#just listened to s5e3

[justablah56]

man sometimes I think oh I like maxim a normal amount, maybe a bit more than average but it's still normal. and then I relisten to an episode he's in and I'm literally grinning and stimming every time he's mentioned or he says something or does something. you guys I literally love him oh my god.

[n1-adora-fan]

Rewatched s5e3 Corridors again… unwell (again)…

“Just listen! Adora… I’m sorry. For everything.”

Like screaming crying throwing up punch me in the face I can’t do this

[ilguna]

could i request expired medicine #13 with raven reyes? (im sending in a couple other requests so if ur next few sound a little repetetive its just me 😭)

☼ sleeping giants (Raven Reyes) ☼

warnings; swearing, blood mention, ehh gore, gun use, death, death mention, use of explosives.

wc; 4k

prompt; 13. "I'm not going anywhere."

notes; spoilers for s5e3.

--

The pod jerks as you come to a sudden stop inside of the transport ship, Eligius IV. You jolt forward, reaching your hand out to place on the metal wall to keep from bumping into it. A moment of silence consumes the group of you, adrenaline freshly pumping.

Emori lets out a sigh of relief, and possibly disappointment from her failure to properly land the ship. If it weren’t for Raven, you could be in a much worse situation right now.

“That was fun.” Murphy remarks, breathing heavily. “We should do that again sometime.”

The others sigh, you roll your eyes. You press the release latch on your helmet, carefully pulling it off your head to not smack yourself in the face with the long rubber part. Once you’ve got it resting on your lap, you look to Raven, who’s turned around in her seat to see you.

“You’re okay?” She asks, space helmet resting on the top of her thighs.

“As good as I can be.” You smile, giving her a wink.

“Okay, let’s go find that fuel.” Bellamy says, getting up from where he was sitting. He’s the first to reach the latch in the middle of the room, twisting the handle and pulling the door up. He glances at Raven. “On me.” He then begins to go down the ladder. “Suits off in the cargo hold.”

You each follow behind him one at a time, with you letting everyone else go first. You pass the helmet down to Monty, who places it off to the side, while you climb down the ladder. At the bottom, you shed the orange jumpsuit, folding it neatly and setting it in a pile on the floor, helmet on top.

The moment you step out of the ship, you can hear an alarm blaring from inside the Eligius IV. Bellamy tentatively approaches the airlock door, peering through the windows to see if there’s anyone coming in your direction.

“Come on. We got to move fast.” He says.

Echo pulls out her sword, causing the sound of metal on metal to fill up the small space. She shares a long look with Bellamy. “We don’t know what we’re walking into.”

Bellamy presses the red button for the airlock, allowing the doors to open, and the alarm to become louder. You reach for Raven, bringing her closer to you.

“That’s just annoying.” Murphy says.

“If someone was here, they’d shut it off, right?” Harper asks, Bellamy looks back at the rest of you, before heading into the hallway.

Raven pulls away from you, jogging to catch up with Emori. “Hey, not you. You should stay in the pod and run a full diagnostic check.” She looks back at it. “That was a big impact. We don’t know if we took on any damage.”

Murphy stops, turning halfway to listen in on the conversation. “I can, uh, stay back and help.” He offers.

The three of you look at him, but Emori speaks first. “How, by making stupid little jokes?”

“Don’t take it out on me because you screwed the pooch in your big debut, okay?” He turns fully, taking a step in your direction.

Bellamy comes back around, grabbing onto the back of Murphy’s shoulder to pull him away. “Hey, hey…” He motions. “Harper can help Emori. Everyone else move, now.” 

With this being mostly settled, the conversation is done. Emori heads into the ship, with Harper brushing past Murphy to join her. You keep a steady hand on Raven’s lower back, guiding her with you down the long hallways. 

Bellamy takes it easy around every corner, being sure to sweep the area with his flashlight first, and entering the space second. “This place is like a maze.” He murmurs, shuffling to a stop when you reach a door. His light fixated on the words above. “No inmates past this point.”

“Inmates?” Echo asks, face twisted.

“Prison labor.” Monty answers, causing Bellamy to look his way. “The mining missions were dangerous. They sent people they thought were disposable.”

“Sounds familiar.” Murphy says, referring to how a hundred of you got sent to the ground as a sacrifice because the Ark was running out of air. You’re still bitter about it, too, but not to his extent.

“Relax. Our ancestors were prisoners a hundred years ago.” Raven tells him, moving forward through the group, leaving you in the back. “Their descendants on that transport ship are survivors, just like us.” When she approaches the door, it opens automatically. “The bridge is this way. Come on.”

She manages to lead you through the last of the hallways effortlessly, straight to the bridge, like a moth to a flame. She’s always drawn toward electronics. The door entering the room has been ripped open with brute force, the metal has been mangled and twisted to have a gap just wide enough to slip through.

“Looks like someone forgot their key.” Echo mutters

Raven squeezes through. “Jackpot.”

Immediately, she begins to head toward the front, where she’ll be able to turn off the alarm. Bellamy isn’t as quick to move, looking around. “Something bad happened here.”

“Monty.” Raven calls.

He slips past you, hurrying to her side. “Help you access the ship’s manifest and schematics so we can find out where they keep their hydrazine?”

Yes, but first let’s kill this alarm.” She tells him.

Raven plops down in one of the seats, entering the computer and going through until she can turn off the noise. The second the silence hits, a wave of serenity comes over you, no longer anxious.

“Thank you.” Bellamy says, observing the cabinets.

Monty sits on the other side of the room, typing. “Fuel systems.” He reads, his screen lights up. “Got it.”

“Oh, Captain’s chair.” Murphy makes a face, taking a seat.

“I think that belongs to me.” You tell him, jabbing your thumb to the side to tell him to get off.

He scoffs, “In your dreams, (Y/n). You don’t have a leading bone in your body.”

“And you do?” You shoot back. 

“The ship doesn’t run on hydrazine.” Raven announces. “They could never store enough for a long-duration mission.”

“Well, what, then?” Bellamy asks.

“It looks like… hythylodium.” 

“Must be what they were mining for, incredibly efficient energy—” Monty begins.

Murphy cuts him off. “Spare me the science lesson.” You smack the side of his head. He glares at you, but continues to speak. “Can we use it to land the pod or not?”

“Sure, if you want to explode every cell in your body.” Raven rolls her eyes.

“I vote for that one.” You smile sarcastically at Murphy, moving away from the chair. Murphy gives you a mocking smile back.

“Raven.” Bellamy says, concerned.

“Don’t worry. Just because this ship doesn’t run on hydrazine doesn’t mean they don’t have any on board.” She says, typing into the computer.

“The dropship.” Monty suggests.

“Short-range transport. They’d have to have a supply for refueling.” She goes quiet for a second, waiting for the computer to respond to her requests. Then, it changes. “Boom. And the crowd goes wild.”

You come up beside her, rubbing a hand over her shoulder. She looks up at you with a smile.

“So we have a way down?” Echo asks.

“We have a way down.” Raven confirms. 

“That’s not all we have.” Monty says, looking over the control panel nearby. His eyebrows draw in, squinting his eyes briefly, and then he flicks a switch. A radio scratches as it tries to connect to the right frequency. “Lasercom.”

“I mean it, McCreary.” A female voice comes over the radio. “I’m not losing any more men today.”

You turn to look at Bellamy, finding his face twisted.

“Our radios were blocked by residual radiation on the Earth, but lasercom was designed to cut through worse atmospheric conditions than that.” Monty tells you.

“Well, can we talk to them?” Murphy asks, getting out of the chair.

“Wait. We don’t know who we’re dealing with.” Bellamy tells him, reaching to grab him. 

Raven is on her feet now, looking over the control board.

“Movement to the northwest. McCreary, do you see it?” A man asks.

“I’ve got something better than movement. I’ve got tracks.” McCreary responds.

Raven turns around suddenly, looking between you and Bellamy with wide eyes. “They’re hunting our people.”

“We don’t know that.” Murphy says.

“We know there was no one else left on the ground.” Bellamy says.

“They could still be in the bunker.” You suggest.

“That wouldn’t make any sense.” Monty shakes his head. “They wouldn’t be able to sustain it.”

“It’s just an idea.” 

“Whatever this is, Octavia can handle it.” Echo says to Bellamy, trying to reassure him.

“Move over.” Raven boots Monty from where he’s sitting.

“Wait. What are you doing?”

“Finding out who we’re dealing with.” She says, pulling up several screens to sift through the information.

“All units, be advised. Subject is armed and dangerous.” The same woman from earlier says. “We are in her backyard. She knows the terrain. Keep your eyes open.”

You share a look with Bellamy, where you shake your head slightly. 

“I see her! Moving in!”

“We’ll go south and cut her off.” McCreary advises. 

“We’re closing in!” A voice shouts, before gunshots come over the radio.

There’s a moment of silence, and then the woman comes back on. “McCreary, we heard gunfire. Report.” She orders. “I said report, McCreary.”

“Relax, Colonel.” McCreary sighs over the radio. “I told you we’d get her, and we did. She’s a feisty one. Pretty, too.”

“Good work. Bring her to me.” The Colonel tells him. “We got a lot to talk about.”

“Still don’t think it’s Octavia?” Bellamy asks you, taking a step back. “We got to get down there, now.” 

“I’ll stay up here and look for anything useful.” Raven says, sitting back in her chair, rotating around to face the rest of you. 

“Okay,” Bellamy agrees. “Monty, Murphy and Echo can go get the hydrazine. You know where to find it, right?”

Monty nods. “I’ve got it.”

The three of them take off to the dropship together once Raven gives them a general set of directions. Monty waves her off, declaring that he’ll figure it out, and then they disappear through the small gap.

The three of you sit in your own chairs, with you and Bellamy watching Raven work her magic over the systems. She siphers through the files, until she finally comes across the prisoners, which are locked behind a wall. It doesn’t take her more than a minute to break through.

Bellamy and her switch spots, allowing him to go back and forth between all three hundred of them. “Murder, murder, murder.” He reads their crimes out loud, there isn’t much of a variety. They boil down to the same thing. “Murder, arson resulting in murder, armed robbery resulting in murder.” He sighs. “Three hundred inmates, twenty-five guards, and twelve crew.”

“Relax.” Raven tells him. “Great-great-grandpappy Blake was an astronaut with how many PH.D.S?”

“Four?” Bellamy says.

“And how many do you have?” She asks, you laugh at the look on Bellamy’s face. “Oh, wait. Shut up. I got it.” She says, switching from one of the prisoner files to a screen with a long list of recordings. “The Captain’s Log.” 

“The last entry was over a hundred years ago.” You raise your eyebrows.

“Play that one.” Bellamy says.

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

She presses play, and immediately a video pops up with a man on the screen, wearing a black jumpsuit. “I have to make this fast. The ship has been compromised.” He begins quickly, Bellamy gets to his feet. “The prisoners found out about Order Eleven. They used an explosion in the starboard engine bay as a distract—”

An explosion at the door cuts him off, a flash of light coming across the video, corrupting it into static for a brief moment. On the other side of the room, by the door, you can see figures in orange coming in. The video jumps, the man facing the camera again.

“Most of the crew is already dead. They’re about to take the bridge. Listen to me!” He demands, Bellamy looks back at the damaged door. “With the engine damage, it’ll be decades, maybe longer, before they make it back home. I tried disabling cryo, but couldn’t.”

“Cryo?” You repeat, looking at Bellamy.

“That’s quite enough, Captain.” A familiar voice says, the woman from the radio. You turn your attention back to the screen.

“If Eligius makes it back to Earth, blow it out of the sky! Diyoza can’t be allowed to weaponize the cargo! Do you hear me?! I said blow it—”

A man appears behind the Captain, a knife being brandished at the camera, before it’s sliced across his neck. You watch the blood spurt out in a giant wave, and then the Captain falls to the floor, choking.

“The bridge is yours, Lieutenant.” The woman says.

“You said you wouldn’t kill the crew.” A different man says, voice low.

“I said I wouldn’t.” The woman emphasizes. You watch as the prisoners begin to fire at the crew. “You did the right thing. I won’t forget it.” Another gunshot. “Now do your job and get us the hell out of here, Lieutenant.”

There’s chatter between the inmates, and then the woman comes into the main view of the camera. Your eyes lock on her, taking in every detail of her face that you can, before she shuts off the camera. END ENTRY. The letters are bolded in a yellow pop-up.

There’s a moment of silence between you three as you take in the information. 

“He said cryo.” Raven murmurs. “He said he was trying to deactivate the cryo—” Raven gets to her feet, turning to face Bellamy, her eyes widening almost instantly. “Bellamy, look out!” 

You twist in your chair, looking for the danger. You find a large prisoner barreling into the bridge, twice the size of any of you. You get to your feet, watching as Bellamy blocks the first punch, but misses the second one. 

As you jerk forward, you wind your fist back, and then throw your entire body weight into the punch. His head knocks back, but that’s it, before he reaches to grab you, managing to place a hand on your shoulder. Bellamy comes through, back on his feet, punching the prisoner again, causing him to double over. He’s able to get one more hit in, and then he gets headbutt.

The prisoner throws him against the nearest cabinet, trying to hold him down. Raven comes up behind him, sticking her fingers into his eyes, pulling his head back. It loosens the grip on Bellamy enough to allow him to breathe, but the prisoner punches his stomach, throwing him down.

And turns his attention to Raven.

No, you think. You throw your left arm up and around his neck, pulling him into a headlock. He reaches to grab you, instinctively trying to pull you off. You tighten your grip around his neck, pulling your arm.

“Hey! Let her go!” Echo shouts.

The prisoner turns to face her, and she comes in swinging with the sword, slicing it across his stomach. You get thrown off in a fit of rage, managing to land on your hands and knees, nothing aching. She then slams the sword through his stomach, and you can see the blade come out through his back.

This has little effect on him. He kicks Echo off, she trips over the steps behind her. Bellamy reaches for a wire, pulling it free. He runs at the prisoner, looping it around his neck, and garrotting him. They struggle, with the prisoner lifting him up and spinning, But with how tight the wire is being pulled, his circulation is cut off.

He falls to his knees, eyes rolling to the back of his head, and then he falls.

The four of you sit on the floor for a minute, panting, trying to catch your breath.

“One down, two hundred and ninety-nine to go.” Raven says.

“Shit.” You breathe.

Echo gets to her feet, holding the sword at her side. “We got the hydrazine to the pod, that’s where the others are. I came here to tell you about the cryo, but it looks like you’ve got a taste of it.”

“How’d you find out?” You ask, getting up. You brush the dirt from your jeans, and then move to help Raven up.

“We found where they all are.” She says.

“Take us there.” Bellamy tells her.

She makes a face, and begins to head toward the door. The three of you follow after her, with Bellamy insisting that he takes up the rear, in case there’s any other prisoners lurking around on the Eligius IV. 

The moment you step into the cryo room, Bellamy is visibly stressed, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, looking over all the pods.

“Not too long ago, I’d have thought this was magic.” Echo says.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Raven says, playing with one of the panels. “Arthur C. Clarke.”

“How long can they live like this?” 

“Technically? Forever.” Raven says.

“Or we can kill them all right now.” Murphy’s voice comes from down the hallway, you turn in time to see him pass through the doorway. “What happened to you?”

“One of them woke up.” Echo says, standing over a pod.

“Question is how?” Bellamy asks.

“No, the question is what the hell are we waiting for?” Murphy shoots back. “I’m serious, okay. We’re all gassed up. Let’s pull the plug on this sleeping arm and go home.”

“That’s not an option; kill theirs, they kill ours.” Bellamy tells him. “Raven?”

“The pods are all jacked into the mainframe. I’m guessing they activated this one remotely from the ground, probably in response to us tripping their alarm.”

“Um,” You shake your head. “When he doesn’t check in, they’ll wake more of them.”

“I’d say that’s a good bet.” Raven agrees.

“Ergo, my ‘get the hell out of here’ plan.” Murphy says.

“Bellamy, you know what happens when these guys get to the ground.” Echo starts. “Murphy’s not wrong. This is an army.” Bellamy looks down. “I know how you feel, but it took four of us to take out one of them. Giving them reinforcements when we can stop it is a strategic mistake.”

Bellamy looks at Murphy, and he nods. When he looks at you, he sucks in a breath. “We’ve been off the ring for less than a day, and we’re already talking about murdering hundreds of people.” 

“This is not murder. It’s survival.” Murphy argues. “They die now or we die later. If Clarke was here, this wouldn’t even be—”

“Clarke’s not here!” Bellamy cuts him off.

“Exactly.” Murphy emphasizes. “She died so we could live, Bellamy. This is how we do that.”

Bellamy looks away, toward the pods.

“Maybe not.” Raven says. “We can leave them here like this, but block the signal from the ground so they can’t wake them up.”

“They have a shuttle. They can just come back up and do it themselves.” Murphy reasons.

“Can you rig it so we can kill them remotely?” Echo asks.

“It’s tricky… but possible. Why?” 

“Leverage.” Bellamy nods. “‘Put down your weapons or we pull the plug’. How long do you need to make that possible?” 

“I don’t know, but I’m on it.” Raven turns to the computer. 

“That’s my girl.” You murmur.

Bellamy rolls his eyes, and they land on Murphy, who’s walking away. “Wait. Murphy. I want to know what you think.”

“I think it’s a risk.”

“You’re right. It is. But Clark didn’t die for us to live just so we can go back to the ground and make the same mistakes.” 

Murphy throws his arms out. “What the hell? Let’s be good guys.” 

He backs out of the doorway, presumably down the hall and toward the pod again. You stick around Raven, watching as she changes the programming to allow her to be in control, taking it away from the prisoners on the ground. When she’s done, her face smooths over, and she decides to go back to the bridge.

Bellamy and Echo go to the pod to regroup, you follow behind Raven. The two of you sit in front of the system, where she pulls up the crypod control, watching the stats to make sure none of them wake up.

“What’s the matter?” You ask her.

“Nothing.” 

“That’s crap.” You lean back in your seat. “That’s the face you make when there’s a tough decision.”

She presses her lips together, the sound of shuffling back you look up to see Bellamy. She sighs. “Someone has to stay up here.”

“What?” Bellamy asks, face twisting.

“How?”

“With remote access to the cryo-pods blocked, we won’t be able to operate them, either.” She tells you two, wandering closer to the screen. “Pulling the plug from the ground is not an option. Someone has to stay.”

“No. No.” Bellamy hands his hands on his hips, shaking his head. “No way. Okay, we make the threat from up here on the lasercom.”

“We won’t know if they’re following through.” Raven says. “Look, I’ve played out every angle. This only works if we have eyes on the ground.”

“Fine.” Bellamy wanders away. “Show me how to do it.”

“I can’t.” Raven’s voice is very matter-of-fact. And it’s a dead giveaway of what she’s been thinking about this entire time. She’s resigned herself to being the one that stays up here. You get up from where you’re sitting. “There are nine security measures to be bypassed, and teaching you would take days, and knowing you, you’d probably still screw it up.”

“You want to stay up here?” You ask her.

“I have to.” She tells you. “It’s not a matter of want, it has to be me.”

“I am not leaving you here.” Bellamy says. 

“I’ll be fine.” She says.

“The hell you will, I’m not leaving, either.”

“Emori can get you down. That’s what I trained her for. You need to go and find your sister, and make a deal for peace with the prisoners. Once everyone’s friends, they’ll come back up for their people, and I’ll hitch a ride down with them.” She tells Bellamy, turning to look at you next. “And you need to be down there to help negotiate peace, you’re better at it than any of us. And besides, you hate it up here, remember?”

“I’m not leaving.” You tell her.

“What if the threat doesn’t work?” Bellamy asks. “You’ll be stuck up here, Raven. You’ll have to kill three hundred people. Have you thought about that?” There’s a brief silence. “No, no, we’ll come up with something else. I left Clarke behind to die, and I…” He trails off. “I’m not doing that again.”

Raven looks off to the side. “There’s an escape pod, you idiot. For the Captain and First Mate. When this is all over, if you fail, I can go down in that.” She says.

Bellamy sucks in a breath.

“Hey.” She says. “Six years ago, I promised myself I would find a way to get us back down. Guys, this is it. Please, let me get you all home.” Raven looks at you, tilting her head. 

“Bellamy, you should go to the others.” You tell him, not breaking eye contact with Raven. 

“(Y/n), please. I want you to go down there, you’ll be happier.”

“I’ll be happier up here, with you.” You tell her. “And if there is an escape pod, there won’t be an issue later on, will there?”

She hesitates. It’s only for a moment, but you catch it. She nods, “Okay.”

Bellamy begins to back away. “We’re set, then?”

“Yes.” You tell him, “Go.” You watch to make sure that he’s gone, before looking at her. 

She’s shaking her head slightly. “Don’t stay up here with me.”

“You were lying.” You call her out. “What were you lying about?”

“The escape pod.” She sighs. “You’re going to be stuck up here with me. We might die up here.”

“And if we do, I’ll be right next to you.” You tell her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

--

this was part of my 3k celebration!!!

[doctorwho-rewatch]

S5E3 - Victory of the Daleks

★★★☆☆

Every series of Doctor Who requires a solid Dalek episode. Dalek involvement in World War 2 doesn't seem altogether that outlandish - they are a racial cleansing machine which isn't that novel of a concept during the Second World War... - but to see them decked out in camo, taking orders from Winston Churchill to defeat the Nazis is somewhat ironic.

I do feel we're at a bit of a point of over-reliance on the Daleks for some humanity-ending tension with the Doctor. We only just saw them in the Series 4 finale Journey's End with the crescendo of the Tenth Doctor dismantling the reality bomb and destroying the Daleks. There's a feeling that if we encounter them pretty frequently, we become a bit more immune to them, taking them less seriously.

That being said, this Dalek episode stands out for being one that shows the capability and successes of the Daleks. In the past four series, the Daleks have always underestimated the Doctor's capacity for empathy, his love for Earth and its inhabitants and they have been undone for their mistakes.

This time, however, we see the Daleks take advantage of the Doctor's compassion, forcing him into a situation where he has to make a choice whether to save Earth or destroy the Daleks. And he makes the same choice he always has and the Daleks claim victory. I'm glad we got to see them written in a way that shows they are fairly deadly and strategic villains.

What we're left with now, until the next Dalek episode, is some colourful Lego Daleks and an ''am-I-a-real-boy?' android professor. Could be worse.

QUOTE: "Listen to me. Just listen. The Daleks have no conscience. No mercy. No pity. They are my oldest and deadliest enemy. You can not trust them." "If Hitler invaded Hell I would give a favorable reference to the Devil."

[dan-levy-is-my-life-coach]

It’s National Sleepover Day, so please enjoy this photo of the best sleepover ever.  

I’ll listen to arguments for the night at Stevie’s or the morning after the engagement, but I love this one because it’s so mundane.  Just a regular morning in bed. 

Photo: CBC, Schitt’s Creek, S5E3, The Plant

[daymansbingerecapsandrankings]

(Originally written on October 8, 2020)

🎵Bang, Bang Bangedy Bang

I said a Bang Bang Bangedy Bang🎵

My How I Met Your Mother Thoughts

I just spent the last nine seasons in New York with the gang that spends all their time in MacLaren’s Pub. SELF FIVE! I have to say, this binge of How I Met Your Mother brought me so much happiness. I started watching this show for the first time back in high school, and I ended up watching the last six seasons as they aired. I remember loving this group of characters, and now I am reminded why. There’s so much chemistry between the five, and it makes for one of my favorite Comedies/Sitcoms of all time. If you’ve read any of my previous Show Thoughts, then you know I’ve been watching several over the course of this lovely Pandemic That Will Just Keep Going. After this rewatch, I’ve decided HIMYM is my third favorite Comedy/Sitcom, right after Boy Meets World and Scrubs.

Now, I know that the Finale is infamous. It’s in the Mount Rushmore of Terrible Endings, and people end up getting a sour taste in their mouth when they bring up the show. Well, it’s been some years. There’s been time to reflect and look back. And, while I’m not in favor of the Finale, I also don’t hate it anymore with the passion of a thousand suns. I just loved watching and growing with the gang, seeing them experience their highs and their lows, their triumphs and their failures. It just hits harder as an adult, like most of these shows assuredly do, and I cherish so many of these episodes and moments.

And now, my rankings for the seasons!

Seasons Rankings

1. Season One

2. Season Four

3. Season Two

4. Season Six

5. Season Eight

6. Season Five

7. Season Three

8. Season Seven

9. Season Nine

My rankings for the girlfriends, purely on how much I like them as a character

The Girlfriends Rankings

1. Robin

2. Tracy

3. Victoria

4. Zoey

5. Stella

6. Jeannette

And now, a ranking of my favorite episodes. From 1-50, these are the ones that stand out above the rest. I consider every single one of these enjoyable.

Favorite Episodes

1. Slap Bet (S2E9)

2. Come On (S1E22)

3. The Limo (S1E11)

4. The Best Burger in New York (S4E2)

5. Ten Sessions (S3E13)

6. The Pineapple Incident (S1E10)

7. Bachelor Party (S2E19)

8. Game Night (S1E15)

9. Oh, Honey (S6E15)

10. Glitter (S6E9)

11. The Duel (S1E8)

12. The Pilot (S1E1)

13. Arriverdverci, Fierro (S2E17)

14. The Over-Correction (S8E10)

15. How Your Mother Met Me (S916)

16. Intervention (S4E4)

17. The Magician’s Code, Part II (S7E24)

18. The Autumn of Break-Ups (S8E5)

19. The Ducky Tie (S7E3)

20. The Best Man (S7E1)

21. The Leap (S4E24)

22. Blitzgiving (S6E10)

23. Three Days of Snow (S4E13)

24. The Scorpion & The Toad (S2E2)

25. Bass Player Wanted (S9E13)

26. The Final Page, Part 2 (S8E12)

27. Duel Citizenship (S5E5)

28. Happily Ever After (S4E6)

29. Farhampton (S8E1)

30. Bro Mitzvah (S8E22)

31. Robin 101 (S5E3)

32. The Magician’s Code, Part I (S7E23)

33. Last Words (S6E14)

34. The Playbook (S5E8)

35. The Time Travelers (S8E20)

36. Splitsville (S8E6)

37. Subway Wars (S6E4)

38. Showdown (S2E20)

39. Drumroll, Please (S1E13)

40. Front Porch (S4E17)

41. Twin Bed (S5E21)

42. Who Wants to be a Godparent? (S8E4)

43. Girls vs. Suits (S5E12)

44. Something Borrowed (S2E21)

45. As Fast As She Can (S4E23)

46. The Wedding Bride (S5E23)

47. The Bracket (S3E14)

48. The Sexless Innkeeper (S5E4)

49. Third Wheel (S3E3)

50. Spoiler Alert (S3E8)

And now, just some thoughts on the show and on the gang!

Ted - I know people don’t like Ted. I don’t actually like Ted all that much. And yet, I found myself rooting for Ted just like I did the first go around. He’s not the worst person in the world, and I would be scared to see half of the decisions we’ve made in the dating game stringed together into a TV show. I know people wouldn’t like me very much for those decisions. Then again, I also don’t get super crazy about details about buildings, I don’t pronounce encyclopedia that way, and he tends to stick his foot in his mouth with this White Man confidence that I just don’t have. With all that being said, I still find Ted being a great friend, a man who is just trying to find the love of his life, and someone who really drives this story with great tales and narration (Bob Saget is the Sixth Man of the Show for just always bringing it). I think Ted does stupid things and he pretty much admits it after the fact. He learns, sometimes, and also doesn’t much like most of us. When he finally found the Mother, when he finally found Tracy, I cared. I cared so much, and I still do. Even though they just shit on her character and don’t give us enough time with her, I almost wonder if that’s a metaphor for the fact that you won’t always have enough time with your loved ones.

Robin - Let’s go to the mall! Yeah! Robin Sparkles is a Canadian Treasure, and so is Robin Scherbatsky. She is one of the best things about this show, and I love her so. Played by Cobie Smulders who I need to see in more stuff, Robin is who we all wanted Ted to maybe be with first. Then we go through all the loops of the HIMYM roller coaster, and a lot of us still wanted them to be together. I was one of them. Yet, she was more than just a romantic plot line for Ted. She was a part of the group who we got to see join it and evolve into a member of their family organically. Robin is fun, loud, full of fun quirks that we get to learn over the course of the series. I was heartbroken when we found out she can’t have children. I was loving the back and forth between her and Barney (the first time), and kind of mad at Barney about being such a crazy ass prankster the second time. Robin shows us just how amazing some gun loving, hockey obsessed Canadian news anchor can be, and how much she cares for her friends.

Lily - Justice Aldrin ends up being one of my favorite characters, even if that gets some curious looks. Yeah, she left Marshall for a summer. Yeah, she had some hesitancy with the marriage and everything. That happens. Lily was also always there for her friends, even if she ends up going a little overboard. She wants Ted to find happiness, and does whatever she can to help. She is there to listen to Robin at all times, and her and Marshall are easily one of the best relationships in TV I’ve ever witnessed. Then we have Lily and Barney which is honestly super underrated. Barney trusts Lily, even though she can’t keep a secret, with all of his emotional problems. Lily is who thought Barney could change before anyone else, and I love seeing their friendship grow from eye rolls to eye tears.

Barney - Oh, Barney. He honestly brings so much annoyance and fun to the show. He’s the friend of the gang who everyone tolerates. He’s the one in the gang who everyone ends up loving just as much as everyone else. Barney shows such a terrible face to the world, sleeping with over 250 women and lying to most of them. He has all these rules that aren’t very ethical. He gives us most of the Misogynism in this show, which is definitely prevalent and makes the show not as strong as it was in the first watch. Still, we get to see Barney grow into someone who wants real love and a happy life. Sure, they show us that his marriage to Robin only lasts three years, but at least they tried. Barney just couldn’t make it work, and that’s honestly who Barney really is. A person who just enjoys sleeping with different people. I was very warmed to see the baby reveal and that Barney becoming a dad was what would change him more than anything. Barney is an underrated friend, and his importance to the gang is legendary.

Marshall - I. Love. Big Fudge. He’s just so fun, caring, goofy, loyal, and everything that I aspire to be in life. For some reason, when watching the show the first time, I related to Ted the most. I was definitely a bit more selfish then. But now, I see that I am a Marshall. He wants to do good in the world, and it drives him so much. He only loves Lily, and his loyalty to their relationship is just Goals. He is also the most fun to watch having a crisis. He gets the big eyes and covers his mouth and just gets obviously super uncomfortable. Some of my favorite moments of the show are also Marshall’s talks with Ted about his feelings for Robin. Any one-on-ones with Marshall and someone else are probably my favorite moments. And yes, I will always root for him over those damn machines!

Last Thoughts:

Sure, the writing wasn’t as sharp or as witty in the later seasons, but I loved the story lines and seeing the gang just live.

Tracy was an amazing character as The Mother, and I truly wonder what could have been if they had given us two full seasons of story with her instead of any episodes of Jeannette.

I really can’t believe Ted told his kids all those stories. A fun premise for a show, but really, not very realistic telling them all that jazz.

Ranjit and Carl are such fun recurring characters that I always enjoyed seeing every time they popped up.

Out of all the recurring jokes and gags, which there are many (y’all said Community has so many, but HIMYM really swings for it), I love the Major/General salute joke. Idk if I just didn’t care for it the first time around or forgot about it, but I just love how silly it is and how they kept it through to the very last episode.

Watching the gang sit at their table in MacLaren’s just hanging out will always make me smile.

[jonny-byerss]

Fun question: Who are your top 5 favorite fictional TV characters? Who are your top 5 least favorite/most hated fictional TV characters? And why are they your favorite/least favorite?

Okay...I really had to think about this one. Just letting you know, my preferences change a lot, but this is what I’m feeling right now. It could change an hour from now or it could be the same a month from now, who knows? I just chose characters from my 3 main fandoms.

Top 5 Favorite Fictional TV Characters

5. Blaine Anderson (Glee)

I’m not gonna lie I do think he’s pretty cute. I know his character is gay, but he’s still cute! I LOVE his voice! He has such a pretty voice! Idk why I like him so much, I just have always liked him from the very first episode he was in to the last one. Some of my favorite Glee covers are sung by him. I really like his story, and his relationship with Kurt. I think Darren Criss does an amazing job with him!

4. Peter Parker/Spider-Man (MCU)

Okay, I’ll admit, I’m one of those girls who thinks Tom Holland is hot, but that’s not the only reason I love Peter. I just really love his story, his uncle’s death, and how that made him wanna use his powers for good. Plus, MCU Peter is literally the same age as me. I can really relate to him! (If Aug 10, 2001 is really his birthday, then he’s actually a year and two months older then me). I just love the little comments he makes when he fights, and his friendship with Ned is very cute to me, and also his relationship with MJ. And his relationship with Aunt May. I think Tom Holland does a really good job with Peter!

3. Finn Hudson (Glee)

I’m not gonna lie, S5E3 of Glee really made me cry! I absolutely love Finn and his story. I admire how he was this high school football player jock with a cheerleader girlfriend who was forced to join the Glee Club (that was messed up, like seriously Mr Schue?), and with that, he really found himself and made friends with people he never thought he would. I absolutely love Cory Monteith, and it’s so unfortunate what happened to him. I think his voice is absolutely beautiful and my all-time favorite Glee cover is sung by him. I like his relationship with Rachel, and with Kurt and even his mother. RIP Cory Monteith and Finn Hudson.

2. Nancy Wheeler (Stranger Things)

Did you really think my Top 2 weren’t gonna be Stranger Things? I’ll admit, I didn’t always like Nancy. It’s not until halfway through S1 that she won me over. I just love how badass she is! She went from this nerdy high school girl who started dating the high school jock and gained popularity to this badass girl who is dating the school outcast and is amazing with a gun and proud of it! She is not afraid to put people in their place and I love that about her! And Natalia Dyer does amazing with her! Give me all the badass!Nancy scenes!

1. Jonathan Byers (Stranger Things)

I absolutely love Jonathan! He wasn’t always my favorite, but after S2, I decided he was my favorite. He’s not a lot of people’s favorite character, which is unfortunate, he’s super underrated. I absolutely adore the relationship he has with his mother, I really wish they would’ve showed that more after S1. And his relationship with Will is just adorable. He’s the big brother everyone wishes they had. And ugh his relationship with Nancy is literally the cutest thing ever, how they went from just casual acquaintances to friends to lovers. I just love how kind and loving he is. He’s had a rough life, but he didn’t let that get to him! He came out of it with love and kindness to give! And Charlie Heaton does such a good job portraying him! I hope we get more Jonathan in S4!

Top 2 Least Favorite Fictional TV Characters

Okay, so for this one, I couldn’t think of 5 characters that I actually hate. I’m not one to hate a character unless they’ve given me a reason to hate them. So here’s 2:

2) Brody Weston (Glee)

I hated this man from the moment he came on the screen. I was suspicious about him the whole time. I was really mad at Rachel for dating him. I wasn’t super invested in any Glee ships, but I just knew I didn’t want Rachel to date him. The whole time I was screaming at her to listen to Santana. He deserved that punch in the face!

1) Billy Hargrove (Stranger Things)

I don’t hate any characters in Stranger Things except him (okay, maybe I hate Lonnie Byers too, he can choke). I just don’t understand why he’s so liked. Okay, yes, I do, it’s because he’s “hot”, but that doesn’t excuse all of his abuse and racism! I don’t even think he’s that hot. And I hate how they tried to “redeem” him. Death isn’t redemption. Just saying. That’s all I’m gonna say about that. I think it’s obvious why I hate him.

[violethowler]

This Isn’t A Zero Sum Game: An Analysis of Lotor’s Interactions With The Paladins as a Whole Across Seasons 5 and 6

Every once in a while I’ll think about some “hot take” I saw in the VLD fandom more than a year ago and just think about how canon... just did not support those  conclusions... And since that’s how most of my meta get started, I churned out a new one: 

In the wake of Seasons 5 and 6 dropping I saw a lot of posts, particularly from Lotor stans, bashing the Paladins for the way they treated him in the first two episodes of Season 5, how cruel they were to just give him over to his father without a second thought. I even saw a few arguing over how humane his treatment was in S5E1. 

While I do believe that Lotor’s desire for peace was genuine (as we would have seen in Season 8 before the executive meddling cut the payoff), I think that it’s a little extreme to argue that the Paladins treatment of him in S5E1 The Prisoner was unethical, or that they were just throwing him to the wolves in S5E2.

To quote one of my favorite video game characters, “Let’s hit these plot points in order.”

What exactly were people expecting the Paladins to do after Lotor saved the day in “A New Defender”? Immediately welcome him into the fold with open arms and a fresh batch of cookies that Hunk made just for the occasion? They’re forgetting that just a few episodes ago, Lotor was still in charge of the Galra Empire. He wasn’t a fringe third party with a checkered past who showed up to help when the chips were down like Rolo and Nyma. For all of Season 3 and most of Season 4, he’s been an enemy combatant, and they treated him as such. While he may currently be at odds with his father after S4E3, the Paladins have no way to know whether he genuinely wants peace or is just telling them what they want to here so he can take advantage of them. Because he’s done it before.

In S3E2 Red Paladin, Lotor has Narti use her mind control powers to have the leader of Puig send a distress signal asking Voltron for help. When they arrive, he ambushes them and sends multiple waves of fighters to gauge their skill and whether they would be able to retrieve the trans reality comet. When he gets what he wants, he leaves.

Two episodes later, in S3E4 Hole in the Sky, Lotor attaches a distress beacon to the ship with the comet inside that mimics an Altean distress signal. When Voltron arrives, he waits for them to retrieve the comet, then attacks them, steals the comet for himself, and flies off.

That’s two times now that Lotor has faked a distress signal and then used Voltron’s desire to help to further his own agenda before flying off with the fruits of his labor. He may not have done anything to them since then, but they are understandably wary of being used like that a third time. You know how the old saying goes. “Fooled me once, shame on you. Fooled me twice, shame on me.”

So, when he slides up to the Coalition saying “hey, I know we’ve fought in the past but let’s see if we can come to an agreement”, he’s looked at with suspicion, and understandably so. The Paladins aren’t going to just give free reign of the Castle of Lions to someone they know very little about, who was an enemy combatant less than a month ago (by all indications S4E2-6 take place within a very short period of time), and who has a history of using their desire to help people to advance his own agenda. So, they put him in the cell as a probationary measure. If he proves trustworthy, they give him access to more of the castle. If it turns out that he’s using them for his own ends like they fear, well, they’ve already locked him up, and at least he wouldn’t have been able to access any sensitive information. We see that bear out in S5E3 Postmortem. The Paladins aren’t bothered that Lotor’s out of his cell. He’s proven his intentions by killing his father. Their main reaction is surprise that they’re giving him access to the bridge already.

[EDIT]: Some posts following the release of Season 5 pointed out that if the lights on Lotor’s prison deck were kept on 24/7, it would constitute a form of torture. While that is a valid point to make, I saw quite a few blogs that took that possibility and exaggerated it, not even considering the “if” part of the original discussion, declaring it as fact, and rushing to label the Paladins’ actions as war crimes because we never saw Lotor’s cell with the lights off. It should be noted that all of these scenes took place in the daytime, and while we never see that specific room at night, Season 2 already showed that the castle’s lights are turned off during the night cycle, and there’s nothing to suggest they didn’t do the same with Lotor’s cell. 

And there’s also another angle that isn’t really talked about – that not everyone we saw in the Coalition in previous seasons was willing to work alongside Galra like the Blade of Marmora. While the rebels we see in Begin the Blitz and A New Defender are just fine working with the Blades, it’s not out of the question that some Coalition members might resent the Coalition’s Galra allies. And if Lotor’s on the Castle of Lions, that would make him a target. The cell could also have been just as much to keep trigger happy Coalition members out as it was to keep him in.

Then I hear people arguing that they were just going to hand him over to Zarkon with no strings attached, that they were just going to give Lotor up and trust that Zarkon would stay true to his word. It sometimes sounded like some people want so badly for Lotor to be a bigger victim than he already is that they twisted canon to make the Paladins out to be thoughtless jerks. Because S5E2 Blood Duel shows us that everything that happened was all according to plan.

For those who are unfamiliar, the Unspoken Plan Guarantee trope refers to the pattern that the more the audience knows the details of the plan beforehand, the greater the chances the plan will fail, and the fewer details the audience knows in advance, the greater the chances the plan will succeed. Explaining the details of the plan after it’s been successfully carried out is optional.  

After Zarkon pulls the hologram trick, the phrase “Hold our position until the time is right.” Is repeated by both Shiro and Lance (albeit without the “until the time is right” part for Lance). And the show tells us that the moment when “the time is right” is when Lotor attacks Zarkon and leads him away from the shuttle.

When the Paladins are arguing with Shiro in S5E3 Postmortem, they don’t say anything to the effect of “why did you give Lotor a weapon?” They had no problem with him being armed. The issue they had was that Lotor was given the Black Bayard, his father’s signature weapon they had only just gotten back from Zarkon 14 episodes ago. One wrong move in Blood Duel, and that weapon would have been back in Zarkon’s hands. And for a moment in that episode, it was. Zarkon did get his hands on the Black Bayard and if Lotor had been a second too slow, Zarkon would have killed all five Paladins, plus Matt and Sam in a single strike.

I’ve mentioned before that VLD prefers to show things to the audience rather than explain them out loud. Sometimes it’s to the show’s detriment because the answer to viewers’ questions aren’t immediately obvious. But watching Blood Duel again, it’s clear that plan was always “make the hostage exchange. Wait for Zarkon to double cross us. Lotor attacks Zarkon and leads him on a chase across the desert. Shiro, Matt, and Pidge storm the shuttle to free Sam.” The Paladins were always going to ensure that Lotor was armed during the fight with his father. The only issue they had was Shiro’s choice of what weapon to give him.

So now that Lotor has proven they can trust him, they start to drop their guard and be more casual and friendly around him. And according to Matt during the flashbacks in S7E7 “The Last Stand: Part”, by the time Sam Holt has been on Earth for just over a year, Voltron had been missing for six months. That means that between S5E5 Bloodlines and S6E4 The Colony, Voltron and Lotor had been working together for just over six months. That’s six months of the Paladins slowly growing to trust and befriend the new Galra Emperor. But the little embers of doubt about his intentions were still there in the back of each of their minds.

That’s why it’s so easy for the Paladins to believe Keith and Romelle when they show up accusing him of murdering Alteans with no concrete evidence other than their own assumptions. Because given his behavior before Naxzela, an apparent reveal that he had been playing the long game manipulating them all along rekindled those embers of suspicion. It’s easy for them to conclude that Lotor was playing a long con since it would fit with his behavior towards them prior to Season 4. Because what non-nefarious reason could Lotor possibly have for not telling Allura and Coran that he had been sheltering the surviving Alteans after working together for six months?

We know why Lotor didn’t say anything. Because he refused to risk Haggar discovering the Colony’s existence and scouring the universe until she found it. But the Paladins have never experienced the level of privacy invasion and subsequently justified paranoia that Lotor has. So, they do not have the experience to understand that he refused to risk the security of the colony by revealing its existence where Haggar might have spies or listening devices or cloned sleeper agents to overhear.  

I agree with the theory that Lotor was telling the truth about the Altean Colony and that what was happening there was not what Keith and Romelle believed it was. I absolutely believe that the Paladins leaving Lotor in the rift was a mistake. But the attempts by certain Lotor stans to water this down to a black and white scenario of Paladins Evil, Lotor Good are not supported by canon. Canon shows us that the falling out between Lotor and the Paladins was a messy situation where everyone had understandable reasons for reacting to the reveal of the colony as they did. That doesn’t make any one person’s reactions right or justified, only that if you put the pieces together it’s understandable how they reached the conclusions they did.

TL;DR: There is no evidence in the show that suggests Lotor was treated inhumanely, the Paladins were never going to just hand him to Zarkon unarmed and hope for the best, and Lotor's paranoid refusal to tell them about the Colony gave Keith's accusations greater weight because it was in line with his behavior towards the Paladins in Season 3 enough for them to believe that he had been pulling a long con all along. 

[arthur-rex]

meta: pendragon paranoia (aka the brainwashing of Arthur Pendragon)

Quick summary: Uther seriously fucked up Arthur’s head when he was a boy, brainwashing an abiding fear of magic in his son (selfishly to ensure that Arthur could never repeal the magic ban on his own). The subsequent suspicion Arthur harbours towards the magical community is deep-rooted, although he doesn’t share the same hatred of sorcerers as his father. However he can and will turn extremely hostile should he feel magic is threatening the kingdom he loves and the people he has sworn to protect. 

RP Relevance: So I’ve got a dedicated verse for Arthur going bad like his father. It’s here. So unless something is already plotted looking at a certain someone anything truly dark and nasty with the muse will probably go in there. 

Addendum: You (hopefully) won’t see me RP this side of Arthur very often. The situation has to be complex enough to involve a large number of triggers to push Arthur (who is still one of the good guys) into this mindset. But I will continue to occasionally reference it in RPs throughout the verses because it’s there in my Arthur’s psyche. We can’t just cut out and/or ignore the nastier side of his upbringing by Uther.

This summary ought to do with a bit of unpacking though. Ok, let’s get the definition up (from good old Wiki)

Paranoia is an instinct or thought process which is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself (i.e. “Everyone is out to get me”). Paranoia is distinct from phobias, which also involve irrational fear, but usually no blame. Making false accusations and the general distrust of other people also frequently accompany paranoia. For example, an incident most people would view as an accident or coincidence, a paranoid person might believe was intentional. Paranoia is a central symptom of psychosis.

... that was a long definition, sorry. But it’s a useful reference point going forward.

Arthur Pendragon is a psychological mess. He hides it very well as a good prince / king / leader of the people must, but it’s still there.

Most of that is due to the huge amount of stress he is under to live up to a high level of expectations. To Uther, he’s the Crown Prince of Camelot and heir of the Pendragon dynasty. To Merlin, he’s the Once and Future King with that great big destiny to fulfil. To the people of Camelot, he is their Champion and Protector. He is literally the one who keeps them all safe at night. That is a lot of responsibility and pressure for anybody at any age. Which... is the reason why I headcanon Arthur indulges in sex quite a bit. Poor boy simply needs the release.

Sometimes, Arthur just wants to take a break from it all and go off to live on a farm with his girlfriend and manservant.

But Uther is a very controlling father. 

Arthur is not allowed to just leave. Uther has invested a lot (e.g sacrificed his own wife) into getting what he wants, and that is a son and heir worthy to continue his legacy. Now he has to make sure the investment pays off. 

So Uther made his own plans for Arthur, putting him through intensive knight training from birth to ensure he became the greatest warrior of the five kingdoms. He also organised an arranged marriage for Arthur when he is old enough to further cement Camelot’s position. Throughout it all, he was trying to mould his son into becoming the king he wanted him to be. It was about making sure Uther’s legacy following the Purges was upheld and that Camelot’s laws forbidding sorcery prevailed. Arthur could not show any signs of deviating from Uther’s vision on this point. In the final push, Uther had to make sure his son not only acted in the way he was expected to - but he also thought and behaved in the way he was supposed to as well.

And he could only guarantee that level of instinctive behaviour by making sure Arthur carried the same fear and suspicion of sorcery as he had. Because emotions cannot be so easily challenged and/or removed as misguided beliefs. Uther knew his conditioning would stay with Arthur, influencing his decisions long after he was gone. Even if on a conscious level Arthur later rejected his father’s teachings, even if he grew to resent what had been done to him - those warped feelings towards the magical community would remain. Uther’s brainwashing had already gone too deep.

Arthur was always going to be an easy target for such abuse. He loved and respected his father. Uther was the only parent he had growing up. He had no other role model. Arthur would have readily absorbed any horror stories Uther told him about magic as gospel. He was probably only 7 years old when the emotional conditioning started. 

In fact, I’ve already documented some of this childhood abuse already in RP. The warning signs have always been there.

Sorcerers. They are the worst kind of traitors known in our kingdom. You must be vigilant, Arthur. Do not allow them to influence your judgement. They’ll come to you, as a friend, promising to offer you help. And then they’ll take away the very thing that you love most in this world. That is why they cannot be trusted. That is why they must be hunted down and exterminated. All of them.    

( x - RP with @aquestionthatsneverbeenposed​ )

Listen to me, Arthur. They are an evil people. You must never trust a sorcerer, nor lower your guard in their company. The laws of Camelot are the only force we have to save us from their depravity. Closing his eyes, Arthur can still hear the distinct echo of Uther’s voice in his head from all those years ago. Viciously imprinting his doctrine into the impressionable mind of a young blond boy.    

 ( x - RP with @lespendragons​ )

There are plenty more examples scattered throughout my writing, but... you get the gist. I’ve also compiled a short list of some of the nasty things Arthur saw in the court of magic users abusing their powers and hurting his people here.

Right. So why did I choose to give the muse this gaping mental flaw that sets him up as a possible antagonist for future RP interactions? Besides some interesting narrative possibilities, of course.

Two reasons: 

1. It goes some way to explain why Merlin in canon continues to withhold his secret from Arthur, even after Uther died. 

2. It gives further insight into why Arthur has always been so desperate for his father’s approval. Arthur’s fear pushes him into a habit of turning to strong rulers, instead of relying on his own judgement. We see this behaviour throughout season 4, where Arthur seeks advice from Agravaine when his kingship is tested because in his paralysis he needs to be told by an authority figure what to do. We see it again in S5E3 where Arthur summons his father’s own damn ghost because he still needs Uther to tell him he’s doing the right thing for Camelot. The paranoia of his perceived enemies closing in around him drives him to seek that level of reassurance.

This is the Pendragon paranoia. It’s a major headcanon. The reason I’ve dedicated a whole meta to it is because it’s the biggest hurdle in the reformation of Arthur’s character for him to overcome if he’s to accept magic back into the kingdom. 

Arthur is not a saint, he’s a flawed hero. His weaknesses must be addressed if he’s to successfully become the King Arthur that Merlin and all our other protagonists aspire him to be. And Merlin in canon has already started this healing process with every conversation they have about how he’s different from his father, and that’s ok. There are other ways to be a strong ruler rather than simply following his father’s ingrained example. 

Canon Arthur knows this, as does mine, and they both will/do get there in their respective understandings eventually. Just. Watch out for any dramas if things are pushed too quickly in that direction. And/or other events spiral out of control. Dark!Arthur is real and a potential consequence.

[ganymedesclock]

What do you think the difference(s) between Kuron and Shiro are/were? Idk if you've discussed it before, but it'd be cool to see your take on it.

So my two cents honestly haven’t changed much since where they started in s3e5 when Ryou first showed up. (And I’m obstinate about not calling him Kuron- that’s not who he is that’s what Haggar did to him.)

That is to say: Shiro and Ryou are identical people. The one thing Josh Keaton says in his depiction of Ryou is that Ryou is a little shorter-tempered and impatient, and that’s not a difference of character.

Ryou is effectively just an exact duplicate of Shiro who was retraumatized where he felt safe and has a long, growing fear that he can’t trust his own thoughts and feelings. We’ve got abundant evidence before the switch from Shiro to Ryou that getting snappy and belligerent is Shiro’s stress response. 

S2e10 is one example, and it’s not because Slav is supposed to be abnormally annoying- remember, we don’t see anybody else lose their cool with Slav anywhere near the magnitude Shiro does. Other people can be at worst a little flustered or exasperated with Slav being overly intrusive in his curiosity, finicky or doing things that don’t make that much sense from the outside perspective (hitting the teludav with a rock) but both Lance and Pidge completely gape at Shiro when he loses it on Slav in s2e11.

And we’ve seen Shiro plenty pushy about his way before. For most of s2 he was bashing ahead on working with the Blade of Marmora and repeatedly pushing Allura on the subject whether or not she was comfortable. The only reason Shiro didn’t then take the route he did in s5e4 was because Allura caved and agreed to meet Ulaz and then his organization. If she’d refused either in s2e3 or s2e8, I would bet good money that just like in s5e4, Shiro would eventually walk out of the conversation and some time later, the Black Lion would conveniently go missing.

Shiro is characterized through the virtues of the Black Paladin as being a force of personality. Part of that is charisma, but here’s the thing about a natural leader- they’re a “natural leader” when you agree with them. When you don’t, they’re horribly bossy and stubborn.

If you’re a person who naturally and quickly takes charge of situations, that’s who you are. You don’t somehow become automatically patient and understanding in the face of setbacks when, from your perspective, there’s an obvious solution right there that just needs people to listen to you like usual and do what you tell them and it’ll help everyone.

This is not to say Shiro’s a bad or unsympathetic person- or even that he consistently lacks patience! But Shiro’s patience and empathy has to fight that Black Paladin strength of will and calculating mind- there’s a reason he focuses so much on the importance of patience and remind both himself and others that people aren’t obligated to follow if they don’t need to.

There’s a reason Shiro takes people like Lubos and Zarkon who abuse their followers’ trust and reverence for personal gain, so incredibly personally. Because if he chose to just give in, become impatient and forceful, that’s a person he could become. It isn’t, because that’s consistently how he chooses not to be.

For my intents and purposes, I consider Shiro and Ryou as interchangeable people. I don’t believe we witnessed anything that would really fundamentally set one as separate from the other. You have to remember that Ryou had Shiro’s memories- all of them- and plenty of time to dwell on those memories. Ryou, also, like Shiro, is a Black Paladin in that exact same vein, which means he’d spend a lot of time thinking very hard and poking at those memories.

If there was an inconsistency in Ryou’s personality to Shiro’s, if there was something other than “Ryou is snappier on account of being under greater stress and to a greater degree than his predecessor, afraid of himself” thumping away under the hood, Ryou would notice. He would see the inconsistency in the memories that he thought were his own, he’d come to the alarming conclusion that he can’t understand why his past self made the decisions he did.

Ryou doesn’t notice- and neither does anyone else around him, including Keith, who knew Shiro for years. The only time Ryou confesses he doesn’t feel like himself, he’s obviously not talking about the normal “oddity” of being a duplicate of Shiro that he’s been used to for months now. He’s talking about the negative symptoms of Haggar’s power over him.

It’s also worth noting that during the same span of time, the few times we see disembodied Shiro and Ryou reacting to similar stimuli, they mirror each other. In s5e3, Shiro tries to warn Lance- Lance brings it up to Ryou, not realizing the distinction, and Ryou’s response is not to blow it off or dismiss it, but confess that something strange happened and he’s not certain. And Ryou gives Lance his own S.O.S. in s5e6 afterwards, with very similar tonality.

Furthermore, we have to remember that the only reason Shiro appeared to Lance at all was because Ryou functionally acted as his accomplice and set him up- it was Ryou that socketed the Black Bayard which “boosted” Shiro’s wayward spirit strong enough to let him try to communicate with Lance. Which, that in particular is interesting to me, because it would seem to imply on a soul level, Shiro and Ryou are the same person.

After all, Ryou became a paladin in s4e1. Black chose to trust him. And we have to consider in s5e3, Lance socketing the Red Bayard didn’t boost Keith into the astral plane. So the bayards don’t boost their “true” original wielder- they boost their current holder.

At the time of s5e3, that current holder was Ryou. Logically, Ryou should have appeared in the astral field.

He didn’t. Original Shiro did.

The one time Ryou’s essence was projected into the Black Lion, it didn’t manifest separately from Shiro, but rather, amplified and strengthened Shiro himself.

The kicker here? The only way you can tell Ryou and Shiro apart in their paladin armor is by looking at their hair. Unlike when Shiro talks to Keith in s6e6, where his head is clearly visible... the Shiro we see in s5e3 has his head obscured.

Yes, original Shiro takes credit for it- he says that he was trying to warn Lance that he’d been switched out. But I don’t think he was exactly alone.

Because again- logically since Lance was projected into the field by the red bayard but not Keith, and Allura being able to enter the field by the blue bayard- Ryou should be here. And Ryou, recalling, says that everything “went black” when he socketed the bayard, which would sure imply he went somewhere.

I think, without realizing it, original Shiro temporarily absorbed Ryou in that scene. Lance wasn’t just talking to the disembodied s1-s2 Shiro.

This would give us a precedent for s6e7 and what seems to have happened with white-haired Shiro, and, thus, my thesis of this entire post:

Ryou and Shiro, on a soul level, are so similar that they can merge into a single cohesive person without even realizing the difference. 

This is why I don’t tag Ryou as his own character, incidentally- and something that kept me away from clone theory for a long time, because while I was ambivalent to the idea that it wasn’t the same Shiro, I deeply detested the angle which was commonly taken with it- where people acted as if traits Shiro’s consistently exhibited all along are somehow wildly different in Ryou when they’re. not, really.

TL;DR in my honest opinion, Ryou is just a version of Shiro under very specific stresses that make him slightly snappier and this is the only functional difference.

[13unknownmind]

The Arrowverse is back The Flash S5E3

Well this is a little late but this last week has been hell and I mean that is an almost literal sense but anyway let's get to it.

The Flash if you are not caught up on this season please by all means get on the CW app or download Showbox check them out and then come back and read the other posts I got in this one all under the ... #my thoughts on the arrowverse... and let me know what you think. Now without furthering the Adu let's talk about it.

So we have seem a lot go on in the short time The Flash has been back and I am so loving this season from the still poppin' pop culture references to the epic fight scenes and yes we all know I love the adorableness that is Nora West-Allen. I did actually take paper notes this time so I am "prepared" lol

Now we are just gonna start form what in my perspective is the most notable things going through the episode from beginning to end so let's go.

Aight first we are learning about cicada and his metahuman serial killer looking self. We have this lovely line that I feel in this situation I would have said. "So we're dealing with a meta human Jack the Ripper... Amazing." From my boy Cisco I love this line because not only is it so beyond accurate it just kind of brings things for me into perspective for what if to come.

Now I know you are tired of reading Nora is so adorable in how ever many different ways but I can't help it she is in my opinion by far the most adorable Character in the flash ever, I love this character so much cause she not only broke The law of speedsters everywhere but all she wants is to be with her dad and I just love her so much. I have to aawwww all the time while I am watching this show anymore.

Alright so let's get to the new wells... Harrison Sherloque Wells... It's french lol

This dude is not only a stuck-up think she knows it all kind of dude but he just assumes that he is right because he's been supposedly called to 37 other Earth's to fix the cicada situation granted they were all David Hirsch but to this point we know that this one is not... This is going to be great to see what comes from this dude joining the team which I am assuming is going to be for most of the rest of the season.

Now like I said we got some poppin' and pop culture references as always and this was so great I had to "thank you very much for coming Cumberbatch" obviously a nerd will get this and for anyone who did thank you. Those of you whose heads it has flown over my boy Benedict Cumberbatch also known as in recent pop culture Doctor Strange was cast in the role of Sherlock Holmes in the show Sherlock I loved this and am so glad that it was a thing, thank you again Cisco Ramon.

Cisco my dude you got to stop drinking and you got to chill out Gypsy might come back I hope... For real I doubt it cuz she's got a lot to do she got a big job and all that good stuff but man you got to just let her go.

Now the next notable thing to me comes after they have sat down and talked about Harrisons payment I had to rewind for this one cause I wasn't sure what I heard honestly. "We are being approached by either ate all sensitive man or a frightened baby giraffe" either way dang I am not sure if this was supposed to be insulting but it was surely funny in my head. Thank you Wells for this oddly humorous moment.

Well we all know that Caitlin has her dad situation to figure out so Ralph being the good friend that he is said let's go so he and Caitlin went to visit her mom and I agree with Ralph she's hiding something but anyway that's a thing for later in the season. her mom got an attitude real quick and defensive about the situation deflecting it as a mourning wife or whatever... We all know she had something to do with it so let's just move on from there, Caitlin said aight let's go and Ralph so being the good friends that he is said no let's find out. After having committed what most would consider a felony and finding her dad's stuff came in and Ralph had a moments of adorable friendship after having essentially broken into Caitlin's moms files which I think was really great.

Little side thing Caitlin's birthday is her mom's passcode aawwww.

No there is the matter of the suicide note she supposedly found all lies and we can clearly see that by the end of the episode, which we will get back to in a moment.

Why does cicada want a Vibe specifically like I know he was an easy target because of Joe and that situation but why specifically vibe that confused me for a moment I'm still not fully getting it.

alright well we're moving on to just past the initial contact that cicada made with Joe and looking at the scenes with Nora for a moment this little girl she feels bad about the timeline about what she did but there's nothing she can do to change it so she's got to live with it and fix it... now this ladies and gentlemen young speedsters I hope you are listening. This is the reason we do not time travel or mess with the timeline.

No we're going to move on to the next thing with Nora here she took Barrys advice she stopped took just a moment thought about it and then went into action I am so proud of her.

Okay now let's just take a moment here. "THE DEATH OF VIBE" clickbait of the century. LoL

Okay so now the situation is handled Cisco's chill cicadas gone and Nora being the adorableness that she is the personification of "I did good" sounding so nervous and timid she's adorable I just want to hug her. And Barry being the good Dad "You did great." I loved this moment.

All right so moving on to the next notable thing that I saw cuz there are some things here and there that just stick out more than others you know. "I'm watching you Holmes" this was great cause I grew up around a lot of gang activity and stupidity so I have heard thing similar to this many times before I laughed out loud after this was said. Good job Cisco.

I know let's get serious for just a moment here what is going on with Nora and Iris' relationship I don't get it like a mother and a daughter I supposed to get along and want to be around each other and all that so why is Nora kind of standoffish around Iris? I am not fully understanding like I know they spend all their time together or whatever like Nora said but what is up?

All right Caitlin and her dad's old game becoming a code I love this cause they are bringing this around and giving us a full story and background with details even minut, and Caitlin of course cracking the code finding the "Caitlin come find me" message that's what's up I love that I cannot wait to see what happens next.

Last thing we see Harrison and Nora talkin in the lounge and we get a really strange moment they're talking about Nora coming back to change the timeline and Harrison ends up asking "was the decision your own?" With an odd look from Nora he quickly covers it up with "of course it was" and Nora continues on goes to get her purse and is moving in with Barry and Iris for the duration of her living in this time... there's a lot there and I am not sure if we can unpack it all right now so we're just going to say we will find out again in the next episode of The Flash.

Final thoughts

Are we going to see Harrison becoming part of the team like Harry?

Will we ever see Gypsy again?

Who is cicada really and why is he doing what he doing like I know we saw a daughter or at least what I'm assuming is a daughter but what?

Will we be unmasking him soon?

Caitlin's dad it looks like my theory was incorrect and he might not be cicada. Though it is still undetermined.

Does Ralph maybe have a thing for Caitlin?

What is Cisco going to do now that Vibe is dead?

Could Nora be working with cicada possibly? Cause I want to know what Harrison meant by "was it your decision?"

What is going on this season?

Last thing I really want to see more of that flash Museum.

Alright well thank you all for reading I am very glad that I can provide these little blurbs, if you enjoyed this and would like to check out more of my stuff like I said the tag is #my thoughts on the arrowverse so thank you like I said for reading please come back. Let me know what you thinkI look forward to hearing your thoughts and theories about the arrowverse as well. God bless you ✌️

[ohtobealady]

This may all be really obvious to other people, but it’s after midnight on a weeknight and my sinuses are angry.

I’ve been thinking about this scene from S5E3 and what a masterful piece of writing it is. It follows the scene that Cora is out with Mr Bricker, discussing her first season in London:

C: London scared me at first. I'd only been in a school room a few months before. But my mother was eager.

B: Why especially?

C: We weren't really in the first rank in Cincinnati. Still less when we moved to New York. My father was Jewish and the money was new. But there was a lot of it and I was pretty. I suppose I can say that now I'm an old lady.

B: She thought you'd make a better match over the Atlantic.

C: And suddenly, here I was in these vast ballrooms. And all the other girls seemed to know what to do and what to wear. And how to flirt.

B: I bet you were more beautiful than all of them. More original. More real.

C: I certainly got a lot of names on my dance card. Listen to me bragging. Please forgive me. I never talk about myself. Why did I say all that?

B: Because I'm interested.

C: Well, it's time for me to stop.

(From Transcripts forever)

Then she goes to Rosamund’s and sees Robert has surprised her, and she reacts with such joy. And when that scene (gif) is right off the heels of such dialogue (and scenery) of the previous Bricker scene, the viewer gets a sense of absentee deja vu. This may have been what she was like that first season: bright-eyed, happy, “original … real,” and what’s more - genuinely more interested in Robert (her “better match over the Atlantic”) than any of the other men who gave her attention - all those “names on [her] dance card.”

It’s honestly probably the most vulnerable and honest we’ve seen her character aside from the reconciliation scene after Spanish Flu and Sybil’s death. And also, is it also the happiest we’ve seen her? I think it is.

And while all of this is really sweet, I think the brilliance of the writing actually lies in how sharp it makes this scene (the scene of this gif). It’s that lovely and yet harsh juxtaposition of Cora having a really nice time, disclosing all of the personal details that she “never” does — speaking specifically about the Season she met her husband where the viewer’s imagination automatically hovers for a bit in her past, and then there’s the clash of the present: her husband is unhappy to see her though she’s thrilled to see him, and then he offends her. And the offense is made harsher still because the man she’d just been speaking with (Bricker) was so flattering and flirtatious.

It also exposes a lot of Robert’s perspective and characterization (yes, I’m a Robert Apologist (a la @modernamericangirl ), but that’s a much longer midnight analysis.)

I’d like to see a gif of how excited Cora was to see Robert in London before their quarrel. :)

[latetothegameofthrones]

S5E3: High Sparrow. Who knows what to believe anymore?

Okay, question time - at what point did you guys become overwhelmed with this nonsense web of fantasy religions? I can’t get a grip on this stuff - the tree, the fire, the sparrows, Whatever the faceless men worship that seems to be all of or none of these things, just like they are, because they also make no sense

The existence of magic makes it a lot harder to write off these fictional religions than it is to write off religions in the real world. Which parts are myth? Which parts are actual history? Which parts are simple trickery? Which parts are George RR Martin just riffing and us way overthinking things?

Anyway, whatever gods may or may not exist, man do they ever hate Sansa Stark, who now finds herself engaged to the one and only character that might be a more twisted an awful person than her first fiancé, Joffrey. 

And why is this even happening? Wouldn’t Baelish hate Bolton due to the murder of the love of his life? That being said, the real love of his life is power, and so dishonouring both Catelyn and Sansa Stark in one move with this shit marriage might work out for him in that respect. 

I’m also very curious to see what’s going to happen with Sansa and Theon in close proximity to each other. I can’t wrap my head around whether she knows he took over Winterfell and allegedly murdered her brothers before burning her home to the ground.  If they do run into each other, I’ll be sure to watch closely to see whether she thinks of him as a brother or as the most vile traitorous scum. That should clear things up.

Elsewhere, Cersei feels overshadowed, a second young leader decides the only way to be listened to is to execute people, and Tryion has been abducted. Excited to see which of these events will be the first to unravel into absolute chaos.

[ganymedesclock]

I was thinking about s5 and the development of Lotor and Allura’s feelings and thinking about one of the major reasons why I don’t think Lotor is manipulating Allura.

If you look at it... There is something of an imbalance of power here, but it doesn’t flow in Lotor’s favor.

It flows in Allura’s.

There’s really no positive sentiment between Lotor and Allura while he’s an antagonist in s3 and s4, and before she thinks she can trust him in s5. The closest is in s3e3 Lotor expresses respect for Allura’s capabilities and strategy, and she’s the one to outfox him on Thayserix.

In s5e1 and s5e2, we see that Allura is distant to Lotor, fairly aloof to his propositions. She’s doubtful of him, she’s clear about her position, and she doesn’t let him off the hook for any test he can’t pass. And she can do that- Allura commands an army at this point, she’s surrounded by allies in her bastion of power. Lotor, we see, very obviously doesn’t have the power to stop things he doesn’t want to happen... and while the duel with Zarkon ends, barely, in his favor, it’s clear that was never a gamble he wanted to take. 

There are too many terrified, vulnerable shots of Lotor in both that fight and the exchange leading up to it. The confident expressions Lotor makes in s5e1 are rather practiced and stilted compared to his more casual demeanor in s3, and if you watch him closely in the scenes, you can see how tense, how flinchy, how hesitant he is- how repeatedly the camera emphasizes  the thing he’s confined in and his inability to even stand that close to the paladins, who in every scene outnumber him.

And s5e2 contains the flashback via Haggar that shows us Lotor’s childhood, and it just frankly furthers the theme of Lotor feeling helpless, trapped, and afraid, the way he tries to disguise it, but the youngest, most ‘raw’ form of Lotor we see...

is just screaming and screaming and screaming. Helpless, terrified, miserable, in an environment overwhelmingly bereft of sympathy and comfort. He has a pillow and a single blanket and some kind of medical device studying him- no doctors, no nurses, no sign of Zarkon. As I’ve said many times before, this is a depiction of a neglected child.

That’s significant to me, even though Allura’s not privy to it, nor is it part of an interaction with her. Because frankly, if the point of this was to establish Lotor as a manipulator, Lotor as worming his way into Allura’s favor such that, in event of a twist betrayal we can go back and go “you were a snake all along, you asshole!” ...they’re dwelling an awful lot on Lotor’s helplessness and vulnerability. Lotor who doesn’t even celebrate his victory over Zarkon, but merely stares at his body grimly, and enters an emotional quagmire he only reluctantly pulls himself out of in the next episode.

And that thread only continues.

S5e3′s opening scene is when positive interactions between Lotor and Allura pick up in earnest. Allura’s powerful position hasn’t changed- if anything, she’s been handed a major victory with astonishing lack of sacrifice. None of her soldiers were on the field actually facing Zarkon- she, Lance, and Hunk did cover fire, but the only person who was injured and would require medical attention afterwards was Lotor.

This is our first soft interaction. Lotor, sitting, not engaging or speaking to anyone, and it’s not clear how long he’s been like this. His responses are terse, his posture is very closed. He’s not, in any real way, signaling Allura to take pity on him- he doesn’t seem uncomfortable as much as very, very distant, and we’ve seen enough of Lotor to know that’s a distress sign from him.

But Allura can tell he’s upset, and she’s willing to suspect maybe she misjudged his trustworthiness- so she speaks kindly to him, tries to hearten him. And then the rest of the team arrives, Lance and Coran both react potentially hurtfully (which Lotor doesn’t engage with) and Lotor pushes the concept of the Kral Zera, clarifying his concern.

Killing Zarkon hasn’t solved everything- it’s gotten them out of a frying pan and into a fire that they’re not ready for and Lotor’s tense, sure something bad is going to happen. And he’s basically absent for the rest of s5e3, picking up in...

S5e4.

At this point, it’s established the team’s at least listening to him. (They’re not agreeing with his stated importance of the Kral Zera and being there, per se, but they’re listening to him). We’d expect to see a manipulative Lotor increasing in confidence- starting to assert himself more over this new domain. And while Lotor is a bit peppier than he was after Zarkon, this is where we also see the start of an interesting thread for Lotor.

He hesitates. Repeatedly. First when clarifying the importance of Planet Feyiv, then again when he intends to show them the main contenders for the throne- he stops and asks Allura permission to use her computer. He’s hopeful about the idea of turning Voltron to an advantage, and when this leads the team to argue and split...

The hesitation and uncertainty Lotor seems to feel here are not designed to tug Allura’s heartstrings, or we would see him exclusively directing them to her, or emphasizing them to catch her attention. He isn’t.

Trend continues in s5e5- here’s where I see a lot of people metaing about how Lotor is manipulative, and I think that’s mis-attributing something that does start in earnest in that episode. 

That is to say: Lotor, newly on the throne, becomes anxious for Allura’s approval.

Compared to how haughty, snappy, and guarded he was to everyone at the Kral Zera bar the paladins, when he greets the team at central command, he emphasizes the banner he erected and its significance. There’s an obvious, veiled “Do you like it? Please say you like it.”

He stresses the alliance so much, about the idea that they could have that golden age the original Voltron created again, this time without the nasty ending, and he puts so much emphasis on everything they could be to Allura. Yeah, this could be really manipulative if we had a lot of evidence it was swaying Allura all that much.

But Allura really doesn’t change her stance from where she started in s5e3, that, maybe she misjudged Lotor as an ally and she’s willing to at least hear him out as long as he seems reasonable. We’re getting, at best, some mild indicators of interest from her- threading her arm in Lotor’s while they walk together.

But just this, “I misjudged you, maybe you’re trustworthy, maybe you’re actually sort of interesting and charming,” is such a subdued and casual response to what Lotor is doing.

Because the person really dropping his guard big time, sharing all these personal details relatively quickly, opening up in these very vulnerable ways and, again, becoming very focused on, and needy for, Allura’s approval, is Lotor. The person who you could accuse of being naive in love, swept up in how fascinating they find this other person, putting themselves in a vulnerable place, is Lotor.

Lotor’s pretty clear in s5e5 that he needs Allura. That he thinks she’s special, that everything he’s worked towards, she’s the answer. She’s the key, if there’s a way to continue the tradition of Altean alchemy it’s her, that he needs to get her to Oriande so she can meet her destiny, and then, ideally, Miss Talented will still like him enough to lend him her special gift.

Lotor’s shocked by his own markings and has to rapidly derail and reevaluate his plans. He’s completely sure of Allura’s markings and takes it as an opportunity to talk up how special and magical Allura specifically is, like... his own face isn’t glowing right there.

And it’s also very easy for Lotor to give up on Oriande after being rejected by the White Lion, to say that it was meant exclusively for Allura. But while they’re there, we see, again...

The combination of Lotor making his personal feelings very open, and himself very vulnerable, to Allura, and doing so in such a way that he’s obviously not signaling her to comfort him. He draws away from her, he frames himself in this unflattering light.

There’s an obvious imbalance where Lotor’s very quick to emphasize that Allura’s so important, he needs her, he can’t accomplish any of this without her help... but the two times Allura says she’s grateful Lotor’s helping her, he’s obviously caught off-guard.

Sure, there are manipulative people who try to make themselves out to be a victim to their target, but I don’t think that’s what Lotor’s doing. Again, he has a lot of opportunities to signal Allura to comfort him, or try to tug on her sympathies, and while he’s nearly oversharing, we can see that things that would make Allura regard him in a positive light, like his Altean heritage, don’t come out first or even are given particular priority or emphasis.

Furthermore, the colony story actually sets up a parallel between Shiro and Lotor, that Lotor views himself as a failed hero. More than Zarkon’s fault for sweeping in and destroying everything, it’s Lotor’s fault that he wasn’t smarter, faster, had better resources to stop it from happening. People were counting on him and he let them down.

It’s very similar to how Shiro frames the Kerberos mission. Both times, they’re hopelessly outgunned, the empire is attacking for very petty reasons with nothing to gain. And Shiro emphasizes that he let down Sam and Matt Holt, that “my team was captured once, I’m not gonna let it happen again.” Shiro dwells on their fate... even though now that we have all three of them, we can see obviously that Shiro definitely suffered the worst of it. Sam was a little scraggly and scared but untouched physically, Matt has a single aesthetic scar, but both of them were seemingly disregarded as rank and file prisoners.

Shiro was the one who lost a limb, had his face carved open, was tortured and experimented on in a way causing him lasting negative symptoms both physical and mental. But he focuses very little on what he endured.

In that sense I have to think there’s a lot Lotor’s not telling Allura when he simply says he was “sent away” but lingers heavily on the destroyed colony. Especially because we’ve never seen Zarkon excuse someone from a post that he doesn’t like without immediately either killing them, or handing them off to Haggar, and given his disinterest in cultivating an heir, it’s pretty unlikely he’d hesitate to hurt Lotor.

This makes me pretty sure they’re not setting us up for a Prince Hans moment. Especially when much has already been made of Allura’s arc that she’s struggling to relearn to trust people. It makes no sense when the show puts so much importance on “we are always stronger together” and when Allura did everything right, and never gave Lotor any trust he hadn’t earned, to punish her for that.

I’ve said before I don’t think Allura and Lotor’s partnership is going to consistently work all the way through to the end- I think that we’re going to get something similar to ATLA’s Crossroads of Destiny, where Lotor breaks from the paladins and returns to being an antagonist for a while.

But not, I think, painlessly, and not in a way that he never cared. Because if anything, what we see is that Lotor’s more emotionally invested in this than Allura is. Which makes sense! If the implications of “relationship” and the way the writers talk about it suggest that what’s going on here is actually puppy love... Allura’s had crushes before, she’s had people interested in her before. It’s not particularly a commodity or novel. Again, her response to Lotor is fairly banal once she takes a shine to him, just, “well, you’re actually sort of charming, this is a pleasant surprise. And not bad-looking, now that I think about it.”

Lotor? We actively see that Lotor’s been systematically deprived connections. It’s hard for him to trust enough to connect with people. Allura being kind to him, in ways that she thinks of as only the proper response? Catch him by surprise, he’s unused to this. And it’s clear to him, Allura is such an amazing person, he really can’t do any of this without her. She’s living the culmination of so many of his personal dreams.

If anyone has an overly romantic, idealized view of the other person, if anyone here’s kind of swept off their feet by how amazing this all seems... it’s not Allura.

(And I know, I’ve aired the theory they’re cousins before, but if that’s not canon, I think it does seem like the writers are trying to signal some romantic tropes around Allura and Lotor)

[ganymedesclock]

I'll admit I'm confused by how fast Lotor started to bond with members of team voltron. I understand he's a lonely person, who feels kinship with Allura or Shiro,,, but they DID just flat out sell him to Zarkon. And yeah, Shiro snuck him the black bayard, but that wasn't the plan and afterwards Allura argued that Shiro shouldn't have surprised them. The discussion even happened in front of Lotor! Why is he getting close with people that debated to his face whether or not to send Lotor to die?

I’m going to pull briefly on a reply I got on a post specifically on the topic of Lotor underreacting to both the paladins and the generals selling him out.

Basically? Lotor isn’t all that surprised or shocked about people treating him badly. He’s used to it. His standards for Actual Friends are low, and I think rather than Lotor just getting over it and bonding with the paladins very quickly, they’re still pretty tenuous. His only real connections are Shiro and Allura.

With Shiro, Lotor’s connections have been very strategic. They’re both Black Paladin figures, that cognitive thinking mind, and both in s5e2 and s5e4 when Lotor and Shiro agree on things it’s putting their heads together. It’s all objective, priority-based evaluations and concerns with the end result being it doesn’t really matter how they feel about each other, it’s just the facts.

And that’s very safe and it’s very easy to work with. So I think Lotor at this point respects Shiro because from his perspective, Shiro is a reasonable and logical person. He can trust Shiro to listen to him when he has a point. And that’s still respect, that’s still a positive opinion, but, well... there’s a reason Lotor’s not really talking to Shiro about his history.

With Allura? I think Lotor’s in awe of her. It’s clear he has a lot of fantasies about how his life could have been better and he pins those fantasies heavily on his idealized image of Altea, of Honerva, of that whole side of his heritage. And here’s a living Altean in the flesh, the daughter of someone Lotor greatly admired, someone Zarkon and Haggar are scared of- and of course she’s also beautiful and magical and widely respected.

A lot of how he talks to her in s5e5 makes it clear Lotor seems to think Allura can do just about anything. And her fledgling but potent powers are pretty much making her live up to that. On the other hand, official interviews have suggested a lot of how Allura finds Lotor a relatable person, who understands a lot of what she’s going through, and I think that would go both ways, and that’s inspiring Lotor to open up.

With the other paladins? He’ll greet them warmly as friends but with a certain hesitance, a certain worried repetition of how much he wants to work with them. He’s kind of anxiously eager-to-please in that greeting scene in s5e5 and in many regards, even when he’s talking to Allura about his past in s5e6, especially when upset he folds away from her.

She’s his closest bond at this point and he’s still unsure of the idea of seeking comfort from her. He’ll try to reach out and touch her- which is a big deal since he basically doesn’t do that to anyone else we’ve seen him interact with- but even when he grabs her hand in s5e5 he only grasps her fingertips, or gently rests his hand on top of hers- they’re very timid sort of touches. (Quite a contrast to prior incarnations of the character who basically couldn’t keep their hands to themselves at all when it came to Allura, but that’s a combination of traits)

And with a lot of the other paladins he’s just plain not even trying. Just about every time Lance gets mad at him Lotor just stands there silently with a blank or nearly blank expression. So I think s5e2 did make a difference- it’s reinforced some natural perspectives in Lotor.

To my eyes, it seems like Lotor’s assumed that Lance disliking him is something as deeply entrenched as, say, Throk’s bigotry towards him- he’s just never going to win Lance over, but Lance isn’t dangerous the way Throk was because Lance will listen to Allura and Allura might actually trust him, so Lotor doesn’t have to repeatedly second-guess if his back is in range for Lance to shoot him.

But there’s definitely a pattern where Lotor’s not really holding the attempted prisoner swap against the paladins, or the generals doing a similar thing against them.

And I guess it comes back to- Lotor can be vicious in his own defense when he’s scared- Narti and the White Lion are both examples of that- but when he’s calm and his head is clear, his capacity to stand up for himself... really depends. He’ll do what he has to so he can survive the situation but he’s not about to mark it down as anything unusual.

For Lotor, being despised by people is normal. He’s lived his life as a high-profile minority in an incredibly bigoted empire and if people call him an honorless brat unworthy of the throne that’s when they’re being nice. He’s very rarely actually angry because he’s being insulted.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t notice things like Coran comparing him to basically an alien tapeworm (I love you, dude, but really?) in s5e3 or Lance disliking him, but he’s not going to waste a lot of energy changing what he sees as kind of a fact of the universe. People don’t like him. He’s not the kind of person people get along with or look favorably upon.

And while there’s been exceptions (we see the Generals), if anything that would reinforce his perspective because it seems, for Lotor, just about everyone he’s gotten close to he’s either lost traumatically or, from his perspective, they come to not care about him any more. We know he’s still on the generals’ minds, we see how poorly they gel with Zarkon and Haggar, but he sure doesn’t.

So it probably doesn’t really linger on his mind much. Again, his reaction to Lance is the facial version of elevator music. Even his attitude in s5e1 has this shade of “can we get this over with, you’ll have plenty of time to hate me once we’re done with useful important things” more than “I don’t deserve to be treated like this do you know who I am?”

[ganymedesclock]

So here's something I've noticed. Whenever Shiro's negative side is shown it's either very missable or played for laughs (keeping Lance in check, escorting Slav, etc). Now that things are getting more serious, Shiro's flaws are becoming more noticeable to both the audience and the Paladins. Do you think that this was intentional? A lot of people saw Shiro flawless like the Paladins did only to now yell "Clone!" for shallow and trivial reasons.

I would argue that all of the characters’ traits have been consistent from the start, but due to screentime and situations, some of them were less obvious than others. As we’re getting more time with them, we’re getting more situations that explore those different facets in greater detail.

A lot of qualities that are cited as uniquely beginning at s3e5 were consistently present throughout s1 and s2.

Shiro really takes poorly to feeling powerless, he always has. But people don’t seem to draw the connections between say, Shiro repeatedly pushing to trust Ulaz and the Blade in s2 to Shiro taking a near-identical stance with Lotor in s5. Once Lotor’s reasoning is good enough for him, Shiro is sure about this.

In s2, Shiro didn’t go behind the team’s back, but that can be chalked up entirely to the variable that he didn’t have to. Allura chose to go along with it, albeit cautiously and making it clear she wasn’t happy about it.

I’m pretty sure Shiro would’ve done the exact same thing he did in s5e4, in s2e3- rather than dropped the subject if Allura had refused to meet with Ulaz.

The difference is, most of the times this trait rears its head in s1 and s2, it’s seen as a positive or understandable thing that Shiro’s very stubborn. It’s what kept him alive during the missing year. If he yells at the Black Lion in s2e7, well, he was just scared for understandable reasons, he calms down and makes his remorse clear once he realizes Black is trying to tell him something.

But if Shiro yells at Lance and then apologizes to him in s5e3 and makes it clear going forwards he has newfound trust in what Lance is trying to tell him, that’s not treated the same way.

I think the situation is that something else is intersecting with the concept of clone theory.

I’ve said it before that clone theory is not really my cup of tea- but I think as a theory, it’s decently sound. We did see that other Shiro lying on the table during the one we’re followings’ escape. The empire would do it. The idea of implanting memories that Shiro didn’t actually experience, via his arm, was discussed back in s2e3. 

It would give another purpose to Shiro’s design update- so that eventually if we’re dealing with both this character and the “original” Shiro, we’ll be able to tell them apart. 

But I think that clone theory is often misused in that people change the metrics that they judge Shiro by based on if he’s before or after s3e5, when, even if you do take clone theory up here and assert they’re different characters...

I come back to s3e5 itself is lavishly set up as a situation to tell us a lot of things. If you take clone theory, this is the introduction of a new character, and this is what his debut episode tells us about him:

He has no idea what happened to him, is weakened and disoriented and, at first, seeing things that aren’t there. This leads him to be suspicious of his surroundings (asking the giant skeleton what killed it)

The empire is using him, but they don’t care about his survival. When he escapes, they remark that things are proceeding as expected, but he has an intense cluster of near-death instances that they don’t seem to be aware of or care about. The empire’s resources could have done so much better in planting their spy back with Voltron than tossing him to the wolves on an inhospitable ice planet when he’s in a bad state to take care of himself.

He specifically makes an honorable, empathetic choice, at a point where he has nothing to gain and nobody is watching him besides two people entirely at his mercy who he could easily kill with the fighting skills he exhibited earlier. If anything, his comment that he doesn’t expect the two rebels to listen to him and how ominous he seems in that scene would appear set up to make us expect he’s going to do something nasty to them. Instead, he surrenders.

This is reinforced in s4e1 when he’s able to reconnect with Black by asking for their trust, and in s5e3 when Lance explicitly tells Allura that Shiro- this Shiro, the one that’s with the team right now- is not her enemy.

I think what happens is that an odd expectation becomes attached to the idea of clone theory, in that people perceive “Ryou” (post-s2 Shiro) as a different person than “Real Shiro” (pre-s2 Shiro) and they perceive this difference unfavorably.

That Ryou is working against Real Shiro, that Real Shiro doesn’t like Ryou, that they wouldn’t agree or get along, even though the popular theory of s5e3 is that it was Real Shiro that called out to Lance.

Because Lance tells Ryou about it afterwards, thinking that it’s the same person who can clarify. And Ryou doesn’t remember that happening, but he pointedly doesn’t express this in a way that doesn’t frame Lance as wrong for perceiving him as doing something he doesn’t remember doing.

Ryou’s response basically comes across as “I don’t know anything about some other Shiro talking to you, but that has to have happened for a reason. You should listen to that other Shiro.”

Black Lion trusts Ryou. The paladins trust Ryou. When he starts acting off, everyone, including him, says that this is bad and unlike him. And so far? Their trust has been paid off. Haggar is using him to spy on others, but Ryou has also done many things to personally save and protect the other paladins, putting himself in danger to do so. He’s been fighting on the front lines to keep them safe. And we have yet to see the empire pull its punches, or act to preserve him, once.

So even if I don’t personally like clone theory, my response to it continues to be that I think the fandom’s wrong not for thinking Shiro might be a clone at this point, but I think the fandom’s wrong for assuming that Ryou is inherently untrustworthy and against the team. 

And those assumptions are at the root, I think, of the perception of all of post-s2 Shiro’s behavior as less pleasant, ruder, nastier, more malicious when these same traits were here before in s1 and s2- they were just given the benefit of the doubt.