#lance has more points already than he got in the full season last year and he dnfed in one race and had one functioning limb in another

[princelancey]

the vibes at aston martin this year immaculate, i love seeing the celebrations

[aceofwhump]

Alright!! This post is for my lovely friend @theladyoffangorn who wanted some whump fic recs for Leonard Snart from Legends of Tomorrow. BABE! I GOT YOU!

I've got sickfics, I've got emotional whump, I've got team feels, I've got ship feels, I've got Leonard lives AUs, I've got Leonard loses a hand AUs.

I'VE GOT YOU!!

A Hand of Metal and Wheels by areyouarealmonster: Leonard shatters his hand trying to get free of the cuffs that Mick--Chronos--left him in. Gideon can seal the open wound, but no more than that. Leonard has to come to terms with losing his hand, and to deal with the inconvenient feelings he has for the man making him a prosthesis. Ray, however, is still with Kendra, which makes Leonard's feelings even more inconvenient and pointless. There's no easy fix for his feelings, or for learning how to use a mechanical hand. It's tough, and it's frustrating, but at least Ray Palmer keeps touching him, so he's got that going for him now.

Dig Me Out by ninhursag: 20 year old Sara Lance and 20 year old Leonard Snart wake up locked in a room together on one of the worst days of their respective lives. This is an au of the already au Possessive Charms stories. It takes place both before and after those stories, depending on the point of view character. You probably could get away with starting here.

After the Oculus by SaxyFangurl: Rip and Sara prevent Leonard from going back and saving Mick at the Oculus. The Team gets concerned when it seems like Leonard is not handling his grief well. To make matters worse, they lost contact with their resident kleptomaniac when they all were scattered throughout time.

In This Life by JaelIn: one Earth, Rip didn't time-scatter the Legends--he sent the Waverider spinning through the multiverse, damaged, its crew trying to find a way home. And when that Earth's Sara and Leonard approach another Earth's Waverider, they'll find out just what a life and a destiny can turn on.

(I Don't Believe in) Destiny by Jael: Leonard Snart is back, finally pulled from the timestream where he's spent the last four years. But he wasn't alone, and the repercussions of that will echo through the Legends, the Time Bureau, and beyond. And maybe, just maybe, they'll bring everything around full circle.

How to Save a Life by Jael: In one moment, Leonard Snart is bleeding out in an Central City alley. The next, he's waking up on some kind of ship, where weird shit keeps happening all around him, his oldest friend is avoiding him, and an intriguing blonde he's never met before seems to know him far too well. What the HELL?

bad habits, they die hard by SiriCerasi: They have no food, and more importantly, no water. There's not a single tree in sight, nothing higher than stubby bushes, and Leonard fucking Snart will not take off his goddamn parka. Or, Sara and Len get stranded in the heat, Len is stubborn and whiny, and Sara is 100% done.

not to break by SiriCerasi: He only fixes the robot because he had, technically, broken it. Or, Len is lost without Mick, Sara and Gideon try to help, and Len is adopted by robots.

sensitive's unravelling by SiriCerasi: "Movie?" he asks, as though this were normal, as though they'd always been friends on a time travelling space ship, as though she hadn't almost killed a teammate today. Episode tags: 1x05, 1x06 & 1x07

child, be still by SiriCerasi: He thinks, some days, that this is helping her as much as it is him. The days when she seems very far away despite sitting right beside him. When the look of longing on her face as she speaks of the past makes her seem like a ghost, haunting her own life. Crook and Assassin, trying to dull each other's broken edges. Weaves in and out of canon, following season 1.

The Weight of Time by areyouarealmonster: Leonard Snart has learned (kind of) how to be a superhero with his new powers to control time (thanks, Oculus). Now, he and Ray Palmer are back on the Waverider, adjusting to being back with the Legends. It goes just about as well as you'd expect.

A Rift in Time by elvishmockingbird: While Sara struggles with her feelings after ending things with Ava, vacation shenanigans lead the new Legends to discover the story of Leonard Snart. With some help from Team Flash, they find a way to bring him back. But saving Snart has an unexpected effect on the timeline that the Legends now need to fix.

Cold Hearts Brew Colder Songs by WinterSky101: When he looks back on it, Leonard's not quite sure how he manages to get from the ship to the hall where the others are fighting. Missing scene for 1.09 (Left Behind).

DC Random: Necropolis by Side Quest Publications: A "what if" based on a remark Kendra makes in a chapter of Catalyst. The Legends visit a necropolis to find an artifact that might help in the fight against Savage, but a rocket launcher destroys Leonard's escape route, leaving him stranded on a pillar with no way down. Carter tries to rescue him, but Len's recent fear of heights interferes. Takes place between LoT S1E1 and S1E2

Len's memories by TheRamblingsOfaMadWoman: The Legends and Lisa go into Len's head and relive his memories with him. Turns out Len lied to Lisa about their parents.

The Hardest Part Is When You Know by Anime Girl23: Integrating Snart back into the team came with an adjustment period, but he also came back with secrets he couldn't keep hidden as well as he did their last time around. The truth had to come out sometime and Leonard Snart could never do anything without it being dramatic. Mick/Len [Coldwave] Series: In The Time Of Our Lives [4/5]

Time Has Come For Letting Go by Anime Girl23: [An Interlude] They'd become a team, but going back to the mission while Mick and Snart were in Boston was like going into battle with missing limbs. They weren't complete without them. Realizations and visits and two of them get a little closure on an almost. Mick/Len [Coldwave] Series: In The Time Of Our Lives [3/5]

A New One Begins by Anime Girl23: They've become a team, but when Snart comes crashing back into their lives, it's not as easy as saying "welcome back" and moving on. Sometimes, you need to say goodbye before you can say hello again. Mick/Len [Coldwave] Series: In The Time Of Our Lives [2/5]

This Is Where The Chapter Ends by Anime Girl23: They were a fractured team, broken up by cliques and people who got stuck on the outside. Sara looked at them and promised they'd be stronger, but it took steps to get there; sharing stories at the dinner table and finally taking the time to learn who Mick was underneath his criminal record. Mick/Len [Coldwave] Series: In The Time Of Our Lives [1/5]

A Case of the Flu by WillowWinchester: Leonard falls sick with the flu, and Sara is the one who appoints herself to take care of him. [Captain Canary]

Of Sacrifice, Poison, and Risk by SeaSpectre160: The team races against the clock and takes a leap of faith to save one of their own. Lots of Whump, rated T because of it. MY 100TH STORY!

Big Brother by Dawnstorm101: When Snart and Jax are kidnapped, Snart does something Jax didn't expect, exposing the young man to a side of Snart he didn't know existed.

Secrets of a Legend by DianneRose2016: Warnings inside. Set after 2X8: Snart is taken by Chronos and the team needs to try and rescue him from his captors. But how long can Snart hold out among the torture he is enduring in a place that time has no meaning? With the help of a friend and an old teammate can they save Snart from not only his captors, but from his soon to be broken mind? Will Snart even want to survive?

DC Random: Confessions by Side Quest Publications: In which Leonard Snart finds himself confiding some very old secrets to Sara on the day they meet... and discovering he has secrets even from himself. Occurs during Season 1 Episode 1, while the rest of the team is exploring the Waverider before they time-jump for the first time. Trigger warning: non-con flashback from Len's childhood. Canon warning: OOC is Serious Business.

Bullet wounds and heart ache by MarenMary93: On a mission in Germany 1941, Leonard Snart discovers how painful a gunshot can be. But will he ever manage to tell Sara how he feels?

Cold Shoulder by MarenMary93: Spoiler for ep. 1x08 Night of the Hawk. Leonard's shoulder gets hurt when monster Jax hits him, and of course Len being Len doesn't want anybody to know... (And I'm the worst at titles... Seriously? Cold Shoulder?)Leo

[race-week]

Hii, I’m new to F1 but discourse is already making my head hurt so I wanted to ask about Charles Leclerc and penalties — Does he, factually and objectively, get away with more than other drivers? Is there a reason? I know some people say that it’s bc his manager is Nicholas Todt, son of the FiA president right now, but idk it feels like just talk rather than a substantiated claim. Thanks!

Hi anon!

So first things first is the FIA are notoriously inconsistent when it comes to applying penalties and they’ve always been like this, sometimes a driver will get a 5 second penalty for something that another driver got a 10 second penalty for before.

There have been a few occurrences in which it looked like Charles should get a penalty, he got into a few first lap tussles last year and then also today, now typically the FIA is quite lenient with first lap incidents because you have all 20 cars bunched up together and it’s quite chaotic. Charles has always been able to benefit off of the chaos and make up some spaces particularly last year, however there were sometimes that he misjudged things and took a driver out of the race; Styria 2020 with Seb, Sochi 2020 with Lance, Sakhir 2020 with Max and Sergio. (Sorry for just the 2020 examples, I didn’t watch the 2019 season live and have only watched about half of it total)

These were first lap incidents which were quite significant, I’m of the opinion that if you take a driver out of the race you should be penalised or at the very least reprimanded for it, Albon got a penalty when he took Magnussen out on the first lap in Silverstone last year.

The thing that stands out to me as what should have been a straightforward penalty for Charles is when he drove 2 laps at full speed around Spain with his seatbelts undone. But then it happened to Kvyat as well later in the year and there was no penalty there, so that again was just the FIA being stupid and ignoring safety issues.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that he gets penalised less I’d say that most of his incidents happen at the time when the FIA is most lenient and he possibly benefits off of that more than anything else.

Ferrari and the FIA have a bit of a closer relationship than other teams but I wouldn’t necessarily go to the point where they are giving him favourable treatment because of Ferrari or Nicholas Todt, but I can understand to a degree when the incident list keeps piling up yet the penalty list stays low, people turn to that as an answer.

[omegatheunknown]

AEW Double or Nothing 2021

In which the spirit of WCW is alive in confusing and delightful ways and we are left to parse whether overbooking and extracurriculars are offset by having actually very good wrestling happening at the same time.

- Lessons learned from Revolution on the production side? Maybe just cool it on pyro, though the rappelling adventure in the Stadium Stampede showed some of that now-characteristic 'trust us it'll look better on TV' flair. Hot crowd tends to paper over most woes, and the crowd was pretty hot. My one gripe is that the casino theme is hanging around like yesterday's takeout containers. Nothing wrong with clinging to a theme, I just think it's time for season 2. My suggestion? Under the Sea.

*Pre-Card Serena Deeb (C) v Riho for the NWA Women's Championship (***1/2) - Serena Deeb's star has finally risen. She's a remarkably consistent technician and she can get a match out of anyone at this point. She's working at the level of Mercedes Martinez or Madison Eagles at this point, it's amazing that she was overlooked or considered fit only to be a coach for so long. With the NWA belt she has this new swagger, she's basically everything Tessa Blanchard might bring to the table with none of the downsides (Serena has a lot of friends and seems like a lovely person, even!) - Riho's back and here to stay. Her time in Stardom didn't do much for my evaluation of her, which is that there are many better wrestlers that would be better representatives of the joshi style and she's merely pretty good. - The match was very good. Serena showcased a champion's aggression against a sympathetic Riho, they really work well against each other, Deeb's technical prowess against Riho's flexibility led to a very dynamic finish.

*Main Card Hangman Adam Page v Brian Cage (***1/2) - Here the shenanigans start. Brian Cage is on Team Taz, Team Taz has nothing else much to do tonight, so why wouldn't Team Taz flex their muscles, bait us with HOOK, etc? (Because it would be nice to have some variety in the card in terms of a match where one competitor stands across from another competitor?) - Hangman is (checking notes) yeah, still over as fuck, as befits the Anxious Millennial Cowboy. Cage terrifies me, he's a child's drawing of a body builder. He do be very agile for a man of his immense musculature tho. They match up well, Page is biggish for a flyer, Cage loves to play catch. Nothing much to write home about, other than Hangman's beautiful moonsault to the floor and what was overall a very good curtain jerker. - Okay fine, I am curious about Cage's reluctance to lean on the goons, Starks can't come back soon enough.

The Young Bucks v Jon Moxley & Eddie Kingston (***) - I will not be referring to Mox & Eddie as (The) Wild Things because it gives me 'he calls it the wacky line' flashbacks for some reason. - The Bucks have to cheat and abuse Rick Knox's attention span constantly to be on even footing with Mox & Eddie, which is a clever sort of thing that gets washed out by the appearance of LG and Karl Anderson, which again, is cool in a vacuum but was the story of the evening. - Pace was weird - repetitive in eliminating Eddie, then Mox fights back, failed hope spot, Bucks team up, Eddie saves x2/3 in a row. - Mox, unlike Cody (in so many ways,) will probably actually be taking some time off with Renee, which is the kind of thing I would prefer not to know in terms of booking, but they really uh, put him down on the canvas here, and it felt pretty finale-esque.

Casino Battle Royale (n/r, but on the balance pro) - Any changes to the theme of the PPV would likely include changing up the nonsense suit format of these largely joyless slogs. - Obviously anticipating a NJPW talent, or... I dunno, actually -- Lio Rush was a surprise. Got in a quick demonstration of his otherworldly quickness, and you know what, there's probably a fun place for him in AEW. He'll need some friends, of course, feel like Team Taz might fit his temperament. I wonder if he was aware of the Mark Henry news... - Christian does not need to win this kind of match to get a title shot, obviously, but that said it was super lovely to use him to give Jungle Boy the shine. Jungle Boy would be a license to print money if he was even as big as Hangman. - Could register some continued griping about how Penta is not getting his due in AEW but he also literally was dressed as the Joker so I'm low on sympathy on this one particular night.

Anthony Ogogo v Cody Rhodes (*) - I did not like this. It's hard for me to read jingoism as a face move to begin with, and Cody's was egregiously tone deaf and kinda silly yet delivered without a trace of irony because Cody doesn't do irony on purpose, ridiculous neck tattoo aside. - Great argument to be made that Ogogo just isn't experienced enough to be winning matches against Cody. But like, what are we doing here? Cody needs to take some time off, maybe. I thought that's what was happening when he had his mini feud with Penta that really just ended in quick decisive Cody win. I though maybe Cody was being turned when QT and The Factory snapped-- sure, they're a group of impotent player 2s, but Cody is an out of touch elitist with a callous and manipulative streak. Alas, also no. America #1. - Cody is approximately 8 times as tough as Billy Gunn based on his weathering of the one punch man. Match ran a bit long given how little there was to go on. Cody gigged? Quelle surprise. - Cody had the best match on the card like, 3 out of the first 4 AEW events or something, and that was all booking and storytelling. I do hope Cody follows Moxley's lead into a little sabbatical.

Miro (C) v Lance Archer for the TNT Championship (**1/2) - Card's hossiest hoss match, a quick burst reminiscent of a car wreck. Absolutely hit on what it should've hit on but a little slow moving considering it went all of 10 minutes. - I will not complain about Jake the Snake, who I love. And also the gimmick spot, with Miro very astutely yeeting what was definitely a snake in a bag (surely.) back down the tunnel.

Dr Britt Baker, DMD v Hikaru Shida (C) for the AEW Women's Championship (***) - Picked up a lot of steam toward the end but seemed a little toothless (heh) until the last five. - Shida 'deserved' some more time as champion in front of crowds but also it's time to let heel Britt reach her peak, I can't even imagine how obnoxious she can be as the champ, it's going to be great.

Sting & Darby Allin v Ethan Page & Scorpio Sky (***1/2) - Such is the power of STING that I feel like I might be underrating this match... I mean it was an okay match about very simply getting some revenge and the sixty year old man did a very subdued Code Red and a slightly less subdued dive. He's also Sting. They missed an opportunity in calling it the 'Scorpio' Death Drop, but the main takeaway here is you see something like this where it's The Icon and you start to understand why WWE trots out their legends to come out of incredibly still kick ass without bending their knees. - The difference, I guess, is that Sting is absolutely being used to build up Darby Allin, whereas it's not like the fed brought back Goldberg and his attendant aura to pump up... anyone but Goldberg?

Kenny Omega (C) v PAC v Orange Cassidy for the AEW World Championship (****) - Off the top I have to say I'm very sad that the rest of the Galaxy's Greatest Friends were seen only very briefly, nice of them to bring OC's backpack. - Also have to point out that PAC's promo featured one of my favourite jokes, that Kenny must be short for Kenneth as a sort of legal/birth name belonging to a professional wrestler. (See also: Samoa Joseph) - And Mr Cassidy certainly did try in this match, ragdoll sells and all. Kenneth and PAC are absurd talents who bring aerial, power and technical maneuvers in equal measure and OC is not doing any of those on the same level, but he picked his spots, showed his genre savvy and hung in there to the point that he wasn't just the fall guy. - The extracurriculars continue in a match that was already a little overboard for silliness due to asymmetry... I think if you're the Invisible Hand it would've made sense to save up all your tricks for this match, but who am I to question the golden goose? - Sure, Kenny and Don ran the classic heel manager interference spot and taking out the ref in desperation spot but having to take out the ref because PAC wouldn't break the hold is fun, as is the stupid/inspired sense in running the 'smash opponent with the belt' spot four times so as none of your heavy gold prizes feel left out. (I love that AAA Mega Championship, they weren't on TV so we get to see it?) - "Fuck You, Don," indeed.

The Inner Circle v The Pinnacle in 'Stadium Stampede II' (***1/2) - This one had to grow on me for two reasons, first that it's usually pretty unforgivable to co-opt the main event spot from the championship match, and second to law of diminishing returns on dumb gimmick matches. - But grow it did. There's a full on meat locker? Commentary will refer to a cardboard cut-out of Shahid Khan as Tony Khan's father (that's canon now,) and Jericho will lovingly pat it? Konnan happened to be the DJ at whatever night club there is a Jaguar Stadium? Spears surrounds himself dramatically with chairs and his hoisted by his own petard? - Ultimately it comes down to letting Sammy shine. His involvement with the Inner Circle has sometimes come at the cost of being able to showcase that prior to AEW he was an ascendant talent in PWG, on his way to Ricochet level feats of acrobatic excess. Still feel like Sammy could've/should've been the one tossed off the cage a few weeks ago, but even better is being the guy getting the pin in the ring.

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Rapunzel and the Great Tree Part 1

We’re now finally at the mid-season finale of season two, and it’s easily the best episode of this season. That however doesn’t mean that it’s not flawed, so here we go... 

Summary: The group makes it to the Great Tree, only to be confronted by a new adversary: Hector, the brother of Adira, the most dangerous member of the Brotherhood; sworn to keep all from reaching the Dark Kingdom. Despite all that has happened, Rapunzel is determined to continue on toward the Dark Kingdom to uncover the truth behind her destiny. As they navigate through the Great Tree, Rapunzel discovers the Moonstone incantation which overwhelms the magical powers of the Sundrop in her blonde hair and causes injury and weakness to those around her. 

The Brotherhood Is Such a Wasted Concept 

We have a group of highly trained warriors, directly connected to the series main macguffin, who consider each other siblings, who all have conflicting goals, and they’re all severely underdeveloped to the point of ridiculousness. 

For starters, in a show all about pushing sibling rivalries as parallels to the two main characters, it utterly fails to show the only other siblings who are actually connected to the plot acting like actual siblings. 

Adira and Hector should be a parallel to Cass and Rapunzel in this very episode. One that actually ties into the narrative, yet outside of calling each other brother/sister/brethren they don’t act like family; even feuding family. Adira also fails to treat Quirin, Varian, Edmund, and Eugene as family. She shows no real concern for any of them despite saving her home (which would included her family) from the rocks being her main goal. She should be just as every bit as invested in saving Quirin as Varian. Which is yet another reason why Varian should have been S2 and another entry point for him in the show’s plot. 

As for the rest of the Brotherhood, they never even interact at all. I don’t think anyone tells either Edmund or Hector what has happened to Quirin or Varian. And Edmund clearly didn’t inform Hector of Eugene, even though he logically should have. And did any of them know if Edmund was alive, despite Edmund having the means to communicate with the outside world with the crows? 

What we’re left with is a bunch of holes in the story, because there’s now a bunch of holes in everyone’s motivations and their actions never quite line up. 

And before you say, ‘well they’re not that important’, or ‘they’re aren’t meant to be a real family’; then that is in of itself a flaw because they should be. Not making them found family undermines Raps and Cass being found family, as it undermines every other sibling parallel in the show, and those parallels are the only build up we have to the sister reveal in S3.  

It also undermines the moonstone plot and the whole reason why season two exists. Don't introduce things that connect back to your story and not make them important. In fact don't introduce unimportant elements in a plot driven show like this period. 

Another Indication of the Timeline

As stated before, Tangled is really bad at indicating the passage of time, despite the passage of time being a big plot point. We’re now a ‘few months’ past the island, which itself was 6 weeks, and before that it was several weeks to maybe even a few months before getting to the island... 

So when does this take place? Well we were told that season two takes place over the course of a year by the creator, and that this is the mid-season finale so 6 months since SotSD sounds the most plausible. We also see fall trees dotted around like we did during the first half of season one. Which is the only visual indicator we get of changing seasons in the show, but it’s too understated to be properly noticeable most of the time. 

However, the crew themselves can’t even seem to agree if Rapunzel’s Return is her birthday or not, so if you’ve heard conflicting sources, it’s because this shit wasn’t planned properly first. But all dialogue and visual cues point to the first half of season two being at least 4 to 6 months. With 6 being the most logical placement.  

Just a Reminder, that Hook Foot Is Still Useless 

If all you were going to have him do is whine like a child during the only plot important episode that he is in, then why not just replace him with an actual child? 

It takes more work to leave Varian out of season two and force Hook Foot in his place, than it does just to write Varian in. There were so many potential entry points for his character, that the one they would up going with was the least natural to the characters and the story they were trying to tell. And even then, the Saporian take over they went with could still have worked had they handled things properly and pre-planned that stuff out. 

But they didn’t. By all accounts S2 was a hasty re-write to get rid of Varian and Hook Foot was shoehorned in as his replacement at the last minute. And it’s the most utterly baffling creative decision I have ever witnessed in my life. There was zero logical reason for it. 

This Plot Point Wasn’t Built Up Enough and It Goes Nowhere

Look, had they actually pointed out that Cass is a bodyguard now, and that this line from Raps threatens her career goals, that would make sense; or they could have explored the idea that Cass’s identity revolves around her job, and so feeling like her job is pointless makes her feel pointless therefore making her feel insecure about her future. Either of those would have been interesting jumping off points for her character arc and later conflicts. 

But that’s not what they did. 

I think that’s what they were initially trying to go for here, but it got muddled in the mess that was last minute rewrites. 

Cass obtaining her goals in season one is ignored in favor of a bland and vague validation goal from this point onwards. Her issues with Rapunzel are then boiled down to be about; not identity, agency, class, or wanting a future, but into fighting over a dead mom and how one wasn’t ‘loved enough’ apparently. Which makes no sense given what we know of Cass from previous seasons. 

Cassandra isn’t deep or complex; she is convoluted. The writing team couldn’t agree on what her goals and motivations should be, and so she performs conflicting actions throughout the story that actively undermines what was previously established and what she supposedly wants. 

Most people who try to defend the writing for Cassandra do so with this idea that because they had to work hard to ‘connect the dots’ for all these seemingly disconnected plot ideas, means that of course the writing is ‘deep’ but that’s ignoring one of the basic fundamentals of writing.   

The audience shouldn’t have to do the writer’s job! 

Having to think about a story doesn’t mean that you need to go digging around for basic information like the character’s goals or what happened when. A writer’s job is to first and foremost clearly communicate ideas to their audience. Plot and character analysis is about finding extras like, metaphors, moral messages, and coming up with fun headcanons that don't impact the wider story. Because all of the bare bones information needed to understand the story should already be there for everyone to see. 

If you gotta go into ‘analysis’ just explain the damn plot and why things are unfolding the way they do, then the story is badly written. Full stop. 

Cinderella wanting to go to the ball is a simple goal, but it’s an understandable one that anyone watching can grasp. You could go into a deeper analysis about abuse and what the ball symbolises for Cinderella’s character or how the story is an analogy for wider social issues at large, but at the end of the day everyone needs to be in agreement that, yes, Cinderella wants to go to the ball and we know why she wants to go, so that her actions in trying to get there make sense.

No one knows what Cassandra wants. Cassandra herself doesn’t know what she wants. So the ‘why’ part for what she does is never answered. 

Hector Is Wasted

As already stated, all of the Brotherhood is wasted, but Hector more so than most. Season two desperately needed an ongoing threat, a main antagonist to push the story forward. Hector should have been that antagonist. Instead he shows up for this one episode, and then in a few non-speaking cameos in S3. 

Then Why Not Just Stay With Them Adira?

We’re never given an actual reason for why Adira keeps leaving the group, and indeed doing so conflicts with her stated goal of getting Rapunzel safely to the moonstone. It’s just shoehorned in here to create ‘mystery’, but mysteries have to be answered at some point. You can’t throw something in for drama’s sake and not explain why it’s there. 

Lance’s Crush on Adira Isn’t Handled Well 

Look, this isn’t a judgment upon those who ship the characters. When I talk about relationships in the show I’m only talking about how well they are written on screen. I couldn’t care less what the fans do with them. 

Even when I discuss my personal preferences for ships, that is all that is, my personal preference. I don't give a shit if you ship something that I may dislike, or if you hate something that I do enjoy. I’m a grown up with more important things to do than worry over what a bunch strangers may write on A03 about a bunch of fictional characters, and as someone who hates bullies above all else, I’ll defend your right to make whatever content to want to because censorship is just a form of bullying and nothing else. 

No matter how gross or reprehensible I may personally find it. Different stories resonate with different people and for different reasons. I may debate your reasons, if the subject comes up, or critique professional media for the messages it puts out to the wider public, but I’ll never say you can’t like it or that you can’t make it.    

So with that stated, I don’t like Lance’s dynamic with Adira in the show and here’s my reasons for that. 

She doesn’t ever return the feelings. 

At best she tolerates him, at worse she actively kicks his butt when he gets too close, and most of the time she ignores him. Which is for good reason; she’s old enough to be his mom. Why would she be attracted to him? 

Like I’m not saying that age gaps between adults are inherently wrong; I’m saying that if there is a significant age gap then you really have to work hard to build up a reason for why the two characters would go for each other when naturally they wouldn’t be in each other’s usual sphere of dating options. Which the series never does because once again Adira is clearly not interested in him. 

This leads to Lance basically being an annoying ‘nice guy’ who can’t take a hint. Like constantly badgering someone who doesn’t want you to isn’t charming or endearing, and Lance is old enough to know this by now. 

Basically the writers just took the Varian and Cassandra dynamic from Great Expotations and slapped it onto Lance and Adira despite the fact that it made zero sense for their characters. Lance isn’t a lonely teen who desperately wants to fit in and make a connection with someone. He’s not out to prove that he is mature, nor mistakenly believes himself to be an equal to the only other girl in the kingdom that has ever talked to him that isn’t already married/seriously dating and still living at home. Adira never comes around to considering Lance a trusted friend and confidante after shoving nearly everyone else away. She doesn’t seek out his help or approval, nor tries to build him up with compliments, ect, and so forth. 

Now, I dislike the Cass and Varian ship for many, many reasons, but as they are presented on screen in the Great Expo it makes sense for why Varian would at first have an unrequited crush on her. Now after that QfaD he logically shouldn’t ever want anything to do with her but we’ll get to that later. That’s not the case with Lance and Adira; they’re both too old for such a dynamic. 

To add on to the weird factor, they’re both related to Eugene. Adira is technically Eugene’s aunt, even if she never acts like it. Lance is also the closest thing to a brother Eugene has. They don’t recognize each other as such, so if you want to say their just friends or ship them or whatever, there’s wiggle room. But the end effect is like Maya in Girl Meets World crushing on her best friend’s, Riley’s, Uncle Josh. Only even with less basis, and it wasn’t that great there either. 

Why Do you Suddenly Not Trust Adira Cass?

Forest of No Return was all about establishing trust in Adira, including with Cass at the end, so why the sudden back track? Especially since Adira hasn’t done anything but been honest with them, and has saved their butts several times now. All this does is make Cassandra look like an ass, which you don't need to be doing if you want the audience to side with her later on in the story. 

Everyone Now Knows Quirin is a Part of the Brotherhood, So There’s No Excuse For Later

It’s an odd way to state that fact, but yeah, both Cass and Raps are told directly that Quirin is in the Brotherhood, and Lance, Eugene, and Hookfoot are also present and presumably listing to this exchange. So no one in S3 has an excuse to ignore this plot point until the finale. 

This Backstory Goes Nowhere

Adira launches into this story about Zhan Tiri, Demanitus, and the Great Tree and literally none of it actually matters. It’s never brought up again after this episode. We never get any insight into why they were fighting, how Zhan Tiri corrupted a tree, what significance the tree has outside of being really big and holding some scrolls, nor how the scrolls got there, why the tree is still connect to Zhan Tiri hundreds of years later, nor how Demanitus magic spear works or what it even does exactly. 

Don’t introduce lore and then don't have it mean anything. 

Why Do you Care, Cass? 

Cassandra isn’t a lady-in-waiting anymore. We’ve already established that back in Secret of the Sun Drop and in Beyond the Corona Walls. So why should she care if Adira calls her one? Adira isn’t from Corona. Adira isn’t in charge of anything. Cassandra doesn’t even like her, so Adira’s opinion shouldn’t matter. 

This whole season we’ve seen Cass treat Adira like shit, but apparently we’re supposed to feel sorry for her when she can’t take clap back for all the grief she’s given. Is she really so immature that she can’t just ignore a petty insult for what it is? Why does she have to behave so insecure that she will jeopardize the mission or someone’s life over it? This is the deuteragonist I’m suppose to root for and relate to? I mean she’s twenty three for goodness sake! Grow the hell up woman! 

Also while we on the subject, a royal guard and a lady-in-waiting are both servants. There’s no distinction between the two beyond what duties they perform, and that would be the case regardless of what job Cass had. Rapunzel’s a princess, everyone is her servant. That’s how the class system works, and by all means Cassandra enjoys more privilege than most people in Corona. She’s the Captain’s daughter, was granted next in line for that position in SotSD, and lady-in-waiting means to the princess means she’s above all the other maids except for Crowley and Friedberg. Cass may hate her job, but she hasn’t room to complain when Faith is right there and has things much worse. 

In short making Cass suddenly indignant over being treated as lower class when she didn’t give a crap about the likes of Attila, Caine, Varian, Eugene, Lance, ect... just makes her look like a hypocrite. 

The Other Reason to Dislike Lance’s Crush is That It Hinders His Development

Lance’s arc is that he’s suppose to learn to be more responsible. This episode in particular is suppose address his habit of lying... only it doesn’t. We get no real resolvement on this point. We also never see Lance progress enough to give up on Adira and stop pursuing her even when it’s directly pointed out to him that she doesn’t reciprocate his feelings. So in the end he still remains immature and irresponsible. 

Though this conversation just proves that Eugene and Lance still have the healthiest relationship in the show. They’re about to disagree or call each other’s bullshit without resorting to insults or getting violent, which is more than what any relationship involving Cass does. 

Questions With No Answers

We never learn why these scrolls are here, why they have the incantations on them and upon the wall, we don’t know who translated them, nor who came up with the incantations in the first place.

This is all important info that he series glosses over, because unlike the moonstone and sundrop, the incantations are things that someone had to have made at some point, and they could only have made them by studying what our plot macguffins are and how they work. Since the incantations are things that are also sought after by the big bad along with the magical objects, then we need to know how the big bad knows about them when no one else does. How they came about. 

Which is yet another reason why we needed a magic system in place. 

This Song is Catchy, But It Doesn’t Need To Exist

In a musical a song needs to either establish the plot, build the world, or further the characters. This song does none of those things, it’s not needed for Lance and Eugene’s relationship, it doesn’t actually resolve Lance’s plot as he is high when he apologizes for lying, and it wasn’t needed to established the man eating plant. I honestly think this song only exists so that the animators could just reuse assets they built to save on money. 

The Hurt Incantation Is the Coolest Thing In the Show! Shame It’s Not Utilized Well

People are suckered into this show by one of three things usually, ‘Let Me Make You Proud Reprise’, ‘Ready As I’ll Ever Be’, or this scene. 

It’s shocking, powerfull, and a really, really awesome concept. It’s one of the best scenes in the show, and an interesting idea that offers up a lot of story possibilities. 

Possibilities that’ll never actually be explored on screen. The hurt incantation isn’t useless, it does affect the plot, but it’s not used effectively. There was so much you could have done with this but it’s then never explored. Characters outright forget its existence even when they have no reason to, or it’s used to do things that should have been accomplished in other ways. It’s also never fully explained or expanded upon. They couldn’t even bother to give it more than one verse. 

All of the incantations are mishandled in this show, but the hurt incantation is the one that has the biggest let down. 

Conclusion 

So that ends part 1, join me tomorrow for part 2. 

[pierregasly]

Would love to hear your full take on Pierre,,,

Sorry this took me a few days to get to, I meant to answer it immediately but never found the motivation :( Anyways, onto Pierre. 

I believe you are commenting on a post of mine where I stated my fear that the Middle Generation of drivers (Charles, Carlos, Pierre and Max specifically) have/are going to miss out on opportunities and will never reach their full potential in F1. This is similar to what happened to the “Lost Generation” which is comprised of drivers such as Daniel, Kevin, Nico and Checo. To reiterate something that another asker was confused about: it has nothing to do with talent. The generations are not lumped together based on talent but based on their similar ages/entrance into F1 and I am speaking on the wasted potential that this group never got to achieve. (For example, Nico’s full potential was podiums--he never got here. And Daniel’s full potential was a championship--which he’ll never get.) 

I am not going to waste your time and state what I said briefly about Charles, Carlos and Max but I will go into depth more so about what I hardly touched upon with Pierre. As I said, Pierre is a phenomenal talent. As much as his podium and race win may have proven it to the world, many still call him a “luck driver” who is not good enough for a higher team. This is, obviously, because of  his time at Red Bull dramatically overshadowed his career. 

I started following Pierre around 2017 when I first got interested in F1 because of the history. In 2017 he wasn’t racing in Europe but in Super Formula so I took the time to catch up on his career thus far (I will go into depth on this in a moment). I didn’t start watching F1 until 2018 and the only driver (non-historical) I really was attached to was Pierre (others would comes later). Obviously, if you remember, Pierre ended up taking P5 in qualifying and P4 in a Toro Rosso in front of the whole world in only a few races at Bahrain. It was absolutely incredible and for the rest of the season until his Red Bull announcement, Pierre was dishing points place after points place after points place in only his first full season in F1. Therefore, while it was only his FIRST FULL SEASON, the jump to Red Bull ultimately felt justified. 

Of course, this did not end up being the case. Our joy over Pierre getting to be in a higher team made us completely and utterly forget the track record Red Bull has left with its second drivers. For those of you who are new to F1 (either coming in 2019, mid-2019 or 2020) you missed out on Pierre’s debut season which was fantastic for the car he was given. Furthermore, if you came in during mid-2019 or 2020 and you think that the treatment RB gave to Alex is horrible--you are hardly touching the surface. The treatment that RB is giving Alex versus Pierre is like taking your sons on summer vacation and then having one of them sleep on the comfy twin bed with two blankets and the other kid on the floor without so much as PJs. We haven’t even touched upon Daniil. Daniil would be like the parents leaving the kid outside to sleep. 

Let’s move on. It is very easy to look at Pierre’s season and tout only negative things. It was not his best moment and, yes, he certainly could’ve done better. However, with what he was given? Are we even sure about that? For example, Pierre become open with the media following his demotion. Not only did RB leave it to the very last moment but they also would:

1) Use Pierre’s car and car parts to test Max. 

2) When Pierre requested a more experienced engineer, he was denied. However, when Alex requested the same thing, he was given it. 

3) RB consistently spoke horribly of him in front of the media. They constantly spoke that he needed to do better and never tried to build him up. 

4) Emotionally pressured Pierre to his breaking limit.

Now the difference between RB and many other teams is that when the going gets tough for their drivers, many teams choose to build their drivers up to set them up for success. RB’s method is to tear their drivers down and hope that they can pick up their own pieces once they become annoyed with humiliation. The demotion was far, far too quick. Think of Alex--he has been getting worse and worse and worse with a year and half of time at Red Bull. Pierre managed half a season before they gave him the boot. The boot was also without warning even despite Pierre getting better and better each race. 

This is all information you probably already know, I said earlier I would touch upon his younger career and how this has been overshadowed and forgotten due to his time at RB. Here are some facts/statistics that will be important for my point later:

Finished 3rd in the French F4 championship with four wins, two poles and seven podiums over the course of only fourteen races despite having three retirements (the 2nd placer had 0 and the 1st placer only had 1). 

In his first season at Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 he finished 10th of 51 different racers and every person but one who finished before him in the championship was older than him. Pierre was only 16 when Stoffel V was 20, Daniil K was 18, Oliver R was 20, Norman N was 20, Nyck V was 17, Paul L was 21, Oscar T was 16, Melville M was 18 and Alex R was 18. 

In his second season of Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 he finished first in front of the likes of Esteban Ocon, Oliver Rowland, Jake Dennis, Nyck de Vries, Luca Ghitto and Alexander Albon.

Finished 6th in the 2013 Formula Renault 2.0 Alps Series despite missing half of the season and there being 42 competitors total (everyone ahead of him completed the full season). 

Finished 2nd of 28 competitors in the 2014 Formula Renault 3.5 Series and lost to none other than Carlos Sainz Jr. 

Finished 1st in his second full season of GP2 (now formally classified as F2).

The GP2 race he won in Silverstone happened right after a huge roadcar accident in which his mother ended up in the hospital. Pierre himself fractured his vertebrae and still went on to win the race while his mother was in the hospital and he had a broken bone. 

Was called in to replace a Renault edams driver in Formula E. He was jet lagged, tired and got only a few hours in the sims. He still managed to secure P4 in qualifying and then was set for a P3 finish but he crashed into the wall on the last corner of the last lap and came home in P4. THIS WAS HIS FIRST TIME EVER IN AN FE RACE OR AN FE CAR.

Finished second in Super Formula in 2017 but lost by only half a point. One of the races in the season was abandoned when he was set to win because of flooding and storm. Had it not been abandoned he would’ve finished first at the end of the season. 

All this pretty much brings you up to speed to when he entered into F1 (which all his amazing stuff you should be familiar with). Moving more onto my “take” regarding Pierre. I have shown evidence for why he is an incredible driver, however, now we’re moving onto the not so great bit. I suppose I must answer one question before I move on. 

Do I think Pierre is good enough, against all the rest of the talent in F1, to get consistent podiums if given the proper car? Absolutely. Do I think Pierre is good enough, against all the rest of the talent in F1, to get consistent wins if given the proper car? Absolutely. Do I think Pierre is good enough, against all the rest of the talent in F1, to fight/win a championship one day if given the proper car? This I firmly believe is possible (other thing I’ll get into if someone wants).

The reason I worry and am distressed about Pierre is because I don’t believe he’ll ever get a go at a higher team again. RB really put a shadow over his career, a shadow that is going to worry other teams from placing him into their cars. He has ultimately proven himself with podiums and, of course, the race win. However, seeing as there is so much young talent coming into F1, I don't see there being a place for him. 

Mercedes is set to most likely be Max and George when Lewis retires. Red Bull would never dare to put him in that seat again. Ferrari has their “golden generation” of Charles and Mick to look after. And those are the seemingly “top teams” (if you can even all Ferrari that). Let’s look at the others. Racing Point is going to be Lance and Seb until Seb retires. I don’t see Pierre ever going to Alpha Romeo. And McLaren is set up for the next few years with Lando and Daniel. Haas--I don’t think so. This is ultimately dangerous for Pierre’s career because RB likes to keep fresh meat in their B team car (or if you trust Horner it’s their “sister team” lol). Pierre’s best chance is the escape the RB family. AND I UNDERSTAND that the regulations could make things VERY different in F1 for the future. These are just my hypothesis and guesses--all is subjective and up to interpretation so @ anybody reading this--relax, buddy. So where does Pierre fit in in the future? These are some scenarios I have conjured up. 

1) Mercedes. Let’s say that, possibly. Max never ends up moving into that second Merc seat and instead remains at RB wasting away until they can get him a better car for the rest of his career (ooo burn sorry it’s for the scenario don’t hate me). This would open up a place at Merc for Pierre to truly shine his potential. Most likely, he would play second fiddle to George but hey--it’s still a seat where can utilize that potential. 

2) Red Bull. This would be if they get desperate. I don’t think if given a second chance, Pierre would say no. If Max were still in the team, he would be second fiddle. I can see Pierre going to RB if Max leaves for Merc in the next few years and they want him to lead Yuki or if Yuki doesn’t shine in AT and they end up dropping him they are going to be slim Pickens... I don’t know if being at RB will give him a place where he can utilize his potential but it’s a possibility. 

3) Ferrari. This would be only a chance if Mick doesn’t do great in Alpha Romeo and they need someone to fill the seat of their obvious place holder Carlos. He would be alongside Charles. Other than that.... Ferrari seems pretty set and there isn’t any space. 

4) McLaren. This I don’t see as very possible? I would love to see him in orange but they seem pretty set with Daniel and Lando. I think Daniel is probably going to ride out the end of his career there. Lando seems very integrated into the team and I can’t see him leaving unless he got a better offer like Merc. If Max didn’t end up taking the second Merc seat in the future and remains at RB then Lando might be given an offer which would open up a place that Pierre could possibly take. Do I count this as realistic? Not really, but it could happen. At McLaren I could see Pierre utilizing his potential. 

5) Renault. This is one of the options that seems most realistic to me. They're set with Fernando for the next few years. If they decided, after 2021, to give the boot to Esteban, that would open up a place for Pierre in a French team that would love a French driver (they already have one but Pierre is a FRENCH WINNER). You know that teams loves their nationalism.... Anyways. Or, possibly, Fernando retires after two years (again lol) which would open up a seat for Pierre to take along Esteban. However, I don’t really see Esteban staying long term because Renault probably needs to put one of their Renault babies like Guanyu or Christian in there. 

6) Williams. Lol. No. 

7) Haas. I don’t see it happening really??? I have my reasons but my gut just says... Au revoir.

8) Racing Point. THIS. This I see as 100% 100% a possibility. Let’s say that Seb retires after two years--this would open up a seat. Pierre is a strong, consistent and stable driver who doesn’t make mistakes. Here he could really use his potential!! #PierreInGreen!!

9) Alpha Romeo. As I said... I really don’t see it. They seem pretty busy with all their young guys. 

So to conclude, the future for Pierre lies at either Renault or Racing Point (less chance but possible includes Merc to McLaren). To not take up any more of  your time, this is what I mean by Pierre being an incredible talent who may or may not get a chance at a higher team. He deserves to have more and to have a second chance. He has really proven himself and is pulling the absolutely maximum out of himself. I really want to see him with more, like he deserves. 

Even Charles wanted him as his teammate at Ferrari back in April... that’s saying even more. Everyone on the grid except Esteban rate him highly as a person and as a driver. His potential deserves smth better. He has proven himself time and time again against everyone who told him he wasn't good enough and who still say it was all just luck. There exists luck. But firmer than luck, there exists skill. 

Pierre Gasly is a race winner in an Alpha Tauri. Do not forget that. 

[aros001]

Going in blind: Watching season 2 for the first time. Random thoughts.

Huh. Only 7 episodes. Not complaining necessarily. For series with an ongoing plot I've definitely become more in favor with their seasons only having as many episodes as they need rather than them having to stretch themselves out to full up a certain number of episodes, which can lead to padding and just bad character moments.

Episode 1: Jeez. Catra visiting Shadow Weaver's cell just to rub her success in her face and verbally abuse her back for once. It's like a twisted version of Zuko and Ozai from ATLA. Catra's upbringing under her was abusive but this is far from a healthy way for her to deal with it. She's basically deliberately swimming in her resentment.

Episode 2: It's not that I'm rooting for her but by-golly was it fun to watch Catra act like just the absolute worst she could while she was Glimmer and Bow's captive.

I touched on this in season 1 but part of the drama of the heroes feeling guilt over leaving Entrapta behind is kind of lost on me a bit simply because it was her own fault it happened. She deliberately went back into the purge room because of her machine obsession, which then closed on her and erupted in flames. It was more than reasonable to assume she was dead and no one but her was to blame, so I'm not really able to be invested in their guilt over it.

That said, weirdly enough I do like that her "abandonment" doesn't seem to be even a blip on the radar for Entrapta herself. She hasn't joined the horde because she resents the heroes or felt left behind, she simply is so obsessed with machines and experimentation that she'll be on the side of whoever lets her do the most of that. Like, it's selfish and irresponsible but it's very in-character and I'd far rather have a traitor motivation be based in that over something stupid like a misunderstanding.

Episode 3: I love the mental image of Shadow Weaver thinking up princess-themed ghost stories to tell Adora as a child.

So, if the previous She-Ra Mara separated Eternia from the other realms/planets/whatever she did and that's what cut off the She-Ra line for 1000 years, I'm guessing Hordak may be from the time before that happened, thus his drive to create portals and calling Eternia a backwards world. Either he's naturally long-lived or his technology is extending his life.

Episode 4: You know, you could maybe argue it was vague enough that it could be taken other ways but I'm definitely getting some vibes here that Scorpia is crushing on Catra. She literally refers to the two of them as soulmates at one point. I know she says she's trying to be friends but this feels a level beyond that.

Fun little reference to the original She-Ra cartoon thrown in there (and maybe Cowboy Bebop...? James Bond...? What was Glimmer's art style supposed to be?). I like how it is more like just playful ribbing than anything outright dumping on the original. Again, I've never seen original She-Ra but whenever remakes/adaptations go out of their way to trash to the original I always kind of wonder why they bothered doing an adaptation if the original is just that bad? Also, I was having trouble sleeping so it was about 2am when I watched this episode and the very Eartha Kitt Catwoman Catra made it very difficult for me not to lose my **** and stay quiet. With how much of a contrast that version is from the one in this series, that was hilarious. Bonus note, it's a nice touch that Frosta's version of Catra is a pretty crasher in that sweet suit, since that's the only impression of Catra she's ever had.

Adora being a chosen one is definitely elevated up simply by how much the pressure of what she's supposed to be is getting to her. I'm likely going to keep making Avatar The Last Airbender comparisons throughout the series but that's partly because I went into this series figuring it'd be at least structured similar to ATLA (season 1 being more episodic and a little more kid-friendly as it builds up the world before getting more serious later). Adora and Aang are interesting to compare here. Aang's worries early on were less apparent because he was more in-denial/choosing not to think about his problems that much, which fit with his character as a free-spirited Air Nomad. While Adora is much more military-minded. She can't keep herself from thinking about her problems and trying to prepare for the worst-case scenario. And jeez, that idea of who/how Catra is in her mind. Not only beating her but making her watch as she takes everything she cares about away. Not Shadow Weaver, not Lord Hordak, but Catra. That whole Lion King Mufasa/Scar moment between them in episode 11 and their fight in the S1 finale really did a number on her mental image of her old friend. Not reasonably so.

Minor note: I'm sure I'm the only one who got this impression but by the look of it, the way the robot's eye moved, and the music, after getting the soda spilled on it that little spybot gained sentience for half a second and then immediately died. It was so darkly comedic I had to laugh.

Episode 5: So that red disc is basically She-Ra's Red Kryptonite, having an effect on the mind rather than the body. The drunk Adora joke doesn't really do it for me but it did get some nice interactions going between Scorpia and Sea Hawk, two characters I certainly wasn't expecting to bond. I did really like Catra's panic when berserker She-Ra nearly beheads her. The implication is that is Adora really wanted to kill her Catra would already probably be dead. It's a thing I like about powerhouse characters like Superman or Aang, who could just demolish everything around them and don't simply because they're a good person...which in turn makes them the scariest person on the planet when they're well and truly ticked off. I'm not going to lie, I do kind of want to see a She-Ra version of Aang when Appa was stolen or when Superman fought The Elite.

Also, Catra's line of "I have control over Adora. I'm not giving that up for anything.". There's a lot to read into there.

Episode 6: I guess my prediction was sort of right. Shadow Weaver became basically a magic parasite and while it did increase the power she's capable of the implication seems to be that she needs a constant fix of magic to keep herself going, thus her attachment to the Black Garnet.

Have we seen Micah before? Given how long ago the flashback seems set, the fact that Shadow Weaver didn't kill him and thus he probably becomes someone important later in life, I'm guessing he's Glimmer's dad and the queen's late husband, since I think he's the only important male character whose face we haven't seen yet. Also, he's voice by Ezra from Star Wars Rebels and that cracks me up for some reason. It's the exact same voice and a relatively similar character.

I compared Catra and Shadow Weaver with a kind of twisted version of Zuko and Ozai and that definitely still fits here. Both Catra and Zuko confront their parent and call them out for the inexcusable abuse they put them through but while that moment was the start of Zuko's upwards journey this and SW's betrayal seems like it's going to cause Catra to spiral even further. Makes sense why Adora leaving affected her so much. She's probably the only one Catra's ever had that she could consistently trust and rely on, even if she did somewhat resent her.

Not surprised Hordak is getting along with Entrapta. She's not socially aware enough to be scared or intimidated by him, so she'll speak frankly, and since all she wants to talk about is the machines, experiments, and how they could get them to work Hordak probably doesn't take much issue with that. She's producing results, which is what he cares about, thus also why Shadow Weaver and Catra started losing favor with him. I wonder if Catra is going through imposter syndrome? Shadow Weaver had that line that Entrapta earned her place next to Hordak and, if you think about it, Catra hasn't really "earned" anything. We saw that she didn't really take her training or studies that seriously, showing up late to combat practice and even getting partial credit for what Adora beat. She wasn't promoted to Force Captain because of her own abilities but because Adora had defected when she was supposed to get that title. She's come close to a few victories but never really had any except for Glimmer and Bow's kidnapping...whom she then basically let escape when she returned Adora's sword to her. She doesn't have the slightest clue how the horde's bureaucracy works when trying to get things done, like simply getting troops armor. Given how much better than her Adora always was and how little she herself has to her name, I wonder is subconsciously Catra believes she doesn't deserve her current position and thus why she's fretting so much over trying to prove herself.

Episode 7: Am I mistaken or did Bow's parents say that he's the youngest of TWELVE siblings? I was going to ask whether Bow was adopted or if his dad's used a surrogate or if maybe there's even just simply magic in She-Ra's world that allows two people of the same sex to have a child together but now I'm just focused on the 12 kids thing. I get nervous just imagining myself having more than one. You should see me when I'm with two cats. I have to pet both of them because I'd feel like I'd be making one feel left out and like the other is the favorite. I'm a mess with kids.

The dad with dreadlocks (Lance?), his design looked familiar to me and I finally realized it reminded me a of a fanart design for a human Grim from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Very different voices between those two characters though.

I wonder if there's any significance to the robot protecting the crystal having the same design as those in the artic in episode 5? Obviously both have the connection to the First Ones but the robot in the forest who was also protecting First Ones' tech had a more insect-like design over these more worm/Graboid ones.

I'm kind of curious what Hordak would have done if Catra had told the truth. Given his interactions with her and Shadow Weaver he doesn't seem like the time to tolerate failure but I suppose the implication here is that he at least would respect those who own up to their failures. Or I suppose more simply he was just testing to see if she would lie to him and since she did there's little merit in keeping her in a position of authority anymore where she could lie about important things again.

Season 2 verdict: Still enjoying it. Another person on this reddit recommended I view seasons 2 and 3 as one since they are basically just one season split in two. I was going to do that but this ended up longer than I thought I would, so I'll just do 2 and 3 separate to keep them semi-organized and easier to read.

I think overall Catra is my favorite character since she has the most interesting backstory, interactions, and just general path through the story out of everyone. She's like Pearl from Steven Universe or, well, Zuko. There's just so much baggage there that she's trying and kind of failing to deal with. I'm always invested in whatever's happening when she's onscreen. Hordak so far is a good big boss villain for Adora to face but Catra is a good archenemy for her.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/o027y3/going_in_blind_watching_season_2_for_the_first/

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

VLD S8 – The Purpose of Lance’s Altean Markings, Allura’s Canonically Inconsistent “Death,” and Voltron’s Mysterious Interstellar Road Trip in the End: Are Things Really As They Seem?

Hello dear ones, I received asks to follow up on my previous post about Allura’s capability to live a very long life if she hadn’t died in s8. I’d mentioned in this post that Alfor had connected Allura’s life force to the indestructible Voltron, and that this had significant implications for Lance’s strange Altean marks and Allura’s “death” in s8. So this is me, attempting to follow up on those requests! 

Let’s start with those strange marks. It seems like a lot of us who have watched Voltron: Legendary Defender season 8 scratched our heads over Lance receiving Altean marks at all:

This event happens when Allura and the paladins are standing in the “connected consciousness of all existence”—which is this…Mother-Brain realm for every consciousness that ever existed ever. Allura is preparing to sacrifice herself alongside Honerva, because they both have to give of their energy to regenerate the fallen multiverse. Honerva is already accepting of this and already interacting with her dead family whose minds and forms are preserved within the Mother-Brain space. It seems, even so, Honerva is still alive because she hasn’t yet completed the foretold Wild Sacrifice Move of Ultimate Alchemy alongside Allura: 

The Big Boom of Life happens after this point, so there’s something fascinatingly screwy about this realm. The typical separations between the Living and the Death are just…totally meaningless. We’re actively seeing a living Honerva physically interact with the minds and forms of her fallen son and husband. And if this Mother-Brain location truly preserves the consciousness of all existence, then I suppose it actually makes sense to me that Allura and Honerva could still be alive themselves while also being able to interact with the Dead who are preserved within this realm…

But Allura—she turns to the paladins and tells them that they’re all about to experience a massive fragmentation from her. It seems pretty heavily suggested that she’s going to die. In doing so, she kisses Lance and then gives him Altean marks: 

And the first question I have is….whyyyy the marks? What the heck was that for? Because I think it’s really weird that she’d just give Lance the most visually identifying mark for her own species. At least, I think it’s weird on the surface. The more important question may lie within Allura’s motives...and that gets into some much larger implications for ways to view those marks and the show’s ending. Some of the theories I’ve seen about those marks:

Theory 1: Lance as Trans-Species to Preserve Allura’s Species and/or Allura Giving Lance Some Unknown Gift/Power

I want to bring this up because it appears to be a largely accepted theory that I’m now heavily questioning. I’m not sure who first vocalized this understanding of canon, but Neko Chicana offers the theory in their Youtube video “Why did Lance get Altean markings!?” The theory is that in Allura’s last-minute panic about dying, she was trying to ensure The Chosen Altean vibes got passed down. This would mean that Allura infused Lance with deep Altean powers to inherently change him from being human into being a trans-species human/Altean.

But I struggle with this interpretation, because…she already had an entire colony of Alteans, many of whom clearly were presenting with high quintessence sensitivity and would have been even potentially fit for Oriande. And it’s not like Lance was going to know how to apply alchemy without learning it anyway.

In terms of the transformation itself, it’s incredibly superficial. It’s a face-lift and that’s it, as Lance never exhibits any other features of a standard Altean. And not just from a visual perspective, but also from a physiological one. He definitely is not shown suddenly freaking out over having alchemy powers. He isn’t shown connecting with anything on the astral plane. I would even posit that he appears to be aging right alongside his fellow humans, given his more adult/less baby-face facial structure in the epilogue, just like everyone else:

This article here seems to contain a similar level of skepticism about a genuinely trans-species Lance. 

And what would even be the point of converting Lance to have a token visage of Alteans, if Allura knows that his true heart and soul lies with his human family? Just by Allura’s reaction of disgust to his rounded ears in season 1, it seems pretty obvious that other Alteans would see him as “other.” If anything, a trans-species interpretation overly complicates the show here and generally can’t provide a self-contained, meaningful reason for its existence at all. 

Theory Two: The Markings as a Token of a Lost Lover/Remembrances

Another suggestion has been that Allura gives Lance such markings just as…a reminder? Of herself? But I don’t feel this at all makes sense with seven previous seasons of her character behavior.

Allura is shown consistently trying to sacrifice herself and her things at all costs, without anything in return or demanding that people remember her. She did it in season 1 to regenerate a Balmera, knowing full well she could die. But we don’t see her asking Coran to sing a pretty song for her. She sacrifices herself again for Shiro, by tossing him out of the way of Galran soldiers, without even begging that he come back for her. She sacrifices herself in Oriande to the White Lion. She sacrifices her crown in season 7 to stabilize Shiro. She even gives up her dresses and her station as a princess in order to better fit in with the humans in season 7. It’s not inherent in Allura’s character to demand anything in return for her sacrifices, much less that she be remembered for them. As a matter of fact, she’s very particular about ensuring that other people get recognized for their actions, and she’ll often place her own good work as part of a “whole” accomplished by the many. Here’s an example from season 6, episode 1:

So here we see her raising up other people and their contributions rather than demanding some offering or worship for her actions.

Princess Allura doesn’t even hold a grudge for Keith being accepted as Black Paladin or Lance as Red Paladin in s3, despite the fact that she secretly cried over it.

So, Allura wanting anything in return for what she sacrifices, or trying to intentionally drag down someone’s spirit for her own comfort, is not inherent to her character. If anything in s8, Allura consistently seems to want the paladins to move on without her:

In response to the emotional distress of the other paladins, she doesn’t give them an everlasting token to memorialize herself, but instead gives encouragement for the future:

And even Shiro! He warns her that she’s about to become the multiverse’s most anonymous hero:

And Allura’s response to this?

So Princess Allura went into this s8 self-sacrifice, fully expecting that the paladins would keep her actions totally secret. She was completely and utterly prepared to accept the very reality that Lotor had threatened her with in season 6:

So literally the only reason in s8 that anyone remembers Princess Allura…is because the paladins choose to honor her memory despite her stated sentiments against it:

So…all of this is to say, I don’t think it makes sense to assume that suddenly, Allura would want to forever keep Lance from moving on. She’s literally handed them her blessing to move on, and suggested that they even hide what she’s done. It’s the paladins who choose to remember her. So I think there’s a lot of evidence to suggest against an interpretation where Allura was intentionally trying to mark Lance to be her forever-doomed lost love. It’s completely inconsistent with other surrounding details about who Allura is.

I think there’s instead evidence to suggest a new theory about these marks. And if anyone’s suggested this before, please feel free to jump in, lol. I’m like, 1.5 years behind the times here, although I did find this article that also would seem to support the theory: 

Theory Three: Lance’s Altean Marks as a Tactical Homing/Location Beacon, Strengthened by His and Allura’s Shared Bonds With Blue Lion

Before she casually walks off to her alleged death, Allura tells Lance, “I’ll always be with you.” And then she gives him the Altean marks:

While I think this “I’ll always be with you” statement has some classic lessen the hurt of impending death vibes, Allura herself actually states she’ll always be with him. How certain are we that she’s not being actually serious? That this isn’t an intentional decision to ensure some kind of ongoing link?

So backing up here, we know from previous seasons that Altean markings can glow, unlike the rest of their body. They appear to glow in response to external stimuli. For example, in season 5, Allura and Lotor’s markings glow because they are within the vicinity of Oriande and have a deep well of quintessence within them. And this glowy activity is discriminatory, because Coran’s marks don’t glow:

Lance’s own markings initially glow when activated by Allura:

So for Lance’s markings to glow at all, that means something is happening. It means that an all-new, external stimulus is making those markings react, and that the magic of it is active. And that Lance is now housing enough magic to react.

That article I linked to earlier suggests that perhaps Allura intended to use the marks as….a communicative link with Lance. However, in a full year since Allura’s disappearance, we see no evidence that Lance has been talking to a mysterious spirit!Allura. He seems pretty depressed, and everyone seems largely accepting of the concept that Allura is dead and also is incapable of interaction.

In which case, if you did have a link to a supposedly dead person, even if you wanted to keep it secret, wouldn’t you at least look a little more…happy? That they’re not actually gone? So something’s a little screwy there too, that makes me think Lance wasn’t in some kind of interdimensional communication with Allura.

But I do think Lance’s markings, and how they glow in response to external power sources in the final episode, suggest something about Allura’s state of being.

So let’s jump in. We know that Allura’s life force is inherently tied to Voltron:

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post of mine: Right in season 1, episode 1, Coran admits that Alfor has done some pretty wild alchemy. He physically connected Allura’s essence with the essence of Voltron—the single source of self-regenerating, infinite quintessence throughout the whole of the entire universe.

I don’t know if a person’s life force being personally connected to Voltron would confer physical immortality, but I do think there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that as long as Voltron exists, Allura’s essence would be preserved within it. And as we saw in season 6, Shiro was capable of interacting with other paladins despite his physical death, because Black Lion had preserved his essence….

All of this backstory and worldbuilding means at the very least that Allura was also capable of linking some part of her quintessence to Lance as well. And that, even if she hypothetically didn’t have a body on the material plane, that she would be very active on the astral one.

So why specifically Altean marks, then?

This isn’t the first time in the show that strangely powerful bonds have been made by the touching of faces and the transfer of energy around Altean marks. As a matter of fact, we might have even seen Alfor actively bind Allura’s life-force with Voltron, right here:

In which case, Allura was simply mimicking the work of her father as she knew it, but on a much smaller scale. Because she knew from her father that it was possible to bond life-forces, and for some reason, that alchemy trick appears to involve the face or else something to do with Altean markings.

So therefore, the activation of this marking “link” and alchemical bond might help to explain why Lance actually appears to be smiling with tears in his eyes when the Voltron lions fly away:

But why even Lance specifically?? What about all the other paladins she’s made connections? What makes Lance so totally special?

It might not be unintentional that, out of all the lions possible, the one to respond to some unknown activator one year later—with massive amounts of quintessence in the bond—is Blue Lion.

Notice that while the other lions are in flight, none of them are glowing like Blue Lion. There’s something inherently special about Blue Lion right now, especially given that it’s not even the leader of the pack.

In this scene, we see the paladins rushing out per all the ruckus. Lance’s markings start to glow:

And then the lions powerfully surge off on their merry, totally unexplained way:

So…in looking back at this, it’s interesting that Lance’s marks are shown glowing in ONLY two instances: 1) When Allura first activates them, and 2) When the marks themselves mysterious activate again in response to Blue Lion glowing outrageously blue, and the lions soaring off into space as well…

Is it a mistake that Lance just so happens to be the only other living Blue Paladin in the universe?

Allura’s life force might have been connected to the full of Voltron, but season 3 shows that her communicative/mental connection to it is through Blue Lion alone. Because Black Lion certainly had nothing to say to her, at the very least.

So Allura’s life force is connected to Voltron…Blue Lion responds to an unknown source of massive, pure quintessence, and then Voltron follows…Lance’s markings start to glow....

Could it be that in order to even re-locate Voltron and the paladins again in the larger scheme of the multiverse, Allura needed Lance’s connection to Blue Lion as well? To keep Allura in spiritual/mental communion with Voltron and with that universe?

With Allura gone and the Atlas portion of Voltron totally missing from Voltron, there’s the hint that possibly the Lion Musical Chairs event has undone itself and reconfigured once more. Blue Lion has re-accepted Lance, with Keith and Shiro piloting Red and Black. The lineup in the screenshot below would suggest that Shiro’s the one in Red this time, resulting in an interesting addition to the Keith and Shiro relationship arc. It suggests that Shiro is now back on the team as an established paladin, as the right hand of the Black Paladin, and is actively supporting Keith’s ongoing growth as a leader:

But if Blue Lion were Allura’s only true connection to “speak” with and interact with Voltron on a material plane, then it would make sense that she would intentionally connect her own life-force to the last Blue Paladin.

Lance, out of all of the paladins and with respect to this lineup shown here, is the only one who would be even remotely capable of ensuring this link in their universe (notwithstanding as well that canonically, Allura was in a romantic relationship with him, which might have something to do with this too, idk).

So what does this mean for Allura’s state of being? What’s exactly happening in this moment? Why do the lions leave their paladins? Is everything truly so pointless and nihilistic?

So Lance’s markings and the exit of the Voltron lions result in what I feel are two interpretations of the entire end of Voltron. And I think one is potentially more consistent with the overall show than the other:

Theory One: Allura Really Died/Shed Her Physical Body/Was Lost to the Material Plane After a Year of Hard Work

So, we do have evidence that the work to restore the full of the multiverse began pretty quickly, and that there was an explosive event to jumpstart it:

We otherwise have no evidence to support that this image meant the work (to restore every thread and all things within the threads) was DONE. Yet. It may have taken an entire year to regenerate the multiverse, which would explain the Voltron lions suddenly reacting strangely after that span of time. If we assume that Allura really died, then this would suggest that—with the overarching multiverses finally totally restored—her energy is spent up. She’s physically dying. And per the extinguishing of her own life force, Voltron….somehow can’t exist on the material plane without her? Because let’s not forget, the whole mecha is connected to her life force. So this interpretation would suggest that in her dying/being unable to remain on the material plane, Voltron itself has to die as well. This could explain why at the end here, they activate to go be with Allura and team in the shiny afterlife party in the Mother-Brain dimension. Lance may be crying here because he feels or recognizes the last of Allura’s energy slipping away. And it’s possible I was misinterpreting his smile earlier, because it’s, idk, maybe a sob.

And there does seem to be some canon support for a potentially permanent break between Allura and the material plane, as well as for why Voltron would leave:

But I’m really struggling to understand the deathy interpretation of these events at the end of s8, from SEVERAL angles, haha.

Strike One:

This scene would appear to blatantly and outrageously contradict previous show worldbuilding. To accept a “death” interpretation, one must also accept that s8 completely rewrites the inherent properties and behavior of quintessence, as well as show details that Alteans/Altean technologies more consistently function as conduits/capacitors of external energy sources rather than as massive batteries by themselves. The true batteries, even into season 7 with Shiro and Atlas, appear to be becoming from sources external to the power-wielder. This reality largely relieves the personal cost of any alchemical action/draining oneself, just so long as you have a powerful enough battery. In which case, given the resources and deep knowledge available to Allura and Honerva even in this apocalyptic moment, any action resulting in physical death feels...unearned.

If you’re interested in more specifically about this, I have a few other posts looking at these basic worldbuilding details:

Question on Quintessence and General Worldbuilding in     VLD S8

The Search for the “Bluest Quintessence” and S6 - The Most     Unnecessary Conspiracy In VLD?

It’s entirely possible I could be missing some information that would reconcile the s8 worldbuilding contradictions about quintessence and Altean energy back to the previous seven seasons. I suppose it’s possible that this s8 regeneration trick resulted in Allura and Honerva being physically unable to handle the amount of power they were conducting. But just after casually re-watching the show, I heavily question whether this is possible or consistent with everything else, haha.

Strike Two:

The concept of Voltron not being needed in a peaceful universe is nonsensical. So this show is telling me that a gigantic mecha capable of massive construction projects and space anomaly protection services couldn’t reorganize its paladins or get new ones, and transition to a new day job? Because Voltron has to exist in a combat theater only? This is wildly myopic, especially considering that Voltron already has a team of five who could pilot it again via a little game of musical chairs…and even the final lineup shown would suggest that Shiro had already taken over Red. I guess if the Galra aren’t attacking?? This must mean that there won’t be any civilizations in need of help or in need of being protected from imminent natural disasters?? At the very least, a new day job would be an incredibly meaningful way to convert Voltron from a war machine to a champion of the people. And it would still give the paladins a reason to come back together as a team and to exercise the bonds they’ve forged together as defenders of the universe.

Strike Three:

After this s8 scene, and even assuming Allura has physically died, Voltron existed before Allura got linked to it. And it existed as a largely infinite and indestructible source of energy. Even if Allura did die, the loss of her personal quintessence was of no account to its existence. The worldbuilding of Voltron as a mecha suggests it didn’t need her to continue existing on the material plane like it had existed before their alchemical link from Alfor. And even if she’d died, taking Voltron’s life-force with her away from the material plane, then why in the world wouldn’t Voltron just…totally power down? Become completely inert with the lights fading from its eyes? But then, oh wait, according to the last seven seasons, Voltron is supposed to be indestructible and constantly self-regenerating even when temporarily drained, so how could it power down forever? Even the concept that Voltron could physically destroy/remove itself from the material world to fully join Allura on the astral plane is an oxymoron.

And even if Allura’s life force was fading out and the Voltron lions are dying too, how in the world could Lance’s Altean markings suddenly even manage to glow in response to an active and powerful external stimulus? And why would the lions themselves suddenly be lighting up and capable of expending massive amounts of energy on a sudden, random interstellar space trip?

Even if the Lions themselves longed to reunite with its dead creator or its missing piece per their Allurian life-force link (despite them clearly not caring when Alfor died or when Allura got put in stasis 10k years ago), this show would have me believe that Voltron wanted to die or give up? And...for what? To lounge about in an afterlife Cabana for Retired Mechas, sipping quintessence drinks while the universe experiences ongoing natural physical disasters or anomalies that could endanger entire galaxies? What if more trans-reality comets fell from the sky? They appear to not be an isolated incident, and where there’s one, there’s usually more…What if that causes more rifts to open? And let’s just assume for a moment that those two comets are the only two trans-reality comets in the multiverse. I guess we can all sleep tight tonight because Voltron is unconcerned that the universe still has several weak stitches between it and the quintessence field, where dark entities and rift creatures roam? Lol, what?

Lotor even confirms these weaknesses in season 4:

“Zarkon believed Alfor’s plan to blow up Daibazaal and destroy the rift between realities actually worked. No one comprehended that the experiments of my mother, Honerva, could never be undone.”

Lotor’s statement here would suggest that after everything that’s happened, it might be even easier to break open rifts. But okay cool, time for Voltron’s retirement/death, I guess. Just leave a peaceful universe to be one day swallowed up and destroyed by shadow rift creatures, dark entities, apocalyptic comets, and natural disasters…

Everything about the Allura/Voltron death theory doesn’t make sense to me and raises more questions than answers. So let’s look at another way of viewing this ending!

Theory Two: Allura Didn’t Die At All—She Just Finished Working for the Year And Needs a Ride Home

The fact that Voltron survives and is activated into movement by an external source of massive, pure quintessence suggests that Allura is likely NOT dead and is STILL ALIVE. In this case, the astronomical undertaking of regenerating a multiverse still took a full year to complete. We do know there’s no major time slippage between the paladin’s universe and the Universal Consciousness realm, because the paladins were seen right back in the heart of establishing/confirming peace when they returned to their universe. And again, s8 also shows people being able to interact on the border between the Living and the Dead, so Allura simply existing within this realm should not be enough to kill her. Because life and death are largely meaningless concepts in this space where all consciousnesses are preserved.

So, if Allura is alive and just finished her work, then oop, now she’s stuck in the middle of Space Nowhere without a certain ride home. So who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters. Voltron is the only ship that Allura has a deep psychical and life-force link to, so it would be within canonical bounds that if she just helped resurrect the multiverse, then surely one hard-working princess could use Lance’s markings (her own life force) to relocate her own universe, and then use that bond on the material plane to call Voltron from across the universe to come pick her up, lol.

I really like this re-interpretation of canon for several reasons:

One, it feels a lot more consistent with the world-building and the overall tone of the show.

Two, it suggests a much happier ending where canon confirms—sort of like the Iron Giant (1999) ending—that Allura would eventually reunite on the material plane with the paladins.

Three, it suggests that there’s been a full one-year span of time where Allura and Honerva were both working together to restore the universe…while in the presence of and even interacting with Alfor, Zarkon, and Lotor, and probably a billion other dead people they thought were gone forever, but who were preserved in form and mind within the Consciousness of the universe. I feel like there’s just LOADs of possible content someone could get out of this. Did Honerva and Zarkon reunite? Did Alfor get to hug his baby girl again? Did Allura and Lotor have a major heart-to-heart discussion about the Altean colony and his quintessence insanity, and positively reconcile? Which, regardless of however you interpret what Lotor’s accused of, Allura had already…exonerated his motives and turned him into, like, a Joan of Arc figure well before she saw him again. And she even wanted Honerva to honor his memory by doing the right thing:

So there’s some clear signs that Allura and Lotor could have reconciled now that there’s no apparent quintessence insanity or witch shenanigans afoot... And it’s very likely that Allura might have even reconciled with the true, uncorrupted Emperor Zarkon himself:

 And in the meantime, what would the paladins of old be like? Were there other victims of this war who would have found it meaningful to interact in some way to obtain justice for themselves…or to obtain something more??

And this gets into reason four of why I like this re-interpretation of the ending. So canonically, mechas created out of the trans-reality comet are infinitely regenerating and indestructible. So not just Voltron, but also the Honervian/Sincline mecha. This suggests that Allura already had a ride home.

So why would Allura need more ships?

This interpretation has the potential to reverse all the painful deaths that happened throughout the show. The original paladins, the Alteans and Galrans who perished for various reasons...Alfor, Bandor, Lotor, Kova…even deaths we didn’t see.

And in calling Voltron back to her, is Allura maybe…planning to bring some new friends with her too? If she already has the Honervian/Sincline mecha to fly home, why does she need all five lions, anyway? Who would pilot them? Who else is waiting patiently in the celestial mind/heart of the multiverse to return to reality with her?

And reason five, on a simpler and maybe less galaxy-brain note, this interpretation provides a completely different context, however apparently sorrowful, for Allura’s canonical goodbyes:

Allura’s path did end here...at least as a paladin of Voltron. Because that position was temporary anyway. Restoring the multiverse was going to be an ultimate act. And there’s probably nothing after this that Allura could perform to outdo herself in saving things, lol. This is the height of everything she is and has worked for. She intentionally identifies this as her purpose:

“It is my purpose.”

Her action in s8 is the full and total culmination of everything she has learned and grown capable of doing since s1. Everything has been leading up to this. It’s her one chance to undo all the universal pain. And through restoring the multiverse, she’d be restoring balance in her own life too—to reconnect with her fragmented past, to give those from her past a chance to live in the new universe with her….

The other paladins, though—they were still needed in the meantime to confirm peace with the Galran empire, to convert it (however questionably) to a democracy, and to establish relations between Earth and other vast galaxies of people. Allura was not wrong that their paths as paladins had not ended. Because she needed them to ensure their universe would be truly at peace while she was up in the stars, working to restore and reconcile with all that had been lost in painful war.

And all of this would ultimately suggest that she would return to the universe, to the paladins, and probably take back the piece of her life force she’d given Lance that ensured a link with Blue Lion. Because…that homing beacon wouldn’t be needed anymore. Perhaps Allura would even consider decoupling the remainder of her life-force from Voltron, to fully reconcile herself to herself. To finally be whole and just Allura again, idk.

The only major problem with the “Allura is Alive and Bringing Some Friends/Family Home” interpretation is that...lol, the development team for the show doesn’t subscribe to it, at least not in any outward way I’ve heard. Based on their March 28, 2019 interview with Let’s Voltron, the executive producers talk about Allura like she’s dead. They say that they wanted to show sacrifice, the impact of death, and how important it is to honor the memory of the dead:

And we definitely feel it. There is a massive weight of loss and memorial in the finale here. Coran looks just this side of totally broken as he remembers Allura, and he didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. He reiterates just how much Allura means to the people still alive in this universe:

“For some of us she was a diplomat, a teacher, a leader, and a friend. But to those of us around this table, she will always be family.”

The EPs have suggested that, like other shows, there may be ways to resurrect Allura, and there may have been happier endings possible. But again, please see the Theory 1 statements above regarding the massive worldbuilding contradictions when assuming that Allura had to die in the first place.

In which case, hilariously, the EPs have also expressed their interest in creative works that keep going, with plot tensions that require even supposedly dead heroes to return, as in this article here: 

“You can kill Captain America a million times and he’ll always show back up.”

So creator statements are just all over the place regarding the finality of “death” or even of “separation” in this universe. We definitely don’t get a body to prove that Allura is dead. And we also know that canonically, there is a place where the rift between the Dead and Living breaks down. And oh, by the way, Allura just regenerated entire multiverse strands that had been destroyed. So even if it’s not as simple as…holding someone’s hand as they step out of the consciousness realm, what canonical detail or limitation would keep her from resurrecting them herself? It is well within Allura’s canonical range to bring back all of these people without dying herself. 

Conclusion

Regardless of creator intention, the various contradictions in the worldbuilding itself make the angst of Allura’s death, the memorial statue, the lingering pain of the characters (oof, poor Coran and Lance especially), and all the interviews talking about Allura’s death feel excessively unnecessary. And at the same time, I’ve been very fascinated by what one can do with the details about the Consciousness Realm; the inherent properties of comet-based mechas, quintessence, and alchemy; Lance’s strange marks; and even the odd, last-minute Voltron interstellar space trip surging toward the Allura in the stars, with Blue Lion in the lead:

It appears that Allura could be very much alive in the final screenshot of her in the stars. Through Lance and their shared connection via Blue Lion, she’s maintained a homing beacon for her own reality, activated Voltron to complete a massive interstellar trip to come get her and likely several others—and now, she’s faithfully waiting in the Consciousness Realm with everyone, preparing for a family trip back to their resurrected worlds, in their trusty mechas.

I watched s8 on the day it dropped. I was in a daze about all of its wild and painful messaging. I wrote some unhappy metas about the sheer nihilism of this show. It’s taken me, lol, 1.5 years to actually go back and re-watch several episodes at a time. And I don’t believe this interpretation of the ending would fix every problem in Voltron: Legendary Defender. Sometimes, trying to make sense of this show feels like trying to reconcile quantum theory with classical mechanics, haha. So I’m sure one could poke holes in this post. And to even arrive at these conclusions, I had to throw out or reinterpret some of the worldbuilding and scenes, in direct conflict with the stated perspective of the show’s development team.

But even so...I derived most everything for this interpretation from the show itself. And even if the development team didn’t intend this happy ending of resurrections and reconciliations as I’ve suggested…it seems that this finale—at least while I’m thinking about it right now—is canonically possible and an attempt at consistency with the material provided across multiple seasons. It offers resurrections, redemptions, reconciliations...

Its ultimate message even genuinely coincides with the last episode’s title.

The End Is the Beginning.

And I really like that.

[avidbeader]

New Sheith Fic

Probably rated T, but we’ll see.

VLD post-S8, but Allura lives and the endcards are thrown on a trash heap where they belong

This is the fic thread I’ve been posting to Twitter for the last few days. Thought I’d share here as well. It’s between 1/3 and 1/2 done at this point. It will get to AO3 eventually once it’s finished and beta’ed.

I just got this idea of something that the Atlas might do in a given situation and ran with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first couple of requests were reasonable. A real-time updated roster of the Atlas crew made sense for both organizational and security purposes. A record of the ship’s known offensive and defensive capabilities was necessary as the admirals and generals developed strategies for any potential threats, minimal though they might be after Voltron’s defeat of Honerva.

The order to have a Garrison official installed as their liaison made Shiro pause, but only for a moment. On the one hand, there were already several crew members on board who performed that role: Sam, Mitch, Veronica, himself. On the other hand, it was not unwarranted for the Garrison to have a point person for communication purposes so as not to add an extra burden to the duties of any one crew member. If Shiro had tried to keep up with every Garrison inquiry or notification on top of his own duties as captain, he probably would have gone to the Black Lion and begged to be taken back to the astral plane. This would take one thing off his plate without pushing more responsibility on any member of the command staff.

But when a General Stone reported to him, demanding both quarters in the same section as the senior bridge crew and an office next to Shiro’s ready room, his hackles rose instinctively. Atlas’ presence in the back of his head, usually a quiet and cheerful sensation, grew wary like a wild animal sensing a predator.

“Given that this was only communicated to us today, you’ll have to make do in guest quarters until we are able to make arrangements, General. I didn’t expect anyone to be appointed, much less arrive so soon.”

Which meant that someone in the Garrison hadn’t wanted to give them time to ask questions or protest the decision. And the fact that a general was assigned to a position that should have gone to a lieutenant at most was unsettling.

Stone growled at him. “This lack of preparedness is the kind of thing that I’m here for. As one of the Garrison’s most valuable assets, the Atlas must be primed and ready for action at any given time.”

It took Atlas a moment to identify what the general meant, but Shiro knew immediately when she understood. There was now an angry cat hissing and spitting in his mind and it was taking everything Shiro had to maintain a polite expression.

“It’s not a lack of preparedness when information is not provided in a timely manner,” he retorted. The general reared back slightly, taken aback that Shiro had not immediately accepted the criticism.

Shiro pressed a button on a small console in his desk for show, but Atlas had already found the ship’s senior steward and asked him through his datapad to report to Shiro’s ready room. Before the general could form a response, he continued. “I’m sure you remember this from your protocol training, General, but bear in mind that aboard a ship, the captain is the ranking officer. You are welcome to observe and advise, but you are not part of the chain of command.”

Stone’s eyes narrowed and he entered something on the datapad in his hand. It beeped and he frowned. “What’s the matter with the connectivity here? My message didn’t go through!”

The malicious giggle that only he could hear was answer enough for Shiro. “I expect your device will need to go through a security clearance. Mention it to—” Shiro paused as his door opened before the steward could signal his presence “—the steward. Lieutenant Rasal, this is General Stone. He’s been assigned to us by the Garrison and will need quarters and an office when you are able to arrange it. In the meantime, could you escort him to an available space in the guest accommodations?”

The lieutenant nodded, the flash of a dimple in his cheek the only sign that he understood what Shiro was not saying. As the officer in charge of organizing lodging, supplies, and maintenance aboard the ship, he knew better than most what the Atlas was capable of. If she cared to, she could have produced everything Stone was demanding within minutes. Shiro was honoring her choice not to, and Rasal followed his captain’s lead. He saluted and held out a guiding hand.

“If you’ll come with me, sir.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stone’s presence had an immediate and negative impact. He began by insisting on a full tour of the ship with Shiro. He complained constantly about the randomness of his datapad connection, too focused to pick up on the fact that Atlas was only letting neutral and positive reports get through. When Shiro convinced her that yes, she had to make him an office and a set of quarters, Atlas’ response was to make an office, not much bigger than a broom closet on the opposite side of the bridge from Shiro’s ready room, and a minimal set of quarters, as far away from Shiro as possible while still in the section for the command staff.

Stone’s next step was to observe, watching the normal routines of the crew. It made everyone nervous and more prone to mistakes. Even the oldest, most seasoned officers like Sam and Mitch were side-eying Stone when he was on the bridge. Shiro made time to circulate through the ship so he could reassure his crew that they had done nothing wrong. He noticed a sharp drop in the number of people hanging out in the common areas or lounges as any socializing shifted to rooms behind closed doors, out of Stone’s sight.

The Taujeerians made a formal request for the Atlas to map a nearby star system for potential relocation sites when their planet next went through its renewal cycle. Keith took advantage of the deep-space mission to run training drills with the lions and the MFEs, improving their teamwork and response times. Stone seemed especially interested in the paladins, having noticed how their quarters were all on the same hall as Shiro’s.

Shiro was in one of the conference rooms, talking with Baujal and his council, when Atlas nudged him, then sounded an alert on his datapad. He quickly excused himself and headed down to the Black Lion’s hangar.

He walked in on a shouting match between Stone, the paladins, and the MFE pilots. As he crossed to where they were gathered, he scanned their faces. Stone and Lance were nose-to-nose, yelling at one another, with Nadia backing up Lance. Keith, Allura, and James were clustered together. The others were watching closely, all in various stages of anger or irritation.

“...and I’ll see all of you court-martialed for this insubordination!”

“As their captain, I would appreciate knowing what your complaint is against Commander Griffin and his squad.” Shiro’s voice cut through the quarrel like a knife.

“These squads are refusing my direct order! I need to observe them in action and Kogane says he won’t permit me to board his ship!”

Shiro glanced at Keith, who cocked an eyebrow at him. He had held onto his temper and let Lance as his second lead the outburst against the general. Shiro’s pride in his best friend surged, knowing that just a few years ago Keith would have been the one shouting first.

“General, it is absolutely within Commander Kogane’s rights to refuse you access to the Black Lion. The Voltron team is not part of the Garrison—”

Stone interrupted him with a squawk of disbelief. “Since when?”

“Since always,” Allura interjected, her voice full of ice. “Voltron represents the Coalition and agreed to use the Atlas as one of our bases for ease of coordinating our efforts to build on the peace we have created. You may not simply demand access to any lion and expect to be obeyed without question.” Shiro noticed that Allura had used her shape-shifting abilities to make herself several inches taller than usual and she used that height advantage to glare down at the general.

“And as today’s drills are a joint exercise with the MFEs, you are not permitted to ride along with Commander Griffin. If he and Captain Shirogane give permission, you can observe the MFEs another time,” Keith added.

“I don’t need permission! I am—”

“Here to facilitate communication between the Atlas and the Garrison, or so I was told,” Shiro interrupted. “Unless there is a secondary agenda that has been kept from me, your remit doesn’t include breathing down the necks of my crew or our allies. You’ve been overstepping your role for days and it ends now.”

Stone drew himself to his full height, which meant he was eye level to Shiro’s collarbones, and snarled, “We’ll just see about this, Captain.”

His attempt at stalking out of the hangar was ruined when Black let out a menacing growl and Stone jumped in alarm.

Once he was gone, everyone began to relax. Shiro noticed that Keith’s stance was still rigid and went over to him, laying a soothing hand on one shoulder. “You okay?”

“We will be. Didn’t expect we’d have a battle before we even got in our ships.” Keith turned to Lance and Nadia. “Thank you both for stepping up.”

“No problem,” Nadia chirped. “He’s a puffed-up toad.”

“And now that he’s gone, we need to get back to work. These joint exercises will continue until further notice since we need to take advantage of our current situation.” Evil grins broke out as everyone understood what Keith was doing. “Do we need to go over today’s plan again?”

“Nah, we got this,” Pidge replied before throwing a glance Shiro’s way. “Thanks for coming, Captain.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took four days for Stone’s message to the Garrison to get through, and another two days of Shiro showing the general his message inbox as proof that he had no instructions to discipline any of the MFEs. Stone’s temper was running high, as he had received a reprimand of his own from the Coalition over his attempt to assert jurisdiction over an ally’s representatives. The fact that that message had been received within hours only added to Stone’s fury.

Once Shiro finally got the orders that he was to punish all four MFE pilots for their insubordination, he met them before their usual workout routine and instructed them to run twenty extra laps around the track in the Atlas’ enormous gym. The squad’s groans turned to glee when they turned around and saw that the length of the track had been shrunk to a fifth of its usual size.

That evening, Keith tapped on the door that connected his quarters to Shiro’s.

Shiro looked up from the reports he was reading and frowned. “You knocked. What’s wrong?”

“Got a message from Kolivan. They found a ship of former Galra soldiers turned mercenary, and they’ve been hired by one side on a planet dealing with a pair of feuding lords. He wants to stop the conflict now before it spreads.”

“Should I—”

“No.” Keith shook his head. “If the Blades go in with stealth and take out the mercs, that puts the two sides at stalemate again and the planetary government might finally contact the Coalition for help. Then we can officially come in to negotiate a settlement.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.” Shiro reached out a hand and Keith took it, letting Shiro draw him into a tight hug as usual. And as usual, Shiro resisted doing or saying anything more. “Be careful.”

“You, too. I don’t like leaving you with that Garrison watchdog.”

“He’s here as a liaison.”

“He’s here to find a reason to ground Atlas.”

Even as Shiro shook his head at Keith’s statement, he could feel Atlas’ alarm. “No, that would be just about the worst move the Garrison could make. The Coalition planets recognize two major factors right now that ended the Galra Empire: Voltron and the Atlas. Taking one away would make the Garrison the new intergalactic villain.”

“Not forever, but long enough to figure out how to put someone else in command of her. They need you and Coran and Sam—hell, probably Iverson and Veronica, too—off her bridge so they can have complete control of her, including all her battle capability.”

“I mean...we do need to figure that out, if for no other reason because I will have to retire someday, but there’s no rush.” Shiro struggled to keep his expression mild as he dealt with twin reactions. He ran his hands along Keith’s arms to allay the sudden tension there and

mentally tried to soothe Atlas, who was almost screeching in fury as she surrounded him possessively.

Ironically, the strength of her reaction made Shiro stop and wonder if maybe the Garrison didn’t have a point. After all, he couldn’t lead Atlas forever. He might have done the impossible once thanks to Black and Allura, but humans still had limited lifespans. But surely the Garrison brass, if they were considering the options already, would talk to him about possibilities?

“Just keep an eye on your six while I’m gone, okay?” Keith squeezed his shoulder.

“I will.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He swung the sword as wide as he could, trying to hit as many opponents as possible as he forced them back.The roar of the spectators droned like machinery, a persistent buzz in the back of his head as he tried to reduce the impossible odds. Who had decided to punish him this way, with a dozen opponents? Was this the match where he finally died?

He shifted tactics, the sword in his hand shrinking back into a dagger. He took advantage of his smaller stature and dove between the legs of the nearest adversary, using him as a temporary shield against the others and slicing one quick stroke through the thigh above the cuisse. He spared a lightning-quick thought to thank the universe for giving the majority of bipedal beings a femoral artery.

He continued to dodge, eluding their attacks and striking at any weak point he saw. Suddenly there was only one enemy between him and an open path to the door and he dealt a vicious cut across the throat as he made his bid to escape.

Something struck and wrapped around him from behind, dragging him to the floor. He had just enough time to press the communicator at his wrist and signal the others to leave before the cord electrified, ripping screams from him before he blacked out—

Shiro shot upright, gasping for breath and fighting the covers that were tangled around him. There were sounds, the ordinary hum of the dim nightlights, his datapad beeping an alert, a furious pounding coming from somewhere in the next room...and an engine’s roar.

The Atlas was moving at top speed.

Shiro freed himself from the bedclothes and staggered to his feet. He grabbed the datapad and looked at the message, a priority one from the night comms officer—Cullen, Cuddy, something that began with C—stating that the Atlas had changed course about fifteen minutes before and was at full throttle. The bridge crew was locked out of all of the controls.

Shiro reached across the room with his prosthesis and snatched his robe from its hanger before moving into the sitting area. Once there, he identified the pounding as someone knocking furiously on the door to his quarters. Voices were coming from the hallway and they all sounded angry.

He pressed the control and the door slid open. General Stone staggered when his obstacle vanished, wrenching himself back upright from the momentum.

“Shirogane! What’s the meaning of the course change? You weren’t scheduled to be done with the Taujeerians for another forty-eight hours!”

The paladins were behind him, shouting at him for waking them all up. Shiro looked back down at his datapad and noticed a second new message below the one from the bridge. He opened it and felt the blood drain from his face.

It was two brief sentences from Kolivan: Mission a trap. Keith has been taken.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What do you mean, you can’t stop the ship? It’s a SHIP! You’ve got two Holts right here that can supposedly hack anything that beeps! Break the security codes and set a new course for Earth!”

Shiro had been walking briskly down a hallway, Atlas subtly cutting the distance to the bridge, and trading messages with Kolivan to coordinate a rendezvous point with the remaining Blades on the mission team, Krolia, and a squad of Coalition fighters led by Matt. He stopped short, so abruptly that Hunk ran into him, and stared at the general.

“Earth? What makes you think we’d go to Earth at a time like this? We’re going to rescue Commander Kogane!”

“You said it yourself, Voltron isn’t part of the Garrison!” Stone flapped a hand at the other paladins who had been trailing them. “So let them go take care of the situation! We’ve got to fix this malfunction immediately and since the ship was built by the Garrison, that’s the best place to go to do the repairs!”

Shiro couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt such a wave of derision. The mental image of Atlas in robot form and rolling her eyes brought him to the edge of hysterical giggles. It was verging on too much for him to handle.

Allura must have seen something in his face. She grabbed Stone by the collar and yanked him back before he could crowd into Shiro and continue his tirade. “If you are going to be so ridiculously focused on procedure in a situation this urgent, then consider this the formal request from the Coalition to the Atlas for support in a rescue operation!”

Stone tried to twist out of her grip and she hoisted him up until his toes barely touched the deck. His face grew red as he snarled, “Captain, I am ordering you to dismiss this group except for Katie Holt and turn all your efforts to retaking control of your ship!”

Pidge’s expression grew dangerous. Shior shifted and put one hand on her shoulder, willing her to hold her temper.

“As I told you the day you arrived, General, you are not part of the chain of command here. Your role is to keep both us and the Garrison informed of what the other needs to share. And you have not performed that role faithfully.

“The Coalition has every right to call on the Atlas. It was built from plans given to us by the Alteans and is powered by the crystal that houses the remains of their flagship. They have just as much claim to it as the Garrison does. We will lead the operation to recover Commander Kogane and you can inform the Garrison of our status. After that, you have two choices; you can stay in your quarters or be escorted to the brig until this operation is concluded. Which will it be?”

Stone stared at him, open-mouthed. Allura shook him, rattling his teeth with her strength. “You heard the captain. Which will it be? We have more important issues to deal with.”

“I am your superior officer and—”

Before Shiro could even bring up his datapad, much less start a message requesting assistance from security, a faint shimmer formed around Stone and Allura released her hold, skipping back nimbly. The general surged forward and bounced off the force field Atlas had brought up.

The paladins laughed as Stone began pounding his fists against the barrier. Allura smothered her giggles into her hand and looked at Shiro. “Shall we leave him here for the moment?”

Shiro was busy silently arguing with Atlas that, no, she could not open a portal in the floor and jettison the man into space. He gave one more psychic push, adding aloud, “Leave him here for now. We’ll take care of him later.”

They moved quickly to the bridge to find Sam and Coran with their heads together over one of the nav panels and the rest of the bridge crew huddled uneasily in the center. Sam brightened as he saw them enter. “Shiro! The Atlas has locked everyone out—”

Shiro stepped up to his position and laid both hands on the panels. He focused, trying to form a request to let the bridge crew access their stations in as clear and simple of terms as possible. He heard shouts of surprise in the background as the connection solidified and Atlas drew him in.

His hands were cuffed behind him. Two of the “mercenaries” dragged him from a pod into a hangar of a battleship, pausing in front of a Galra commander. The commander seized him by the throat and growled, “You’re almost certainly the right one, judging from your size, but let’s be sure. Drop your mask, Blade.”

He paused, just long enough to spark a reaction. The commander’s grip tightened. “Drop the mask or I tear it off. The druids want you alive, but they didn’t say that you had to be uninjured.”

He let the mask disappear and glared at his captor, who pulled his head up by his hair to study his face carefully.

“It’s him. Put him in a cell and double the guard on it.” The commander raised his wrist comm and opened a channel. “Set course for the Alvega system.”

The scene dissolved around Shiro, melding into the blue circuits that would surround him when the ship morphed into its robot form. Already he could sense Atlas changing course, plotting an intercept of the Galra battle cruiser.

We need to meet with the others. We need the Blades’ intel. We need Krolia and Kosmo. We need the backup from the Coalition.

You need him. Why do you waste time?

We need a plan. We need support. We can’t get him back safely if we just charge in.

Not fast enough.

The ship shuddered around him and Shiro grabbed the console to stay on his feet, his awareness of the bridge and its occupants returning. He rubbed at his temples with his left hand, trying to ground himself in reality once more.

“Shiro, how did you do that?” Coran shouted above the others’ reactions.

“Do what?”

“A wormhole...you took us through a wormhole, Shiro.” Allura spoke slowly, in shock.

The main viewscreen lit up, showing Kolivan and Krolia in two panels. Kolivan nodded, hiding any surprise he might be feeling. “Good, you’re early. Permission to dock our ships, captain?”

Shiro nodded, before remembering he had a voice. “Of course. Then we’ll get the Coalition ships and head for the Alvega system. That’s where they’re taking Keith.”

He closed his eyes and planted his hands on the control panel once more. Atlas, what are you doing?

You need him.

Yes, we need him. He’s the leader of Voltron. He’s a commander in the Blades.

YOU need him.

He...he’s my best friend.

More than need.

Image after image flooded past Shiro, showing him all the stages of his life that included Keith. The Garrison and Keith becoming his best friend there. The long nights as a prisoner, sustained by memories of Keith and the hope to escape and return to him. Reuniting, only to be dragged into the middle of an interstellar war and then killed. Brought back against impossible odds, with faint memories of what it had cost Keith to accomplish that.

He needs you. You need him.

Yes.

Then we get him back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continued...

[alolanrain]

OKAY SO

Human!Arceus comes in with Bby!Raihan (not actually baby Raihan, but Raihan who isn’t a gym leader yet for Galar) and sets him in the chair opposite of Lance.

“Who, what, where?” Lance ask’s I’m so much confusion, but Head Council Ace (Human!Arceus) ignores him.

“I need to train Raihan here.” He states, patting poor scared Raihans bony shoulders and fucking leaves.

Lance is immediately like “am I getting fired!?! Can they fire me!?!?!” But he’s calm when he faces Bby!Raihan. Who’s fidgeting up a storm because he’s in his idols presents!!!

“What’s your typing?”

“Dragon”

Lance: well S H I T

So Lance starts training Raihan, and if he drags the other Dragon type gym leaders/Elite Four into it than that’s his choice, and while he’s there Raihan meets Bby! Red and Bby!Gold who are now Champions of Kanto and Johto respectfully.

So that’s also a reason why Ace gave Raihan to Lance so the Elite Four member could train the kid. Lance doesn’t know what to do with his time now because he’s so used to 4x’s the paper work for being both an Elite and the Champions of the two neighboring Regions.

And where ever Red and Gold go, the gang follows.

Raihan ends up meeting Silver, Crystal, Green, Daisy, Yellow, and OFC actual Baby Ash and Gary. He also meets their parents and Delia was so close to adopting Raihan into the family because the boy didn’t have his on family since his dad was apparently to “busy” to come and raise his son and Raihans mother died during child birth.

So he comes back every summer to train before going back to Galar for the next five years, then the next five is to just hang out and rant about the Galar League and have fun.

Idk about age so far but here’s the final ages for a few of them.

Red - around late 29 to early 30

Green - same as Red

Gold - 26 to 27

Silver - 25 to 26

Crystal - 27 + 5 months on Gold

Ash - around 23 to 25

Gary - same as Ash + the 6 Months he has on him

Raihan: - around very early 25 to very late 27

Daisy - 35 to 40, she just needs to be a few years older than Green and Red

Lance - around 50 to 60, but he’s emotionally an 80 Y/O with his wisdom and what he had to put up with the Ketchum/Oak kids and the other National Poké Dexers

Delia - 50 to 57 she’s needs to be older than Daisy, but younger than Lance

Ace - he’s fucking Arceus, does it look like I know his fucking age!?

Lance soon finds out that, No, Raihan isn’t immediately replacing him and that he’s being trained in stead because the current Galar gym leader at that time was finally sub-coming to her Cancer. So Lance was the next option because he’s been the longest Dragon trainer in the league after her.

(Hint at that Immediately??)

Over time Raihan soon sees that the other Gym leaders are drawing away from him, Chairman Rose and Oleana are now piling more and more paper work onto him, and now Leon and Sonia are now avoiding him at all costs.

(I haven’t figured out a reason why just yet, but I’ll get there)

And now Raihan goes to the council, because he can’t go to Rose because he knows how absolutely shitty he is about complaints and other things, and begs them not to actively search Rose until the Council is done with their search of evidence.

Unbeknownst, Ace has been gathering shit on Rose for Years now. So he uses this as a chance to freak the head chairman out. 

So Ace scheduled for him, a few other Council Members, Lance, Gold, and Red to come to the next beginning League ceremony for the start of the Season. Now Chairman Rose is internally freaking the FUCK out because he has council members and the three most terrifying International league members coming to watch the Galar League opening ceremony.

( Ace also starts hounding Lance, who’s hair is now mostly grey now with red streaks, to start looking for people so he can retire. Because Alder’s position got taken by Black and Both Alder and Drayden are wait patiently for Lance.)

(( and if Ace also can get Raihan to take both Lance’s Elite position, while also Raihan being closer to Ash and the found Family that’s been yearning for the dragon tamer to join them permanently - via marrying Ash finally - then that’s Ace’s second main secret ))

Rose sticks them down with the other gym leaders because he doesn’t want to sit near the council members or other league members. But that also means he gives them a great chance at “talking” (more like interrogating) the Galar gym leaders

And they find out that they have been distancing Raihan for multiple reasons that are pretty fucking weak. Ace pulls Raihan aside and gets the full sob story and then gently asks if Raihan would like to move to the Kanto League, which has grown substantially stronger with Red, Gold, and Ash at the helm of those Regions.

And Raihan subconsciously melts at the thought of being closer to his found Family and his Ash. He answers hesitantly that if they have a position, than Raihan would sign all the paper work today and that he already has several people ready to defend the Vault in his stead. Raihan then gets pulled away by a very nervous assistant that says it’s time for the final battle with Leon.

Ace joins up with the others and starts to casually grill Lance that Raihan would be the best person to fill his two Elit spots.

“What!?” Lance looks shocked at that thought. And Ace tries not to laugh at his God-nephew face.

“You and the rest of the Dragon Tamers trained him. And I also noticed how you subconsciously trained him to take an elite four position instead of a gym leader one.”

“That - that doesn’t mean anything!”

“Everyone that he needs to know has already met him and like him. Unlike the others you’ve found where they don’t like several people in the line up.”

“S-so!?”

“Lance, look at him! His own Gym uniform is styled after your outfit! He fits well with everyone, and is just as strong-if not stronger than you. He’s completely perfect to take over your position.”

“...”

“Hell! Chairman Rose is already pushing most of Leon’s Champion paperwork onto him, creating just the same amount-if not, again, more paperwork than your two positions.”

“I... do see your point.”

“So?”

“...”

“Lance. I’m not talking to you as the Head Council, your Boss, or an equal League member at this point. I’m talking to you as a concerned family member an as your God Father. It’s time for you to rest, Your Husbands are waiting for you and you’ve denied yourself this for a longer time than absolute necessary.”

“But the kids-“

“-they can come to you! You are still there! Available when they need help or an answer only you know.”

“I don’t want to spring this on Raihan though.”

“And we don’t have to. You can still train him as we bring in another gym leader, I’ve been gunning to put a bug gym leader in Galar anyways.”

“But-“

“Lance, Watashi no musuko. Stop making excuses, the future generation of League members are here. Right in front of your face. Just like when you first came Champion of Kanto and the rest son followed after you. You’ve been Champion of Kanto for over 30 years, Johto’s Champion for over 25 years, and Elite four for both for over 28 years.”

“...”

“Watashi no musuko. It’s time to rest.”

“...”

“Okay?”

“Okay, I’ll train him.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“Thanks for telling me to cut my shit.”

“I’m not the only one, Delia will hound you now more than ever to come to the family dinners.”

“Ugh! Don’t remind me!!!”

It all boils down to Raihan getting moved over to the Kanto Elite four under Red and finally start dating Ash. Chairman Rose gets taken down and Raihan is now allowed to heal.

————————

Idk this thought has been plaguing my thoughts for the last couple of days and I just had to wright this all out.

I think I’m calling this the Replacement!AU

[aedanstarfang]

Welcome to Morgyn’s Drag Race

I've been away from my blog for quite a while, working on a (stupid) project that has occupied my time. And like all defiantly proud persons, I needed to see through this project to the end...and I also had fun (kinda) working on it. So without further ado, here is the Blogspot premiere of Morgyn's Drag Race: Season One!

Having made its official premiere on August 30, 2020; Morgyn's Drag Race was originally just a fun side-project that blew up into a full size in going 'The Sims' mini series. Meet the Cast

Morgyn Ember

Hailing from the Magic Realm, hidden deep within Glimmerbrook; Morgyn is a non-binary sim though that does not make him ineligible from being one of the sickest drag queens in Sim Nation (look up the real world history of Drag; trans and NB persons were the pioneers of drag culture).

Morgyn introduces himself as the 'head judge' of the inaugural season of Drag Race, alongside his co-judges; Siobhan Fyres and Izzy Fabulous, truly a stylish and LGBTQIA+ inclusive judging panel.

Morgyn's critiques of the queens come from the heart and he laces every critique with a compliment, embracing and appreciating said queen's individuality while criticizing their work. Morgyn can be best described as an fair, constructive and sensitive judge, and unlike real world judge/critics such as Rupaul or Simon Cowell; Morgyn actually critiques the queen's runway rather than barking out trendy one-liners or simply discrediting a queen's work because 'he doesn't like it'.

Siobhan & Izzy make up the rest of the judging panel acting as the defacto Michelle Visage and Santino Rice respectively; though it's a little deeper than that. Siobhan Fyres is more like co-judge 'Stacey McKenzie' of Canada's Drag Race or former Drag Race judge 'Merle Ginsberg', often giving constructive criticism while not shying away from criticizing a queen's sloppiness or lack of runway presence.

Izzy could be compared to ex-Drag Race judge 'Santino Rice', though that comparison falls a little flat when you see that Izzy's personality is less sharp-tongued and 'mean girl'-esque and more blunt and impartial on similar lines as 'Simon Cowell' or 'Piers Morgan'. Izzy openly displays boredom or disinterest within the first few seconds of seeing a queen's runway, and is often chided by Morgyn for being too hasty.

The Pilot or first episode showed us Eliza Pancakes acting as Morgyn's second-in-command as a literal expy of drag race judge 'Michelle Visage', being very quick to dismiss a queen for being weird or different, criticizing a queen's look for not being 'trendy' or 'mainstream' enough and even going so far as taking offense with an Asian queen's pun-name.  She was fired by the second episode and instead blackmailed placed into a hosting position of 'What's In the Bag?', which is basically a Sims version of 'Whatcha Packin?' It's a humorous after show type of series that revolves around Eliza interviewing eliminated queens, all the while getting several jabs in at Morgyn, the producers, the company and of course shading the guest queen themselves.

The Contestants

Morgyn's Drag Race was announced on August of this year, which included a special series of 'Meet the Queens' videos focusing on all twelve of the competing queens. This season I am proud to say that it features a diverse range of queens ranging in size, nationality, gender identity and drag/performance style.

The initial twelve 'meet the queens' videos are still available to watch on my youtube channel, however they will soon be made irrelevant as newer, updated MTQ videos shall take their place - featuring a fluid, solid theme for the promo (which never got an official release oops!)

So without further ado, let's do further and get to know these twelve quirky queens shall we (in alphabetical order)? (*Note: That characters who are competing drag queens are referred to as 'her/she' and 'he/him' interchangeably via the rule of 'when a queen is in drag they are she, when they are out of drag they are he, there are of course expections).

Also, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Baga Trash

Sy Jefferies

AKA "

Baga Trash

" 34, is a well-known drag performer from Windenburg. Now I know what you're probably thinking; "he's an obvious parody of Baga Chipz" well no, not really. While Baga Trash IS a British queen (even if my impression is shite), he was inspired by several different characters and queens including but not limited to 'Tammie Brown' and 'Daphne Moon'. Baga aspires to become the world's top trash queen, and applauds 'trashion' as the style of the future. Interestingly enough, Baga Trash has little to no interest in ANY of the features from Eco Lifestyle, odd since dumpster diving is right up her ally.

Caliente

Nicholas Contreras

aka

"Caliente",

at 24 is one of the youngest competing queens this season right after Terra Ryzen. Caliente prides herself on her youth, beauty and bubbly personality and actively proclaims her "youthful vigor" to be the secret to success. Now what is "youthful vigor" you might ask? Youthful Vigor is the total tetratic composition of youth, attractiveness or beauty, personality and talent. With that mantra in mind, Caliente remains ever cheerful and confident throughout the competition.      Having originally been brought up on a large farm in Brindleton Bay, Caliente was no stranger to receiving the occasional odd glance from passersby as she gallivanted down main street in her pink designer miniskirts and halter tops, and to be honest she loved the attention more than anyone could know, this of course would boost her confidence into moving out to Newcrest where she would officially compete for the title of 'Morgyn's Magical Queen'.

Crow

Corbin Corvidae

AKA

"Crow"

30, is an adventurous and experienced queen hailing from Oasis Springs. As many would point out that Crow has glaringly obvious similarities to a certain

real life queen

and I will be 100% honest, yes Crow is an homage to many former Drag Race queens. Crow's personality I think is what sets her apart and standalone from other queens, both real life and fictitious. The most obvious similarities being Crow's seemingly bitter attitude towards the younger queens (particularly Caliente and Terra Ryzen), which plays into the same trope of "

this is a competition

" and "

blame the edit

". When starting Morgyn's Drag Race, we needed an antithesis to who we figured would be the standout protagonists of the season (being either Galaxia, Lapis or Caliente) and Crow fits that bill nicely.

Crow's moniker stems from her fascination with the color black, darkness, midnight and the very bird itself while the demeanor and overall look of her character is derived from her love of the 1990's film of the same name. Crow's experience and expertise with drag make her a force to be reckoned with, while her demure and sultry demeanor set her apart from the competition. Regardless of how you feel about Miss Crow, no one can deny that she serves some serious looks each time she hits the runway

Extra

Lance Proffitt

(pronounced 'Pro-feet') aka

"Extra"

29, is a professional

"background artist"

from Del Sol Valley, and no we're not talking about the actual profession of the

same name

we're talking about an

extra

, as in an uncredited background character in a film or series. Basically Extra is really talented at not being the lead character in movies or TV.  Extra's personality is kind of a composition of an egotistical and yet eerily self-aware celebrity. Extra doesn't NEED others to remind him that he's a star, because in his world he is already a star. He mentions in his initial "talking head" during Episode One/Pilot that he had background roles in such serials as;

"Touched by an Alien"

,

"Abducted for Real"

and

"The Great Awful Cook-off"

. He also noted in his

"What's In the Bag"

segment with Eliza Pancakes, that he is a musical queen and that his talent for the talent show challenge would have been a live rendition of his hit song;

"Boy is a Bear"

. This is a bit of a spoiler so I rupologize in advance, but even Extra's book title for episode six;

"Suck More"

must be a callback to a certain real world queen, right? Whatever the case, Extra's willing to put int the time so long as you're willing to pay the dime.

Fortuna Cookie

Shūfáng Shāncháhuā ('Shu' for short) aka "Fortuna Cookie" 25, is a young queen from Strangerville who's motto is undoubtedly "here to make it queer", has certainly came to the right show hasn't she? Shu started drag at a shockingly young age; 3, when she dressed up in her mom's clothes and makeup and impersonated 'Miss Piggy' to entertain her family, though they were more red-faced from secondhand-embarrassment than laughter.

  Cookie is a very artistic and personable queen, having done drag professionally since at least high school and performed at the 8-Bells in Strangerville since her university days at Britechester. She was taken in by her would be drag-mother, 'Mint Cookie' and quickly made friends with newfound family; 'Sugar Cookie', 'Fudge Cookie' and 'Samoa Cookie'. Shu's drag name had always just been 'Fortuna' (for luck) before being adopted by the Haus of Cookie, where she became "Fortuna Cookie".

Galaxia

Cosmo Nebulon AKA "Galaxia" 28, is quite possibly the most unique queen in this lineup; not only is she the only queen from Sixam, but also the very first 'Alien' contestant in the series history (but surely not to be the last). Galaxia moved to Del Sol Valley shortly before being cast on "Morgyn's Drag Race", because as he puts it the "drag scene on Sixam is boring!" Self-described 'Xenomorph Queen' Galaxia certainly has a lot in common with real life queens such as 'Alaska' and 'Pandora Boxx', though I think Galaxia's uniqueness in both style and personality make him standout from the crowd, that and he's "a fucking alien!" 

For everyone who's seen the initial airing of the pilot will know that Galaxia is here to bring it on a galactic level, having aced the "Trash to Treasure" challenge seemingly flawlessly (though editing does play a part in EVERY reality series) and unanimously impressed the judging panel, even stone-cold bitch Eliza Pancakes. Spoilers ahead for recently dropped Episode 5; Snatch Game saw Galaxia in the bottom for the first time, but little did her competition know that she was no slouch because she TURNED. IT. OUT! Not one, not two, but three reveals during the lipsync - I COULD NOT, BELIEVE IT (and I'm the one who created everything)"! Clearly Galaxia is not playing around and takes the competition VERY seriously, going so far as to plan ahead for a possible lipsync for your life with three reveals to boot, it's curious what else she had planned up her sleeve for the previous runways and if she had similar reveals planned.

Icy

Myron Frost AKA "Icy" 27, of Willow Creek came to the competition pulling no punches and dressing to impress from the get-go. Icy began drag during her teen years, and started performing professionally during college. Aside from being the series' first black queen to walk through those doors, Icy also brought her own sense of style and class to the initial competition. Professionalism, style, and class are all words synonymous with Icy; a queen who carries herself as though she has already won (because let's be honest, you NEED a fiery attitude in order to get ahead in these sorts of contests). Though behind the confident and stunning exterior, belies a person who detests drama of any sort, and can be seen at any time an argument erupts - Icy is sure to stay out of the line of sight.

When I think of Icy, I think of former Drag Race queens who carried a similar air of confidence, professionalism and style such as Chad Michaels and Jaida Essence Hall, though honestly Icy is as much her own identity as anyone else, and the aforementioned queens merely served as inspiration, vocal fry and all.

Jackqleen Qkwueeen

Jackson King AKA "Jackqleen Qkwueeen" 37, is Magnolia Promenade's premiere expert in classical theater and the bardic arts. And I'm not going to start this article off with a lie, when I conceptualized Jackqleen I had originally envisioned a different kind of queen entirely which can be seen in her original 'Meet the Queens' video, which if I'm being honest, pretty much all of the queens had different personalities and quirks that differ from their current/later personas. Jackqleen was originally supposed to be a faux Shakespearean expert who would occasionally slip into talking with her rural dialect or twang, which I disliked for a multitude of reasons and decided that making Jackqleen a legitimate, classically trained thespian of Magnolia Promenade, was more interesting. And to make her standout vocally and personality-wise, I just kept picturing Frasier Crane. 

Despite having fallen into the bottom two the first episode, and let's be honest that "Trash to Treasure" challenge was not tailored to make everyone look good, which in Jackqleen's case made her look worse than Velvetta Baggins, whom was described as someone having walked out of a day spa. We can't deny that Jackqleen has a refined and sophisticated outlook to drag, and that being a professional theater actor can only help propel her career as a drag artist

Lapis

Bleau Rathbone AKA "Lapis" 31, is one of San Myshuno's most eclectic, eccentric and unique artists. Having performed drag since his nineteenth birthday; Bleau introduced himself in drag to the world of performance art for the first time and then and there 'Lapis' was born (*Note: Lapis prefers to be referred to as 'they/them', but only when in full drag). Lapis' namesake stems from the gemstone itself 'lapis lazuli', the fact that it is mostly blue and their love for the color blue, taking all of these facets into consideration it's not hard to see why Lapis incorporates everything into their drag.

If you've been watching 'Morgyn's Drag Race' since Episode One, then you're already familiar with just how iconic a queen that Lapis is, having served looks since Episode One with the upcoming Episode 7 and 8 possibly being their strongest serves yet. Lapis believes in and identifies with the individual, priding themselves with being as unique and as standout as possible all while continuing to stay on-brand with the Lapis name (everything blue, black, eclectic and electric).

Parsley

Parsley 32, is quite possibly the single-most polarizing figure from 'Morgyn's Drag Race'. Hailing from Evergreen Harbor, Parsley describes herself as being "lean, green and mean" and the "green meanie". The second she steps through the entryway she insults her competition by calling them all "douchebags" (originally calling them "motherfuckers"), and also easily dismisses them as being 'basic', 'boring' and 'not impressive'. With a raspy growly voice that would give Patty & Selma a run for their money. 

Parsley was inundated into the world of drag years back when she lived in San Myshuno and roomed with a popular Drag Queen named 'Darren Leek', who at the time was also her roommate. Darren welcomed Parsley into the Leek family of drag, becoming her drag-mother in the process. Though Parsley stood out from the crowd, having picked a green theme and sticking to it, she polarized a large majority of folks she came into contact with, many finding her to be rude while others found her to be downright terrifying. Parsley's own drag-mother, Darren Leek cut ties with her because of her behavior, and quite possibly out of fear.

Terra Ryzen

Scotch Golddig

AKA

"Terra Ryzen"

22, is another queen hailing from Strangerville and is also the youngest competing queen in the competition to date. Some who have browsed the Sims reddit may remember Scotch making a few appearances

pre-drag race

as "

Florida Man

", a member of the infamous "Golddig" clan; a family of reputed 'gold-diggers' who are always looking for their next claim. His grandmother, 'Dusty Bones' made occasional appearances on reddit as a burnt-out version of '

Matilda the Chef

'.

Terra enters the competition as the youngest queen and also the most inexperienced, asking the more experienced queens for help with her makeup and nails shortly after making her entrance. Terra is almost immediately denigrated by her older, more experiences co-competitors as being "busted" and looking a "mess", though despite all that Terra manages to maintain a confidence bordering on cockiness that she will succeed and in fact win the competition, though anyone having seen the first episode will know Terra's ultimate fate.

Velvetta Baggins

Wilberforce Armitage XVII AKA "Velvetta Baggins", is an oldschool queen from Windenburg. She speaks with a High-British or a classically 'posh British' accent, and frequently bemoans about all of the times that the French ave supposedly terrorized her and her comrades while on active duty during the war, which war you ask? She can't remember, though it was likely sometime during the ice age as woolly mammoths and spear-throwing cavemen were involved. The running gag involving Velvetta is that she is old, like really very old. In truth she is probably somewhere around 50-55 years old, however Caliente refers to Velvetta as being "90" in her talking head and Terra Ryzen speculates that she is from the Mesozoic era, basically Velvetta is the oldest queen of the season which makes her target for everyone else. A pianist classically trained in the styles of baroque, Velvetta has entertained audiences for generations and continues to do so using her oldschool style, while fellow Windenburg queen Baga Trash utilizes modern pop culture and of course 'rubbish' to entertain audiences. What's interesting about fellow Windenburg Queens; Velvetta and Baga Trash is that they are both so intrinsically different, despite hailing from the same place. It can be argued that since Velvetta has been performing drag at a time since before Baga Trash, that the two styles will naturally be different.

I think the truth of the matter is that Velvetta is just another quirky, cooky queen with a bizarre sense of humor and a unique self-styled sense of fashion, not unlike Tammie Brown. The constant callbacks to the wartime tactics and the French are either a clever joke in the guise of obfuscating reality or she actually is senile and is suffering from false memories, either way Velvetta certainly is an interesting queen to have on the stage.

So now that you've gotten to know our judges, and all twelve contestants on a more personal level, maybe you will remember to set that timer to watch 'Morgyn's Drag Race' this Sunday, at 12:45 PM Pacific Standard Time.

[afaimsarrowverse]

Arrowverse: My 25 Favorite Fan-Ships

After doing my favorite Canon-Ships, here are my favorite Non-Canon-Ships of the Arrowverse. Like always . This is my blog, this is my list, it is in no way objective, everyone is entiled to their own opinion, so please don’t reblog or answer just to tell me how much you disagree with me. You can’t quantify love, well except with stupid lists like this, just because a ship is not on this list does not mean I don’t like it - except when it does - so…. yeah, here we go

  25. Snowbertallen (Caitlin Snow/Julian Albert/Barry Allen)

 Hinted at in: The Flash Season 3

 While I don’t really see Caitlin and Barry as a romantic pairing, both of them did work quite well with Julian and in a world where Barry couldn’t save Iris, I actually could see him ending up with those two instead. I always wanted to write a fic about that but never came around to, but this threesome exists in my Arrowmultiverse – read „Multiversity“.

 24.  Coldwestallen (Leonard Snart/Iris West/Barry Allen)

 Hinted at in: The Flash Season 2-3

 This is one of my ships, maybe a little bit guilty pleasure, and I can’t really see this happening in canon, but before I decided to bring Eddie back, I was toying with this idea as endgame for my A/B/O-Arrowverse, after all Leonard works very well with both of them, so yeah, I definifly loved this ship.

 23.  Kalex (Kara Danvers/Lex Luthor)

 Hinted at: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Supergirl Season 4-5

 I discovered this one for me during „Crisis on Infinite Earths“ and was like … why is this ship not more prominent, I mean after all there where some hints of it before. In any way their chemistry is great and it’s a shame that pretty much everyone has given up or fled the Supergirl-Fandom at this point so no one is going to write anything about them any time soon. But maybe someone will once try a Crisis-AU where they will be found.

 22.  Karry (Kara Danvers/Barry Allen)

 Hinted at: Worlds Finest, Invasion, Duet, Crisis on Infnite Earths, Elseworlds, Crisis on Infinite Earths

 I actually prefer them as besties, because they each have an actual True Love in their own universe, but like anyone else, I love them together. They are probably to simelar to work as a couple on the long run, but as female partners for Barry go, Kara is definitfly up there at the top.

 21. BloodArrow (Sebastian Blood/Oliver Queen)

 Hinted at: Arrow Season 2

 I discovered this while working on a Sebastian Blood Oneshot. I reread „Vengance“ and worked their relationship out and remembered how much I always regretted losing Sebastian at this point of his storyline, because those two had a connection. A better one than Laurel and Sebastian actually, and in many ways Oliver was more of an actual Love Interest for Sebastian than Laurel. Not that Ollie would ever go for this, but Sebastian might have. Who knows?

 20.  Tauriver (Tommy Merlyn/Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen)

 Hinted at: Arrow Season 1

 Back in Season 1 I shipped this, because I don’t really believe in love triangles between three people that geniunily love each other. So this would have been the obvious solution. If Oliver and Tommy would just haved shared Laurel or touched it other as well, well, that would have been up to them. I think that given it’s Tommy, Oliver might have actually gone full in for this.

 19.  Timekid (Wally West/Rip Hunter)

 Hinted at: Legends of Tomororw Season 3

 After I saw Rip and Wally do karaoke and get wasted together I was expecting a load of fics, but somehow this pairings seems to have eluded almost everyone. Maybe because no one really cares about Wally? Or because Rip was in bad standing in the middle of that Season? I don’t know, but for me this was a non-brainer.

 18.  Saramaya (Sara Lance/Amaya Jiwe)

 Hinted at: Legends of Tomorrow Season 2-3

 I really don’t know why everyone is going on about Kendra and Sara, when they could be going on about this ship were there is actual tension and actual chemistry there. And Doomworld. Don’t forget Doomworld. Where those two totally did it, you can’t change my mind about that.

 17.  Toliver (Tommy Merlyn/Oliver Queen)

 Hinted at: Arrow Season 1-8

 This ship kept coming and going in my mind, because aren’t Oliver and Tommy more like brothers and than like lovers? In the end I saw the potential for a romantic love between them and stettled on it as something that could have been very interesting if done right. I dabbled a little bit with TommyX in that pairing, but why not real Tommy as well?

 16.  Monwinn (Mon-El/Winn Schott)

 Hinted at: Supergirl Season 2-3, It’s a Super Life

 To bad Winn came back married to someone that isn’t Mon-El, because this is what should have happened, you know? Of course Kara is Mon-Els One True Love, but he and Winn were always great together, and given Winn is open minded and Daxamites are not hetero normative this was what we would have wanted after losing both of them in the same episode of the show.

 15.  Kanvers (Kate Kane/Kara Danvers)

 Hinted at: Elseworlds, Crisis on Infinite Earths, The one and only Season of Batwoman

 I figured out why certain hate groups afflilated with „Supergirl“ hate Kate so much (It took me quite some time to rap my head around this), it’s because Kate is Karas only canonical female love interest and those people just can’t stand that thought. Now sady as gone for good as Batmoore Kanvers was what I would have originally wanted for Kara after it became clear that Mon-El was not coming back to the show. I mean I love Kate, and Kara did flirt back, so why the hell not?

 14.  Irivarry (Iris West/Oliver Queen/Barry Allen)

 Hinted at: The Flash Season 1, Invasion, Crisis on Earth-X, Elseworlds

 While I stumbled over quite a few fics that include Oliver, Felicity, and Barry, I never really found this one, even though it’s much more obvious to me. After all this was set up way back in the first season of „The Flash“ and especially in Season 5 and a certain part of Season 7 of „Arrow“ I felt that it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for Oliver to visit our favourite Canon-Pairing in Central City and crash on their couch indefinitly which would lead too many interesting things among them this threesome. And yes, again a fic I never got around to write.

 13.  Atomsteelwavevixen (Ray Palmer/Nate Heywood/Mick Rory/Amaya Jiwe)

 Hinted at: Legends of Tomorrow Season 2-3

 I prefere Steelatom and Vixenwave as bros, but as a foursome those four rock the libido and the Waverider. Given how much I do ship Atomwave and Vixensteel and that I also do ship Steelwave und Atomvixen that shouldn’t be a surprise, and you should know by now, that I do believe more partners make (fictional) relationships easier instead of more complicated.

 12. Captains3 (Sara Lance/Rip Hunter/Leonard Snart)

 Hinted at: Legends of Tomorrow Season 1

 Given that Sara and Rip, Sara and Leonard, and Leonard and Rip would not last together, my solution to this would be to get together as a threesome. Which was after all my endgame in my biggest Fanfiction-Verse and turned out to be a smashing idea.

 11.  Eobarry (Eobard Thawne/Barry Allen)

 Hinted at: The Flash Season 1-6 (so far)

 Fanboy Eobard might have come to hate Barry, but a part of him never stopped loving the scarlet speedster as we all know. What kind of love that was may have varied, but this kind was probably among it, and I think that if he would prove to Barry that he could change Barry would always give him a chance, because that’s after all who Barry is.

 10.  GreenAtom (Oliver Queen/Ray Palmer)

 Hinted at: Arrow Season 3-4, Legends of Tomorrow Season 1, Crisis on Infinite Earths

 A very underapprecaited ship that I love dearly. Ray und Oliver together have so much potential. I dabbled a little bit with that, but only few other ever did. Ray would basically be a better version of Felicity, having all what the fans love about their dynamic, but none of the issues that come with her. Also Oliver would date another hero, which is always a plus.

 9.      Elongflash (Ralph Dibny/Barry Allen)

 Hinted at: The Flash Season 4-6

 I frankly never understood why people did not ship them more and there are so little fanfics about those two, I mean it’s a classic love story really. Attraction first, misunderstanding leading to years of silence, meeting again and talking it out, becoming friend and eventually more. I did dabble with it a bit and wish others would have taken to that ship around Season 4 already and not only in the last couple of years.

 8.      Allenbert (Barry Allen/Julian Albert)

 Hinted at: The Flash Season 3

 For a long time I thought that that would be the reveal about Julians problem with Barry. Appearantly so did the actors. Or at least they wished it were. Their hate-love was so enjoyable and fans had their fun with this at least but could have had more fun still. Tom mentoned that was ready to come back to the show sometime back, and while I have little hope for that I still want it to happen so that we can get more interaction between them on screen.

 7.      Winniac-5 (Winn Schott/Brainiac-5)

 Hinted at: Supergirl Season 3 and Season 5

 I am one out of two persons in the world who ships this, but I ship it hard. I wanted Winn to have love, but after it became clear that the actress who played his Season 2 love interest wasn’t coming back, it probably had also become clear that Jeremy did plan on leaving the show, so the writers didn’t bother anymore, but Brainy crashed so beautifully with him so I picked him for that role. And even though I love Nia and Brainia I love Winniac-5 more.

 6.      Olivarry (Oliver Queen/Barry Allen)

 Hinted at: Arrow Season 2-3, The Flash Season 1, Legends of Yesterday/Today, Invasion, Crisis on Earth-X, Elseworlds, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Arrow Season 7-8

 As unlucky as Olivers love life is, maybe that’s the case because the actual love of his life happens to be a man, which he is not willing to admit to himself of course. I mean we all remember the joke about Barry wanting to date Oliver and agree on that probably being true, but Oliver cleary is kind of in love with Barry too. He has been very different with him than most if not all other males in his life so there definitifly is something going on there.

 5.      Coldflash (Leonard Snart/Barry Allen)

 Hinted at: The Flash Season 1-3, Legends of Tomorrow Season 1-2, Invasion

 Leonard flirts with everything that moves, but Barry has a special place in his heart and we all love that. Leonard ist a player however, and makes sure everyone knows that, but if there is one person out there who he would be willing to change for it would probably be Barry. If only they weren’t mortal frenemies and Leonard wasn’t – you know – dead.

 4.      Thallen (Eddie Thawne/Barry Allen)

 Hinted at: The Flash Season 1-3

 Barry und Eddie were crushing hard on each other, there is no denying that. They even had a moment onscreen where the tension between them was aknowleged (remember the sofa-scene?). I saw a pretty accurate joke about the Season 1 love triangle once which stated that Iris felt guilty about having feelings for Barry while dating Eddie, while Eddie at the same time was doodeling Eddie Allen in his notebook and that really nails it, doesn’t it?

 3.      Timecanary (Rip Hunter/Sara Lance)

 Hinted at: Legends of Tomororw Season 1-3

 Sara has many admirers onscreen and out of all her many suitors Rip is the one I would want to see her ending up with. If he wasn’t dead, that is. Rip kind of had a thing for her from day one on and during Season 2 she seemed to realize that she had feelings for him too, but sadly Season 3 ripped them apart (pardon the pun) in every possible way. But there is still fanfic. I just wish there were more of it with them as the main couple.

 2.      Atomwave (Ray Palmer/Mick Rory)

 Hinted at: Legends of Tomorrow Season 1-5, Crisis on Infinite Earths

 This is my Legends-OTP and I am still not over the fact that Ray is out of the show and so is this ship! When Iris und Barry got together on „The Flash“ even my brother was like: „Wait a moment … Barry und Iris are a couple, that means Mick still has a shot to get Ray next season!“ So yeah, no one could deny that their relationship was very prominent in the first two seasons. Sadly it faded in the backround when Ray met Nora Darhk, but in my opinion this would have been the much healthier endgame for him, which is why you find traces of this ship in pretty much all of my Arrowverse Fanfics.

  1.      Westhallen (Iris West/Eddie Thawne/Barry Allen)

 Hinted at: The Flash Season 1-3

 This is how you solve a love triangle, that does not need to be one, when all three parties have certain feelings for all the other members of the triangle: Just get them all together. I mean I love Westhawne, I love Thallen, and I love Westallen, but most of all I love Westhallen. Too bad poly is still a taboo in TV, and don’t get me started on the sin of killing of Eddie and never ever bringing him back not even an alternate version of him or something like that, but yeah in my heart those three were happy with each other and when Eddie died both Iris und Barry lost the man they loved. (And sometimes they got him back and other times they never lost him at all).

[vaulthunter426]

Borderlands 3 - Breakdown Mega Thread.

Well holy shit guys. We got a teaser trailer full of good things, now we’ve got a full blown Borderlands 3 trailer. And there is certainly some things to unpack. We’re left pretty clueless as to what the majority of the story will be like, but we’re given enough to know what some of the driving points of the game will be. If you want to avoid spoilers quit now, I’m going to do my best to connect some dots. This is an initial reaction / speculation thread. Once again. Some of this is pretty surface level, other parts are pure speculation. 

Here’s what I touch on:

Vault Hunters

The Antagonists

Sirens / A Siren theory

7 years between BL2 and BL3?

Psychos + Bandits

*just an fyi, if I put a “ ~ “ it means I’m not sure about the information.

So we have our Vault Hunters.

First up is ~Amara the Siren. Other than the fact that we see her spouting six glowing arms, we’re not all to sure what her siren abilities are. During one of the “montage” sequences in the trailer we do get a single first-person shot of a siren using Phase Lock on an enemy. Seeing as we were not going to be playing as Maya, I’d say ~Amara has several Phase abilities.

Next is Flak, the android Beast Mast / Hunter class. The full extent of his abilities are unknown with the rest of the Vault Hunters but as his class name suggests, he seems to control / have an array of pets to assist in battle. Something notable about his pets is that they seem to sport some mechanical enhancements (image 2). The other notable thing about Flak is that at one point he’s firing a gun and there seems to be an aura growing around him (image 3). Presumably it’s an aura that damages nearby enemies, and maybe giving buffs to allies. I’m fairly certain this is going to be the class I start as.

And now we have Moze the Bot Jock. Her ability seems to be centered around calling in a Mech / Titan / Bot of some kind to assist in battle. Taking it a step further than Mordecai, Gaige, and Wilhelm who could summon assistance in battle, Moze’s ally seems to be an ally that she can ride / control by not only herself, but by her allies as well (image 3). Of the four new Vault Hunters, I suspect Moze is going to be the tankiest.

And last among our new Vault Hunter’s is Zane the Operative. His ability seems to be similar to that of Zero and Timothy (Jack’s body double) in utilizing a device that conjures a holographic clone of himself, most likely to draw the fire of enemies rather than taking it himself. My best guess for Zane is that he’s our sniper class, and relies on tactical approaches to combat. Judging by clothes, he seems to be wealthy. Wealthy enough to afford a holographic-cloning device.

Now this is where I get really excited. I think a number of us were waiting see if Lilith would be an antagonist or an anti-hero in this game, and while this remains unknown she is certainly going to play a big part of this game and will carry a significant amount of focus from the antagonists.

I think the biggest takeaway from our two antagonists is that the female is a siren! Take a look at those glowing tattoos in the first image above and this second one we only got a single frame of in a “montage sequence”. So these two seem to be at the head of a cult-like movement / organization called The Children of the Vault, which was alluded to in the Battleborn easter egg. What the purpose or beliefs of this cult is I’m not too sure yet. But they do seem to have a fixation on the Vault Symbol upside down. 

This is where it gets real interesting. Let’s take a look at a couple images of Lilith:

With these first two images everything seems to be fairly normal. Lilith does seem to be alone but that isn’t so surprising judging by the end of TPS. She had some different views and has probably ventured out on her own some to explore herself. Now it gets scary. It seems like the new Antagonist Siren has the ability to strip away the powers of other Sirens AND gift them to someone else, even if they’re male! Check this out.

Below we see Lilith crawling towards a Vault Key. The significance is unknown, but could it be the “key” to an extraordinary power like stripping a Siren’s powers? Notice Lilith’s tattoos are gone both on her arm and chest.

So knowing now that Lilith’s powers have been stripped away, watch the interaction between our two antagonists in the background. When they clasp arms an energy seems to transfer between the two, leaving the male with glowing tattoos! It seems like Lilith’s powers have been stripped away and gifted to a male!

We know in Borderlands lore that only six Sirens can exist at any given point in time, and that they are female. Well our male certainly didn’t come about the powers in the “natural” way, but it seems like we’re going to be dealing with two Siren antagonists.

So now we know out antagonists are certainly a pair to be reckoned with. Can they take away the powers of more than one Siren, making themselves even more powerful? I suspect we will get into this as we are reintroduced to Maya alongside a new addition to Borderlands. 

Is this Maya’s daughter? Neophyte? Someone who became a Siren after the passing of Angel in BL2? Well we don’t know. But we will soon! If she is a Siren as I suspect she is, then our Antagonists will not only have their eyes on Maya but this young ~girl as well.

In the “Mask of Mayhem” there is an image of a character model passing a book to a small child, I assumed they were Sirens as the Siren class mod is a book. Here is the image below.

I’m going to take that image as further proof that this young one is indeed a Siren that Maya is either passing the mantle to, or at least teaching her the ropes.

But now that brings into question the character model that I believe is the “counter-part” to our young Siren: this individual below.

Is this individual also a Siren, but one already under the control of the Antagonists? Again. Speculation...

Onto some less serious topics and giving some first impressions!

Below we have Rhys standing with Zero! It’s nice to see these two decided to stick together for a bit. As the head of Atlas, it looks like Rhys has reinstated the Crimson Lance to some degree. It also looks as though his mechanical arm has a couple of bugs...

Also notable is his mustache. Now this gets into a topic matter that I’ve seen rumored, a nd that’s that BL3 takes place roughly 7 years after BL2. That could explain why Rhys is in a secure enough position to pay a Vault Hunter (Zer0) to be his body guard AND reinstate a small army.

Further backing this 7 year theory is Maya and the young girl. If a small child came into a Siren’s power after the passing of Angel she could have been only a couple years old and would now reach the age she is standing next to Maya. This also explains Maya’s very long hair.

Another factor is Tiny Tina’s age! She’s not so tiny anymore.

If it’s been 7 years, that would make Tina around 20 years old in the above image. After the passing of Roland, and Lilith leaving (presumably) it seems like Brick and Mordecai took Tina under their wing to raise her as a Vault Hunter in training! She certainly looks the part with grenades strapped to her forearm.

My last point on this “7 year theory�� is that if I’m remembering correctly, in Borderlands lore the seasonal cycle of Pandora is roughly this: 1 Pandora cycle = 6 or 7 Earth cycles. This is why Pandora is so desolate. The DAHL corp shipped prisoners to Pandora as a labor force to build the beginnings of a civilization and begin mining. When they arrived most of the wildlife was hibernating so they got a pretty good start on their construction, but eventually the wildlife woke up. And began killing everyone. 

DAHL pulled out and left the prisoners. And so the birth of Bandit camps full of Psychos and the rest making up the majority of what we’ve seen of Pandora with only a few hubs of “civilization”. Introduce rumors of an alien Vault, hello Vault Hunters.

If Gearbox picked up the story with only 1 or 2 years between games we’re starting to shy pretty close to a season change. Rather than re-introduce this and reminding everyone of these minute details, just fast forward a bit and age everyone accordingly.

Some Bandits and Psychos I picked out!

What’s Borderlands without a Psycho?

And we finally have a female Psycho!

A very Daft-Punk-esque Bandit.

And a... Pyro-Bandit? Pyro-Psycho? Either way he’s angry, got a couple screws loose, and wielding a flamethrower probably built by Elon Musk.

And that does it! I really wanted to give some first impressions of our Vault Hunters and out Antagonists, as well as the big deal. The fact that Lilith seems to have lost her powers... the rest will be in smaller posts or I’ll reblog this add more under the cut! 

Let me know about your speculations as a “Reply” if you simply want to make a statement, if you want feedback from me / want it published be sure to send it in an “Ask”. 

[k-racer]

A Formula 1 Fantasy Universe using GPM2 2019 Mod: Intro, entry list, and race calendar

Hello there, after a long break from posting stuff on here.

This is going to be a randomized let’s play of Grand Prix Manager 2, using the recently released 2019 mod as a foundation, but with three expansion teams joining in so that we have a full 26 car entry list. I will be taking control as one of the expansion teams, so enjoy the ride!

The 2019 Entry List

Here’s what the lineups look like for all 13 teams after conducting a Draft Lottery and a snake format Fantasy Draft based off the lottery results complete with a preview of what I think the team’s fortunes are. Remember, in F1 each team can only have two race drivers at a time, and a backup reserve driver is highly recommended and actually required by the game itself. That’s the main reason why each team must have three drivers signed before the start of the season!

Mercedes

14 Fernando Alonso

63 George Russell

T 24 Lucas di Grassi

Will Fernando Alonso finally gets his elusive third Driver’s title? With the best overall car on paper, this is his best and probably final chance that he gets to do just that! On the other side of the garage is George Russell, who will make his F1 debut under massive pressures to perform straight away. George already has proven everything in the junior categories, winning titles in every single category of the ladder, F4, F3 and F2. This has the potential to be awesome like their recent successes over the last five years or maybe it would turn into a nightmare like when Alonso had to partner Hamilton in 2007? 

Ferrari

27 Nico Hulkenberg

99 Antonio Giovanizzi

R 28 Brendon Hartley

The Number 27 is officially back on a Ferrari! With Ferrari signing Nico Hulkenberg, they have just gotten a driver that was looking for a top tier ride all of this time, and he finally got his wish. He will perform with a chip on his shoulder and maybe take the Tifosi by the neck and push them to work harder than ever to get that elusive team’s title back to Italy. The biggest question mark regarding the Scuderia is the #2 slot with Antonio Giovanizzi, who only has two f1 starts to his name with Sauber as an injury replacement, but he had to struggle with an inferior car, maybe being in an elite team will help him?

Red Bull-Aston Martin 

33 Max Verstappen

25 Jean Eric Vergne

T 37 Nick Cassidy

Max Verstappen was going to stay put as soon as it was announced that Red Bull Racing would get the first pick in the lottery. Now, the bigger question, can Max become the second Red Bull driver to win the Driver’s title? His chances are decent but the biggest question mark is the new in-house built Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR1 engine. If it’s reliable, expect them to be contenders for the team’s title, especially if Jean Eric Vergne relishes his second chance in Formula 1, fresh after winning the Formula E Championship. If not, Nick Cassidy, the team’s new tester will have a stab at things sooner than later.

Renault

3 Daniel Riccardo

77 Valtteri Bottas

T 6 Artem Markelov 

Mr. Smiley has a new home! After being treated harshly at red bull racing last year, he decided to exit the program altogether and joined a factory team in desperate need of a savior. In addition, Valtteri Bottas, a perfect #2 driver during his time at Mercedes AMG before being let go over the lack of one-lap qualifying pace relative to Hamilton joins the Enstone-based team looking to crack into the big three conversation once again. What does this mean for Artem Markelov, who was looking to crack into F1 after finishing 2nd in F2 during the 2017 season? He will be a hot prospect going forward, that’s for sure.

Haas-Ferrari

11 Sergio Perez

88 Robert Kubica

T 50 Josef Newgarden

Money is starting to be a problem over at Haas especially if the rumors that Rich Energy is a faker happens to be true. In the meantime, they have Sergio Perez’s Carlos Slim backing of companies providing a more stable back-up package if the Rich Energy deal happens to be blocked by a court. On the other side, is an amazing comeback story, Robert Kubica, who almost lost his life before the 2011 F1 season, is officially back in a F1 race seat. There’s no question that his qualifying pace is still great, but how can his race pace be especially considering his physical limitations post-rally crash? 

Racing Point-BWT

31 Esteban Ocon

94 Pascal Wehrlein

T 34 Nyck de Vries

Racing Point is now officially a full-fledged constructor now. They still have a customer Mercedes Benz Engine but it’s rebadged as BWT. As for their drivers, they kept Esteban Ocon, a promising talent that is looking for a promotion to Mercedes AMG, when and if Fernando Alonso calls it quits. Pascal Wehrlein, who is back into a F1 race seat after a year’s worth of testing work with Ferrari is the other driver. Nyck de Vries is the team’s reserve driver, after getting his F1 super license thanks in part of his stellar F2 finish last year. 

McLaren-Cosworth

44 Lewis Hamilton

20 Kevin Magnussen

T 40 Paul Di Resta

Just as Lewis Hamilton was looking like he could potentially get his 6th drivers title, the FIA has decided to conduct a sport-wide fantasy draft in an effort to stop his domination. Despite this, Lewis Hamilton has returned back to McLaren, after Zak Brown selected him 3rd overall in the draft. With McLaren rebuilding after years of devastating management calls since Lewis left before the 2013 season, the hope is that he turns them back into title winners. His teammate would be Kevin Magnussen, who is also returning to the team for a second stint. Hopefully, the in-house built Cosworth engine is up for the task.

Alfa Romeo

5 Sebastian Vettel

13 Pastor Maldonado

T 36 Luca Ghiotto

The newly renamed Alfa Romeo F1 team, who is now building their own engines, has managed to steal an elite level qualifying talent to spearhead their rebirth since flopping big time during the ground effect era of the early 80’s. Sebastian Vettel who failed Ferrari thanks to the massive pressures of driving for the Tifosi, has returned back to the team that gave him his F1 debut in 2007. However, in a highly debatable move, the Alfa Romeo Management decided to give the second seat to an interesting driver, Pastor Maldonado, who was out of F1 since the end of 2015 has somehow got more money to spare!

Toro Rosso-Honda

10 Pierre Gasly

23 Alexander Albon

T 53 Alexander Rossi

Entering year two of the Honda engine partnership, Toro Rosso are hoping to build on a modest start by improving driver talent across the board. Pierre Gasly stays put which is a good thing for research and development work. Alexander Albon, a relatively late addition to the draft, was selected as the team’s second driver after initially was hoping to crack into Formula E instead. As for the test driver, that role falls on a resurgent Alexander Rossi, after spending the last three years back in the United States honing on his race craft in the IndyCar championship.

Williams-Mercedes

7 Kimi Raikkonen

4 Lando Norris

T 21 Esteban Guiterrez

Things couldn’t get much worse for Claire Williams, right? After going for the extra money in 2018, which backfired them in the worst possible way. They are now going in the opposite direction, going for experience and proven quantities that can help set up and develop a car that desperately needs it. Kimi Raikkonen, an elite racing talent still at this point of his career despite losing some outright one-lap pace over the last few seasons, signs on a one-year prove it deal. For the other seat, they are going with Rookie Lando Norris the 2nd place finisher in F2 last year, who has star level qualities already.

Panthera-Honda (User Controlled by Myself)

16 Charles Leclerc

18 Lance Stroll

T 70 Naoki Yamamoto

Now for the brand-new teams that will enter Formula 1 in 2019. First up, Panthera Team Asia, who will use Customer Honda Engines. It also helps that this expansion team got the 2nd overall pick in the draft and snatched Charles Leclerc away from Alfa Romeo. He can lead this team far if given a solid baseline to begin with. The bigger issue is at the #2 seat, with Lance Stroll, now being separated from his rich dad for the first time in his racing career, after Lawrence decided to run the Racing Point team. How well can he respond to this separation? At worst, Naoki Yamamoto is a quality driver that should get some looks.

SMP-Renault

26 Daniil Kvyat

2 Stoffel Vandoorne

T 35 Sergey Sirotkin

The second of the three Brand-new teams, SMP Racing has decided to go with two drivers looking for fresh starts to their F1 careers after fizzing out with their previous teams. Daniil Kyvat, who bombed out with Red Bull and refined his career with a simulator job at Ferrari the previous year, has a new lease at life with SMP racing. The other seat will be taken by Stoffel Vandoorne, who failed to produce alongside Fernando Alonso at McLaren over the last couple years, but he should be better in a lower-pressure environment. Sergey Sirotkin, the team’s reserve, pays the bills for the Renault engines if anything.

Campos-Porsche

55 Carlos Sainz Jr.

8 Romain Grosjean

T 9 Marcus Ericsson

The last of the three Brand-New teams, Campos Racing has managed to convince Porsche to return to Formula 1 as an engine supplier only. As for their drivers entering 2019, they managed to draft Carlos Sainz Jr. with the 4th pick in the draft, and he will spearhead the charge for this young team that is looking for a role model to rally around. As for the other race driver, they are counting on Romain Grosjean to be less of a crasher in the races and more helpful with feedback during the practice sessions. If that doesn’t happen, Marcus Ericsson, a useful veteran is always welcome to try.

The 2019 Race Calendar

1 Albert Park: Melbourne, Australia

2 Bahrain International Circuit: Sakhir, Bahrain

3 Circuit de Catalunya: Barcelona, Spain

4 Monte Carlo Street Circuit: Monte Carlo, Monaco

5 Circuit Gilles Villeneuve: Montreal, Canada

6 Silverstone Circuit: Silverstone, Great Britain

7 Nurburgring: Nurburg, Germany

8 Hungaroring: Budapest, Hungary

9 Spa-Franchorchamps: Spa, Belgium

10 Monza Circuit: Monza, Italy

11 Marina Bay Street Circuit: Singapore

12 Suzuka Circuit: Suzuka, Japan

13 Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez: Mexico City, Mexico

14 Circuit of the Americas: Austin, United States

15 Interlagos Circuit: Sao Paulo, Brazil

16 Yas Marina Circuit: Abu Dhabi, UAE

The First round will be posted shortly, stay tuned!

[skaylanphear]

I guess I’m not surprised? Voltron thoughts and spoilers.

Review for season 7: Eh?

Honestly, I don’t understand how Voltron can be so well-written one season and so poorly written the next. I think season 7 was worse than season 4. I haven’t yet watched a season where I was concocting my review before I was finished watching, but I was honestly waiting for it to end by the time I was halfway through. 

I didn’t know I could be bored through an entire season. 

Like, I was literally just waiting for the end, hoping for something amazing to happen. I was literally like “wow, maybe all the paladins will die and then they won’t have to be subjected to poor writing like this anymore.” 

I just... I don’t get it. Season’s 5 and 6 were great. So what is this pile of shit? 

The first half is basically filler episodes full of stupid idiotic antics and literal fun-poking at Lance that is never addressed. I mean, he was literally called dumb over and over and over again and it was never addressed again. I mean, he was hardly in the season, frankly. 

Keith was... Keith was an asshole. I mean, Lance is generally annoying, but this hit whole new levels of annoying, and Keith was an asshole to him the whole time even when Lance was being nice to him and trying his best. 

Hunk’s arc... wasn’t an arc at all. They gave us a snippet of character recognition in the beginning and then a start to some kind of arc that was eventually not realized for Hunk on a personal level because it was taken over by these overly elaborate battles that I couldn’t even tell you about despite the fact that I just watched it. 

Pidge was... there. Though her father got the most airtime out of everyone. 

Allura was also around, but her character got nothing aside from some shoehorned in crush she now has on Lance? Despite the fact that he’s been basically useless the entire season and done nothing to change her opinion of him? Despite the fact that Allura is just as exasperated as Keith is with Lance most of the time? 

I mean, I love Lance. I love how he started and I love what he could be, but he’s annoying as fuck due to lack of development and it makes no sense that Allura would have feelings for him now. I’m down for some Allurance if it’s written well, but this was exactly what I was afraid of--Allurance being poorly written, Allura magically developing feelings for Lance, and Lance being the “nice guy” who somehow gets the girl despite that making no logical sense. 

And I am still baffled over why Keith was such an asshole to Lance the whole time. That bullshit about how Lance better not miss his shots, as if Keith and Lance didn’t fight back to back through season three. It’s bullshit and an insult to both their characters. 

And don’t even get me started on the Adam and Shiro thing. We didn’t even get to meet Adam before he fucking died, so thank you Voltron for doing as all media does and killing off your LGBT rep, and in record time too, btw. Instead of getting, at the very least, half an episode dedicated to their story, we got a whole bunch of Shallura stuff that doesn’t even make any sense because Allura likes Lance now? For some reason? 

The only moment that stands out to me was when Hunk and Keith had their little heart to heart, but even that seemed forced because it was like the writers were just “oh, Hunk needs a moment because we don’t know how to write his character so we’ll just shove this stuff in here about his parents despite the fact that it’ll never go anywhere.” 

Oh yeah, and the other moment I remember--when the Atlas somehow magically turned into a giant fucking robot. Because I literally said, out loud, “well that’s fucking stupid.” The hell? Humans aren’t alteans. The Atlas was inspired by altean tech, but it was not made using alchemy. It was created by humans, who have no magical inklings. Are you telling me the power of Shiro and the castle-ship crystal just... transformed it? Because, again, that’s fucking stupid. Also, the Atlas’ design is... not good. And it looks really, really dumb as a robot. 

But moving on. What the hell was up with Acxa? So she... changed sides, alright, and has a crush on Keith? I still don’t think that’s the case since she showed up at his Dad’s grave at the end, but it’s still poorly put together. 

A lot of which just comes down to how poorly written this season was. I mean... the writers literally did... just about everything you’re NOT supposed to do. 

There was no emotional weight because none of the characters interacted in a personal manner, aside from Keith and Hunk for two seconds and then Keith being an asshole, again, when they were stranded in space. We see Lance’s family, but we don’t meet them. The only one we do meet is Veronica and since we didn’t learn anything about her and Lance’s relationship or history, I literally couldn’t care less about her. Keith’s mom fucking leaves, which she said she would never do, which undos that nice little character bit. Hunk never actually rescues his family, they’re just... free as a result of... fighting? Pidge is just there, whatever, we hardly see her interact with her mom. Allura and Coran do basically nothing. There’s no one there to welcome Shiro back. Shiro, who got to fight Sendak and, yet again, take spotlight from what could have been an epic moment for another character before, again, being rescued by Keith. 

And then, we get half a season introducing us to characters we don’t know, doing stuff we don’t care about, making plots and battle plans far more complicated than they have to be just to show off these character that I don’t care about. The only new character I cared about seeing--because he had a personal connection to one of the main characters--died two minutes after being introduced in a fight that meant nothing. RIP Adam. 

I literally don’t care about any of the new pilots and they took up, like, a third of the season. They were cool at first until their pointless airtime quickly came to overlap that which could have been used to develop the characters we already love. 

The entire season was plot driven instead if character driven, because the main characters hardly felt like they were in it. Much like when the paladins were piloting the lions while being held prisoner, their minds and bodies felt like they were separated. We watched their bodies, but we didn’t get a whole lot else. 

AND THEN the end was filled with fucking mcguffins that were downright laughable. Sendak is killed by Keith, because apparently Keith and Shiro get to do everything cool, and then some random-ass robot with no ties to the season shows up. Oh, it’a Haggar? Okay. But we don’t know anything about it? Alright. More powerful than anything yet faced despite the fact that the battle against Lotor’s giant robot was way more intense? Sure thing. So now we’ve got two giant robots, again. Only for some stupid-ass third one to show up that is so huge you can’t take it seriously. It comes in and basically does nothing, before our paladins make a sacrifice that, really, doesn’t even matter because there’s no emotional investment in what they’re doing. They might die? Well maybe that would be more exciting than the last bore-fest I just spent 6 hours watching. 

It’s like they don’t know how to develop their characters, so they’ve just decided to stop and instead shove as many giant robots into our faces as possible. And try and distract us with love stories that have no weight because they have no development, rhyme, or reason. 

It’s the worst season I’ve watched yet. I was ready to go back to bed halfway through. I kept waiting for something, anything, character-wise to happen and instead all we got were a bunch of dumb robot fights that didn’t mean anything. 

The reason the fight with Lotor was so weighted was because of his and Allura’s background and his past. The reason the fight between Shiro and Keith was so weighted was because of their history. 

We got none of that. Veronica almost died, like, twice and I was like “whatever” because I know nothing about her and I’ve barely seen Lance around anyway. 

And I still do not understand why Keith was such a fucking asshole? It’s so out of character! I don’t... Ugh!

And all the queerbaiting from all the different sources from creators to Netflix, only to leave us high and dry on everything. If someone were watching this show without the assistance of things the creators have said, no one would realize Adam and Shiro were an item. It wasn’t explicit. They could have been best friends or brothers or literally anything. 

I just... I don’t understand how it could be so poorly executed. No wonder they want to finish Voltron this year--get it over with if this is what we have to look forward to. Lance and Allura can get married despite having little to nothing in common and having no development within their relationship. Throw Keith and Acxa together because that’s even better than Lance and Allura. The most they have in common is a knack for saving one another, let alone any personal interests. 

And don’t even bother with Lance’s family. We don’t know them, so they might as well not exist. Let’s make Commander Holt and Pidge’s family the main characters--they’re clearly the most important family unit aside from Keith and Shiro. Keith and Shiro, who do the same thing every single season. If I was a Sheith shipper, I’d be pretty bored at this point, personally. They have as little development as everyone else. 

Literally everything about it was either underdeveloped, boring, filler, mcguffin, or other characters that literally no one cares about. The high ranked lady dies? I don’t care, she was annoying the whole time, why are we dedicating so much time to her death? 

And why the hell was the entire season based around defending Earth? The paladins defend planets all the fucking time. I get that it’s Earth and we’re supposed to feel personally connected, but I didn’t see settings that would illicit an emotional response. We hardly saw any of the humans that were captured. It might as well have been another planet. Yeah, I wanted Earth to be attacked, but I didn’t want the entire season to be focused on defending it. That’s just... 

It’s everything I’ve said above, that’s what it is. 

They said a lot of people would be leaving the show after this season, as if something huge would happen that would make the fandom angry and cause people to leave. 

But that’s not why people will leave the show. They’ll leave it because it was poorly written, made promises it couldn’t keep, and kept the characters going in circles or even going out of character for no defensible reason.   

And that’s not something to be toting around as though to be proud of it. As if you made some hard decision that was going to anger your fans. You think ships are going to break up your fanbase? If you wrote them well, that wouldn’t happen. If you wrote a good story, people would stick around for that no matter the ships. Ships aren’t the problem here and they’re definitely not what’s going to have people leaving the show. 

What’s going to have people leaving the show is that this whole season was horrible on every level, ships aside.     

What a waste.

[jbuffyangel]

Undeserved Forgiveness: Arrow 7x18 Review (Lost Canary)

After seven years and 150 episodes (yes, I math’d it) Arrow has finally paid off a L*urel L*ance storyline in a way that makes sense and feels earned.

Let’s dig in…

Olicity

Sometimes the Arrow writers are so obtuse about their audience it boggles my mind. Then there are other times when they are so self aware I can’t help but laugh. “Lost Canary” is one of those self aware moment. It’s almost as if the writers said to themselves, “Okay. This episode is gonna be a lot about birds so we better give the audience some Olicity goodies to keep them happy.”

Smart move.

Arrow has to ship the boys off somewhere in order to have their all girls episode. Rene is off with Zoe on a school field trip while Oliver and Diggle try to find the person who killed Emiko’s mother, so they can convince her not to be evil. Or something? I think? It boils down to a interrogation of a Longbow Hunter. Yeah, remember the Longbow Hunters? Who knew they were still a thing? Not me. 

It’s kind of fantastic all the guys are stuck with monumentally crappy storylines while the ladies have their moment in the sun. Ah the gloriousness of reversing gender roles.

Anywho, Oliver is going to leave Felicity which means WE GET WORRIED DADDY! 

Oliver begs Felicity to take it easy. 

Pffft, it’s like he’s never watched Arrow before. Dude, know your genre. 

Felicity promises she’s going Netflix and chill. Oh girl, you totes just jinxed it.

And then it happens. Oliver rubs his stomach and says...

Source: olicitygifs 

April 15, 2019 will hence forth be known as Precious Cargo Day in the Olicity fandom. We shall drink and sing in merriment while binge watching Olicity moments in celebration of this blessed day. For this is the day fan fiction came to life.

We’re five minutes and twelve seconds into this episode and I already think it’s fantastic.

After Oliver returns from his Longbow Hunter thing (Seriously don’t ask me what happened)

and Felicity returns from saving a soul and giving Earth 2 a hero to fight for them, our wonderfully stable and unproblematic married couple cuddle on the couch. Honestly, I don’t understand why Olicity snuggling and watching Netflix isn’t a hit show? It’s Emmy award winning entertainment. 

Source: olicitygifs 

Felicity was away from Oliver for a day and she practically ran into her husband’s arms, so I really don’t know how homegirl is gonna do twenty years without him. It hurts to think about, so let’s focus on the happy. 

Source: olicitygifs 

Oliver wants to order whatever Felicity is craving because he’s determined to be fictional perfection so no one can have realistic expectations of non fictional men. Felicity informs him L*urel is going back to Earth 2. He doesn’t care. I cannot describe to you how much Oliver Queen doesn’t care about any version of L*urel L*ance. 

Once again I reflect upon the road we have traveled my friends. I don’t know how we got here, but our destination is glorious.

Worried Daddy is far more concerned that Felicity didn’t take it easy as she promised, but no worries the Green Arrow is here! 

Oliver promises to take care of Felicity and then promptly falls asleep on her shoulder because he’s so exhausted. 

Yup, that pretty much sums up the first trimester right there. You’re pregnant but you’re husband is the exhausted one.

She finagles a foot rub out of half asleep Oliver and they both collapse. MAX DOMESTICITY ACHIEVED. 

Source: olicitygifs

Honestly, the show could have ended right here. I’d be thrilled.

Felicity Smoak and Canary Corp.

Yes, that’s the official title of the episode. Don’t @ me. Arrow has tried this Birds of Prey thing before. Remember Helena, L*urel and Sara in Season 2? Yeah, neither do I and why? BECAUSE IT DIDN’T HAVE FELICITY IN IT. Too bitter? 

The Felicity Smoak/Oracle similarities were not lost on the Arrow writers and it’s clear they tried to adopt the moniker for our girl’s codename, but were shot down by the DC brass. Overwatch it is then and, as usual when it comes to Felicity Smoak and Emily Bett Rickards, she has made it her own.

This is Emily’s last season and therefore Arrow’s last chance to do a Birds of Prey themed episode with Felicity Smoak at the helm. Boy, they did not waste the opportunity. Thank goodness too because that would have been a real bummer. 

“Lost Canary” is full on girl power. Arrow has many female characters, but the storylines are dominated by the men. It’s not a shocker. The main character is male. The writing staff I believe has been male dominated until a shake up this season. That’s not to say the male writers haven’t crafted a fantastic show with some amazing female characters – Felicity Smoak being at the top of the list. However, this show is long over due for the spotlight to shine on the female characters, actresses and writers.  

Representation means hearing the voices of the marginalized, but “Lost Canary” is not simply Arrow ticking a box. Nor did the writers pad the episode with trite and insulting dialogue like...

(I will forever side eye The Flush for that one.) 

No, “Lost Canary” is steeped in big life questions as it addresses the season theme of redemption head on. Each character has her own perspective on Bl*ck S*ren and redemption as a whole. Each character is given ample screen time to voice her perspective as the women debate the best way to handle Bl*ck S*ren’s recent downward spiral… or perhaps it’s a stagnant upward spiral. The point is the women are written like the multi faceted characters they are. WOULD WONDERS EVER CEASE?

Let the redemption debate commence.

Source: dcmultiverse 

Bl*ck S*ren is back in the evil business. See, you can tell because of the all leather, black lipstick, cloak, tacky techno music and the sashay walk KC ripped off from Nina Dobrev. 

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

This is what I like to call an “Everything but the kitchen sink” visual trope. Oh hell, the kitchen sink was there too.

Bl*ck S*ren chucks the three piece power suits, with the shoulder pads that can fly her to Hong Kong, in favor of a more diabolical ensemble to convey her inner turmoil. The subtext is pretty much text. Arrow hammering away at it should be a monumentally huge tip off for where Bl*ck S*ren’s character is going.  

The surprise isn’t so much where Arrow is going with this character, but rather in how they get there.

Admittedly, I struggled with E1 L*urel L*ance. I couldn’t stand her romance with Oliver, couldn’t keep up with her flip flopping personality, grew tired of her blaming everyone but herself, couldn’t forgive her for Tommy, hated her disdainful treatment of Felicity, and found her to be a insufferable pain in the ass, which she compounded by becoming a drunken, insufferable pain in the ass. 

Whew. Season 1 and Season 2 were rough.

I had one bright and shining hope for this character – her Bl*ck C*nary storyline. It was a colossal disappointment. 

Not even my deep love for the Lance sisters could save my investment in L*urel and I was overjoyed when Arrow killed her. It remains one of the best creative decisions this show ever made.

Regardless of the reasons for KC’s return (and there are reasons my friends), the writers smartly chose not to resurrect L*urel. 

No need to bring back that mess. Instead, they started over with some doppelganger hijinks and crafted Evil L*urel aka Bl*ck S*ren from Earth 2. 

It turns out Evil L*urel is a hell of a lot more fun than Saint L*urel. The character plays to KC’s acting strengths and she didn’t impede on Dinah Drake’s storyline as Bl*ck C*nary. Well, not much.

But the dramatic linchpin in Bl*ck S*ren’s character is that she’s not L*urel.  Yes, she looks and sounds like the L*urel L*ance Team Arrow loved and lost, but no amount of time would ever make this woman into a replica of the one who died. This is a good thing because the woman Oliver Queen dedicated that ridiculous statue to was a hindrance to the story.

L*urel’s Season 6 arc was infuriating primarily because they reduced a meta human to a helpless victim. The writers shredded Quentin Lance’s character as he pursued his deeply unhealthy obsession with resurrecting his dead daughter through an entirely different human being. Let us never speak of it again.

Season 7 is a vast improvement. The good/evil push/pull remains the dramatic well the writers drink from, but instead of cramming old L*urel down Bl*ck S*ren’s throat they allowed her character to breathe. The fact she was different from L*urel is what made her interesting. Arrow didn’t run from it. They embraced it. And they paired her with an unlikely partner.

Felicity Smoak.

Bl*ck S*ren’s willingness to cross lines, including murder, was a necessary evil because Felicity’s husband was trapped inside the system. She needed help from someone with access and who wouldn’t be afraid to go over the line to get the job done. Suddenly, being evil doppelganger playing pretend lawyer was massive pro. 

Bl*ck S*ren’s a sardonic wit and glowering demeanor made the perfect straight woman to Felicity Smoak’s ball of sunshine. 

Except, Felicity wasn’t a ball of sunshine and more often than not L*urel was stopping her from going too far.  

The two women worked in tandem as they questioned their morality and what defines good and evil. The ebb and flow of light and dark allowed Felicity and L*urel to see each other differently. 

This sparked understanding, respect and finally compassion.  Their interactions felt more honest than anything that transpired between E1 L*urel and Felicity and as a result their friendship was more believable.

I’ve enjoyed the good/evil/push/pull dynamic that’s made up the majority of Bl*ck S*ren’s arc this season because it was fairly even handed. When L*urel tipped too far in one direction they would shift her the other way. Every time L*urel helped Felicity with Oliver’s case or pulled her back from the ledge, she would follow it up with almost murdering someone. 

Bl*ck S*ren’s instinct in almost any given scenario was to kill first and ask questions later. It flew in the face of the straight laced, law abiding DA image she cultivated by stealing E1 L*urel L*ance’s identity. The writers did this deliberately because everything that made Bl*ck S*ren “evil” is still there even as she tried emulating Quentin Lance’s dearly departed L*urel.

But eventually the writers need to pick a lane. Arrow has two choices – keep Bl*ck S*ren evil or redeem her.  It’s kind of a like a love triangle. You can play with the back and forth for awhile, but eventually the writers need to make a decision. Otherwise the story loses any emotional authenticity.

The real shock of “Lost Canary” is how the writers present both sides of the argument. It’s so fair and logical. A L*urel L*ance centric episode is making sense. Talk about feeling like a fish out of water.

Dinah and Felicity are diametrically opposed when it comes to who Bl*ck S*ren is and if she can be redeemed.  The argument boils down to nature versus nurture, but how Felicity and Dinah arrive at their individual conclusion fits not only within the scope of their own storylines, but within L*urel’s as well.

Dinah is nature.  She firmly believes L*urel is an irredeemable killer and all efforts to save her are for naught because a killer is who she is. Dinah issues a warrant for L*urel’s arrest and believes she killed Diaz. I’ve been loudly advocating for some jail time for L*urel, but I didn’t really expect Arrow to go there. I’m not that lucky. A warrant for her arrest and L*urel on the run is close enough. 

It’s understandable why Dinah believes Bl*ck S*ren is a lost cause. She witnessed her boyfriend’s murder at L*urel’s hand and a tearful apology doesn’t erase what happened. 

Dinah has also been there any time L*urel has decided to murder someone, typically out of frustration, anger or to protect her own self interests.  She would pull L*urel back from the ledge, but it’s difficult for her to believe BS was ever on the wagon when she so frequently fell off it.

Dinah is not wrong. L*urel is a murderer. Murder is L*urel’s default position whenever the going is rough, which is exactly what is happening now. Yes, L*urel is wrongly accused of murder, but let us not forget all the murders she did commit and has yet to pay for.  Dinah didn’t love Bl*ck S*ren’s approach when it came to interrogating criminals, but the answer to these problems is not a crime spree.

Felicity is nurture. In the beginning, Felicity did not see Bl*ck S*ren as anything but criminal pretending to be her dead friend. She emotionally manipulated people and was reaping all the benefits of E1 L*urel’s life. 

But the hubby was in the slammer and Felicity needed a lawyer, fake or real it didn’t matter. Desperate times call for desperate measures. L*urel was one of the only people to have Felicity’s back and their partnership grew into real friendship.  Felicity has been the beneficiary of L*urel’s kindness and love, so she knows without a doubt there is good but it needs to be encouraged.

Felicity is so ardent in her belief that she bizarrely blames herself for L*urel’s crime spree because she wasn’t a good enough friend. 

Let’s just pretend that’s true for a second (even though it’s not). The max penalty Felicity could incur would be paying for drinks some night. But L*urel tries to blow up Felicity and HER BABY.  I feel safe categorizing that as an insane overreaction.

The truth is Felicity has been an amazing friend to L*urel and she continues to be throughout the episode. She proves to Dinah that L*urel has been framed by Emiko for Diaz’s murder. Felicity offers L*urel her support even after she goes on a crime spree.

L*urel: Oliver’s sister did me a favor because I was really sick and tired of pretending to be someone I’m not. Plus, no one believed it any way.

Felicity: I did! Look, what happened to you wasn’t fair. You were accused of murder, you lost your job, Dinah didn’t have your back I get it. You got a bucket load of bad news, but you are not Bl*ck S*ren. Not anymore.

L*urel: That’s funny I used to believe that too.

Felicity: Think of the good you’ve done L*urel. Think of honoring Quentin!

L*urel: Quentin is dead. Nobody cares about Quentin. He only wanted his daughter back.

Felicity: That is not true.

Well… far be it from me to disagree with my Queen but it is kind of true. This is a wonderfully impassioned speech even if I don’t agree with all of Felicity’s arguments. Sadly L*urel pretty much spits in Felicity’s face and is generally undeserving of all this support and understanding.

Felicity and Dinah have it out after L*urel tries to blow them up. Felicity continues to blame herself for this Bl*ck S*ren spiral whereas Dinah is firmly entrenched in the “Bl*ck S*ren Is a Murderer” camp.  Felicity calls Dinah out on her hypocrisy when she boasts in a fit of moral superiority that she could have gone down the same road as L*urel, but didn’t. 

Felicity accurately points out that the reason Dinah didn’t go down the same road was because she had the team. Dinah had friends who loved and supported her even when she didn’t deserve it.

Felicity ain’t wrong! I forgot Dinah is a murderer too. Yes, there is a big difference between murdering bad people versus murdering good people, but it doesn’t change the fact that Dinah has also taken lives. 

While we’re on the subject on Vinnie, she also lied to the team about her relationship with him 

and went on a crazy revenge bender after Bl*ck S*ren murdered him. 

Dinah was in the Newbie tantrum up to her elbows, which included assaulting OTA when they refused to hand over Bl*ck S*ren.

Dinah was forgiven for all of these transgressions and welcomed back to the team with open arms without even apologizing. Now she’s the captain of the police force and a deputized vigilante. All of which would have never happened without Oliver Queen and Team Arrow. 

Dinah was forgiven when she didn’t deserve it. 

It was the second chance she needed to become someone who is deserving of that forgiveness. 

(We can argue the semantics of whether or not Dinah really has become someone worthy of Oliver and Felicity’s love and trust another day. For the sake of this episode let’s just roll with it.)

Dinah continues to argue that even if all of that is true (WHICH IT IS HONEYCAKES) it doesn’t apply to L*urel because she doesn’t want a second chance. She never did. Felicity pushes back once again and argues the opposite. She thinks L*urel wants a second chance more than anyone else and didn’t realize it until it was already gone.

WOW. What a scene. It’s so invigorating to see two female characters argue passionately about something that has nothing to do with a man. This debate is about friendship, faith and forgiveness. It’s about the true meaning of redemption, who deserves it, and who decides who deserves it. Felicity and Dinah are arguing about their fundamental beliefs and challenging one another’s morality.

Source:  hollandrooden

Dinah gave L*urel a chance and she blew it, so enough is enough. Felicity feels L*urel was succeeding at that second chance until she was wrongly accused. Sometimes people need several chances to get it right. I completely understand both Dinah and Felicity’s positions, which is how you know it’s a great storyline. If you can see both sides of the coin then the writers are mining drama with serious depth.

Both women are right and both are wrong. We’ve been exploring Bl*ck S*ren’s redemption since Season 5, but “Lost Canary” feels like the first honest conversation being had about it. I understand Dinah’s frustration because they are my frustrations. 

I do not believe throwing on a three piece suit, playing lawyer, living someone else’s life and enjoying all the benefits someone else earned qualifies as redemption. Pretending to be E1 L*urel L*ance has protected Bl*ck S*ren from facing justice for any of her crimes. While I appreciate she’s helped put criminals away, freed Oliver Queen, and is a good friend to Felicity Smoak, it does not even out the cosmic scales when compared to the evil she has committed.

Bl*ck S*ren is a murderer. She was coddled by Quentin Lance because she looks like his dead daughter. Felicity reaches out again and again and Bl*ck S*ren continually rejects her love, support and forgiveness. I’ve watched Bl*ck S*ren time and again head out to murder someone as a solution to whatever problem she’s trying to solve. I’ve watched both Dinah and Felicity stop L*urel from committing those murders. 

L*urel stopped because she was caught – not because she thinks murder is wrong. She doesn’t express remorse for wanting to kill someone either. She typically has a snippy remark for Dinah and Felicity as she slinks away from the scene of her premeditated murder.

Unfortunately, the writers are treating Bl*ck S*ren’s penchant to murder the same as E1 L*urel’s alcoholism. Felicity and Dinah tell Bl*ck S*ren to put down the drink and convince her to stay on the wagon. But we aren’t talking about booze. Bl*ck S*ren’s addiction is killing people. NOT. THE. SAME. THING. I get it, Dinah. Trust me.

Then there’s Felicity Smoak. She sees the best in Bl*ck S*ren even when she’s at her worst. Primarily because Bl*ck S*ren saw Felicity at her worst and pulled her back from the brink. 

Felicity is not a killer because Bl*ck S*ren offered her hope.  So, it’s understandable why Felicity refuses to abandon her friend especially now.

But that’s not all of it. Sure, BS was a good friend to Felicity, but that’s not why she is standing by her. The truth is Felicity Smoak is a really good person. She is intensely compassionate, loyal and supportive. Felicity sees the best in people and her ability to pull that light from those she loves is unparalleled. Nearly every character in the Arrowverse has benefited from Felicity’s steadfast encouragement.

I know this aspect of the character often frustrates some people. Some believe Felicity is used to prop up other characters. Her character suffers because she’s constantly launching another superhero. 

The fastest way to cultivate a positive fan response to a new character is to filter that character through Felicity Smoak. She represents the audience opinions more often than not. Her popularity has a way of spilling over to problematic characters and it casts them in a more positive light. I don’t deny Arrow employs this practice often.

But I never saw it as a negative. Felicity is the believer. It’s what I love most about her.  Diggle is the mind (moral compass) and Oliver is the soul, but Felicity is the heart. She is the hero of heroes.

L*urel L*ance was a wildly problematic character. The writers never quite knew what to do with her and they could never really settle on a personality with a defined set of characteristics. 

We never knew what version of L*urel we were going to get week to week. 

The writers struggled with her even more after rerouting the central romance away from Laurel to Felicity.  Her storylines never seemed to get the necessary focus they required even though it felt like we spent an inordinate amount of time on L*urel. Watching Arrow develop her character was a lot like running in place, as @callistawolf​ once said.

Her messy history with Oliver also seemed to be the elephant in the room when it came to any friendship with Felicity. There’s never any discussion around the events of the Season 2 finale. Felicity wondered if Oliver’s “I love you” was real and I’m sure L*urel had some questions too.  

Did she think it was all a ruse to save her life or did she simply accept that Oliver was really in love with Felicity? It seems like the latter although it’s never actually addressed. If there was any confusion on L*urel’s part I guess 3x01 cleared it up because the only thing on Oliver’s mind was Felicity Megan Smoak.

Arrow likes to pretend L*uriver never happened and it is completely understandable. It’s a bad dream we’d all like to forget, 

but L*urel’s central connection to the team remained an ex boyfriend she didn’t like very much. I appreciate the show wanting to define a relationship between Felicity and L*urel outside of Oliver, but ignoring L*urel’s romantic history with him didn’t feel very honest.

Perhaps their friendship would have been more believable if the writers set aside time for L*urel and Felicity to bond outside of Team Arrow, but they didn’t. L*urel just shows up in the foundry and starts barking orders. 

Even Felicity questioned their relationship status. Girl, same. They had moments of kindness, but we never saw them work as partners or enjoy each other as friends like Felicity and Bl*ck S*ren. 

In fact, one of the most common arguments against L*urel being in the grave was that Felicity would never be that upset because she wasn’t that close to L*urel. HA! A lot of L*urel’s character was built upon telling rather than showing and her friendship with Felicity is one of the many areas the writers made that very frequent mistake.

The writers did not make that same mistake with Bl*ck S*ren. They gave her friendship with Felicity time to develop. They started off as enemies, but as circumstances evolved so did their relationship. 

Bizarrely, this is why Bl*ck S*ren’s and Felicity’s friendship feels more honest and earned than anything Felicity had with E1 L*urel L*ance. Bl*ck S*ren’s connection to Team Arrow is through Felicity. She has absolutely nothing to do with Oliver Queen and IT’S FANTASTIC. 

The writers tried to connect L*urel through Oliver for four years, but he was never the solution. Felicity is.

Felicity is the solution because she has a big bandwidth when it comes to forgiveness. No one has benefited more from it than Oliver Queen. Murder isn’t a deal breaker for Felicity. She fell in love with Oliver when he was dropping bodies. She barely blinked at Sara’s assassin history. Diggle murdered his own brother and I don’t think Felicity even commented on it. Remember when Roy thought he killed Sara? Who did he tell first? Felicity. She was freaked but calm. Dinah was a murderer and Felicity welcomed her onto the team with open arms. Rene pulled a gun on her and it was totally cool. I mean, sweet mother of Moses she was friends with Curtis Holt and tolerated his mansplaining and misogynistic bullshit, which says it all. 

So is it really a shock Felicity is ride or die when it comes to Bl*ck S*ren? No. I identify with Dinah’s frustrations, but recognize Felicity is on the higher road. Simply put, Felicity Smoak is a better person than me. The belief she is giving Bl*ck S*ren is no different than the belief she gave to Oliver or Sara.  

So, she’s challenging me as well. I cannot cheer Felicity on when she offers unconditional love to Oliver or Sara or John, but admonish her when she offers the same to L*urel L*ance. Sara was an assassin and I didn’t demand a prison sentence for her.

That said, I see one massive difference between Bl*ck S*ren and Oliver Queen. Oliver was remorseful about his past and crippled with guilt. He didn’t need additional punishment because he was already punishing himself enough. Oliver also spent five years in hell, lost nearly everyone he’s ever loved and is constantly sacrificing his happiness for the greater good. 

His redemptive journey is wildly different from Bl*ck S*ren’s. Oliver didn’t get to just toss on a nice suit and call it a day. And he killed bad people!!! So, I maybe I can’t hold Bl*ck S*ren to a higher standard than other characters I love, but I can damn well hold her to the same standard. 

So, is L*urel remorseful?

We don’t have to pick between Felicity and Dinah because it is possible to hold L*urel accountable and be compassionate. This is where Sara comes in.

Source: canarygifs

I have been incredibly frustrated with how Arrow has used Sara in the past when she’s come back as a guest star. I’m still ticked she didn’t get a goodbye scene with Quentin. The Sara I know on Legends isn’t always the same on Arrow, but “Lost Canary” is different. The writers give Sara her due and she reflects on her journey in a way she’s been allowed to before.

Everyone knows I’m a huge Lance sisters fan. The one saving grace in L*urel’s Season 2 storyline was when it stopped being about her relationship with Oliver and she began to focus on repairing her relationship with Sara. 

I bought into the Bl*ck C*nary storyline in Season 3 because I believed Sara’s death was a life altering catalytic event for L*urel.  “The Calm” remains my favorite L*urel L*ance episode and I will always believe Sara is her great love and vice versus. We all need something or someone to live for and that love doesn’t always have to be romantic in nature.

So, Sara coming back to town to protect her sister’s good name and offer some wisdom to Bl*ck S*ren made a lot of sense to me. Sara is the one who pieces together that maybe failing to kill Felicity and Dinah wasn’t a mistake after all. She uses her sisterly intuition and finds Bl*ck S*ren at Quentin’s grave.

Source: canarygifs 

Sara gives it to L*urel straight in an EPIC speech. She owns all her past mistakes. Sara cheated with her sister’s boyfriend, let her family believe she was dead and then became an assassin. 

Yuuuup. Sara Lance history sure is colorful! Each one of these errors in judgment is an unforgivable offense. And yet, L*urel found a way to forgive Sara. Well, after she blamed her for absolutely everything that went wrong in her and boozed her way through the liquor cabinet, but let’s not get bogged down in the details.

This remains my favorite Lance sister scene of all time because L*urel does not go to Sara offering forgiveness. No, L*urel comes to Sara begging for forgiveness. Despite everything she’d done and everything she suffered, Sara survived whereas L*urel was crippled by her pain. These two women found their way out of the dark together. Sara’s forgiveness put L*urel on a path to sobriety. L*urel’s forgiveness put Sara on a path to heroism. Neither of them truly deserved forgiveness for what they had done, but that’s not the point of forgiveness is it?

It was L*urel’s love, not Oliver’s that gave Sara the second chance she needed. Maybe Sara didn’t deserve forgiveness when L*urel gave it, but it sparked the beginning of her journey towards someone who did.  Sara is the Original Canary, the captain of a time traveling superhero squad and the one and ONLY White Canary. She offers the wisdom of her life experience to help Bl*ck S*ren.

Source: canarygifs 

 She also calls Bl*ck S*ren out on her bullshit. She tried to be a hero for six months. TRYING? SIX MONTHS? She thinks that evens the score for years and years of mayhem, theft and murder? 

We’re supposed to feel sorry for BS after she’s spent six months living in a comfortable apartment and getting paid well to do a job she didn’t earn.

Great, she helped Oliver out of prison. She also tried to kill him multiple times, so they aren’t exactly equal yet. When Sara tried to quit the murder business a lethal team of assassins came after her and she had to commit suicide to get them to leave her alone. But L*urel knows the horror of the Balmain double breasted, wool blend jacket. Poor baby.

I forgot she was accused of working with Diaz and lost her job. Yeah, except she did work with Diaz and SHE IS NOT A LAWYER SO SHE SHOULD LOSE HER JOB. 

Then there’s being falsely accused of Diaz’s murder. Hmmm… who killed Vinnie again? L*urel being falsely accused of ONE murder compared to the multiple homicides she has committed and has yet to pay for in any real or substantial way does not equate. Yet, here she is with a stick up her ass and expecting everyone to feel sorry for her. You know, I take it back. She really is like E1 L*urel sometimes.

Sara explains what real redemption is and it is my favorite line of the episode.

Source: canarygifs

She’s right. Redemption is not a light switch that can be flipped on. L*urel can’t do a couple nice things and say, “TA DA! I AM REDEEMED!” It’s not how it works. There’s no endgame here. This is something L*urel needs work at for the rest of her life. She needs to fight every day to be a person worthy of forgiveness. When L*urel falls down, or life doesn’t go her way, she can’t throw an evil temper tantrum.

A real hero isn’t looking for a reward. A real hero doesn’t look for someone else to blame. A real hero doesn’t keep score. A real hero sacrifices and fights the good fight because it is the right thing to do. Does Bl*ck S*ren qualify? 

No. She is not a hero yet. She is undeserving of the love, compassion and forgiveness Sara and Felicity are offering her.

But we all are undeserving of forgiveness. We are all broken in some way. We all do or say hurtful things. Each of us will either do something unforgivable or feel like we’ve done something unforgivable. What makes the difference in our life is having someone who loves us despite our sins. 

We can see the people who have been loved when they are unlovable and those who have not when we look at the landscape of humanity. Sometimes we need a push in the right direction when we are at a crossroads, but not all of us have someone in our life who loves us enough to give one. The ones who do are blessed.

Bl*ck S*ren’s sins are deeply evil. She has dug herself a very large, dark hole. L*urel stopped Felicity from falling down the same hole because she knows there’s nothing but pain, emptiness and loneliness at the bottom. She knows how to stop someone from falling in, but L*urel does not know how to climb out. Bl*ck S*ren is stuck in a self destructive cycle. Felicity fundamentally believes every human being is redeemable if they want redemption, but some need more of a push than others.

The truth is we all need help out of the darkness. We all need someone to love us unconditionally. We all need someone reach down into the hole and offer a hand. But our redemption remains in our hands. It’s not enough for someone to reach out. We have to reach back.

All the evil hijinks boil down to a faceoff with Bl*ck S*ren and Felicity.  Felicity tells BS one last time  she believes in her, but ultimately it’s not about what she believes. It’s not about L*urel L*ance’s legacy or who Quentin wanted BS to be. This is about who Bl*ck S*ren wants to be. Free will my friends. It is a bitch.

COME ON! Nobody is killing Felicity Smoak least of all Bl*ck S*ren. L*urel is picking out china patterns in her head, so she ain’t killin’ bae. She joins Felicity and the rest of the birds and together they defeat the villain of the week. Sorry I really didn’t pay much attention to the partner.

Source: smoaktechs 

In their victory celebration, Dinah decides not to arrest Bl*ck S*ren and even comes up with a get out of jail free card excuse aka “working undercover.” A relieved Felicity tells L*urel that everything can go back to normal.

But L*urel disagrees. It is time to stop running. It is time to stop pretending to be someone she’s not. It’s time to go back to Earth 2. She has to made amends in the place where she created so much pain. I. AM. SCREAMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, it’s not a stint in the pokey, but I WILL TAKE IT. Going back to Earth 2 is the next best thing. It addresses my primary problem with L*urel’s redemptive arc and that is pretending to be someone she’s not. Being Earth 1 L*urel L*ance protected Bl*ck S*ren from all the damage she caused on Earth 2. If she really wants a shot at redemption then she has to go back to the place where everyone knows her as Bl*ck S*ren. Earth 2 is where L*urel will be forced to confront everything she’s done and accept responsibility for it. There’s no hiding, running or easy outs on Earth 2. That is the place where an honest redemptive arc can begin.

Felicity understands and gives her a parting gift – E1 L*urel’s Bl*ck C*nary suit.

Source:  nyssaalghl

It’s a beautiful full circle moment. I don’t make the rules! Felicity anoints the superheroes, assigns the names and hands out the couture! If she says L*urel should be Bl*ck C*nary on Earth 2 then L*urel is going to be Bl*ck C*nary on Earth 2. Fine with me!

L*urel meets Sara once more at Quentin’s grave. Her story always comes back to Sara no matter what version of L*urel it is. Felicity was the push, but Sara’s words lit the spark. She launched L*urel L*ance’s hero’s journey once again. Cuz see the light?!!!!

Source: canarygifs

This scene also feels like a goodbye to the Lance family. Quentin is gone, L*urel is dead, Sara is off hero-ing through time, and Bl*ck S*ren is returning to Earth 2. This isn’t the end of L*urel’s redemptive journey. It’s the beginning. But it is the first time I believe she might deserve it someday.

Source:  nyssaalghl 

FLASH FORWARD TIME!

Dinah created the Canary Network to be a support system for women, so someone always had their back. It’s a reminder to Dinah of what she failed to give Bl*ck S*ren once. It’s a whole conglomerate of leather clad ladies supporting ladies! LOOOOOOVE IT!

There is no singular Bl*ck C*nary. No one woman holds the title. It fulfills L*urel L*ance’s dying wish in a way she couldn’t even imagine at the time, which is why it is so fitting.

Unfortunately, Galaxy One massacres the network in “Lost Canary” and Dinah loses fifteen of her girls. It’s a devastating loss for Dinah, but I couldn’t help but cackle a little. Arrow never misses an opportunity to throw a little petty at the LL fandom. Oh you’re made we killed once Bl*ck C*nary? Watch us kill fifteen! How do you like them apples?!

Dinah, Felicity and Zoe want to lay low and regroup after such a big hit, but Mia is fired up and ready for pay back. 

Source: amunetblack 

Dinah tries to convince her to wait for the surviving canaries to fight back when the time is right, but Mia defiantly says...

Source: amunetblack 

It’s like they tailor made her for us fandom. Mia Smoak is perfection on every level. 

Dinah calls in some back up to keep an eye on Mia.

L*urel.

She saves Mia from some Galaxy One goons. Unfortunately, the horror show of a wig is back, but let us pray there are less buckles on the suit. The lipstick has changed from black to red so serious upgrade in that department.

Source: dcmultiverse

It’s a beautifully symbolic moment because L*urel saves Mia in an alley where a body of a dead canary is lying. It’s the same kind of alley where Sara fell to her death and launched L*urel’s Bl*ck C*nary journey. 

It’s the same kind of alley where L*urel’s journey was foreshadowed in the pilot,

but with a significant change. L*urel is no longer connected to the man in the story, but to the women.  Sara, L*urel, Felicity, Dinah, Bl*ck S*ren, Zoe and Mia all weave together in one beautiful thread. Bl*ck C*nary no longer belongs to one woman. It belongs to all of them.

The beauty of this is I don’t have to sit through another half baked Bl*ck C*nary storyline for L*urel. I trust she’s earned the suit on E2. Even better she’s still Bl*ck S*ren. This isn’t 2.0 of E1 L*urel L*nce. Hopefully, all the snarky wit, aptitude for zingers and glowering that made me fall in love with BS remains. I just needed her to stop murdering people. That’s all. All of this means I might finally have a version of L*urel L*nce that I can enjoy.

L*urel gives Mia some wisdom that screams THERE IS GOING TO BE A SPIN OFF, 

but what I loved most is L*urel is still trying every day to prove she is a hero. 

Redemption is a journey and not a destination. And undeserved forgiveness is often the beginning of that journey. Nobody knows that better than L*urel L*ance.

Stray Thoughts

#Fact. Source:  felicitysmoakgifs

Bl*ck S*ren pretending to be L*urel acts somewhat normal. She ratchets up the cheese factor when she's Bl*ck S*ren. I forgot about that.

Emily is having an A+ hair season. Really it's like a Vidal Sassoon commercial every week.

This made me emotional. Source:  olicitygifs

"Let's just call her a genius and leave it at that." Hubby is so proud of bae.

Bl*ck S*ren versus White Canary is like a heavy weight boxer fighting a chipmunk.

Felicity and Sara flirting is everything I didn’t know I need. The love triangle was centered on the wrong person in Season 2. It should have been Felicity and not Oliver. Source:  ebett

Yup. We all knew. Source:   felicitysmoakgifs

“Felicity Smoak is killing people now." Sara is my spirit animal.

Sara has seniority Dinah. It should've been you sitting it out. Respect your elder. Source:  canarygifs

The great evil of this episode is the grommet sweater. We must protect the actresses from this atrocity because it's spreading. 

This  was cute. Source: hollandrooden

Sara has a baby on Earth 2? I NEED THE NAME. WHERE ARE PICTURES?

Don’t tell me L*urel is not in love with Felicity. I know my truth.  Source: hollandrooden

Spit my drink out when Sara said this because it’s ridiculous. That said, Arrow continually painting Laurel as a saint is a constant reminder they are never bringing her back. the more Arrow paints Laurel as saint. Source:  danverskara

Was it snowing in the future? What was up with the weather?

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The *** in names is so the review doesn’t show up in the tag.

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