#i mean!!!! he was literally willing to sacrifice half the planet for a chance to see her again!!!! that's insane!!!!

[pastelbatfandoms]

Rebirth of The Widow- A Prequel

Inspired by Marvel dr memories I recieved. They all wanted their POVs told so here we are... I learned that I replace Natasha when she sacrifices herself in Endgame.

Red Widow Story

Endgame- Part 1

Another planet, another place., another time... Lilianne Leandre' and Clint Barton or Shadow and Hawkeye as they were known, walked among the sand dunes and lakes, the sky a purple red color, an eclipse permanently graced this place. They walked up the steps of a stone monolith. "This world would be beautiful any other time..." Lilianne observed. Yes any other time except when they were on a dangerous mission to get the infinity stones before Thanos did. And after what Red Skull had told them... {To obtain the soul stone you must sacrifice that which means most.} They knew what they had to do but not on who would do it.... Lilianne looked at Clint: You need to let me do this. I'm the only one who can. Clint: frowns in disbelief, "Says who? Just because you have magic or entities around you doesn't mean you'll survive. You don't need to do this, it should be me. " Lilianne shook her head, refusing, "You would die and we can't risk that, I won't let you." Clint just looks at her, "Really think you can stop me?" "Yes." Lilianne stares back not budging.

They stare at each other for a long while ,their heads together, until suddenly they are fighting ,both not letting the other go over the edge ,literally. But then Lili hits Clint with a burst of energy, knocking him away and jumps off the cliff. Clint is up then grabbing her by the wrist before she can fall. "I told you to let me go." Lilianne's tone is soft though not harsh. Clint is resolute as he grips tighter, "Not a chance." "Please...just let me go, it's the only way." Lilianne pleads softly with him to understand. "Lili..." Clint looks down at her, pleading with her as well to change her mind. To let it be him. Before he can say more, Lili pushes away from the cliffside letting go, Clint tries to hold on but she slips from his grasp falling to the crater below. Clint stares down in shock as a glowing yellow stone appears in his hand. Then realizing what had happened bursts into tears. "No...Lili, why I told you not too..." He sat their half expecting her to come back ,waiting for what seemed like hours until he realized she was truly gone... Meanwhile.... What Clint doesn't see, once he's gone is Tony in his Iron Man suit quietly dropping to the ground as he sees a figure on the stone ground below. "Lili..." His eyes widened in realization. Then he notices her still breathing. "You're still alive? You're shadows must have broke the fall." He muses out loud. "Jarvis health report now." He asks the super computer. {She is alive sir, but her vitals are low.} Lili was healing but barely..."She needs help." Tony picks her up flying her out of the cavern.

Once upon the sand dunes he sees a bunch of vehicles and people dressed in military black step up. SHIELD. "We'll take her from here." A male voice says once Tony puts her down, he lets them pull her away, still partly conscience. "Careful she can barely move." He says still in shock. "we got her Tony, she'll be okay." Phil Coulson walks up. Tony's eyes narrow, "How do you know?" "I know someone who can help." Coulson answers. "Not Fury." Tony says not trusting Nick Fury to do anything right ot moral. Coulson gives a firm shake of his head, "No he's still in hiding. Plus we need someone who knows what she can handle. Inside and out..." Tony's eyes widen, "Not...Zemo?! You can't be serious." Tony gets into Coulson's face then. Speaking of morals or lack thereof.... Coulson looks him in the eye not backing down, "He's the only one we know who would be willing to help her and do what needs to be done." "She's like a daughter to me, I'm not letting her anywhere near that-" Coulson cuts him off, "She IS my daughter, I won't let anything bad happen to her but I won't let her die either. So are you with us?" Tony looks away angry for a moment, conflicted. Then finally says, "Fine. But just help her ,don't let her suffer." "We won't. Just...Tony don't tell The Avengers about this. It's better they think Lili dead for now. Especially Bucky." Coulson gave Tony a warning look at that. Tony nodded subdued. "Yeah fine. I won't." With that promise Tony watches as SHIELD takes Lilianne away. Hoping this would work. and not backfire like all those other times....

Once at the german prison, Coulson walks into the room where Helmut Zemo is in a glass containment cell. Zemo doesn't look up when Coulson enters, only after Phil says, "We need your help." Zemo looks up curious, "Never thought I'd hear that from SHIELD." Coulson: Never though I'd say it. But this isn't about SHIELD or HYDRA." Zemo squints up at him a bit confused, "Then what is it? Why do you think I'd possibly help SHIELD?" "Again. Not SHIELD, well not technically. I know you'd never help us, without turning on us that is. But you would help her." Coulson states, hands clasped in front of him trying to appear more together than he felt. Zemo follows Coulson's look towards the door, as he sees someone being wheeled in, a sinking feeling of who it was gnawed at Zemo's insides. Zemo's stomach dropped as he slowly looked down at the body laying on the hospital bed barely breathing. "Lilianne..." Coulson gave a grim look, sadness behind his eyes as he looked down at his daughter. "She's dying." Zemo blinked back tears as he tried to collect himself. "What happened?" "Decided to sacrifice herself for a stupid yellow rock." "Avengers mission of course...she always did make needless sacrifices for you lot." Zemo replied bitterly. "Made a lot of sacrifices for you as well if I recall." Coulson shot back, his expression blank. Zemo never took his eyes off her as he said, "It was never personal." "I remember Lilianne thinking differently. Might have meant more if it was." Zemo shot him a look but didn't say anything. "She's not healing." Not fast enough anyway. Coulson nods, "She has some broken bones. Which is why we need your help. You know her powers better than we do..." Coulson trailed off not liking to admit that. "She's healed before. This time-" "That was from being stabbed. This is much worse, she would have died if it wasn't for the alien blood." Zemo interrupted, lost in thought. "They aren't strong enough to heal bones." "They?" Coulson frowned in question. Zemo shook his head, "Not important. I know what to do but she or you may not like that." Zemo gazed down at her more critically now. Coulson lip shrugged with a shake of his head, "I don't have to like it as long as she's alive and safe. As for Lili...she won't remember this..." Zemo studied Coulson curious what he meant but having an idea. As a glimmer of regret passes over Coulson's features before it's gone just as quickly. "Does that mean I get a out of jail free card?" He questioned. Coulson gives him a harsh look before replying, " For now. And then you're going right back in." Zemo nods low in agreement. As Coulson makes a gesture towards the guards to unlock Zemo's cell. "You better not try anything. No brainwashing her to your side again, I'll know and so will Bucky." Coulson threatened. Knowing Bucky would kill The Baron. "I won't. As much as you all tried to pin that on me, that was HYDRA. I was only following orders." Zemo told him as he walked out of his cell, cuffs immediately placed on him, but escaping was not on Zemo's mind then as he walked straight over to Lili, placing a hand on her head. "I only ever wanted to make her stronger."

Part 2

[adammilligan]

THINKING about adam and kate again and how all the background information we're given about adam was that he was fundamentally a Good Son. good enough grades to graduate with honors, loves his mom, raised himself when she couldn't, etc. and it's so LONELY growing up an only child much less one that would have to be alone all the time because kate was either working at night or sleeping in the day!!! and it makes me wonder why someone as close to his mom as adam would go to a whole other state for college instead of just staying in minnesota. i wonder if kate kind of pushed him to go away. like granted he only went one state over to wisconsin but still! i wonder if adam kind of grew up with the same mindset a lot of kids who watch the parent(s) that they love struggle which is yknow that they'll postpone college and stick around and work and help. genuinely kind of wonder if kate shooed him out of the house because she has that same sort of "i want you to be better than this" love that a lot of parents have because they don't want their kids to end up in the same situation as them. and of course adam wouldn't argue about it of course he'd pack his things and move a whole state over to a public university in a country where out-of-state tuition is sky high and he'd aim for a career that pays more than kate's. because kate wants him to be better. because he's a good son.

[trek-tracks]

Hello i love your blog soo much!! I just finished to read your fics recommendations. And everyone of it were so good and well written i can't even start describing it!!?? I almost had a heart attack half way through them 💛 I wanna ask you if you can give us more suggestions. You 👏have 👏such 👏a 👏good 👏taste.

All right. So. Sorry to leave this unanswered for like three weeks, but I had many thoughts to think on it! Thank you so much for your kind words about my blog; they mean a lot. So much, that I’ll destroy any pretense on Tumblr that I don’t read fan fiction, just for you. See what I do for you? :)

If anyone reads my blog at all, I think I’m pretty clearly biased toward Bones (“What?! No way!” says everyone, extremely sarcastically), so all these fics are Bones-centric. Sorry, that’s just what you’re going to get with me, but if you like my blog, chances are you have a soft spot for Bones as well.

I think you have already seen my post where I recommended, along with Equilibrium (#1 and still champion) and everything else PSW has written for TOS, some other gen TOS fics with Triumvirate feels, but here they are again for everyone else:

Hope, Logic and Other Wastes of Time by pantswarrior (the return of Xenopolycythemia, with fantastic characterization)

Watching the Watcher by stillwaters01 (and everything else by her as well): Great for Bones and Chapel, very medically detailed, hugely introspective.

Mudd in Your Eye and The Vestorian Quandary by Avirra (who also has some excellent series work; these have really interesting plots and Bones badassery)

Now, here are some more recommendations. This is by no means a comprehensive list of everything, only my thoughts at the current moment. One writer I was going to recommend deleted everything from AO3, alas. I might add on to it later, as I am absolutely sure I’ve forgotten things. To try to narrow this down, I’m going to try to steer clear of complete AUs. Mostly.

As is my wont, I am also largely going to recommend non-explicit or only briefly-explicit stuff, as I try to keep this blog on the PG side. I can’t remember all the details about everything, so check the tags before you decide to read, and make the decision that’s best for you.

Gen TOS recommendations:

Through a Mirror Darkly by GenuineSnoof is new; it’s a TOS/AOS crossover with Prime Spock and Bones (both Boneses, in different times) dealing with the Mirror, Mirror mind meld.

Other Gen stuff dealing with the Mirror, Mirror mind meld includes

Memories From A Past Not My Own by PSW 

Of Mirrors by EmRose92 

Bad Luck and Broken Soul by @apathetic-revenant

The Wicked and Divine by Danzinora Switch (also try by this writer: Peace and Long Life, where Spock and McCoy accidentally transport themselves to Vulcan’s far past; Silence is Key, McCoy vs. Romulans; and Project Memory, one of few worthwhile codas to Spock’s Brain)

ThatSassyCaptain writes some good stuff. Weight is a nice shortish character study off some canon episodes. The Dog Days Are Most Certainly Not Over features McCoy and giant doglike creatures. It’s very silly, and very enjoyable. Also, its sequel just happened to update yesterday for the first time in something like a year.

I remember KCS being a good writer. Try Watching the Watchman, but look around at other stuff, too. 

Incubation by Swiss Army Knife: Bones comes back from City on the Edge of Forever with smallpox and has to find a cure before he and everyone on the ship dies. Kirk is a jerk (okay, he’s still traumatized over Edith, but still). Spock is awesome. #ProtectHim 

icarus_chained writes some great short character studies.

There are some very long works by Mary R. and Lynn S., which are older pieces but luckily online; try Unspoken Truths, which deals with The Enterprise Incident, and Betrayed (So. Much. Angst. So much. This one is really well-written, but also a really hard read.)

I haven’t read The Dorian Solution in a long time (it’s novel-length, as I remember), but it’s a very interesting premise: McCoy and Kirk accidentally partake in a planet’s ritual that allows one person to take on all the other person’s subsequent injuries. Guess who gets the short end of the stick on this one?)

Imperfections by Amatara: Canon expansion: episode/movie scene additions from The Man Trap to Generations. Fantastic characterizations and UGH MY HEART at that ending.

Gen AOS recommendations:

anonymous - The One Who Is Fire. Bones screws up a First Contact by being emotional. Gets whumped. Much action; much angst. Very Triumvirate. Just on this side of overwrought, but very satisfying and full of the feels.

rustingroses - That Which We Find In Others. Spock and Bones. Earthquake. Trapped. Long talk. Fascinating.

Hollow Earth by beamirang (yes, another xenopolycythemia fic. Whatever. Everyone bands together to find a cure. Many feels.)

Aini_NuFire - Do No Harm: Short adventure with more Bones badassery

Now, various slash-type-things. 

TOS/Both TOS and AOS

@klmeri is the reigning champion of McSpirk fic, is all-around stellar, and has even written a couple of stories based on my overly-detailed prompts: Grave or Gone and In Winter Snow Angels Sacrifice. My favourite, though, is Younger than Stars, which has a great, conspiracy-filled plot, and feels aplenty. But just read starting anywhere, honestly. Read them all.

TheRev - Lovely writing. Spones. Try This Must Be the Place (AOS with Spock Prime/McCoy Prime; you will cry)  or Nothing By Halves (TOS) 

Eddaic - The Wind Here Sings: TOS Spones. Canon-adjacent. Very poetic.

AOS

I’ve already recommended @fireinmywoods’ sneaky, intricately-plotted and swoonworthy Palimpsest and other writing (McKirk), but for comprehensiveness’ sake, here she is as well (she’s also one of my favourite humans on Tumblr). Sometimes explicit.

Mardia - Fortunate Son: AU where Kirk wasn’t on Tarsus IV, but Bones was, as a 19-year-old doctor under the supervision of Dr. Philomena Boyce. The writing on this one is phenomenal, and the use of interwoven flashbacks with the present is stunning. Even explains why Kirk and McCoy’s eye colours switch in AOS. This is a must-read. One sex scene; can be skipped. McKirk.

laughter_now writes some great stuff. Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder is also a must-read. So much suspense, featuring Bones being a righteous self-sacrificing badass and awesome doctor. For sheer h/c angst and suspense with a happy ending and a description of drowning that literally made my lungs hurt in sympathy, go for Hold on Tight, I’ll Hold My Breath. McKirk.

Zauzat’s Honourable Enemies is also a must; it has one of the most satisfyingly-crafted plot resolutions I’ve seen in fic. Everything from the beginning pays off at the end. Everything. It’s pretty much movie-ready, except it’s Spones, and I think Beyond is about the Sponesiest they’d ever be willing to go. https://archiveofourown.org/works/225404/chapters/341313

PrairieDawn’s A Matter of Trust strung me out for the past 24 agonizing weeks, but just finished; lucky you. Spones AU with Kirk and McCoy on a medical ship captained by Pike. Joanna was injured in the Vengeance incident and has telepathy issues. Spock is a healer. Makes good use of the Operation: Annihilate! premise. Crisp, evocative, compelling writing. 

JoulesMer does a bunch of effective McKirk stuff with Pike and Boyce. Try The Red Wheelbarrow, Xenopolycythemia, or S.O.S. Great for angst and feels and happiness, romance and self-sacrificing idiots. Some stuff is rather explicit.

Gammadolphin is another very entertaining writer who does a lot of McKirk/McSpirk and AUs. It’s all pretty worthwhile, even the incomplete ones. Try A Wish in the Dark for a Bulletproof Heart (similar premise to The Dorian Solution, actually). Also has a range of stuff from non-explicit to explicit.

The Time and Space Are Not Conditions By Which We Live Series by ijen: McSpirky mission moments.

…okay, I’m going to cut it here for my own sanity. Aren’t you sorry you asked?

[numeronubisexualhawkeye]

Be Kind, Rewind

2278 words

@thatahjuma

(ngl cheif, almost didn’t do this one cause it was kinda hard for me lmao)

It was Quill's idea. All of the guardians and Thor had been onboard in an instant, but Clint was hesitant when Nebula had come forward to tell him the plan. He missed Natasha more than words could describe, but Clint wasn’t one to try to fuck with the dead.

He had already time travelled twice in one week, fought an alien army for the second time in his life, and ran around with a glove with stones powerful enough to wipe out a planet, all in the course of 72 hours. Necromancy was something he probably should have expected to be next on his involuntary to-do list, but not like this. Not with Natasha.

She had quite literally given her life for the fate of the universe, so that he could live to see victory. Undoing her sacrifice felt selfish, and a part of him feared that undoing her death would somehow undo the battle against Thanos. It also felt incredibly unfair. Who was he, or any of the guardians, to play G-d? Clint could understand Quill’s need to do this, Gamora had had no choice in Thanos being her father and being killed for the soul stone. But Natasha, she was different. It felt disrespectful to go for such a long shot to bring her back. She had wanted to jump, had bet her life that it would work, and it did. They won. Hurt like a bitch, but Clint was ready to accept that she had died as she had lived; working to save the world. He wasn’t sure if he was willing to undo what she’d done all because he missed her.

But Bruce confirmed the math (even if almost all of it was completely theoretical), and everyone onboard was willing to give it a shot. Worst case scenario, everyone hangs it up, and tries to move on with life, try to carve out something new among the old ashes of a missing loved one. Best case scenario, well Clint knew what that was, but he was still too afraid to think on it. What if she came back angry? Would she even come back the same? Would the Red Skull even let her come back at all? There was only one way to find out. He packed his bags, boarded the ship, and held on as Rocket piloted them to lightspeed back to Vormir.

Clint was almost mesmerized when he saw Vormir appear out of the vast blackness of space when Rocket pulled them out of lightspeed. But when the realization of what they were here to attempt to do flooded his mind again, he felt uneasy. This felt like a mistake waiting to happen. It wasn’t going to work, there was too much working against them for this to work. They were about to mess with a magic Clint had never seen before. Even after being around aliens for the last 24 hours and seeing the Infinity Stones’ power for himself, he still felt like they were meddling with something completely out of their realm of comprehension.

They exited the ship, Quill leading them at first, but Nebula stopped them halfway up the mountain and turned to Clint. “You should address the guardian.” she said.

He had been nervous before, but hearing her suggestion, it made him want to turn around and wait on the ship. The plan had originally been for Quill to go first, seeing as Gamora had died more recently than Natasha had. If everything went smoothly and she came back, then that would mean that the chance of bringing Natasha back were better than the some odd million to one chances that Bruce had offered when he hypothesized their plan back at on Earth. If he went forward first and this didn’t work, he didn’t know what he would do. He had failed to turn up to fight Thanos, wasted five years brooding and killing, left Natasha alone to deal with trying to run the Avengers and save the world by herself, and when he finally came back, he barely had any time to appreciate those last few hours they had had together. He had always envisioned the both of them making it out together. That they would be together right now, leaving the guardians to fight their own battle alone and finally leave the world in the hands of some of the fresher Avengers. But all of that had dropped into oblivion when Natasha let go of his hand. But now, well now he had a chance to get it all back. A very fragile and slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. Their plan wasn’t foolproof, but he would much rather stick to it than wing it and hope for the best.

“Nebula, seriously?” Quill said stepping towards Clint. “I really doubt some guy is gonna be able to handle whatever Hellraiser here is gonna throw at him.”

Nebula’s expression didn’t change. She simply shot a glance between Quill and Clint. “You’re wrong. He’s been here before. Tried to give his life to save Natasha so she could bring the stone back. He can do it.”

“I’m flattered,” Clint started, “but,” he didn’t have time to formulate a full answer.

“Clint, son of Edith.” the Red Skull said. He floated down from the cliffs above. Had he been able to hear them this entire time? “Nebula, daughter of Thanos. Peter, son of,”

“Okay, enough with the role call,” Quill cut in. “We’re here to bargain.” Quill reached inside his pocket and held out the soul stone. It had been agreed upon that he would be the one to carry it, seeing as he had held the power stone years before without dying.

The Red Skull didn’t say anything. As a matter of fact, he looked, confused. His eyes squinted and he reached out his hand for the stone when Quill held it out. “No one has ever brought it back.” he explained. He paused again, and looked at Clint. “You have come for an exchange?”

Nebula’s plan to have Clint speak instead seemed to be set in motion even though no one had agreed on it. “Yes. You remember me?” Clint asked.

The guardian nodded. “Of course. Few ever follow through with the exchange for the stone. But even fewer willingly give themselves for it.”

Clint fought against the lump in his throat as he remembered he and Natasha fighting each other as they raced to the cliff’s edge. “It should have been me. If I switch places, and you bring Natasha back,”

“Barton what are you doing?” Quill hissed beside him. “This wasn’t the plan.”

“We’re fucking with death Quill, you really think any kind of plan was going to hold water here?” Clint whispered harshly. “We have to play by his rules, or turn around with our tails between our legs. If this doesn’t work, then nothing else will.”

Clint was willing to give his life for Natasha. He had done it so many times before back when Shield was still around, G-d all those missions seemed so trivial compared to what he was trying to do now. Jumping in front of a fire fight to pull Natasha to cover felt like a walk in a park to this. But he was willing to do it. He was already willing to give his life for the soul stone before, and not just for Natasha, but for the fate of the universe. Now that the dust had settled and he had a second chance, a chance to do things right in his eyes, he wasn’t too eager to screw that up because Quill suddenly had a penchant for doing things according to plan.

He held his hand out to Quill. “Give me the stone.” he instructed. “I can’t make any promises, but I will try my hardest to bring Gamora back.”

Quill looked away for a moment, his face twisted as he weighed the very limited options. It was either this, or they both jump and hope the Red Skull accepted 50/50 deals. “Fine.” Quill said at last. “But if this doesn’t work, I swear to G-d, I will dig you up and kick your corpse’s ass.”

He hadn’t said it to be funny, but Clint smirked anyway. “It’s going to work. He took the stone from Quill and walked to the Red Skull. “A soul for a soul, that’s what you said right?”

The Skull’s expression was unchanged. “Follow me.”

Clint gave one last glance over his shoulder to the guardians as he walked to the mountaintop. This is the only way. He thought. It’s better this way. Natasha was going to come back, the scales would be tipped to order. Clint just prayed that his promise to Quill would hold up, he couldn’t stand to think if he had wasted another life and kept another couple apart because of his selfishness.

At the mountaintop, Clint swore he could hear the ghost of he and Natasha’s conversation in his ears. To the Red Skull, that had been almost a decade ago, but to Clint, it had barely been two days. He walked to the edge, the Red Skull following closely behind him.

“A soul for a soul.” he repeated. He looked back to the guardian, “Will this even work?”

The Skull didn’t answer. He just held out his hand. Clint looked at the stone in his hand one last time. For a moment, he wondered if he could bring the Red Skull down with him. When he and Natasha had first come to Vormir, he had said that he knew all there was about the stone. He had seen G-d knows how many people come to try and get the stone, the few that did leaving half the person that they had been before. Those souls and bodies didn’t just disappear. They had to go somewhere. The stone was the only logical answer, but if that were true, then they would have been released when Bruce snapped his fingers.

A soul for a soul.

Clint held his hand out toward the Red Skull, and when he brushed his hand with his to take it, Clint lunged forward off the cliff. He tried to be quick with his grappling hook to catch himself, but the added weight of the Red Skull pulled him down too fast. Falling through the air, he felt impossibly slow, but he still reached out for the cliff wall, praying to find any ledge to take hold of. But there was none, and he finished the fall with the Red Skull, the soul stone forgotten in the air around them as he met the stone floor of the ground below.

There was a rush of sound around him. Wind? An explosion? No, no it was quieter than that. It was voices. Only a few of them, but he was sure that’s what he was hearing. But as quickly as they came, they were gone, the air in his ears popping as if the air was rushing to fill in the void that the voices had left when they vanished.

Clint’s eyes snapped open, he was staring up at the same purple-black sky that he had seen when he awoke with the soul stone. He bolted upward, his back soaked, he was in the same pool of water as last time.

“No.” Clint whispered to himself. He looked down at his hand, and there was the soul stone, the soft glow a beacon in his hand, telling him that he had failed twice now. “No. No, no, no, no.” he cried.

It didn’t work. Of course it didn’t work. Just like he had suspected, they had tried to play G-d, and G-d played back.

He put his face in his hands and heaved out a sob. He didn’t care if the guardians heard him. He had failed again. Now, not only had he gone against Natasha’s dying wish and every conceivable law of nature, but himself as well.

“Who the hell are you?” a voice nearby said.

Clint looked up and saw a woman, no, an alien, green skin and all, standing a few feet away from him. “Gamora?” he whispered. She backed away slowly when she looked down and saw the stone in Clint’s hand.

“Hey, hey, no. I, I wasn’t supposed to get this. It was supposed to be a tra-”

“Clint.”

This time the voice came from behind him, but he didn’t need to turn around to see who it belonged to. He would know her voice long after he had passed on. Natasha.

Slowly, he allowed himself to turn around. When he saw her, he broke. They walked toward each other, his arms stretched wide, ready to pull him into his embrace. When they met in the middle, she pushed him away with tears in her eyes.

“I told you to go. You weren’t supposed to come back. I told you it was okay!” Despite the anger in her voice, she cried. But he wasn’t listening. He pulled her to him and kissed her, letting the stone drop to the water as he pressed his hands against her back. She was there, she was alive, she was real.

“You know I’m a jackass.” he said when he finally paused for air.

Natasha let out a short laugh. “Fuck. Me dying to save the literal universe just wasn’t good enough, huh?”

Clint didn’t even know what to say. He just kissed her again and took her hand, as he lead them and Gamora back to the guardians and the ship, so they could finally live in the victory they deserved.

[naruwitch]

Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron Chapter 5: Rise of Voltron Part 5

"Alright, let's not panic!" Lelouch said as soon as Sendak's transmission ended.

"Not panic?" Shirley asked, her voice already shaking, "Th-the scary purple alien thing is driving his battleships toward us. We only got five lions-"

"Technically only four working lions," Suzaku pointed out.

"That's right, thank you, Suzaku. Four working lions, and a castle that's like ten thousand years old!"

"Actually, it's ten thousand, six hundred years old," Coran informed them and adjusted his collar as if about to give an important presentation. He always loved speaking about his proud family line. "You see it was built by my grandfather-"

"Thanks, Coran, thank you for that," Shirley interrupted, pinching Coran's lips shut, much to the man's shock and disappointment, "See? Now is the perfect time to panic!"

"No, it isn't!" Milly argued back, "If anything, now's the time to put our heads together and come up with a plan! We won't win this battle if we act like a bunch of wild dogs chasing their tails."

"Wait!" Allura exclaimed in realization, "This castle has a particle barrier we can activate!"

"Okay," said Kallen, "and how long will that hold?"

Coran pulled up an outline of the Galra ship on the screen in front of them. The main cannon on the battleship highlighted in red. "The barrier won't hold Sendak's ion cannon forever. The Galra technology must have advanced since we fought them last."

"Panic now?" asked Shirley, still trembling.

"No," Lelouch said firmly, "we just need to figure out our plan of attack, and figure it out fast." Lelouch's brain was working in overdrive to try and figure this out. However, there were so many unknown factors; he was having a hard time thinking of a plan. After all, this would technically be their first official battle with the Galra. He didn't count their scrimmage on Earth or Rivalz and Shirley's retrieval mission since the first didn't count as a 'battle,' and Lelouch wasn't present in the later.

Rivalz spoke up, raising his hand, "I say we pop through a wormhole and live to fight another day."

"I second that, yes," Shirley agreed immediately, "I mean, we tried to find all the lions, right? Gave it the old college try, couldn't do it. We only have four; we can't form Voltron. I-I mean, I guess we could form a snake? Or a worm! To go through the hole, Rivalz was talking about."

"Then it's settled," Rivalz said before smirking flirtatiously at Allura, "Allura, you ride with me." He then leaned his head towards Coran, "One of you take the old guy." Coran began fuming in rage at the comment.

"Wait! We can't just abandon Arus!" Rai protested, "The Galra will keep destroying planets and capturing prisoners until we stop them!"

"That may be true," Suzaku said, "but if you think about it, the Lions are ultimately the Galra's targets. If we leave Arus, the Galra may follow us and leave the planet alone. That's what happened on Earth, remember? There must be some planets the Galra are willing to let be."

"Yeah!" Rivalz nodded, "Then we form the snake thingamajig, and we sliver out of here!" He made slivering motions with his arms to emphasize.

Milly spoke, "But now Zarkon knows the Lions are back. Even if we do run, how far will we get before they catch us, not to mention the number of planets and people he'll kill just to do it? It's only going to get more dangerous from here on out! Also, if I may add, judging by their complexion, those Galra guys could use some beauty sleep… or a facial, I'm just saying."

"Exactly!" Rai agreed, "About the Lions and all that, not the facial thing… although I'll agree with you on that too."

"Besides, why don't you use your quiznacking head for a moment," Kallen protested, glaring at Suzaku. Coran and Allura flinched and gaped at Kallen as if she just said a foul word. "Did it occur to you that Sendak could just destroy Arus, and then come after us anyway? Staying is our only option!"

"First of all, I don't think you used that 'quiznack' word correctly, and second you don't know that!" Suzaku objected, gritting his teeth.

"We're not abandoning these people!"

"We're leaving!" Suzaku shouted.

"We're staying!" Kallen yelled back, with more vigor than they ever witnessed back at school, but everyone was too caught up in the situation to notice.

"Leaving!" Rivalz exclaimed.

"Staying!" Milly and Rai proclaimed together.

"Snake!" Shirley cried in panic.

"ENOUGH!" Lelouch roared with a tone of finality, showing pure fury on his face, "Listen to yourselves! Arguing isn't getting us anywhere! I've said it once, and I'll repeat it if we want to survive this; we need to work together!"

Everyone else turned their backs to one another, the votes to leave and stay divided in half. Suzaku, Rivalz, and Shirley stood on one side wanting to go, and Rai, Milly, and Kallen on the other wishing to stay and fight. C.C. stood off to the side, observing.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Lelouch turned to the one person in the room who may know what to do, "Princess Allura, these are your lions. You've dealt with the Galra Empire before. You know what we're facing better than any of us. What do you think is the best course of action?"

For the first time since the new paladins arrived in her castle, Allura felt doubt and fear swell inside. For truth be told… she didn't know what to do. It had literally been thousands of years since she had faced the Galra. As much as she hated to admit it, Shirley was right. Without the Red and Purple Lions, they couldn't unlock the Black Lion to form Voltron, and she knew that they needed Voltron to win this war. With Sendak on his way to destroy the planet and only four working lions, there was no way to know if it would be enough to beat them.

"I-I don't know," Allura admitted, looking down at the floor in dismay.

"What do you mean you don't know!" Kallen exclaimed in frustration, which only seemed to make the princess falter more.

"Perhaps… your father could help," Coran said, catching their attention.

"My father?" Allura asked in confusion.

"Wait," Rivalz said, voicing everyone's confusion, "I thought you said her father was dead?"

"Well… not exactly."

o~o

Allura followed Coran down a dark corridor, pitch black except for the neon blue glow of the Altean symbols on the walls and ceilings. A large door slid open in front of them, revealing a holodeck interface on the inside — a glowing light in the very center.

"Coran," Allura gasped, "what is this?"

"King Alfor knew there was a chance he might never see you again. So his memories, his very being, was stored in this computer for you." Coran explained as Allura approached the glowing orb of light.

Allura reached out her hand to touch it as the orb rose into the air. Suddenly, blue sparks expanded, growing in size, turning from blue to yellow, showering the dark room, filling it with light. The pretty scenery changed from a dark room to a field of lush green grass and beautiful magenta flowers — mountains formed in the distance and white puffy clouds floating in the crystal blue sky. If the inside of the room still didn't smell of metal, Allura would have thought that it was real. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears as she never imagined she'd see anything of Altea again.

A metallic ringing filled the air. A ray of blue light arose from the holodeck, forming the body of a man. It was transparent as a ghost, but he still looked as sharp and regal as when he was alive. His skin tone was identical to Allura's with icy blue eyes, silvery-white hair, and white and yellow battle armor with a long blue cape adorning his form. Despite this, though, King Alfor's eyes looked tired and worn but still held the immense love they always had.

"Father!" Allura gasped and ran towards the holoform, "Father, it is so good to see you!"

"Allura, my only child, how I've missed your face," the image said with a sad smile.

Despite her happiness, though, Allura could barely hold back tears of despair. "I'm so frightened! A Galra ship is set to attack, and I don't know what to do," the princess explained, all but collapsing at the image's feet, "Please, Father, I need your help."

"I would do anything to take this burden from you," Alfor responded sadly.

"I don't know if we should run, to preserve what we have, or stay and risk everything! I want to fight, but the paladins of old are gone… I know what you would do," she said, gazing up at the man as if she were only a child.

"I scattered the Lions of Voltron to keep them out of Zarkon's hands. You urged me to keep them and fight, but for the greater good of protecting the universe, I chose to hide them."

"I think I understand," Allura said.

"No daughter," Alfor said, "You were right. I made a terrible mistake, one that cost the universe countless lives. Forming Voltron is the only way to stop Zarkon. You must be willing to sacrifice everything to assemble the Lions and correct my error."

o~o

It didn't take long for Allura to exit the room her father resided. When she entered the control room once again, she was now wearing a full-body white jumpsuit, with purple, black, and pink outlines. Her hair was styled into a messy bun with ringlets by her ears. The look on her face and fire in her eyes all but told the paladins, C.C., and Coran her answer.

"You seven paladins were brought here for a reason," Allura said, no tremor present in her tone whatsoever. "The Voltron Lions are meant to be piloted by you, and you alone. We must fight and keep fighting until we defeat Zarkon. It is our destiny. Voltron is the universe's only hope. We are the universe's only hope."

Lelouch responded with a sentence he never thought would come out of his mouth again in his lifetime. But it still held the same finality as when he was commanding the Black Knights as Zero. It was a tone that left no room for argument. "We're with you, princess."

C.C. only grinned in anticipation as the other paladins nodded, some reluctantly, in agreement.

'This just got interesting…'

o~o

Allura led the seven paladins to a dark room that suddenly lit up with light as they entered. Within it, in a semi-circle against the wall, were seven pods almost identical to the ones Coran and Allura woke up from. Only instead of people inside, there were seven identical suits of armor. They looked almost like the armor that medieval Britannian knights wore, just with a bit of a sci-fi flair added to them. They consisted of dark gray to light black full-body undersuits and topped with stiffer segments of white armor, and just like Allura's suit, they each had a large 'V' showing on the chest plates. The only differences in them were each had a different color outlining it: blue, red, yellow, black, purple, green, and orange.

"Your suits of armor," Allura presented as the paladins walked up to their corresponding color, examined it, mumbled in admiration and amazement at the design.

"Cool!" Rai said.

"Nice," Kallen grinned.

"Outstanding," Lelouch breathed.

"Neat," Shirley said.

"Love it!" Milly exclaimed.

"I'll take it," Suzaku said.

"This is going to be awesome!" Rivalz squealed like a fangirl as he looked at his blue armor with stars in his eyes.

"Princess," Coran said, pulling at his mustache as he eyed them with skepticism, "are you sure about this? They aren't exactly the best and brightest the universe has to offer."

"No, but they're all we've got," In any other situation, Allura would have shared her caretaker's same opinion, but time was of the essence.

"Paladins of Voltron!" Lelouch proclaimed with a smirk on his face, shared by all the others, "Suit up!"

Armor was placed, belts were buckled, plates were adjusted, helmets were mounted, and (for Shirley and Milly) hair was pulled up in buns. It wasn't long before the new Paladins of Voltron stood before the Alteans, an air of confidence surrounding them all.

Allura placed her hand over a glowing table in the same room, a symbol glowing brightly in the middle. The blue outline then vanished to reveal six handle-like objects which levitated before them, each corresponding to a color of the paladins.

"The Bayard is the traditional weapon of the Paladins of Voltron," she explained as the Bayards all floated towards their respective wielder, "it takes a distinct shape for each Paladin."

Once the Orange Bayard landed in Shirley's palm, the object glowed a bright orange before narrowing and widening to form a very sturdy and versatile bow. A quiver of arrows appeared behind her back along with it. She hummed in slight skepticism as she never really used a bow or any other weapon in her life. Still, if the princess said it took shape depending on who wielded it, she'd have to figure it out.

The Red Bayard found its way to Kallen's hand, which immediately shifted into what looked like a sizeable gloved gauntlet with what appeared to be silver opening that was closed in the middle. She raised an eyebrow in confusion she nearly leaped back in surprise as three long claw-like blades appeared between her fingers. They looked almost identical to that of Wolverine's claws from the X-men. Smirking, she raised the clawed cestus to her face the same way she'd seen the famous X-men do on the movie covers, a matching wolfish grin spreading across her face.

When Milly got hold of the Yellow Bayard, it also glowed until she felt what appeared to be metal in one hand, and a handle of something in another. After the light cleared, she quirked her eyebrow in intrigue as a scythe attached to a silver chain appeared in her hands with yellow outlining it. Milly had seen ninja from old Japanese anime and movies wield a weapon like this. A kusarigama, she recalled. Grabbing hold of the chain just below the handle, Milly twirled it around in a tight circle before grabbing hold of the handle stop it.

"Stylish, functional, and deadly," the Yellow Paladin smiled mischievously, "the perfect combination."

Suzaku reached for his Bayard, which took the form of a traditional Japanese katana blade but seemed to have the handle of a longsword, mixing both Japanese and Britannia sword styles. Then the purple band on his wrist created a transparent blue shield, making him look like a sci-fi knight in shining armor. The Honorary Britannian smirked as he swung the katana around a few times before striking a finishing battle pose.

Rivalz held his Bayard as it shifted into the form of a rifle. Confidently, he laughed as he aimed the gun around, pretending to shoot at oncoming enemies.

Rai's Bayard turned into an arrow-like blade, glowing a bright forest green. He swung it around, pretending to slice at an invisible threat. It was the smallest of all the Bayards, but it also seemed to be the most agile and most comfortable to control.

"Aw! You got a cute little Bayard, Rai," Rivalz teased. Rai smirked and struck Rivalz with it, which sent out an electric shock through the secretary's body, causing him to cry out in pain before falling to the floor, twitching slightly. Milly and the others all laughed.

"Yeah," the platinum blonde said, smiling smugly, "it is pretty cute."

The only one who hadn't received his Bayard was Lelouch, whom Allura turned to with a show of regret on her face.

"Lelouch, I'm afraid your Bayard was lost with its Paladin."

The former prince simply shrugged. He probably would be useless on the front lines anyway with his lackluster body, unless he was inside his lion. And if all else failed, he could always use his Geass. "I'll just have to make do then."

o~o

Back in the control room, the Paladins, Allura, and Coran pulled up the image of the battleship once again, planning their course of action.

"You'll have to retrieve the Red and Purple Lions from Sendak's ship," Allura explained.

"That's a pretty big ship…" Suzaku said.

"Yeah," Kallen said, "how are we going to know where the Lions are?"

"Well, it's not a matter of we," Milly said, "it's more of a matter of you two." Suzaku and Kallen blinked in confusion.

"The Prez is right," Shirley said, "once you get in, you'll be able to like feel its presence and track it down."

"Yeah, you know how Rai felt that crazy energy back on Earth by the lake?" Rivalz asked.

"Yeah…" Kallen said with Suzaku slowly nodding.

"Hey! Didn't you make fun of me for that?" asked Rai accusingly.

"Yep! And I'm proud of it, but it turns out it's exactly like that mumbo jumbo."

"Kallen, Suzaku, remember, though the Red Lion is more than the Purple, both of them are extremely temperamental. You'll have to earn their respect," Allura said.

Kallen and Suzaku both tensed, Lelouch and C.C. being the only ones noticing. Unlike everyone else, who just found their lions and poof instant connection and new mechanical cat to ride, they were both going to have to work to ride their lions. Just like everything else they had to do in their lives, whether against or for Brittania. They had to earn it.

However, they received some reassurance when Lelouch placed his hands on their shoulders. They could do this.

"Alright," said Lelouch, "here's our plan of attack..."

o~o

Shirley and Rivalz soared above the atmosphere of Arus, approaching the Galra battleship cautiously.

"The Galra Empire knows about the Blue and Orange Lion…"

Meanwhile, Milly and Rai flew in with their lions from behind, carefully so that the battleship didn't notice. They weaved in and around the asteroids before them.

"...However, the advantage we have is that they don't know we have the Yellow and Green Lion as well. Shirley, Rivalz, you two will act as decoys by pretending to give yourselves up…"

"Attention Galra ship," Rivalz said after seeing the Galra picked up their signal, "do not fire, we're surrendering our Lions."

Shirley gulped, "I hope this works…"

"...While Sendak is distracted, Milly, Rai, Suzaku, Kallen, and I will sneak onto the ship in the Yellow and Green Lion. Suzaku and I will go to find the Purple Lion, while Kallen and Rai find the Red Lion. Milly will guard our exit. Rivalz, Shirley, find some way to take down that ion cannon."

Milly and Rai both landed on the underside of the ship. Making sure that the Lions would stay in place, Rai exited and used his Bayard to cut a clean hole in the wall, allowing the five to sneak in.

Meanwhile, a set of giant doors opened in front of the Orange and Blue Lion. Not knowing what would happen next but remaining calm, Rivalz spoke through the commlinks in their helmets, "Milly, what's your ETA?"

"We're in," came the reply as the helmet's lower mask vanished, sensing there was oxygen available around the paladins inside. The team deduced that they in a power room, seeing as several bolts of purple lightning were connecting to the roof and floor. The walls and place, in general, were dark, the only light present was the faint glow of dark purple light along the walls. Even without the dim lighting, the team could immediately feel that there was something off about the ship. Lelouch, out of habit, activated his Geass, as if he anticipated an enemy leaping out behind the metal walls. Like the Castle, it felt alive, but with a much more sinister and evil presence surrounding them, making them all the more eager to get the Lions and just. Get. Out!

o~o

From the pilot room on the other side of the ship, Sendak quickly took action to obtain the Lions. "Activator tractor beam."

From outside, a bright purple light began to emerge from the opening doors in front of the Orange and Blue Lions.

"What's that thing?" asked Shirley.

"I think that's our signal to get out of here!" Rivalz shouted. He yanked on the controls of his lion, causing it to leap out of the way of the purple beam that came shooting out, just in time. Shirley followed suit, the beam hitting nothing but space.

Sendak grit his teeth angrily, "They lied to us! Launch fighters!"

Hatches opened on the sides of the ship as dozens of fighter jets were launched out already firing at the duo.

"Shirley, you dismantle the ion cannon while I take these jerks on a space ride!" Rivalz said, grinning in anticipation as he launched his lion into the pool of fighters.

"Copy that!" she replied, tightening her grip as she too sped off, this time straight towards the ship. Rivalz began to give her covering fire maneuvering and dancing around fighters, blasting beams while also getting them to shoot at each other from time to time.

o~o

Back inside the ship, Suzaku cautiously looked around the corner in search of patrols. Finding none, he gestured to the others to follow him. Lelouch, Kallen, and Rai emerged after him while Milly squatted to the ground behind them, covering their exit as planned. She gripped her kusarigama tightly in her palm, giving off a faint golden glow.

Rai suddenly stopped, looking down the dimly lit hall. It suddenly seemed to getter larger and more prolonged the more he stared. A vast array of disturbing images flashed before his eyes. A dark cell, surrounded by several other creatures, robots dragging him along the hall someplace, the screams and cries of others filling his ears. The feel of a surgical needle impaling his left eye.

Rai gasped and nearly stumbled backward. He panted as he attempted to regain his composure.

Milly acted fast and steadied him before he could tip over. "Rai, what's wrong?"

"I-I've been here before!" Rai realized as everyone else stopped moving to listen, "After I was taken away from Earth, somehow, they brought us here."

"Wait, 'us'?" asked Lelouch, alarmed. Rai made no mention of there being others with him.

"My mom, and my sister, and I, we were all captured," Rai nodded, holding his head, before snapping his head up in realization, "They could still be here! I have to rescue them!" he tried to run down the hall, but Lelouch stopped him for a moment.

"Do you know where they could be located?" the exiled prince asked seriously. This was the first time Lelouch honestly felt real empathy towards Rai. If he were in Rai's shoes, he too would do the same, especially for Nunnally, and maybe even Euphemia.

"Yes," Rai nodded vigorously, "I remember where the prisoners are held!"

"Alright, we'll get them out," Lelouch said, but Kallen then grabbed his shoulder.

"Lelouch," Suzaku said, "I know we shouldn't endanger innocents, but we probably won't have time to free them! We have to find the Lions and get back to Arus! Who knows how long Shirley and Rivalz can keep them distracted!"

"But we can't just leave prisoners here either!" Kallen exclaimed at the Red Paladin, "They have families and friends waiting for them too, you know! Isn't that what Allura said we are? 'The Universe's only hope?' How can we give that hope if we can't even save half-a-dozen prisoners."

"Kallen's right Suzaku. Besides, we can free prisoners, and still get the Lions if we split up," Lelouch said firmly, "Milly and I will go with Rai to get the prisoners out of here. You two go find your Lions."

"By ourselves?!" Suzaku exclaimed in disbelief.

"It's just a minor change of plans," Milly said, "and like we discussed back at the Castle, you two are the only ones who can find the lions anyway. You'll be fine. You just have to keep focused on the goal. Those are the words I live by."

"In both a good and evil way," Lelouch muttered under his breath. Milly, fortunately, didn't hear him.

Before the topic could be discussed any further, the sound of opening doors to their left filled the area. Their time was up for now.

"Run!" Lelouch half-whispered, half-shouted, as he, Milly, and Rai ran in one direction, while Kallen and Suzaku ran in the other.

The Red and Purple Paladins panted as they ran down the hall, having no real idea where they were supposed to go.

As they ran, a thought came to Suzaku as he watched Kallen easily keeping up with him. Unusual, especially for someone not allowed to participate in P.E. due to 'health' problems.

"You-you've never been 'sick' from school, have you, Kallen?"

The redhead scowled in annoyance. Were they talking about this now?

Fortunately, Kallen was rescued from having discussed this as the pair came to an intersection leading down three halls. "Great, now which way?" Kallen growled.

Suzaku looked from one hall to the other just as frustrated. His eyes eventually fell onto one of the two identical symbols in between the chambers. The glowing purple Galra emblem. For a moment, he couldn't look away from the image, no matter how angry it made him feel inside. The sharp edges and sinister formation embodied the race's ruthless and cruel nature to near perfection. Suzaku, no matter how reluctant, already noticed that this race was a lot like the Britannian Empire back on Earth. He could tell that Kallen, and especially Lelouch also saw the parallels, and already hated the Galra for it.

'No,' he shook his head, 'Brittania can still change for the better; there is still hope. The Galra have been doing this for thousands of years longer. This. Is. Different…' but for some reason, no matter how much he repeated this mantra, he couldn't quite bring himself to believe it wholeheartedly.

"Suzaku hide!" Kallen's urgent whisper broke him from his thoughts as he was shoved to the left away from the center hall while Kallen leaped to the right. Not a moment too soon either as a pair of Galra droids emerged from the center hallway before walking past them, remaining unaware of the two paladins. Suzaku and Kallen made eye contact afterward, both nodding before they continued down the hall they had hidden in. As Lelouch said, it may be riskier, but splitting up gave them a more significant chance of finding the Lions.

o~o

Back outside, Shirley gritted her teeth as she set her lion into a nosedive straight for the ion cannon. If she could get a good hit on it at least once, then it would still take a while for it to get fixed so it would be able to buy Allura and Coran some time. Shirley was sure with the amount of armor on the lion, it could probably even smash it to pieces. Just as she was about to hit it though, she felt herself and her lion bounce off of something. It almost like they had run into a flexible steel wall. Flipping backward to regain balance, Shirley flew around to see why she was bounced off, and then she saw it.

"What the quiznack?" she gasped, seeing a translucent purple barrier surrounding the ion cannon, "What is that? A forcefield?"

This was going to take longer than she thought.

o~o

"Particle barrier up!"

At Allura's command, a transparent orb of blue energy surrounded the castle. It remained solid for about two seconds before it suddenly vanished.

"Is… that what's supposed to happen?" asked C.C. curiously with a raised eyebrow.

Allura shook her head. Something was wrong as the barrier should have remained on. Coran and the princess quickly rushed to a small control panel where the energy to power the dome should be. Opening the hatch, they looked inside, and Coran promptly spotted the problem.

"Oh, the barrier crystals are out of alignment!" he gasped.

"You use crystals to power your technology?" asked C.C.

"Yes," Coran said, "Don't you Earthlings?"

C.C. was about to answer 'no' when she remembered that the sakuradite mineral was what helped provide the main power for Knightmare Frames. She shrugged, "I suppose, to an extent."

"We have to fix it immediately," Allura said, "without the particle barrier, we'll be defenseless!"

"We're all too big," Coran said, referring to C.C. as well, "what could we do?"

C.C. was about to say they must have some sort of tools that could fix this, obviously, but found that it was not needed as the four space mice squeaked and scampered into the hatch.

"The mice!" Allura smiled.

"How do they know how to do this?" Coran asked.

"I can hear them talking to me," Allura explained, as the mice worked together to get the crystal back in alignment, "I think our minds are connected! It must be from sharing the sleep pod for ten thousand years!"

C.C. raised an eyebrow minutely at this. While she couldn't call anything impossible anymore, this was a first in her book. Then again, though, she hadn't expected to be transported with Lelouch and his fellow classmates to a far off planet either.

After the crystal was realigned, the controls lit up, and the barrier finally manifested around the Castle, in full power this time. The critters squeaked with joy, waving their paws happily.

"Thank you, friends," Allura said with a smile.

Coran then placed his fingers on his temples, his eyes comically wide as he stared intently at the mice, straining so much he began sweating.

"Coran, what are you doing?" Allura deadpanned to her assistant, while C.C. could only look on in amusement.

"I'm trying to get them to make me a sandwich."

o~o

Kallen and Suzaku each ran down a hallway after hallway, neither of them having luck finding their lion. Shouldn't they have at least felt their presence, or whatever the others said by now?

Suzaku made a sharp turn around the corner only to run headlong into someone, knocking them over. Suzaku quickly scrambled to his feet, Bayard in hand just to put it away right after when he saw that he had run right into Kallen. Kallen had mirrored his actions as she realized who crashed into her.

"Come on, Kururugi! Watch where you're going!" Kallen snapped.

"Sorry," Suzaku swiftly apologized, until he registered just where correctly they had run right back into each other… which happened to be the same intersection they had split up from, Suzaku coming in from the right and Kallen from the left this time. They had been going in circles!

"Oh, come on! You've got to be quiznacking kidding me right now!" Kallen cursed in Altean as she caught onto what Suzaku noticed.

Suzaku regained his composure though and took a deep breath before closing his eyes in concentration, "Okay, let's just calm down. We're the only ones who can really find them. We just need to focus. I'm sure we can find them."

Huffing in irritation, Kallen relented before doing the same. Both the paladins waited and listened, then they both heard the sound of a growling purr coming from two areas of the ship.

"There you are!" Kallen smirked as she sprinted down the hall they originally came from.

"Got ya!" Suzaku said shortly after, taking down the hall he had just exited from, smirking.

o~o

Lelouch, Rai, and Milly made a turn to the right down a corridor, the lights changing from purple to green as they traveled. They stopped abruptly when a hovering prism-shaped drone flew before them. The markings covering it glowed a cool red as did the small light at the corner of it, moving up and down as if to scan them. But before it could alert anyone, Rai shot it down with his wrist laser that had been built into their armor. The robot short-circuited and fell to the floor with a clank.

"That thing saw us," Lelouch said, as Rai approached the little droid, "we should get out of here."

"Wait," Rai said, removing the robot's hood and messing with the wires, "I think this could come in handy." Lelouch and Milly watched in awe at how easily Rai seemed to understand this technology already. Even Lloyd Asplund would be jealous of his skill.

He flipped the covering closed after finishing the last wire, "Now I'll just reset the controls..." the robot leaped back to life, but instead of red and purple lights, bright blue lights lit it up, "...and it's working for us!"

"Rai! You little genius, you!" Milly grinned. She would have given him a nuggie had he not been wearing his helmet. Lelouch nodded with a smile before turning serious again and glancing down the hall to make sure no one was behind them.

Rai smiled at their new companion as they turned down another hall, "I'm gonna call you Rover. Follow me!"

The three made their way to a large pair of metal doors that were sealed shut. Rai recognized it pretty well. This was a prison cell that very likely held many innocent aliens inside.

"Open up," he ordered Rover, in which the little drone happily complied, a beam shooting out from its lens, it scanned its ID before the door opened.

"Nice job, Rai," Lelouch nodded. The doors to the cell opened with a groan, one side rising up, and the other going down.

As light entered the cell, it nearly brought Milly to tears as the distressed cries, whimpers, and moans of the alien prisoners inside.

"Mom? Sophronia?" Rai asked as the three entered. The prisoners only cowered in fear, all different types of alien species; some were green, red, blue, and yellow. Some had claws instead of hands, and others had multiple arms. One alien, a slender gray one with a fish-like face, was hugging what appeared to be an adolescent yellow alien with a single eye and yellow skin.

As Rai slumped in disappointment, seeing that his mother and sister weren't present among them, Milly and Lelouch came up behind them.

"Don't be afraid," Milly said with a kind smile, "we're here to help you escape."

The gray alien scanned over Lelouch and Milly before his eyes fell on Rai again. His eyes widened in shock and… awe?

"It's you!" he gasped, as Rai brought his head back up, his eyes widening in confusion, "It's you, the Champion. If anyone can get us out of here, he can."

"Wh-wait, what did you call me?" asked Rai. He didn't remember any of these aliens at all. And the champion of what?

"We don't have time to wait," Lelouch said as he exited the cell, "Let's get them to the escape pods and meet up with Kallen and Suzaku. Quickly!"

"Right," Milly nodded as she and Rai started waving prisoners out, "let's get going."

o~o

Rivalz, made a sharp turn around the ship, laughing and whooping as he went, avoiding a shot from two more vessels. Even though he was technically in a life or death situation right, he couldn't help but feel how exhilarating flying the Blue Lion felt.

"Yeah!" he grinned, "This is way more fun without anyone puking on me!"

On the other hand, Shirley wasn't having much success breaking the particle barrier surrounding the cannon. She attempted to break through by slamming against it with the Orange Lion, only to be bounced off and drift away again. She had hit it so hard she had nearly hit her head on the controls, and she already felt a massive headache forming.

'This is going to hurt in the morning,' she thought miserably.

o~o

Kallen followed the energy of the Red Lion until she reached her destination. Taking out her clawed cestus, she cut through the doors that led to the other side like butter. Rushing inside, she was soon confronted by a warm red glow from the end of the room. There it was, the Red Lion, hovering a little above the floor inside its particle barrier, its eyes faded and dark, indicating it was still asleep.

"Bingo," she grinned as she ran up to it and placed her hand on the particle barrier, "Let's get out of here. Open up!"

Unlike the other Lions, though, who lowered their barriers the moment their respective Paladin made contact, this lion was stubborn and refused to connect to Kallen. The Red Paladin knew getting the Red Lion's trust would be more complicated than the others, but she honestly hoped that it wouldn't be this way.

"It's me, Kallen, your pilot," she insisted, trying to use a tone she would use if she speaking to a friend of hers, or even her brother Naoto. Kallen scowled in frustration. Come on! What would it take for this thing to like her?!

"It's me! Kallen! Your- I am your Paladin!" she exclaimed rather bluntly, but the lion still didn't move.

Kallen grit her teeth as she banged on the barrier. She must be doing this wrong; there was something she was missing. She didn't have any more time to think, however, as several Galra droids started to fire at her. She activated her wrist shield to protect herself from the blasts as she continued to try and wake up the Lion.

"I'm bonding with you! Come on! We're connected! Or whatever you want to call it!"

Still no response. Snarling in a fury, Kallen reactivated her Bayard, the three cestus claws shining menacingly from the lights in the hanger, and charged the droids. She wasn't necessarily angry with the Lion; she knew she was going to have to make it trust her… somehow, but she was far more than annoyed with these droids firing at her.

"You're not getting this lion!" she shouted as she blocked one of the droids strikes before slicing its legs off. She sliced another droid to pieces right through the middle. She ducked to avoid another attack from above and reached up, grabbing the droids head, intending to crush it.

She then heard a 'click' in her gauntlet hand and what followed she could only describe as a significant robot malfunction. The palm of her gauntlet glowed a bright red, and the droid expanded and melted at the same time before going up in a little inferno, blasting Kallen back against the control panel. The blasts kept coming, but Kallen stared, astounded at her gauntlet. The center with the silver circular opening still smoking before closing shut over a red light.

"Woah-" Kallen couldn't finish her sentence before one shot nearly knicked her ear. She looked around frantically before eyeing a sizeable glowing button at the bottom of the control panel. Following her instinct, she lowered her shade to cover her entire mouth so she could breathe before slamming her fist onto the button. The hatch beneath them opened, sucking all of the Galra droids into the soul-sucking darkness of space.

Kallen held onto the control panel with all her might, looking up desperately at the Lion, almost pleading with it to do something. Debris and other parts of the ship zoomed past her face, one of them hitting her hand. She yelped as she lost her grip on her left side. She attempted to reach back and get another hold, but another piece of debris hit her square in the face. She knew that if she hadn't been wearing the space helmet, that surprisingly remained intact from the blow, she probably would have been knocked out cold. She lost her grip, screaming in terror as she was sucked into space.

She floated in zero gravity, her eyes flickering frantically, unsure what to do now.

To her surprise, though, it turned out she didn't need to do anything. The Red Lion came swooping out with a mighty roar, nipping her up and settling her in the safety of its mouth.

Despite the initial shock of the experience, she smirked as she sat down in the pilot seat and was brought to the head of the Lion, where the controls rested.

"Good kitty," she said, placing her hands on the control handles, "let's roll!"

o~o

(Happening at the same time as Kallen's)

Suzaku sliced through another droid as he continued to charge toward a hanger door that he felt the Purple Lion was in. Unlike Kallen, who didn't run into any droids until reaching the hanger, droids were hanging around every corner!

"Seriously! Don't you guys have something better to do?!" Suzaku complained as he pushed through another pair of droids. Panting, Suzaku looked around seeing nothing but droid scraps surrounding him, some still short-circuiting from recent wounds. Looking at the door, he saw that there was a hand-scanner of some sort.

"I wonder…" Suzaku said aloud as he squatted next to one of the droids before taking its hand, which was only dangling by a few wires and held it against the scanner. The scanner glowed a faint violet before the door in front of him opened. Looking inside, he almost didn't see the Lion, as the purple lights nearly matched the views of the ship itself, but it was there as he could just barely make out its outline.

"There you are," he smiled as he began running toward the Lion. Before he was even halfway there, a blast flashed by his head, nearly hitting the side of his neck. His military training was the only thing that probably saved him from certain death. He whipped around; his Bayard activated he saw that it wasn't a droid that had shot at him, but an actual Galra officer. And he was HUGE!

He grinned, lowering his rifle that almost claimed Suzaku's life. His hair and fur were brushed neatly, and hard, cold amber eyes stared into his very soul.

"So," he said with a deep voice that sent shivers down Suzaku's spine, "you're one of the new Paladins. You must be the new Purple Paladin. Obviously, of course, why else would you be seeking our lions."

"They're not your lions!" Suzaku snapped, his Bayard still at the ready, "They belong to Princess Allura of Altea. You have no right to any of them!"

The Galra could only laugh a hearty, belly laugh as if mocking the boy. More droids fell into the room, surrounding him, "On the contrary, we did find it first after ten thousand years. As the saying goes 'finders, keepers.'"

"Finding it doesn't make it yours! And besides, I don't see that lion coming over to defend you right now. It only serves the one it chooses!"

The Galra stopped laughing before sneering at the Purple Paladin, "So, you're a know-it-all type, are you? I hate know-it-alls." The guard swung his rifle outwards, causing what looked like a hidden compartment to open, turning the gun into a wicked-looking scythe-like weapon.

Suzaku's eyes widened as the Galra charged at him. Suzaku barely had time to bring his Bayard up to block him, even then, though, the strike from the Galra was strong enough to throw him back at least a yard. He slid backward, nearly losing balance before bringing his sword up to block again, the Galra soldier bearing down on him. The metal underneath them creaked at the strength of the Galra above him, sweat already dripping down his face.

"Well, well," the Galra grinned, his yellow teeth bared, "you've got some spirit I see. I might just let you live if you give up."

"Never," Suzaku gritted out as his grip on the Bayard beginning to shake. Seriously, was this alien made out of boulders?!

"You do realize if you don't quit now, you'll die. Not much help to the Princess dead now are you?"

"That doesn't matter," Suzaku grunted, "there were Paladins before us. If I die, they can find another. All that matters is getting the Purple Lion back to the others."

"Tch, how pathetic," the Galra mocked, "throwing your life away for something so worthless. Fine then, if you're so eager to die, I'll grant you that wish!"

The Galra pressed his weight down on Suzaku even harder, Suzaku nearly losing his grip on his Bayard. Suzaku could swear he heard his bones creaking as he yelled in pain and righteous fury.

Death, however, was not Suzaku's destiny that day, as a mighty roar suddenly filled the room. The particle barrier around the Purple Lion dissipated and began charging straight for Suzaku and the Galra soldier. The soldier and Suzaku both looked up in shock, though the soldier more in fear as well. The Galra in sheer terror tore himself away from Suzaku and made a run for the door. Suzaku was too stunned to move as the Lion leaped above him, standing proudly above with him protectively between the Lion's front paws.

"SHOOT HIM! SHOOT HIM!" the Galra ordered frantically to the droids. Before the droids could even raise their guns though, the Lion roared, and its tail shot out beams of energy, hitting each droid dead on. It wasn't long before they were nothing more than scrap metal.

The Galra, now terrified, attempted to run for the exit but didn't get far as he felt sheer agony tear through him, from his back to his torso. Looking down, he was stared in horror at the purple and white blade protruding from his gut.

"You're no soldier," Suzaku muttered, pulling his sword out from the Galra, "you're nothing but a coward. Why you decided to become a soldier, I'll never know!" The Galra gurgled before slumping forward, his scythe-rifle falling limp from his hands.

Suzaku panted as he stared at the dead Galra, already feeling bile rising in his throat, painful, unwanted memories rising to the surface of his mind. His right hand was trembling to the point he nearly dropped his Bayard.

A soothing purr soon filled his mind, pushing the memories away. Suzaku turned to face the Purple Lion in apprehension. Did she see that? Did she now know what he did? Another purr filled his mind as the Lion lowered its head to let him in.

Suzaku smiled in absolute relief, he knew he would have to reveal his secret to the others eventually, but right now, he just wasn't ready yet.

"Let head back," he said as he gripped the controls in the pilot seat.

o~o

Lelouch, Milly, and Rai led the prisoners through the ship to the escape pods as fast as possible. The aliens were moments away from freedom. They had been locked up for so long they nearly forgot what it felt like to be free.

"Halt!" a droid called out, followed by four more. Milly kept herding the prisoners into the pod as Lelouch and Rai prepared to face the droids. Rai activated his Bayard while Lelouch raised his fists. His body may not be the fittest, but he would do everything in his power to get the prisoners out safely.

Lelouch and Rai both suddenly felt a jolt of pain in their right eyes, and it wasn't long before they saw red, clutching their Geass eyes in pain, collapsing to their knees.

o~o

C.C. blinked as she suddenly felt a pulse of energy run through her body. The red mark of the Geass Code flashed across her forehead before fading. It did leave stinging pain in her head, though.

'What was that?'

o~o

"Lelouch? Rai? What's wrong?" Milly's voice was nothing but a muffle in the background.

'What's going on?' Fear was suddenly gripping Lelouch. He didn't remember calling upon his Geass; he wasn't even planning to use it as he wasn't sure it would work on droids. He remembered C.C. mention this before. She called it a 'Runaway Geass' and had warned him that if he used his Geass too recklessly, then his Geass would activate permanently. Was it happening already? He hadn't been using his Geass for that long, right?

'And when did Rai get a Geass as well? Did C.C. give him one as well? And if so, when? Wait-' Lelouch suddenly realized that Rai was in pain similar to this back at the Castle, right before he got some of his memories back. 'What was going on-'

Before Lelouch could think anymore, his mind suddenly went blank, the blazing red seal of his Geass shining brightly in his left eye. Had he looked at Rai, he would have seen the same thing happening to him. They both looked up, looks of pure murder on their faces.

Rai shot forward while Lelouch squared his shoulders, a red-tinged aura surrounding his wrists and arms, crackling red electricity seeming to surge from them.

Rai quickly blocked the laser shots with his Bayard and armor before slicing and dicing it to pieces. Two droids broke through Rai's guard, but they didn't get far as Lelouch reigned his arms backward before shooting them forwards again, red energy erupting and blasting through the droids before rushing forward to meet more. Rai flipped over one of the droids that were shot backward and sliced the heads of three more droids off, and Lelouch slid under him and, with his bare hand, stabbed straight through the chest of the last droid, hand still crackling.

Milly could only watch slack-jawed at the now useless pile of droids that surrounded the two boys. 'Since when could Lulu do that? He's been holding out on us!'

Lelouch and Rai blinked and shook their heads, the Geass in their eyes disappearing. They both looked around in confusion at the now fallen droids. What the heck just happened?

The sound of the escape pod doors closing shattered the illusion as the trio looked at the prisoners in the pod as it drew away from the ship.

"Thank you, Zephyr," the gray alien smiled at Rai as the pod reeled away, the aliens being escorted to safety. Rai reached out to them, confusion on his face.

"Wait- who's Zephyr?" Rai asked before realizing that now wasn't the time for questions; they could wait until they got back to the castle.

"Rai, who were they talking about?" Lelouch asked suspiciously, in which Rai could only shake his head helplessly, just as confused.

"Lelouch. Lamperouge." Milly harrumphed, "Explain yourself, young man! What on Earth have you been doing to compensate for missing gym class?"

"What?" Lelouch asked, now the confused one.

"Just a minute ago, you two were completely wiping the floor with those things. And last I checked Lulu you can't even run two without looking like you ran a 5K afterward!"

Rai still looked completely confused while Lelouch slowly covered his left eye, and looking down at his right hand after.

"I-I don't know…"

o~o

Finally, having enough, Shirley yanked down on one of the handles as hard as her hands could muster. A bright blue beam of energy shot out of the Orange Lion's mouth and directly at the particle barrier, purple cracks beginning to form.

"Come on! Just break you stupid thing!" she exclaimed. Finally, after putting everything she had into the blast, the barrier shattered, leaving the ion cannon wide open for attack.

"Score one for Shirley!" Not wasting another second, Shirley zoomed down and slammed the Orange Lion into the side of the ion cannon, leaving a significant dent in it. Not exactly the most excellent example of vandalism, but it should at least buy them some time before it was fixed. Looking up, she saw four more lions swiftly pass overhead, Milly's, Rai's, with Kallen's Red Lion, and Suzaku's Purple Lion.

"You guys made it!" Shirley cried in happy relief.

"Kitty Rose has left the stage!" Milly replied with a grin.

"Let's get the heck out of here!" Rivalz said as he directed the Blue Lion to fly back to Arus.

"I hope I stopped that cannon," Shirley said, "I could barely make a dent in it!"

o~o

"They stole both the lions!" one of the Galra officers said to Sendak back on the ship's bridge.

"After them!" Sendak snarled, "Either we get those lions, or we blow this whole planet to cosmic dust! Fire the ion cannon!"

"Sir! The ion cannon has been damaged!" the officer, Haxus, said.

"Then send the drones to fix it!" Sendak order in exasperation as the Galra ship began approaching the Arusian atmosphere.

[lieutenant-pride]

i was just thinking about that rant i made about avengers infinity war and how i saw avengers endgame a little while ago, well after it got out of theaters because i wasn’t truly willing to give marvel money for that, and now i just wanna go off the hook about the movie because i can  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i’m not even putting it in a read-more for spoiler purposes so much as putting it in a read-more because it might end up being long, but there are spoilers ahead anyway so for those five people who haven’t seen endgame and do care, be wary

funny thing is, i actually didn’t hate this like i expected to when i heard that time travel was one of its core constructs, but you know what i still don’t think it was worth the hype altogether and here is why

perhaps to make up for the fact that they didn’t kill any of the OG avengers, or for the fact that they probably didn’t need to exist in the first place, the snap apparently killed literally every single member of Hawkeye’s family that is not Clint himself. i guess we need an excuse for him to turn into Ronin, so let’s make his family expendable, why not

this film does us the discourtesy of confirming shuri’s fate as one of the fallen from last movie and the russos will pay dearly for this

the idea of destroying the stones with their own power was already proven a thing in the last movie when wanda did just that with the mind stone (while holding off five other infinity stones and a titan worth of power with one of her hands, by the way) but given the massive shockwave that occurred from THAT stone’s destruction? are you really willing to tell me he snapped again, had half his body disintegrate, and then the glove with all six stones just puffed into smoke?

actually how cool would that have been? that they arrive on the garden planet of whatever and thanos is just a fucking toasty corpse in a crater, and they realize what he had to do for that to happen? now i feel a little cheated

man, i knew from square one when i saw the first few trailers for this film that okoye was gonna get sidelined HARD, and she had maybe one or two spoken lines in the whole film? i get it, there are a lot of characters to go over in this big epic conclusion to the MCU’s biggest property/ies, but they definitely could’ve given the black panther cast a bit more love than this. i think i’m just salty over that bit though

did ronin kill in the comics? was that a thing he did? was he basically clint barton going jason todd for a little while, was that what it was? because please point me in the direction of those books if so

i really, really can’t argue much about the pym particle bits and the quantum realm (was that the one?) because time travel is a lot like nuclear physics when it comes to movies and comics and just works however the writer needs it to work in that situation, whether that refers to the means or the ends. i am glad however that antman gets this much attention as if he’s a legit member of the avengers. you know. like how he was one of the og members in the comics.

you know what i can argue about? how they try to sell their first attempt at time travel anWAIT JUST A MINUTE I FORGOT ABOUT BIG BANNER WHAT IS THIS HOW DID HE EVEN MANAGE THAT SHIT

i guess he had like five years to study and figure out how to make himself hulk on the outside without sacrificing the banner brains, but i’m very curious as to what the purpose is in doing that, since he was having more issues releasing hulk during the previous film and also the fact that he really had zero reason to fuse the two together. like, what threats was banner gonna face? what evildoers did he need hulk work for? if he needed some muscle of his own he could’ve just worked out????

you can also say that was bruce’s character arc during the first film actually, which is fine, but i’d like to note that if it is, then his character arc is resolved completely off-screen

listen, i get it. tony and pepper are a thing that had to happen, according to literally every film before this. i still think pepper deserves better or at least someone who doesn’t cause her as much stress as tony has caused for her. i mean i guess if that boy brings in the money though, do what you gotta  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

we get one scene of ronin at work and i kind of love it? i kinda wish we got to see more of his work, but i get why we don’t. this is like, the best thing that clint has to offer in this film

oh right i almost forgot, that first attempt at time travel with scott “having time moved through him.” cute gag, but this definitely doesn’t fly with scott’s first mingling with time travel and the quantum realm or whatever, and if we’re to assume they mostly repeated what they did during the post-credits scene of antman and the wasp, then why did this even have a risk of happening????

that was a cute gag though, mainly because paul rudd is a treasure

and since i’m discussing the time travel bits: the time travel in this movie is handled fairly well, and it introduces the prospect of timelines diverging rather than just having one singular strand of time flow! great! cool! but this has some bumps here and there in the film for the sake of drama, and this is the first instance:

clint travelling back to see his family for just a split moment of time. this is a moment that toys with rules constructed later, though i think that is a mixed bag and maybe i missed this detail. in every instance after this one, when the cast wants to return to a specific time in the future (their actual timeline and present) they sync up their time gps thing, but in this case? clint has no chance to do that. we don’t cut out a single second of his trip in the past, and i don’t recall him even looking at the time gps ONCE, and yet he can be forcibly pulled back to the present???

this is actually one of the only faults i can think of in the time travel, and they probably actually set that gps ahead of time, so whatever, maybe they actually handled time travel well here???

some o y’all people out here had the audacity to tell me that tony stark was the one who called steve roger’s ass “america’s ass” when it was in fact scott lang, and tony in fact called to question steve’s ass in that scene, and it is YOU i will not forgive for this heinous error

tony actually did nothing wrong in attaining the tesseract; he just got his head smacked in by a surprise hulk coming out of the stairwell

actually this made me remember a thing: couldn’t they have sent someone to grab the tesseract in asgard in case something went wrong in new york? they were right about picking the right year and time to get three infinity stones in new york, but they also managed to pick the right year and time to get two stones in asgard, so why not snatch that up as a failsafe?

thor really fucked over an alternate timeline by grabbing mjolnir from them, huh. cap couldn’t return that shit, after all; they need mjolnir for when we finally get the Mighty Thor. like, good moments between him and his mom, and that whole “i’m still worthy” thing was great, but are we gonna talk about the timeline that got fucked over for that???

so did they not discuss WHY they needed two people going to vormir ahead of time, or what? did nebula not tell them? she totally did, right? like did she not mention WHY gamora didn’t come back with thanos after he got the soul stone? why are they surprised when the mention of a sacrifice comes into play???

apparently only women die in vormir, and usually to advance the character arcs of men. i dunno i wouldn’t be too sore about this hawkeye sacrificing himself

i’ll be honest i don’t care MUCH about black widow but like let’s be real how much was hawkeye giving to the narrative???

also apparently they can’t do anything about getting nat back, which is inherently bullshit by the fact that gamora still exists in the past and you could very easily bring a nat from another timeline without fucking up yours. it’s fine; you had no problem doing that with mjolnir

how did they shrink the entire warship thanos was on exactly, and how long did they take to get that tech right???

what exactly is thanos’ weirdass boomerang blade made of that it can shred a vibranium shield?

anyway so they pay homage to every hero from the past twenty-odd films real quick, and they make the right choice in putting the black panther crew first, but i can’t help but think about how this is all just fanservice

wanda comes in to remind us that thanos ain’t shit without the infinity stones and NEARLY KILLS HIM ON HER OWN so someone explain to me why she doesn’t AFTER she gets back up???? like, can we assume killing thanos would put an end to most of this fight and send the rest of his forces running?

i already mentioned the fanservice level that came with the heroes entering on the scene, right? let’s not forget that the shot of all (minus one) the marvel women coming together is also mostly fanservice with no real meaning and it could’ve been cut from the movie and the narrative would not be too heavily adjusted, just as a reminder that marvel isn’t really treating the women of their properties well on film

thanos got real fucked up after two snaps and banner got fucked up after one snap, and you’re seriously telling me tony - a regular ass human being - lasted long enough to snap at all???

seeing peter and ned reunite with one another (i guess they both got snapped if they’re both still high school students ACTUALLY DID PETER’S WHOLE SCHOOL GET SNAPPED OR WHAT HAPPENED????)

okay but actually, the peter and ned reuniting scene got me much harder than any amount of tony’s death and funeral

seeing the wakanda crew serving up looks during tony’s funeral just reminds me that okoye got maybe two lines in the whole film, t’challa got Maybe One, and shuri got shafted for lines, and that makes me sad

i think Old Cap reuniting with sam on the bench is great and all, and a real good closing to steve’s character, however i have some questions to ask about it, namely how steve ended up in the same timeline after we made ABUNDANTLY CLEAR we were playing by diverging timeline rules, unless what you’re trying to tell me is that there was an Old Steve that just existed in our timeline the whole time and the fact that we never focused on Peggy significantly enough allowed yall to sneak that in

i also have to ask how in god’s name y’all didn’t take note of the man sitting at the bench out by the lake where you were performing your time jumping shenanigans?????

but yeah overall not actually a bad conclusion. tony’s dead, so that’s a plus. we won’t get any more of america’s ass in these films, which is a minus, but it could be worse

[plush-anon]

you have seen 4 and half minutes of random low quality clips from a three hour movie. The Russo's are 3 for 3, and all test audiences have been raving about what they've seen from Endgame. You need to calm down until you actually see the film lol.

guess you missed that part huh friend

(also one of my tags literally read ‘plush rants’, that doesn’t necessarily mean calm and collected response. this is a post i made to vent about possible outcomes for Endgame based off of my own concerns and opinions about what came out in the Clips. literally a ‘Dead Dove Do Not Eat’ kind of post)

On the Russo’s being 3 for 3, I’m gonna have to disagree there friend just bc... lord knows there are a LOT of issues with poor writing, plot contrivances, and plot holes with both Civil War and Infinity War that came directly out of their creative choices and views on the characters they are responsible for portraying.

For example, in Civil War:

When Ross was grilling the Avengers over what happened with New York, how is it that no one mentioned that the government outright TRIED TO NUKE NEW YORK CITY? There was a portion of the movie with Tony Stark flying the nuclear missile sent to destroy everything and everyone in one fell swoop - literal millions of innocent civilians - into the alien wormhole. How is it that no one tries to argue this on Team Cap’s team?

Who the heck hired Crossbones in Civil War to fcuk up the shit in Lagos? Was he still working for some fragment of HYDRA? What was his purpose there, what was his plan? He wanted revenge on Cap, but what was his plan to achieve that? Did Zemo hire him?

How is it that the Winter Soldier found the one place on an abandoned road where there was a convenient security camera showing him killing Tony’s parents in a way that there was no doubt those were the two people he was killing in the 80s/90s? did HYDRA put it there to watch it like a sports game, and if so, how did they tell Bucky that so he knew where to pull over, and how did they know the Starks’ travel plans to the point they could predict exactly where to run them off the road to that specific camera?

What was the point about the Five Winter Soldiers subplot, except to get Steve, Tony, and Bucky in one room together to watch the video tape of the Starks’ brutal murder? If the whole point was to turn the Avengers on each other, why not first split them apart, frame Steve as protecting a man who blew up the UN (even if it wasn’t him, the gen public still thinks this), then publicly release/show the video verifying that yes, this is a dangerous criminal and Cap is protecting him?

Does Zemo have a Crystal Ball to tell him everything that’s happening, in order to predict how everything fell perfectly into place? He orchestrated the UN bombing to frame Bucky, but how on earth did he account for the Lagos incident with Scarlet Witch, or the Sokovia Accords’ creation, or Black Panther’s involvement? How did he perfectly predict the fall of the Avengers and the stressors needed to force a split, to where Tony, Steve, and Bucky would be in place for him to bring them to the Tape of Dismay?

What was the point of including Ant-Man apart from the fight scene? Scott Lang’s entry into the MCU focused entirely on him trying to prove that he’s not a criminal and wants to do the best possible by his family and the world around him... only to throw it all away to break the law, fight with Captain America, and immediately get thrown in jail for it.

Maybe he didn’t fully understand what he was getting into, but what about Hawkeye, who has a wife and three kids? At the end of AOU, he was hoping to retire and live a peaceful life with his family, which was the whole reason Quicksilver died. Now his kids have no dad bc... why, exactly? He got bored? He wasn’t involved in anything leading up to the Accords like the Lagos explosion, why would he come back now? He knew full well what he was getting into when he joined Steve, and got arrested for it.What was the point except to flatten out the roster?

Why did Howard Stark decide to transport the Super Soldier Serum without any form of bodyguards nearby, ESPECIALLY with his wife in the car? Was the plan to transport it as quietly as possible while a heavily armored decoy distracted whoever was after it? If so, 1.) what danger/risk was there that required this method? 2.) did no one think to put a tracker on the Starks’ personal car while they were doing this, to ensure no bumps or hiccups? 3.) if there was a suspected leak at SHIELD, why would Howard endanger his wife needlessly under the guise of a normal drive out? (short answer: he’s a dick, but I digress) 4.) Who the heck were they trying to fool by driving around on back roads in the middle of nowhere? Where was their destination? (This branch of questioning I do recognize as not having enough time to flesh out, but the whole scenario raises a shitton of questions in general).

During all of this, where was Maria Hill? She was a higher up with SHIELD, and she was still free and alive. Fury was still presumed dead at large, I’m assuming, but wouldn’t she have tried to speak up, or was she keeping her head down?

And now, for Infinity War:

Why is it that when Thanos showed up, Loki didn’t use the Tesseract to open up a Portal to help all of the Asgardian refugees escape directly to Midgard, or even a nearby planet? Thor and Loki used it to transport back to Asgard at the end of Avengers: Assemble, and Thanos used it to teleport between planets effortlessly; while it cannot open massive wormholes on its own, it could still be used to transport people in between space, which Loki is known to excel at.

Why is it that, as Thanos was leaving the ship with Thor still alive, that Loki decided to call out to him, calling attention back to himself when they could have reconvened and sought out the Avengers to make a plan, all to try to stab him with a tiny knife?

Why didn’t Hulk show up before when Thanos was destroying/slaughtering the entire ship of Asgardian Refugees until Thor was captured and Heimdall was killed - why did he wait?

How did Bruce know to warn about Thanos, when he’s never shown any sign of being able to recall knowledge he learned as Hulk or memories during his time as the Hulk before now?

What the heck happened to Nova when Thanos went to retrieve the Power Stone? Wouldn’t the Guardians have been alerted when Nova attacked, given both their experience with the Stone and Gamora’s past with Thanos? How about the fact that StarLord can actually wield the stone somewhat? Wouldn’t they be a strong contender to stop Thanos, based on power and knowledge of him?

How about Rhodey suddenly deciding to turn his back on everything he fought for in Civil War without any sort of precursor than ‘he looks annoyed at Ross’ when Cap walks in?

What the heck are the logistics of Red Skull being the Ghost of Infinity Stone Past protecting an Infinity Stone he never encountered? Did the Tesseract transport him there as a protector, and if so, why doesn’t Thanos use the Tesseract to travel instantly to where the other stones are located? Why did the Tesseract transport the spirit of Red Skull to protect/conveniently explain the terms & conditions of the Soul Stone to anyone who came looking for it?

What was the point of killing half of all life to “preserve resources” or bc there weren’t “enough resources” for the populations when you kill half of all plants and animals in the universe as well? Did none of this occur to him as he was making the plan?

Doctor Strange said in Thor 3 that he keeps a watchlist on potential threats to Earth, which is how he knows about Loki - so why doesn’t he know about the Mad Titan with massive armies seeking the Infinity Stones at the beginning of IW?

For that matter, why didn’t Doctor Strange trap Thanos in a time loop like he did with Dormammu? Without the Time Stone, Thanos couldn’t escape, so why didn’t that come into play?

Also, what about Doctor Strange’s portal creating sling rings? If he had an issue with Tony Stark or Peter Parker being on the space ship, why not sling them back to Earth (or do they only work on Earth)?

For that matter, why not cut off Thanos’ hand with the Gauntlet USING these portals once they have him pinned? Could Thanos control his hand even as it was severed from his body?

Where the fcuk did the whole Wanda/Vision relationship bloom from, when they were on very opposite sides in Civil War, and Vision contributed to keeping her under house arrest? Where did romance even pop up there?

The Infinity Stones are supposed to be indestructible, as outlined in both GOTG and Thor TDW - how is it then that Wanda can destroy one now? Was it weakened by Shuri’s removal process (which was never aimed at destroying the Stone, only separating it from Vision without killing him)?

Vision was willing to sacrifice himself to destroy the Stone in his head and keep Thanos from winning, yet Steve goes ‘We don’t trade lives’, even when that wouldn’t be his decision to make - it’s Vision’s and he’s willing. Then they go to Wakanda to have the stone removed, and potentially hundreds of soldiers die bc that’s where Thanos’ armies landed down. They all knew that Thanos could track Vision (given that Steve and Natasha come to rescue him from the Black Hand at that subway station), so why risk the lives of thousands in Wakanda on the chance that he survives having it removed, only to have to destroy him anyways AFTER gods know how many have already died?

How was the Black Hand powerful enough to kill/maim/capture a host of Asgardians (who have been proven to have much higher durablity in regards to injuries in general) along with Thor, Loki, Heimdall, Hulk, and presumably Valkyrie, all of whom (save Hulk), have literal CENTURIES of fighting experience under their belts - and yet struggle and lose to mildly superpowered humans with far less durability to injuries than Asgardians (who live on average for 5000 years at a time, and have accelerated healing, as seen in both Avengers Assemble and the Agents of SHIELD tv series, which does share a level of canon to the main MCU)?

How could Thor withstand the full blast of a DYING STAR and be up again by holding his axe summoning the Bifrost’s power to heal him (????), yet not be capable of breaking out of Ebony Maw’s iron bars holding him in place in the first ten minutes of the movie?

How did Thor know exactly where to beam in via his Bifrost-wielding axe to Wakanda? Did the axe come with a GPS on finding ‘big ass battles’ to join in, or can it track Infinity Stones? If he stopped somewhere else to find out where to go, where did he go to and who told him? The Avengers didn’t exactly publicize the Infinity Stones or Thanos’ arrival, or leave too many people behind that Thor could easily touch base with.

For that matter, Thor arrived on Midgard before Thanos - with his Bifrost-powered axe, why not go to Titan where the rest of the Guardians are? He’s already with Rocket and Groot, so being able to track them down should be relatively simple to do on their end - why not meet up with them again? Why go to Midgard when he could have gone to face off against Thanos BEFORE HE GOT ALL 6 STONES?!? In fact, wouldn’t it make MORE sense to meet up with the rest of the Guardians than Midgard? They know about Thanos, they planned AFTER MEETING THOR to retrieve the Reality Stone - why wouldn’t Thor go back to them on this one?

And that’s just off the top of my head. Go looking in any Infinity War Critical tag, and you will find a thousand more.

If you mean 3 for 3 in terms of profit, definitely. Their upcoming movie outright crashed ticket ordering webpages for hours on end, to the point that to order tickets online, you had to wait your turn. As far as strong writing though? I would argue against that, based off of everything listed above and then some.

Fans on all sides have issues with pretty much every character’s portrayals, actions, and reactions, along with how the plot ultimately progressed. Steve Stans, Tony Stans, Thor Stans, Loki Stans, T’Challa Stans, Scarlet Witch Stans, Guardian Stans, Spider-Stans, Strange Stans, Hulk Stans - a lot of people looked at this film and found it lacking for all of these characters and their arcs, portrayals, their inconsistent capabilities after literally 20 films showing us everything they can do.

So while the Russos have done well financially for the MCU (and admittedly, made Civil War much less of a mess than it ever was in the comics - which is saying something about how absolutely fucked up the comics were), in terms of delivering satisfying conclusions for these characters, they’ve been found lacking again and again. Their idea of groundbreaking character work is to destroy or take away everything they love in absolutes, or to kill off characters to fuel Emotional Pain.

Thor didn’t have to lose everything to have an arc - neither did the Guardians. And while death will inevitably be a part of any Infinity War story, it’s extremely telling that the only deaths that left an impact are two of three that were NOT a result of being dusted - the ones we Know can’t be reversed so easily: Gamora and Loki. Characters that have suffered endlessly and received no happy ending with the people they cherish, after having lost so much already. The only characters dusted that people feel viscerally upset about that I’ve seen was Groot and Shuri, and the latter was only revealed recently in the Twitter campaign posters (and is also complete bullshit to pull on the audience - "randomly” kill off half the world, my ass, you killed off how many people in Wakanda and then some?!? No).

No one else’s death has left as much an impact in a story where half the world dies - and when the primary ending of your tragedy, having been built up to over a goddamn decade of films, leaves mostly a ‘meh’ feeling? You have failed to make people care, and failed as storytellers.

[lidoshka]

Voltron Season 8 review!

Okay! Finally had the chance to watch season 8?

Not yet? Too bad, because the spoiler free week in this blog is officially over!

Before I start, If you would rather now hear about season 8 you can filter the tags #I will only grant you one spoiler free week #And that grace period is over #we been knew #I can't believe I was blindsided by this #so the leaks were actually a trial test?!

Also, I will try to stay positive and post good things about Voltron during the week, but if you want some salt you can catch all the vitriol about S8 on Sunday (with the tag #salty Sunday)

So onwards to my review! (And boy, I knew I should have worn a different kind of socks on the 14th!)

Overall, I’d say it was a good season…but it wasn’t the best. There were a bunch of small moments that made me really happy, and there were some cool aspects with the animation that I totally loved.

…but there were some things in the second half of the season that totally ruined it for me.

But let’s be positive and point out all the things that I liked for this season!

What I loved about this season:

• The animation was amazing! Both the 3d animation and the way the characters were drawn! Plus a bunch of interesting camera angles! If you compare season 1 art with the way everyone is drawn now you can see the improvement and it’s amazing. • Episode 4 killed me instantly. To me it was perfect. It was sad but also uplifting, and I wanted to cry as much as that Olkarion child with Ryner’s last words and yet appreciated the meaning in them. Yes, I was very sad to see Olkarion gone, but most of its people will live on. We also got to see the Weblum again, which I liked because it was an appropriate metaphor. :) • Allura and Lance had  a date! That was great, they both deserve all the good moments possible • Also, the MFE girls and the Paladin girls shopping is supper funny. • We get to see a lot of people from the Voltron coalition not just Olia’s crew, and it’s wonderful to see the MFE’s, the Rebels, the ATLAS and Voltron all working together! • Cosmo is a nice puppy… and I knew he was going to continue growing! X3 • All Pidge and Colleen’s interactions. All of the Holts interactions actually! I really love how Pidge has her dad wrapped around her pinky, but Colleen is not a pushover and demands a family photo in exchange of the tokens • And I loved that Matt’s (girlfriend? Partner? They sound female, but then again they are an alien so…) are in the photo too!! • I also liked Shiro entering that tournament, we know he has a competitive streak, but we don’t get to see it very often, and this was a good opportunity! • The vlog episode was gold! Not only do we get to see more about the MFE pilots, but we also see the paladins around and a bit of the daily life in the IGF Atlas, plus, it could have just been a silly filler but instead it still managed to move the story forwards. A+ • Shiro using a gun looks really cool and it makes me wonder if his Bayard would have actually turned into some form of firearm. • Lotor is back! Not in the way I hoped but I got to see a tiny Lotor, and I also saw a younger Lotor still full of hope and desire to please his father *sighs* he really deserved so much better… • Lotor literally stole Kova. :P • Honerva’s mecha? Her fusion with Sincline? Voltron/Atlas fusion? They are all amazing designs! • I liked the last scene with the lions saying their goodbyes to the paladins. It was bittersweet because it’s the end of an era but at the same time it’s a sign of hope. It’s like now that there’s peace (or at least the possibility of peace being achieved without the need of a WMD) the lions can retire. Maybe the lions are leaving to look for their new paladins, or maybe hide away again until Voltron is needed once more. That along with the image of the vehicles inside the Garrison hangar was a good nod towards Voltron Vehicle and maybe a future Voltron Force show. Ah yeah, good things.

But now what I really didn’t like:

After careful consideration and watching the season one more time I can say I’m only upset about 4 things: 1. Allura’s sacrifice 2. Episode 5 3. Honerva’s plan and her redemption 4. And the stills of the epilogue

Funny enough the four are connected together in one single sentence: bad writing decisions.

Now, me being critical of the show doesn't mean I don't like it anymore now that I wont enjoy watching it. There are a bunch of shows that have errors and flaws by the dozen, but I still enjoy them but I need to get this out of my chest

Alluras’s sacrifie: Why? Out of all the possible directions they could have taken their story, why this? Why kill one of their female protagonists?!

“but she has made similar sacrifices in other versions” yes, and she was Caucasian and had a romantic plot with the leader of Voltron too and VLD chose to deviate from that, so I don’t see why of all the things they chose to discard from previous versions they chose to keep this.

“She now gets to spend eternity with her father and the other paladins” Do I remind you that Allura lost everything (her family, her nation, her planet, her crown) and little by little she found a new family? VLD has been selling me the idea of “found family” since season 1, why are they changing the tune now?

“Allura was already too powerful, she couldn’t remai— “ No. this isn’t marvel, there were ways to decrease her powers if that was necessary: the creature that got inside her could have damaged her body somehow and had her powers decrease; she could have sacrificed only her alchemy (like Edward Elric in fma!) and she would be a regular Altean (or a regular human if they wanted to go with the allurance ending) and spend the rest of her life rebuilding her nation. There were ways to keep her powers down and still keep Allura around.

“It’s the only way” Allura herself said before she started saying her goodbyes to the paladins… but in this season alone they showed: - A tiny balmera - A whole bunch of balmera. - Voltron+atlas fusion - The paladins using the power of friendship and concentration to enter Honerva’s inner thoughts - The paladins using the power of friendship and concentration <i>again</i> to power up Voltron+atlas so it could escape a collapsing reality - Voltron+atlas giant wings to save the last remaining reality So if they were already pulling out all the rabbits out of the hat don’t tell me the production team couldn’t come up with another alternative other than having “the girl who is magic sacrificing herself for the sake of the universe”

…and why are Altea and Daibazaal back?! Didn’t Reyner said “you mustn’t cling too tightly to the past” and “the old must gave way to the new”? ugh.

*rants for 20 minutes more about poor script decisions*

Episode 5:

It’s bad. And it doesn’t add anything important to the narrative except some gratuitous scenes of the paladins in their underarmor. And the reason why I disliked this episode is about the way the writers try to redeem Ezor and Zethrid.

Last season they sold me on the idea that “this is war and sometimes people die”. This season they wanted to end with an uplifting “everyone has a chance at redemption” vibe which actually just makes me upset.

Oh yeah, Adam –the guy whose only negative mark was that he dumped Shiro—died and no one really mentions him again or talks about what an impact he had on other characters, but Ezor –who was more than willing to torture Pidge back in season 7— she gets to survive and change her ways??

Honerva’s ploy and redemption arc:

Honerva had dreams about being a mother and a wife and spending her life with her family, but she studied the creature from the rift a bit too closely and her mind was poisoned without her even realizing it. In that sense, she’s a victim, and it’s good that in her final moments she got to be back to be the person she was before.

… but as Haggar she helped conquer and destroy thousands of worlds! She was participant in the neglect and abuse of a Lotor throughout his childhood.

“But that was Haagar! Honerva deserves a second chance!” you’d say, but remember that after Oriande she has recovered her memories and she’s not Haggar anymore what did she do? Did she tried to mend her ways and help what remained of the universe to honor her child’s life? Nope. She blamed the Galra, she used the Alteans, she destroyed Olkarion and she dammed the whole universe (and then any other universe) to get the ending she wanted.

Everyone in these universe is gone because of her. And in the end, she got her dream of being with her family.

Even Zarkon got a bit of a redemption scene! He got to go to the same place as the former paladins, with his wife and his son…These three are responsible of 70% of all the bad things that happened in this universe in the last 10,00 years and they get to spend eternity together.

I don’t’ know why suddenly the production staff though this ending was cool.

4. The Epilogue

I think the only ‘last scenes’ I liked where Pidge’s ending and Kolivan and Krolia’s ending. They were nice. But the others? *frowns*

In the “one year later” scenes Hunk is seen in the ATLAS along with Shiro; it’s implied that Hunk is some sort of diplomat who also likes to cook for his guests. In the last image it just looks like he gave up that to become the next masterchef.

Lance’s final still looks sad. He’s the perfect picture of a widower and I think this is terrible unfair for all the Lance stans who were hoping season 8 was Lance’s season. Yeah, lance likes his family and he always missed earth, but there were other things they could have done with him. He could be teaching the new generation of garrison pilots! His ending just makes the audience think he’s recovering from a broken earth.

Keith's image in his ending still looks odd, I think hey were trying to an upper shot or something but his waist looks too slim, and there are several things thet feel weird with the perspective.

...not to mention it says "humanitarian relief organization" ...the blades are all Galra? the fact they didn't bother to spend 5 minutes thinking why "humanitarian" was not a word applicable here tells me all I need to know about the care they placed in this epilogue.

Shiro’s scene is strange because Shiro looks exactly the way he looks when they say goodbye to the lions, but Pidge and Hunk and Keith look like they do in the “years later” design. Consistency is lacking.

Then there’s the thing of how Shiro “found his happiness” with and image of him getting married. What, he wasn’t happy while he was single? Seeing the stars up close, traveling the universe, flying on Black and then leading ATLAS, that didn’t make Shiro happy? Are we now equaling marriage with happiness, is that it?

I get that an gay marriage and a gay kiss on screen is something commendable (it would have bene better if we had seen Shiro and his new hubbie actually interacting tho), and we all love Shiro, but I can think of several images that could have been more satisfactory for his character: him at the helm of the ATLAS, fulfilling his dreams of traveling the stars in peace; Shiro finally getting a vacation; maybe even a description with an older Shiro saying “and Shiro lived many years happy and in peace because he was not sick anymore” all of these would have been more rewarding.

…And the only scene that was animated was Shiro’s wedding? Why? Can you imagine how could it’d have been if instead of the weeding we saw something like “the lions came back one more time to bring back Allura” I wouldn’t even be here ranting for 20 minutes so far on top of my pile of salt if they had done something like that!

And it’s not even as if it was one simple person who made the ending: VLD has a staff of writers, several directors, many producers monitoring, a whole team of animators and several consulting departments…and none of them stopped to think this might not be a good ending to their series?

In the end, I’m still left with some questions:

What is the lifespan of an average Galra? What would be the expected lifespan for Keith or Axca and Ezor and Zethrid?

Does having Altean markings means Lance is now Altean? Cause the show was not clear, is this just a physical memento so Lance has something to remind him of Allura every day or will he live a long life now?

What’s the cosmic wolf’s name? did he ever told Keith?! How much more is he going to grow?

more importantly: What was the name of Keith’s father?!

[shieldmaiden19]

Batfam House Sorting

As much as I love Hogwarts AUs within this fandom, there are a ton of misconceptions out there about which Hogwarts Houses the members of the Batfamily would be sorted into. Most sortings I’ve seen follow these lines:

Dick - Ravenclaw Jason - Gryffindor or Slytherin Tim - Ravenclaw Damian - Slytherin Barbara - Ravenclaw Stephanie - Hufflepuff Cass - Hufflepuff Bruce - Ravenclaw

While I respect these, I think most if not all of them are taking the characters at face value. They all live with masks - literal and metaphorical - and they might not even acknowledge some of these deeper truths to themselves, but we as readers have a much bigger picture of their actions and their motivations.

I’m not going to get into Tim Drake because I already have written extensively on my brilliant boy and where he would actually be sorted. If you haven’t read The Mis-Sorting of Tim Drake yet, I’d recommend reading it now because I’ll be referencing it later in this piece.

Dick Grayson is brilliant and smart, yes, but the reasons he keeps doing vigilante work are primarily Hufflepuff in nature: “I will save as many people as possible, no matter the heartbreak. If I can save one person an awful fate, then I have saved one person.” Or as a certain musical puts it, “Have I done enough?” Hufflepuffs are some of the scariest people on the planet because you will never see them coming. They are not the couch potatoes of the world - they are the treads on the tank, the pistons in the engine. They are capable of greater nobility than the rest of the world combined, and if their death will save one, two, a hundred people, they will die without hesitation. And who embodies that more than Dick “Self Sacrifice” Grayson?

Jason Todd is depicted in the fandom as the impulsive, abrasive hotshot, but one thing everyone passes over is how little he cares for the rules. You don’t steal the Batmobile’s hubcaps? Tough luck. You have to pretend to be a kind of person you’re not when around the Gotham elite? Not a chance. We don’t use guns, and we don’t kill our enemies? Make me. And that, guys, gals, and non-binary pals, is a Ravenclaw trait. For a Ravenclaw, rules are for the sheep not intelligent to find a way around them: “They don’t have a plan, they just hate mine.” Jason is capable of asking if maybe it is okay to kill dangerous criminals rather than have them live out the rest of their corrupt lives comfortable and well-fed in prison. Putting criminals away in jail is doing nothing for their victims, so Jason will go outside of the rules to do what must be done.

For Stephanie Brown, I debated between Hufflepuff and Slytherin with Gryffindor-ish traits. Steph knows what she wants - to be Robin, to work with Cass, to finish her degree - and good luck to you if you get in her way. Unlike most Slytherins, she bulldozes through her problems, but her driving force is her ambition, her desire to be more. As a certain musical says, “I am either gonna die on the battlefield in glory or rise up.” Gryffindors maybe care a little for glory and instant gratification, but the fuel in their souls’ engines is to see justice done. They care about humanity as a whole but have a difficult time caring about small injustices they themselves commit in their quest for Justice, and put simply that’s not Steph. She cares too much for people - real people - to choose fighting Injustice over injustices. She’s a difficult sorting to pin down, and that’s the best I’ve got.

Cass Cain, like Dick Grayson, is a Hufflepuff. When Hufflepuffs snap, they will mow through anything in their path to protect the people they love and get back at those who hurt their loved ones. It takes a lot of passion, conviction, and evidence for Hufflepuffs to rise up, but when they do, the war is as good as over. Cass cares about people, about righting wrongs, but not at the kind of cost a Gryffindor or Ravenclaw is willing to accrue. She aspires to be better, and she will save people until she keels over, and still she will ask, “Have I done enough?”

Damian Wayne, like Stephanie Brown, is tricky. The fandom sorts him into Slytherin because he’s a “bad guy” and he’s sarcastic. Segue: By the way, it ticks me off when people say sarcasm is a Slytherin aesthetic, because sarcasm is mean - it is cruel and ultimately lifting yourself up by putting your listener down. Irony on the other hand requires actual skill, putting the speaker and the listener on the same level and creating a bond instead of a rift - “I’m in on the joke, you’re in on the joke, we’re in it together.” Sure some Slytherins are cruel, but a true Slytherin’s sense of humor centers around irony rather than sarcasm. End Segue. Damian might grump and grouch around most of the time, but he has come a long way from where he was when he first came to the Manor when he was using sarcasm. It takes a lot to get him to care for and open up to people, partly because he’s young, partly because he shares half his genetic code with Bruce "No-Feelings-Only-Justice” Wayne, and partly because he idolizes his father and attempts to be like him in every facet of his life. Damian follows Bruce’s rules - adhering to a code - and his driving force is to excel, to be known, to be remembered. That is why he is a Slytherin, not just because he’s a grouchy little shit.

Barbara Gordon is similar enough to Tim to sort decisively into Slytherin. Again, read The Mis-Sorting of Tim Drake for clarity on this. 

And as for Bruce? Ah, Bruce Wayne...the freaking Poster Boy™ for Slytherin House. Gotham is his city to defend, and anyone who stands against that will be taken down both brutally and efficiently. The little flock of vigilantes he’s gathered like chicks under his wing are also his, and he will protect them more fiercely than a mama grizzly. Anyone who hurts his children, be they supervillain, common criminal, or mere scum who broke his child’s heart, will pay the price. Bruce’ll stay within the bounds he’s set for himself (i.e. no killing), but all that means is that he needs to be more creative with his takedowns.

In summary:

Dick - Hufflepuff Jason - Ravenclaw Tim - Slytherin Stephanie - Hufflepuff or Slytherin Cass - Hufflepuff Damian - Slytherin Barbara - Slytherin Bruce - Slytherin

Re-blog with your thoughts. Peace out.

[blackidyll]

Saw your tags and omg if you ever write fic with Mara and Jacen and Jaina that would be amazing. I don't care that none of it is official anymore, they were my favorites.

Hi, it's likely been ten million years since you sent this message and I know this response is super late but I'm really happy to hear that you love the Extended Universe/Legends (whatever we're calling them now) characters too! Mara Jade is my absolutely favourite SW character. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll ever write fic for them because it's been more than a decade since I read any of the books (also the events of the Yuuzhan Vong War depresses me.....) but in my heart the original EU will always remain canon.

I don't know why I started reading the SW books in the first place, because I don't actually remember if I watched the original movies or not. I knew about Star Wars because it was one of those pop culture things people absorb through osmosis, but I picked up the Thrawn Trilogy on a whim from the library while on a sci-fi/fantasy book reading spree, and I just fell completely in love with Mara Jade and her very volatile interactions with Luke (in that she's trying to kill him, and Luke is determined not to be killed but also wants to help her, and they're both stuck on this planet and need each other to survive), and that's probably how I got interested in the Star Wars universe as a whole. 

Hence, I will always have a soft spot for Mara in my heart. She's such a wonderfully written character - complex and strong but flawed and human and yet she overcomes it all through her own efforts and hard work. Her agency after overcoming her past as the Emperor's Hand is probably one of the most important aspects of her character. Seeing Princess Leia become the head and leader of the New Republic? Hugely important. Seeing Mara Jade, overcoming her dark and painful beginnings and becoming utterly brilliant as the second-in-command of a major smuggling alliance and constantly sassing THE (one and only remaining) Jedi Knight/Master of the universe at the time? Also hugely important. And I was always more of a Mara kid than a Leia kid (I do love that Leia was amongst the first to trust Mara, despite Mara's Empire beginnings).

I also just love Mara's relationship with Luke; talk about the ultimate Enemies to Friends to Lovers. I remember as a teen reading the Hand of Thrawn books, and Luke freaking proposes when they're about to drown, and Mara just goes "we're in a literal life and death situation right now, are you for real?" because honestly Luke, your timing, and that banter of a proposal was just so THEM and I will love that scene forever. Also, moments after that Luke is forced to relinquish control and his saviour complex and let Mara do her job to save them, and it was a hugely important moment because their relationship can't survive if he doesn't trust her with this. And he does trust her with this, and I just love them and their partnership a lot ;A; they're so good together. I wouldn't change much about their canon selves except for how Mara's story ends (because... just no). In my ideal universe, the Solo children always remain chaotic teenage Jedi apprentices because everything falls apart when they grow up and the Yuuzhan Vong War happens. I actually stopped reading any Star Wars books midway through the Yuuzhan Vong arc because it was too depressing (if you read those books, you probably know why).

(more of my ramblings under the cut about the EU and also the new movie trilogies because I like Rey and Kylo/Ben, I just wish they were developed better when us EU fans already had characters like Mara and the Solo children.........)

I think one of the huge reasons why the new SW trilogy (Movies 7-9) constantly falls short for me is because... well, similar characters exist in the EU and they are just built and explored and characterized so much better. Much of it is because the book medium allows for so much more character growth and exploration, but yeah. I love Mara a lot because she really does have the whole grey and ambiguous background and she was molded into the Emperor's Hand with little choice of her own, and after Palpatine dies she fights bloody damn hard to define who she really is on her own terms. She actually feels like a so much better developed analogue for Kylo Ren, in that they were both manipulated from young to work for the dark side, and upon Palpatine/Snoke's death, they are finally free to make their own choices but are still haunted by their upbringing (Mara being literally haunted by Palpatine's final Force order to kill Luke).

I actually like Kylo's "redemption" back to Ben and how it was not motivated by any sudden moral change or goodness - but the fact that he just wants to be with Rey (someone who understands him), and if that means he has to go a little towards the grey side of the Force instead of the dark, then so be it. This is also why I thoroughly enjoyed Mara's long and windy journey to becoming a Jedi Knight - she didn't choose it and in fact avoided it since she quit Luke's Jedi training; it pretty much snuck up on her when she made the decision to sacrifice her beloved ship in an act of selflessness. The EU builds the idea that there is no true Light or Dark side of the Force, and although the new movie trilogy builds the foundation for this idea, it ended up enforcing the idea that everything /is/ black and white, that Rey has to reject being a Palpatine (Dark) to be a Skywalker (Light), and that Kylo Ren (a Dark side character for most of the trilogy) can only be "redeemed" in death............................ instead of just giving us the morally grey Jedi Knights that I want, because nothing is truly light or dark - one cannot exist without the other.

I hated the Rey Palpatine reveal BUT they could have really worked this angle and foil it against Kylo/Ben struggling with his legacy of being Darth Vader's grandson (and the fact that DV did die as Anakin Skywalker in the end - not on the side of good, but simply to protect his family). In fact, the EU does this perfectly with the Solo children: Anakin Solo has to struggle with his namesake and knowing he is the grandson of Anakin Skywalker, and his fear of turning to the dark side is a pretty great arc in the books (no Snoke or Palpatine influence needed).

Also, I think Adam Driver was wonderful as Kylo Ren/Ben, but honestly the EU making the very first Force-strong children in the new era a set of twins was a stroke of genius. The Solo twins are great. The fact that they are twins is also great as a literary technique. First, they share the burden of the entire universe's expectations - they bolster and balance each other. But they also eventually become opposite sides of the same coin, and even then, it's not all black and white. Jacen falls to the dark side literally because he wanted to protect the galaxy and was willing to do it at any cause (the road to hell is paved with good intentions indeed). Jaina is knighted the Sword of the Jedi - she's an offensive force that stands on the front lines so those behind her can know peace, and this eventually leads her to killing her brother (a Light character that commits fratricide to stop a Sith Lord).

I mean, I like the whole idea of Rey and Kylo/Ben's Force dyad thing (which by the way, is kind of broken/left hanging at the end of TROS because Ben fucking dies) but seriously, the Solo twins! All the built-in drama and legacy without having to give your new characters weird back stories!

At the end of the day. I wish they picked what they wanted to do with Kylo Ren. Make him like Jacen - have him willingly choose the dark side and live through the consequences of it. Or make him like Mara - someone who was forced into his current role - but also give him Mara's growth arc, where he gets the chance to properly break through the trauma and have time to work out his own motivations and NOT DIE at the end of it.

Same with Rey - let her be Rey from nowhere and build her own legacy (like Mara did :) I love that Mara absolutely thrived being second-in-command of a famed smuggling ring, because just because you are strong in the Force doesn't mean you need to be a Jedi). Or make her a Palpatine and let her actually struggle through the ramifications of it the way Anakin Solo did.

.. honestly if a Mara character existed in the movies we wouldn't have half the drama, because for one she wouldn't let Luke fuck off to the ends of the universe; she'd force him to take responsibility and not like, you know, abandon his sister and family and his duty. And knowing Mara (and seeing as Ben Solo was not actually responsible for the massacre at the Jedi academy apparently?), she'd take matters into her own hands and go infiltrate the First Order to get Ben back herself, because that's a Mara like thing to do. And she knows the Empire, you know? Even if it's been recasted as a different face (also canonically she's always been a good ally in taking care and safeguarding the Solo children).

[hermanwatts]

Science Fiction New Releases: 21 March, 2020

Magitech relic hunters, ancient superintelligences, and anti-alien rebels feature in this week’s newest science fiction releases.

In addition to these new releases, many authors are giving away or deeply discounting their books as much of the world self-isolates. Check your favorite authors’ websites, mailing lists, and sales pages for more details.

The Dogs of God: Science Fiction According to Chris – edited by Chris Kennedy

16 Amazing Authors, 16 Incredible SciFi Stories, 1 Great Name

From Allen to Woods, inside are some of the biggest and best names in Scifi, who have all come together under the banner of a name—Chris. What’s in a name? Some of the best SciFi out there! The stories are awesome, and it’s all science fiction…according to Chris!

While there are other names that may have done okay in the past, this book takes you through the incredible imaginations of the authors who are hot right now! Fly along with Chris Fox in the cockpit of an Inuran spellfighter, hold back the squibs on the firing line with Christopher Hopper, and journey with Christopher Ruocchio’s assassin as he goes to kill a king.

Other stories in this volume will have you saving the Earth from the cockpit of a gunboat in space, fighting off an invasion of Earth hand-to-hand, and piloting a mech when pirates land on your world. What would you sacrifice to change the lives of your family and friends? How do you stop an unknown assassin who’s come to kill the children you’re protecting? Come inside and find out!

Hatchling (Magitech Legacy #2) – Chris Fox

Dragons with Assault Cannons? How is that fair?

I saved Highspire and the academy from the dissolution of our world. 17,000 students survived, and I want to keep it that way. The ship is breaking down. Life support needs repairs, and we have almost no food. We need money badly. That means scavenging tech that we can sell to the same people who blew up our planet.

Fortunately I’m the best Relic Hunter in the business…though to be fair all the rest died when my world tumbled into the sun.

There are six other Great Ships out there, and who knows what we’ll find inside? I’m sure it will be fine. What could possibly go wrong?

The Last Revenge (The Last War #7) – Peter Bostrom

Admiral Jack Mattis watched his brother die, then his son die, and finally, he watched his world die. Now in another universe and timeline, unsure of who is the enemy and who is a friend, he must bring humanity back from the brink of complete annihilation in the face of hopeless odds.

Praise for The Last War:

“It would be fair to say that this is a brilliant book!”

“From beginning to end this novel is a thriller with mature, well written characters engaged in complicated and bloody conflict.”

“I got into this book, and literally did not put it down for a couple days.”

The Lost Intelligence (Lost Starship Series #12) – Vaughn Heppner

His code name is Nostradamus, and he’s an ancient alien super-intelligence awakened by pesky humans crawling upon his planet. He decides to use these low-grade morons, testing some, making the special ones his agents and sending them into Star Watch to make the military organization his own.

It’s an insidious assault from within, run by a creature with fantastic predictive powers against what he considers an infantile species.

Captain Maddox and the crew of Victory catch a glimpse of the secret menace in the Tau Ceti System. They race back to Earth to report. But Nostradamus’s web is already closing in. It may already be too late.

Except…Maddox, Galyan, Valerie and Professor Ludendorff refuse to give up on those they love. The secret war against humanity has a new set of champions, hardened veterans willing to challenge an alien that can predict their every move.

Do Maddox and his crew stand a chance against the super-alien and the full weight of Star Watch turned against them?

Occupation (Rise #1) – Devon C. Ford and Nathan Hystad

Twenty-five years ago, the Overseers conquered Earth and enslaved humanity. The time to fight back has come…

Alec works in the Detroit Overseer-factories, building a mysterious alien device. When three strangers appear, he’s provided an opportunity to escape after years of servitude.

Cole, a Freeborn loner, encounters Lina after her village is destroyed by the alien Occupation. Together, they make the arduous journey to a fabled safe-zone, trying to stay one step ahead of the enemy drones on their trail.

Dex is a Hunter, working for the Occupation to track down escaped factory slaves, or Roamers, at all costs. But his latest hunt uncovers a massive secret and threatens his loyalty to the Overseers.

All their fates are bound. For the first time in decades, a secret enclave of alien resistance fighters known as the Reclaimers prepare to make their move.

Occupied Earth (Ascension Wars #2) – Jasper T. Scott

The Forerunners left Earth in search of intelligent life, and they found it.

Captain Clayton Cross and his crew encountered the Kyra, an advanced race of avian carnivores. They fled this first encounter, but the Kyra beat them back to Earth by almost a century.

Earth lost the war in just a few weeks. Our cities burned, and billions died. After we surrendered, the Kyra helped us to rebuild, but on their terms, confining us to city centers and building high walls to keep us in.

The Kyra indoctrinate our children and encourage them to ascend through a virus that turns them into Chimeras. These hybrids are sent to fight the Kyra’s enemy, but only half of all ascensions are successful. The failures become Dregs, left to wander the Wastes as mindless predators.

Determined to oppose the Kyra any way he can, Clayton is working with the human resistance, and now they have a plan that will either put an end to the occupation, or to us…

Unleashed (Universe in Flames #12) – Christian Kallias

A terrifying threat from the past.

A warrior whose power knows no limit.

A man determined to exact revenge on his creators.

Even after the sheer destruction of the first Fury war, thousands of Furies remained scattered throughout the cosmos.

Super soldiers were created to wipe them out…and once their job was finished, they were hunted down and imprisoned, so that the universe would never fall victim to the soldiers’ power.

An attack on an Asgardian prison ship brings about the unthinkable. A super solider has now been unleashed.

And the universe trembles.

Veil Rising (The Star Guild Saga #1) – Brandon Ellis

Abducted along with thousands of others. Transported to a world of slavery for alien masters. Mind-wiped, so every hellish day in the mines feels like just another job shift.

This has been going on for millennia. And one day, archaeologist Ali Johnson decodes an ancient Sumerian tablet that unveils the truth. Those secrets set her on a trail of clues that lead to the right place at the absolute wrong time.

The plan to keep humanity at heel relies on periodic purges, and the countdown to genocide is ticking. Ali may be the spark that ignites galactic rebellion.

But before she can save mankind, she must remember who she is, what she’s lost, and why one terrible figure continues to haunt her dreams.

Science Fiction New Releases: 21 March, 2020 published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/