Anything was better than the realization that I might have time-travelled from the 21st century to 2311 or something.

#Voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender #takashi shirogane #shiro #voltron x reader #allura #coran #lotor #prince lotor #galra #altea #lance mcclain #keith kogane #pidge gunderson #katie holt #hunk garrett

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entrepy · 2 years ago

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major canon & fanon divergences

( i don’t expect anyone to read this because it’s a lot lmao. this is more so for me to have a reference because i forget things about my own muse / canon. if we’re rping together we’re probably also talking ooc so anything important from this post will be mentioned to you at some point. )

( please note that by canon, i’m referring to my general main verse which includes no interactions with other muses. each interaction with a muse is put into its own verse. new interactions can come into the main verse at any point of the timeline and then diverge from that point. )

canon divergences.

does not marry curtis. they noticed each other because they worked closely as part of the atlas crew and maybe if the time and place were different there might’ve been a chance for them to get to know each other and form something but for shiro, there is a lot weighing on his mind that he needs to wade through

( a ) shiro has been thru Sum shit and he has an endless list of reasons to be sad but i just want to make it known that shiro’s no. 1 source of guilt and just general mind-anguish is the fact that he is living in a borrowed body, that he took from someone who had to die for him to live.

( b ) at this stage he is also coming in touch with his feelings for keith which have been with him for a while, so even if he was aware of other potential interests … he’s not actually interested back.

adam is alive. he was critically injured in the first wave of attack by sendak and recovered enough only to provide ground support for the second wave. he remains an officer of the garrison and heads training and recruitment. he does not fly again. he’s happily married and reaches out to shiro. they’re amicable, but not close friends. maybe eventually they will be. ( this will obviously be different if i’m writing with an adam muse. )

allura is alive – i need to rewatch the end of season 8 to figure out how, but she’s alive.

after a year or so of captaining the atlas, the need for atlas to be an offensive military ship decreases and shiro consults sam and pidge for their thoughts on deweaponising his prosthesis. the new arm is still powered by allura’s crystal but looks more similar to the galra arm ( except it starts at the shoulder since his bicep??? disappeared magically ), but it’s coloured white and light grey, and the lit up areas are aqua ( same as the crystal. )

speaking of the crystal … the original arm was designed to operate via a balmera crystal, because that’s what most of altean designs are based off of. however they didn’t have a crystal to use, and sam says the remaining energy required for the arm to work would be drawn from shiro’s own electromagnetic field. he tries it for the first time and … his body rejects it, in what looks like an incredibly painful and potentially fatal way, if it hadn’t been for allura stepping in and replacing the original energy source for the arm with the crystal from her tiara. we don’t ever find out why shiro’s body rejected the first energy source but here are 2 theories:

( a ) shiro’s body is actually kuron’s body, a clone, manufactured by haggar, using ~space science~ and likely some form of quintessence. the electro magnetic field coming off of the clone’s body would vary to that of a human’s, which is what sam would’ve based his calculations on. balmera crystals have incredible properties that aren’t really explained in great detail but we know how powerful they can be, regardless of size.

( b ) because it’s kuron’s body, maybe the connection to haggar didn’t completely shut off when keith cut off the arm. that flash that happens when the arm connects and shiro’s body starts rejecting it is very similar to the flash that happens when haggar starts controlling kuron earlier ( better explained in this headcanon piece. ) my only issue with this headcanon is that it implies haggar may still have some degree of control over shiro, and I just………….it’s been so overused, i just don’t want that for shiro anymore, so i’m most likely sticking to theory a !!!!!

still on the subject of the crystal, let’s talk about what shiro says after allura places the balmera crystal in his arm ; “i feel strange … i feel – great !” strange, as in he’s feeling something he’s never quite felt before. this is in contrast to what he feels when the first energy source is used in his arm ; “i feel … good,” but he sounds hesitant, like he doesn’t feel good at all, and obviously we see why moments afterwards. the great part is emphasised. he almost seems excited, like he really does feel great, and the scene cuts off with him trialling his arm by making a fist, and smiling. again, the properties of the crystals are pretty much undefined, but they are an immense source of power – what allura’s tiara contains is likely more than enough required to power shiro’s arm, and going back to how allura operated the castleship, and how shiro is able to operate the atlas, i’m loosely headcanoning that the crystal acts as a link between “captain” and “ship”, though obviously, allura herself channels quintessence and has so much more capabilities as a “captain.”

what does the crystal providing an energy source for not only the new prosthesis, but also shiro’s body mean for shiro? an external boost of energy and human-compatible quintessence is probably the first dose of anything resembling treatment shiro has had since the kerberos mission. i don’t see the balmera crystal nor altean healing pods having the power to edit genes but as far as healing goes, it must have some effect in alleviating pain and / or fatigue for shiro to exclaim, “i feel great !”

( a ) sometimes it’s difficult to write in a universe set in the future because things of our current reality ( social injustices, shit politics, technological limitations etc. ) may not be a reality say 100 years in the future, and add space and alien technology to the mix and you’re sort of left with a lot of potential for creation and imagination and progression but also hindered by the reality of present day and representing present day. i wouldn’t want to “magic” away shiro’s disease or magically come up with a cure, but at the same time i don’t want to take away the possibility for him to be potentially cured ( which is what the “i feel great !” line hints towards ) just because of the limitations of today.

major fanon divergences.

does not qualify as space dad. it simultaneously infantilises the other paladins and takes away from their own journeys of being forced to grow up too quickly and take on the responsibility of fighting in a war, and puts undue stress on shiro who is only ~25 himself. shiro is responsible for his team only in the role of their commanding officer at best

his prosthetic arm is not a sex toy, it’s a prosthesis ( refer to this post on arm related bed time activities )

shiro did not have a romantic connection with keith pre-kerberos. if anything the earliest signs of anything resembling a romantic connection would be late into season 2, but that is pending heavy plotting

shiro came from a happy family … he just lost almost all of it very early on. he grew up loved even though he learnt about loss too quickly

shiro cannot sing lol … i know his voice actor can but i'm ~different~

i think it’s popular headcanon for shiro to have a little sister, or a big family; i wrote his backstory with his older sister before i came across this, so i’m sticking to my original headcanon because his bond with his sister is so strongly formed in my head

shiro is not afraid of death … but he doesn’t want to die. i feel like his relationship with death needs its own post but the tl;dr version of it is that he had a timer put on his life when he was around 17 years old. life goes from seemingly endless to suddenly very very short ( not just in the sense that his lifespan is predicted to be shorter, but that his body will soon restrict him in movement and opportunity. ) and then kerberos happens, and the arena happens, and voltron and zarkon and he’s reminded that life is short regardless of whether they give you a timer at 17. any moment could be his last and shiro has had a long time to come to terms with this. it makes him incredibly grateful for the present, and of what he’s had in the past. it also is potentially why he prioritises a mission that will take him to see the stars, over a relationship with adam ten years down the track.

if anyone makes it this far … ur the real mvp, thank u for reading my brain ramblings <3

#files & about & headcanon ft. shiro.#ooc.#queue

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theres-no-protocol-for-this · 3 years ago

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6: Ground

Here's the continuation of the Voltron fanfic about a sleeping soldier and the paladins discovering he exists. The first part, if you want to check it out, is Coffin. I think the most fun snippet is actually Meaningless.

Please be mindful of your spoons as this chapter mentions the death of innocent people (but not in gory detail).

As the Lions crashed through the planet’s heavy atmosphere, Shiro braced himself for a firefight, gripping Black’s controls hard enough that his hands ached from the effort. Around him, metal screamed and groaned under the pressure of the freefall descent. Sparking like shooting stars, three machines streaked across the night sky and landed like a whisper on the wind in the thick foliage of a sprawling forest close to the village, where Galra troops crawled the surface like cockroaches.

From aboard the castle, Pidge hacked into the planet-circling satellites and coaxed, or else tricked, them into ignoring the newcomers. Enemy soldiers stationed on the ground barely blinked an eye at the incoming trails of light, more interested in one of the local settlements than about shit falling from the sky. The cruiser’s scrambled scanners didn’t even notice the unusual heat signatures, too confused by strange readings coming from this world to appreciate yet another anomaly.

Unfortunately, the rest of the mission had to happen on foot in near-total darkness, with minimal and inaccurate intel about the situation. Even with their genius hacking anything she could get her hands on, figuring out why the Galra were out here would take time. Alarms blared in Shiro’s head — under any other circumstances, he would’ve pulled the plug before they’d gotten started. Too dangerous, too many unknown variables, too unpredictable.

But the distress signal beckoned, and what choice did they have?

The paladins hurried through the treacherous undergrowth and hunkered down at the edge of the treeline while a massacre took place in the valley before them. A group of villagers wielding pitchforks and machetes stood against a dozen heavily armed soldiers with heavy rifles.

When the fighting began, the locals stood no chance. What followed could only be deemed a slaughter.

Even in the near-darkness, Shiro could read the horrified expressions on his companions’ drawn faces. Anger boiled beneath Allura’s skin while Lanced tensed with each terrified scream that reached their ears. The red paladin couldn’t see past yet more civilians dead and dying in a war they didn’t sign up for.

“We have to do something,” he growled as a child screamed and then was silenced with a single shot.

“Exactly what could we do?” the black paladin asked, voice mercifully calm. Inside, he could feel his own frustration bubbling up to the surface, helpless in the face of sentients slaughtered like cows.

The eager sharpshooter did the math and came to the same cold, brutal answers as his companions. Their odds were abysmal — low and dropping steadily into the negatives. The three paladins couldn’t take out several dozen heavily armed soldiers, not to mention a Galra warship, no matter how well they fought. They were lucky they hadn’t been caught thus far but who knew how long that luck would hold.

The large Galra cruiser probably contained another squad of attackers, maybe two, depending on how much resistance they expected to encounter. Regardless, they stood no chance against that many men, period.

“I think I’ve got it!” Pidge practically yelled in their ears.

“What’d you find?” Shiro asked, almost hesitantly. Did he really want to know?

“It looks like they came here to procure some kind of weapon.”

Allura frowned as her gaze turned inward, no longer focused on the bloody battlefield. “That doesn’t make any sense. Coran checked this planet and didn’t see any records of anything dangerous out here. This region is very sparsely populated.”

“That’s correct, princess,” Coran acknowledged. “This situation makes me feel deeply uneasy. Whatever is down there may be more dangerous than we can imagine if the Galra want to get their hands on it.”

“I concur. Stranger still, they’re executing this mission with the explicit orders to keep the weapon alive. I’m not an expert, but that sounds like they might be after a living creature to me.”

“One of the villagers maybe?”

“They’re slaughtering the villagers,” Lance moaned, binoculars in hand and enhanced vision swimming with blood.

Hunk jumped into the conversation. “I’m trying to patch into their communications channels. With any luck, their chatter will help us make sense of their behaviour.”

The blue paladin felt a chill run down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold. “Could this be?” she muttered to herself, almost too quietly to be overhead, and then shook her head in disbelief. Louder, she added, “Let’s keep our heads down and observe. If Zarkon’s men really have located a weapon, we need to do everything in our power to stop them from retrieving it.”

“Understood,” Pidge acknowledged, voice taut. “Hunk, can you give me a hand over here?”

Shiro briefly tuned out the rest of the conversation and took a moment to compose himself. His eyes drifted toward the path and the tall, imposing figure walking by themselves down the so-called road. Even silhouetted in the dark, the shape was unmistakable.

“Sendak,” he hissed to his companions, nodding at the general. “Fuck.”

Lance followed his line of sight with his binoculars. “Shit. Should we get out of here?”

“We wait.” Allura chewed on her lower lip. “It looks like he’s coming from somewhere beyond that hill. Coran, what’s east of our location?”

“According to satellite images, it appears to be some kind of ancient temple. It’s almost completely destroyed.”

“A temple? Down there? Seems strange,” Pidge added offhandedly. “Local technological level is kind of low for that sort of thing, isn’t it?”

The princess nodded her agreement and caught Shiro’s gaze. “We need to get into that temple and see what might be inside. If there is a weapon around here, I’m willing to bet we’ll find clues about it there.”

“Sneaking past the soldiers will be a problem,” Lance pointed out. “The fields might offer some protection, but with all the Galra crawling around, we’re likely to be spotted. Especially if any of them have heat vision.”

“Sendak does fur sure. The others may or may not be equipped with it,” Shiro told them.

“We’ll have to wait until the soldiers are distracted first.” Allura shook her head in frustration, mouth set in a thin, angry line. “Rushing is at this stage is dangerous.”

It turned out they didn’t have to wait long.

If you want to read more of this story click on the Blade tag and go wild.

#Blade #my writing #fanfiction #voltron #shiro #allura #lance

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