#or having no observational skills whatsoever let alone critical thought

[endiness]

can i just say how much it fucking annoys me when show haters bring up geralt punching jaskier — A COMPLETELY RANDOM STRANGER WHOM HE DID NOT FUCKING KNOW AT THE TIME (and with the circumstances under which he punched him being jaskier positively calling him "the butcher of blaviken") — as proof that the show didn't understand their friendship at all though. like what friendship. what the fuck are you talking about. they met like five fucking seconds ago! what friendship! (and how does this """logic""" work anyway when geralt was still willing to basically die for jaskier a few hours later anyway!?!?)

[kiradaxx]

Critical Care

This idea jumped into my head soon as I saw the scene with Tuvok and Janeway holding hands on the bridge in the episode Critical Care. This is definitely not a criticism of that scene because I loved it and found it hilarious and Janeway and Tuvok are bros for life. Tuvok's reaction was priceless and both actors crushed it. But I couldn't help reimagining this scene with a J/7 twist, cause, of course. So here we go, enjoy my brief, goofy J/7 rewrite of this episode's fake dating trope.

Also on AO3 here

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A powerful headache was throbbing in Janeway’s temples as she waited for the communications link to be picked up by yet another Delta Quadrant inhabitant in the long line of fruitless interviews she’d been conducting all day. Patience was a virtue she did not possess, but diplomacy she had in spades. So she’d been smiling and charming and biting her tongue down on more acerbic comments all day as she attempted to track down the scam artist who had managed to steal their doctor’s program right out from under her nose.

After hours of chasing down contacts and bouncing from one rumor to the next, from one unhelpful, frustrating source to the next, not only was Janeway tired, she was bored out of her mind. However, they had finally found a workable lead in Gar’s current girlfriend. They had just concluded a call with her husband- a sad, weepy man with little dignity left to his name. He had divulged far more information about his wife’s adultery than Janeway cared to know, but at least they had learned something to go off of. Now, they were hoping this woman could give them Gar’s actual whereabouts, rather than just tell them yet another story of how he had conned some unsuspecting soul and made off into the ether.

Janeway leaned heavily against the railing of the main command stage of her bridge, staring at the still empty view screen. Her chin rested in her right hand, her elbow on the railing, and as she stared out into space, she suppressed the urge to tap her fingers restlessly against her cheek. Waiting for the call to be picked up was about as thrilling as watching paint dry, and while she hoped for a more productive conversation this time, she wished she could be doing just about anything else at the moment.

Finally, their hail was answered, and the view screen displayed a pale woman with a large forehead of unique ridges sitting luxuriantly on a couch in what appeared to be a sunroom of some sort. Making quick work of her initial assessment of the woman and the necessary introductions, Janeway wasted no further time in explaining who they were looking for. This held little interest for the woman, though, and rather than offering any information about Gar, she instead asked how they had found her. When she was informed that her husband had given them her name, a look of vague disgust overtook the woman’s features. Janeway lamented internally as she realized the moment the woman opened her mouth that she was about to be subjected to still more details of this couple’s relationship problems.

“You’re a woman, you saw my husband with your own eyes.” Her tone carried a distinct distaste as she continued, “Overweight, depressed. You would have left him too.” A playful spark and a vapid smile lit up the woman’s face next, and she added, “Especially if you had met someone as exciting as Gar.”

Nasty comments about the man’s size or emotional state were hardly necessary, but Janeway couldn’t afford to lose this lead now. Not when they’d finally come so close to getting the scammer’s location. So for the sake of her missing crew member, once more she bit down on the inside of her cheek and held back on her criticism of the woman’s shameful attitude. She was only just able to restrain an eye roll when the woman began extolling Gar’s seductive qualities. But her day had been long and exhausting and filled with some of the most inane conversations she’d ever entertained, and when she offered a placating agreement to the woman’s assessment, she didn’t bother to muster any more enthusiasm than she would have for extensive dental work.

Chin still in her hands, posture slouched, and boredom leaching through every syllable, she said, “Yes, he’s very exciting.”

Somehow, unfathomably, this woman managed to interpret her words as genuine interest in Gar. As a threat of competition for her lover. She stiffened, growing defensive and accusative, throwing a glare through the screen while asking, “That’s why you’re looking for him, isn’t it? You want him for yourself.”

Janeway stared at her incredulously for a long moment, at once both insulted at the implication that she would be attracted to a sleeze like Gar, and baffled at how dense this woman must be to believe her lackluster agreement had constituted any actual desire.

Her patience had long ago run out, and even her dedication to diplomacy was wearing thin at this point. Her battle against the roll of her eyes continued to be hard fought, but not fully won as she felt herself blinking rapidly through her exasperation. She lifted her head off of her hand but changed little else about her posture, and replied, “I assure you I have no romantic interest in him whatsoever.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed and her shoulders remained squared, clearly still offended. “Why, not good enough for you?”

“No it’s not that, it’s just-” Janeway began to reply earnestly, but cut herself off. This was maddening, and she did finally allow herself to roll her eyes then. How did they even get this far off track, and why was she continuing this ridiculous topic? She exchanged a quick glance with Seven, who was serving a duty shift on the bridge and standing not too far from where Janeway was leaning against the rail of the main command well. The quirk of Seven's ocular implant and the amused but critical gleam in her eyes told Janeway she was not alone in finding this woman impressively asinine.

An idea occurred to her then, an absurd one. A ridiculous solution for a ridiculous problem, she supposed. She needed to get their conversation back to the matter at hand without angering Gar’s lover or drawing out this argument any further, and when she looked to the woman standing to her right, she saw a method to do just that. With an expression that made little effort to hide how unimpressed Janeway was with this whole situation, she reached her hand out expectantly towards Seven. She was completely bemused, but understood what Janeway was asking for and, albeit hesitantly, she placed her hand in the outstretched one the captain offered. Their fingers interlocked, sliding into a comfortable position without thought, and Janeway made sure to hold their hands up in clear view of the screen. She squeezed Seven’s hand in silent reassurance, and thanked the universe that she had played along without spoken question, even if she could feel Seven’s confused stare burrowing into her profile.

She intentionally allowed a little extra husk to fill her voice, a smoky lilt accompanying the suggestive look in her eyes as she said, “Gar’s not really my type, if you catch my drift.”

The woman observed them for a moment with no reaction at first, her defensive demeanor unchanged. Tom Paris turned from his position at the helm in surprise, and Harry Kim chuckled to himself while Tuvok merely lifted one eyebrow in their direction. Janeway ignored all of them; allowing herself to be embarrassed would hardly be conducive to getting the information she sought, and she didn’t have the intention of giving any of them the satisfaction. She had nothing to feel embarrassed about anyway. She was dealing with con artists, a little misdirection was necessary. After a few more seconds, she saw the understanding dawn on the alien woman, illuminating her expression. She observed them more curiously now, fixating on their joined hands and seemingly sizing them up. Her hostility deflated, and she appeared to be appeased by the insinuation that Janeway’s interests lay in a decidedly more sapphic direction.

Relieved that the ruse had worked, Janeway tried not to think too hard about the pleasant warmth suffusing her skin where her hand remained cradled by Seven’s. She hadn’t expected Seven’s touch to be quite so gentle, almost tender, and she wasn’t sure what to do with this information now that her brain was aware of it. But this was neither the time nor the place for her to feel a fluttering in her stomach that she wouldn’t want to analyze too closely even in the best of circumstances. She wasn’t actually attracted to women after all, she was simply skilled in the art of deception when the need arose. So, she pushed the thought aside and refocused.

“We have a business opportunity for Mr. Gar.” She said, resolute professionalism twice enforced now to maintain her composure. “One that will expire if we don’t find him soon.”

With all of the fight in her posture vanished, the woman released a slight sigh and finally, finally gave them Gar’s current location. “He’s on his way to the gambling tournament on Selek IV.” She paused, then in a softer tone, she added, “When you see him, tell him to hurry home.”

Janeway bit her tongue down one last time for that afternoon and refrained from saying that there was very little chance Gar considered their affair to be more than a quick romp in the sack, let alone his home. She hoped the look she gave the woman wasn’t too pity filled, but as the connection was terminated and the star filled vacuum of space retook the screen, she indulged in one last roll of her eyes. Just a small one, well earned after having had to insinuate herself even peripherally into the marital drama of several random civilians.

In the next moment, she remembered she was still holding Seven’s hand. Her skin tingled at the comforting warmth still present, and she looked to Seven with a slightly sheepish expression. Seven, for her part, was staring rather intently at Janeway, brows furrowed deep in question. Janeway was about to apologize in case she had made her uncomfortable, but the other woman spoke first.

“Are you sexually attracted to women?”

Well, at least Janeway could count on Seven not to beat around the bush. She fought the flames of embarrassment licking at her heated skin, and instead quirked her lips up in what she hoped was a confident grin.

“I was just trying to get Gar’s girlfriend to focus on the question. I needed to mislead her a little, make her think you and I were an item.”

Seven studied her another moment before replying, voice devoid of inflection. “I see.”

Janeway couldn’t shake the peculiar feeling that she had disappointed or upset Seven in some way, and she returned to her original plan to apologize. She still hadn’t let go of Seven’s hand, though she wasn’t sure why. She squeezed the hand in hers lightly, and said, “It seemed like the easiest way to get the information. I apologize if I made you uncomfortable. Thank you, for playing along.”

Seven nodded but said nothing, leaving Janeway to feel like she was still missing something. She offered Seven one more crooked smile, one more small squeeze of their hands, and finally dropped her hold on the other woman. While Seven returned to her normal work, Janeway strode over to her command chair, sinking into it with purpose. She put aside the seed of worry digging into her mind for the sake of focusing on their task. Crossing her legs and assuming her authoritative positioning, she commanded Tom to lay in a course for Selek IV. She would apologize to Seven again later if she needed to, perhaps find a way to make the offense up to her if she were still upset. But for now, she had a member of her crew to rescue.

[idrewbedraggledbreaths]

Sorting Daenerys Targaryen and Jorah Mormont with the sortinghatchats system (GoT verse)

I didn’t want to write this post before I finished my Killing Eve sortings (basically Carolyn and Konstantin), but I’m stuck with them, so I decided to revisit an old fandom instead with a new approach. My take here is possibly an outsider’s take, given that I haven’t interacted with this fandom for a while, save for a few close friends I made in it. Now, bear in mind this sorting system IS NOT the original HP system, it is simply based on it. It sorts you into two houses. Your primary is you WHY, your reason to be who you are, what you believe in. Your secondary is your HOW, the way you act and approach life. Below is a little tl;dr of what each of them are (I’m using the animal terminology that’s being used in many blogs, by the way. If you know the houses, you know what each animal is supposed to represent).

Lion primaries are intuitive and guided by their moral compass, which is very strong (doesn’t mean what they believe in is in fact good or correct) and Lion secondaries are the people who charge straight at something, regardless of whether they will come out of it unscathed or not.

Snake primaries value people. Not any person, their people. They will go to hell and earth for their people to be safe and happy, which can get kind of self destructive. Snake secondaries improvise much like Lion secondaries, but they tend to adapt to situation and shapeshift their way out of problems.

Bird primaries also value right and wrong like Lion primaries, but they build their systems with external information and observation, not from their gut feelings. That means Bird primaries change a lot with time, because their ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ change. Bird secondaries collect. Skills, tools, random knowledge, they delve deep and acquire as much of them as they can, not because things are useful, but because it’s fun.

Finally, Badger primaries are also people-persons, but their communities are much broader than a Snake primary’s. They value people, tradition, cultures and so (but not every Badger sees everyone as people, so there’s that). Badger secondaries are the hardworking types in the sense that they cultivate things, they invest in them and even become them.

You can develop models of each house according to what you find useful or what society has instilled in you, but when push come to shove, the models aren’t the real you. All of these houses can burn, meaning their essence is somehow scared away from them due to trauma, depression, societal pressures, etc. That means a Lion stops trusting their instincts, a Snake no longer feels like they’re able to protect their people or their people are better off without them, a Bird loses faith in their systems and a Badger closes themselves off from their communities and adopts a smaller circle of people. Burnt houses can look a lot like each other. For more info, check out the tags. 

Daenerys

Double Lion, no doubt (for most of the show). Dany knows what’s right, she feels it in her bones. She never tries to rationalise her decisions and she won’t usually budge, even if she is presented with a more rational plan. None of her advisors have really convinced her to do anything, they might have pushed her to do what they wanted, but if she had her way, Daenerys would only ever listen to her own heart. She needs people around her to help her not make impulsive, brash decisions(because of her Lion secondary that I will get into), but she definitely doesn’t need - and doesn’t want - a moral compass, hers works just fine. She was burned as hell in the first episodes of the first season, mostly because of Viserys’ horrible influence, because he had robbed her of a purpose, of her truth. Drogo also stifles her primary and secondary for a while, but he eventually gives her some space to be herself. When she unburns, she unburns fast. ‘Not a Queen, a Khaleesi’ is pretty much Day gong ‘yeah, I can do things my way, I can be my own person with my own values and my own self.’ I think from there on, her quest to liberate 1) take back the Iron Throne 2) liberate Slaver’s Bay and ‘Break the Wheel’ just show how much she is focused on a big quest that is not explained by reason, by her need to form a community or by the influence of someone in her life. She does it because that’s the Right Thing ™ to do, and that’s Lion primary in a nutshell. Another thing that points towards Lion primary to me is how she just won’t take criticism and specially betrayal well (not that anyone does, but Dany is particularly unforgiving most of the time). Lion primaries are particularly shaken when someone they admire doesn’t have the same moral standards as they do, because deep down they like to think they know what’s ‘good’ and ‘true’ (oops my Snake primary who doesn’t really get Lions is showing), so if you don’t follow them and their beliefs, you must be doing something wrong. This is why Dany is so fucking pissed at Jorah when she finds out he betrayed her. She is also devastated true, and she misses him, but her ideals and her ‘truth’ stop her from seeing things from his side ad from forgiving him until he has proven himself worthy. Her reaction to betrayals tie in to the fact that she is a MASSIVE Lion secondary. She headbutts her way into things and her liberal use of Dracarys is proof of that. That’s not to say she doesn’t think or plan or listen to her advisors, but when push comes to shove, homegirl ACTS. Fuck the consequences, I have three dragons, fucking try me. Don’t tell me that climbing on Drogon in the fighting pits and burning the Khals were calculated decisions. Burning the Lannister army wasn’t a calculated decision. She leaves the planning to the people around her. This is something I struggle with regarding Lions, but I have to admit they are much more prone to seizing opportunities that us Bird secondaries (because I do have a Snake model but it is utter shit). 

Now, in seasons 7 and 8, she starts burning again. She gets to Westeros, where people aren’t flocking to her side like they did in Essos. Daenerys lets herself be swayed by Jon’s pretty little speeches that sound very Lion, sound very true to Daenerys, but guess what? She is fucking betrayed by everyone. The people she loved are killed, her children are killed (and the whole ‘I will take what is mine’ thing indicates that she might have a Snaky primary model, after all, she does some things because of what she claimed as hers, be it people or the Throne), she is left absolutely alone, so she burns, she loses faith in herself, starts doubting her actions and her instincts and no one is there to help her unburn safely, so the way she does it is destructive, as it often is with Lion primaries who don’t have guidance in order to regain their trust  their instincts and their selves. To me, the KL incidence is her primary going ‘You fucking left me behind, you fuckers, now you are going to see that I was right and fuck the consequences’. Her primary takes a turn for the worse with the help of an impulsive secondary and she ends doing anything to reach her end goal, similar to Albus Dumbledore and his disregard for human life as long as Voldemort being defeated is concerned. 

Jorah

I have no doubts whatsoever that Jorah is a Snake primary. I know the fandom likes to sort him into Hufflepuff when using the traditional sorting system and while there’s no doubts he is a loyalist to the bone, Jorah’s loyalties are much narrower than a Badger primary’s would be. Before he meets Daenerys, he wants to go home and make up with his family, because they are the ones who matter. Not his reputation, not the North, not Bear Islad itself, the Mormont House. Before that still, he does literally anything to keep Lynesse happy, including doing things that are against the law. This utter devotion to certain people are what makes him a Snake primery to me, a paricularly self destructive one. He starts worrying about the fact that he berayed Daenerys when he ‘adopts’ her into his circles and more so when she goes from being in his outermost circles to being the one person his Snake primary is attached to. Daeerys is everything to Jorah. Does he persoally care about freeing slaves or generally following her morals? No, he does it because it is importat to her and he wants her to see he is worthy of her attention (I, another Snek, still don’t kow if I like Florence + The Machine so damn much because I liked a girl who was into FATM or if my Bird secondary saw her taste for FATM and went ‘OMG ME TOO LETS TALK ABOUT THAT’ and the primary just said ‘huh, that’s legit. We’ll worship her from now on’, so yeah, us Snakes do that. On a side note, I never worked up the courage to ask her out, though). That’s why he goes batshit when she banishes him. He doesn’t burn, which means his primary is so strong it wasn’t fazed by being ast out of her circles; no, he is hell bent on getting back into her good graces and if he has to sacrifice his life fr that, so be it. 

Now, when it comes to secondary, I’d say Jorah’s a Lion secondary too, even though he has a lot of models he picked up with time. Models are useful, models get you out of bad situations, but they’re not who you really are. Jorah wans to be a Bird secondary when he’s around Daenerys, he wants to be the careful planner who looks ahead and ensures she is successful and he also needs a Snake secondary model, because his life demands that he twists and turns himself to fit different situations, but deep inside he is a Lion. His most honest moments are the moments when he just does it, no thoughts head empty. Did he have a solid plans when he kidnapped Tyrion? Fuck no! Did he truly know what he was doing when he decided to fight in the pits? Fuck no! Did he think before he charged at the wights and saved Daenerys in Winterfell? Fuck no! His head was probably just going ‘my Daenerys is in danger let’s punch first and see what happens later’. He’s not like Littlefinger, who plans everything ad is so fast at analysing and changing plans he looks like a Snake. His models make him seem like the opposite of Dany, like a Bird to a Lion, brains while she is brawn, but when she is in danger, Jorah charges. 

What the Jorleesi shippers do is take Dany’s Lion primary that is so focused on a quest and show her that she can also include people in her big aspirations. The gut feeling that is so characteristic of Lions is already inside her, all she would need is to put it into words, which isn’t necessarily the strongest suits of many Lions (that’s a Bird thing). Since most of their dynamics inevitably lies on Jorah’s models regulating Dany’s secondary, there’s not much point in ‘taming her Lion’. Jorah stays the same. The fandom looooves his Snake/Lion, specially since us Snakes tend to be too hard on ourselves. A self-loathing Snake who is also a stupid brave Lion secondary? Yes. They are both stupid brave. Also just stupid. Just talk, you two, for fuck’s sake. Get over your Lion, Daenerys, and talk to him, his Snake won’t allow him to bother you too much. 

[aominesshi]

Of Drinking and Being Drunk

Summary : It only takes Christmas Eve, Denmark, and alcohol to strip Alice bare.

"Ugh, I miss Denmaark!" Alice suddenly whined on one cold December night, flipping the magazine randomly in front of the fireplace.

Ryo, whose thigh becoming her pillow, looked slightly at his missy, already used to her sudden remarks. "Hmm."

"What? You don't wanna come with me?" Alice glanced up, paying attention to her aide's expression.

"I do. But as much as I want to, I have nothing left there. The old man whose pub I used to work at had died. I have no family, relatives, whatsoever. I have no reason to go back. " He answered nonchalantly, still focused on reading some articles.  

"You have me." Alice cut him short.

Ryo sighed, his eyes met hers. "And you're here."

"Mou, I mean, go with me Ryo-kun! I don't wanna go alone. That'd be sooo boring! What if some thugs appeared and laid their hands on me?" Alice pouted.

Ryo shrugged off his shoulders. "I have no other option, ain't I?"

                                                            ***

Denmark, December 24.

"Milady, it's Christmas eve but here you are stucked with me. Don't you have any family dinner or such?" Ryo asked Alice who was busy playing his video game.

They were now in Ryo's apartment, not far from Nakiri Mansion. Despite having his own room in the residence, Ryo thought having an individual unit was necessary. Other than he could have some quiet time alone, it's also a good property investment, since the location was far from being remote and cannot be said at disadvantage. Though by far, Alice never let him be alone more than 3 hours long.

"It's blizzard outside, if you forgot. I'll excuse my self to warm up here. Christmas dinner is tomorrow, you should come along!" She chimed in, not even looking at the dark-haired boy. "Argh, I almost win!" She yelled.

"I'd better stay here. You rarely get chance to be alone with your family." He answered her remark.

Alice looked up from her game. "There's no way I left you here alone. Christmas is supposed to be celebrated together."

"It's alright. I'm gonna be okay."

"Okay, let's do a shokugeki. If I win-" Alice stopped in the middle of her words. "Right, we agreed to that."

Alice and Ryo had come to agreement of no shokugeki during their time in Denmark. Alice persistently said they're going for a break, though wherever they went, it's almost impossible to do that. This time, she pushed the boy to agree by winning a shokugeki before they went off. Therefore, his bandana was hers to hide until they're back to Japan.

Ryo brought a plate full of grilled crayfish with spicy garlic butter he made before, along with a bottle of akvavit. Without his bandana, Ryo was still a good cook, only less vigorous and fiery.

"Since I don't have my bandana, I couldn't think of anything to cook." He shoved the plate to her.

Alice beamed at the sight. "Whoaa Ryo-kun! This is more than enough! You sure know what to cook here! The Danish we are!"

Ryo's lips slightly curved upward. He poured the akvavit to both her glass and his own.

Alice lift her glass up, eyes twinkling with joy. "It's been so long since I have a glass of this. Skål!"

Ryo mimicked his missy. "Skål!"

They enjoyed the food and drink cheerfully. Alice couldn't stop talking about their old days. How they first met, how Ryo ignored her, their first shokugeki, the difference between having Christmas here and Japan, and so on. She kept on going, and on and on. Ryo, on the other side, was listening to her attentively. He always loved hearing her talk, without a reason. No matter how noisy and repetitive the story was, he always found himself as a good listener.

More than half bottle of akvavit later, the white-haired girl started to ramble on. Her alcohol tolerance was definitely lower than Ryo's, though she always insisted otherwise.

"Milady, c'mon we need to get you home." Ryo tried to get Alice stand, but the latter refused to do so. "It's cold outside, Ryo-kun. I'm staying here tonight."

"You're drunk. Besides, I only have one bed here."

"It's okay, I can sleep with you. And I'm not drunk." Her voice was hoarse and her head already leaned on her aide's shoulder.

"You could even barely hold your head up, and you said you're not drunk?" Ryo chuckled.

"I'm not~ Try to listen, I still can remember the face you make when you lose to me. You looked soo upset but couldn't find a way to run from your words. A man of words, I see." Alice flashed a little smile, even with her eyes closed. "I was very happy to have a friend back then, you know? I always wanted to meet Erina, yeah you know the story. And then you came with me, though involuntarily at first. But as time goes by, I really hope you stayed because you want to, not because I forced you to. I'm alwaays thankful to have you here, Ryo-kun." Hik! She hiccuped before she continued. "Do you remember the day when the old man death news came? For the first time in years, I saw you got more upset than ever before. I don't know if it's because the old man could no longer see your cultivated cooking skill, or because you couldn't show me that you're sad and you held them in, or other reason. But the only thing you should know is, I'm your friend too, Ryo-kun. You could get upset, sad, and happy in front of me. So please, in the future, do tell me all of your feeling. Not as my aid, but as the real Kurokiba Ryo. You know, I always prefer you not wearing the bandana."

"Why?" Ryo asked faintly.

"I don't know. I just think.....you looked more like you."

Ryo swore this girl could be the death of him. He was at a loss of words upon hearing Alice's rambling. He couldn't believe she could get this honest when she's drunk. There's no way in hell she would talk like this when she was sober. Her pride was on cloud nine. 

"C'mon, time to sleep." He lift Alice up in bridal style, bringing her to his room. He put off her shoes and covered her in blanket. He wanted to lay on the sofa but Alice's hand clenched tightly at his tshirt, didn't let him go.

"Milady, I'm going to sleep over there." He tried to shake it off, but she didn't budge. Ryo sighed in defeat. "Alright, I'll sleep here."

They used to sleep together, when Alice stubbornly wanted to camp outside but had no heart to do it alone. Or when she trembled in fear after reading volumes of Goosebumps series. Ryo was there, witnessing all of her fake courage acts. Alice was never like Erina, unless her stubbornness. She was more expressive and pompous, yet a big crybaby. She was insecure and felt inferior to her cousin, though she never blatantly showed it. Ryo knew, he always knew. But to think his missy observed him as much?

"Ryo, thank you." He heard Alice whispered. "For being here and there. For everything."

Ryo stared at the beauty before his eyes. He leaned closer, for a split second doubting something he was about to do, but then he pressed his lips on hers. Just a chaste kiss, yet it sent shivers down his spine. He didn't even know why.

"I'm the one who should thank you. Thank you for persistently coming back to challenge me back then, Alice."

                                                        ***

Alice woke up with a light headache. She spotted Ryo lying next to her, trying to remember what happened last night. She could only remember talking about the old days. Did she get wasted last night?

"Totally." A hoarse voice cracked beside her. She must have voiced her question out.

"What are you doing here?! Did I do something weird?" Alice stared at the black-haired boy whose hair was disheveled after sleeping.

Ryo rolled his eyes a little. "This is my apartment milady, if you didn't remember. Also, you didn't let go of me at all last night. I was basically forced to sleep here, in my own bedroom."

"Okay.....I'm sorry. Anything else?" She asked again, as if not sure she only did as much.

"Yes. You kissed me. Hard."

".......Holy crap. I'm sorry, Ryo-kun! Don't get mad at me, okay? I'm sorry!" Alice put her hands together and shut her eyes closed. Her face turned to a total crimson. 

Ryo stifled a laugh that sounded like a grunt. "I'm joking."

"What?! You could throwing jokes now?" Alice hit his arm hard. "It's no fun!"

It's me who did, though. But it would be a secret until.....later. Ryo thought to himself.

                                                          ***

A/n: Hi, it’s me again. The jobless me is jobless and somehow I came up with a random story and (seemingly) ooc Alice and Ryo. Well, I do take civil criticism, so please let me know your thoughts! And since I don’t celebrate christmas, happy holiday to you all! ❄️

[intersex-ionality]

Honestly, I just found the song to be distasteful. It is a combination of me going, 1) I don't like Taylor Swift's music anymore and haven't since it became repetitive and empty to me, and 2) there is symbolism in the song and in the video that does not sit well with me, intentional or not. It is okay, and good actually, to pick up on implications/stereotypes/etc in media and critique them. 1/3 🔇

I don't think people should be "hating" on her (I think the concept of using energy for that is pointless anyways), but I can tell when I don't like something, and I don't appreciate brushing off a valid observation/worry as "oh, you just don't like the song, ever thought that might be it, because OTHER people like you like it." I get that it can be annoying to see something you disagree with. Still, trying to define someone else's feelings is not okay. 🔇            

Just because one person who shares a label with me likes something does not mean that I have to like it, and it does not mean that it is a good thing because a majority said so. I'm sorry if I am coming off as rude in this, as that isn't my intention. I am simply trying to convey honestly how I feel due to what a person I look up to is saying, and that feeling is that my concerns are being treated with disrespect and as unimportant. 🔇 

Firstly, you aren’t coming off as rude. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that if anyone has been rude (or, perhaps more accurately, careless) in this whole interaction, it’s me. I’m watching this Taylor Swift situation from a very specific, very jaded perspective.

Not every criticism people have placed against the music video is frivolous.

There are undeniable aspects of classism, of the very sort that I typically rail against more loudly than I have here. It’s not exactly revolutionary in its messaging of, “bigots ain’t shit, shut your fucks.” The celebratory nature of the video is is well represented by the tone of the song but not at all by the lyrics themselves, which are approximately as deep as an empty teacup.

However, for me, it’s impossible to separate this criticism of this piece of queer pop art from the same endless parade of similar criticisms launched against all queer pop art. Narrowly, the same criticisms were--and literally still are--pinned against the songs that post praises: Born This Way and Same Love. More broadly, the same criticisms are painted on every piece of queer music made by anyone who isn’t specifically and exclusively gay that I can think of, going back at least decades.

It’s not until the people involved start dying that the criticisms tend to be replaced with praise, as we’ve seen with the shift from calling Freddie Mercury and David Bowie fake-gay exploitative hacks, to Queer Icons.

More broadly still, things like Steven Universe, a show that features a cast of diverse, queer characters overcoming horrifying totalitarianism through soft skills and deradicalization, made by a bi, trans, jewish person has been lambasted as “pro-nazi propaganda.”

And all of this feeds into the same atmosphere of holding queer art, even the “trashy mainstream pop art” stuff that is supposed to be created at a relatively simple level, that literally has to be made easy to be made accessible, being held to standards that we barely see applied to high art when it’s coming from people working within hegemonic norms.

Let alone pop art.

For me, it’s impossible to look at thousands of people who have no opinion whatsoever on the hundreds of mediocre pop songs that come out every year, suddenly finding themselves with very strong, very negative opinions indeed about how this one song is actually very, very bad for genuine moral reasons that must be shared and policed, and not wonder what it is about this song, which is barely even in the top 40, that is so offensive.

Because there is no violence or hatred. It’s lukewarm. It’s a bowl of oatmeal with out any raisins. Maybe it wasn’t properly stirred so it’s kind of lumpy and unpleasant in spots, but it’s not full of glass shards or anything.

The only reason anyone is upset about it is because it contains a lot of queer messages.

And those messages mean its being held to higher standards than other pieces of completely identical pop art.

And holding queer pop art to higher standards than other pop art means that there will be less queer pop art made, meaning that queer pop artists will get less exposure, less practice, and less fame. It’s a self-destructive process.

What I’m trying to express, and perhaps failing, is that the song is very much criticizeable. It’s not perfect. There are things wrong with it.

But the reason people are criticizing it and not, like, Sucker (Jonas Brothers), which is doing dramatically better in the charts than You Need To Calm Down (Taylor Swift), is because it’s en vogue to be overly critical of queer expression, whereas mediocrity in heterosexual expression gets a complete pass.

[ask-de-writer]

PARADOX PLANET : World of Sea : Science Fiction : 1 part

Return to the Master Story Index

PARADOX PLANET

by

Glen Ten-Eyck

This is an excerpt from a novel in progress called GONE TO SEA

2579 words in chapter 1

copyright 2012

writing begun 2005

All rights reserved. This document may not be copied or distributed on or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author.

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Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions, provided that such things are done without charge. I will allow those who do commission art works to charge for their images provided that I receive a copy of each image for my archive. I will further allow the use of printed copies for educational use in school classes. No charge of any kind may be made for this use, whether paper, ink, binding, packaging, distribution or any other charge whatsoever.

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1. Paradox Planet

This was going to be difficult, thought Captain Alain. In the wardroom of his ship, the ESA 14, he faced Mr. Torres, the leader of the colonial expedition. Mr. Torres was not a happy man.

“This is an outrage!” he said ferociously. “I can read clocks and calendars as well as any! We were to be awakened from Crossover Sleep on arrival at the system. It has been over a year, local time, since you got here.” He paused to breathe heavily, angrily and went on, “Now, only I have been awakened! What are you up to?”

Captain Alain Looked over at the gray painted metal bulkhead relieved only by pictures mounted to the wall. The duty crews painted them as a hobby to fill the long empty years of the passage. Even faster than light Crossover Drives had limits. Stars were still an unimaginably great distance apart, many of them were years apart. This expedition, two hundred and eighteen light-years distant from Earth, at just over twenty one years of flight time, was no exception. Unless some further distant worthwhile planet had been found in the passing years, this was the longest colonial run that the ESA had tried.

Captain Alain looked down at the pile of files, data disks and crystals in front of him and back to Mr. Torres. He decided to be blunt.

“You know that due to energy constraints, this had to be a one way trip for you and the other colonists. We were trying to find a way to save your expedition’s lives. We failed.”

That brought Mr. Torres up short. “Trying to save us? You failed?” His eyes went wide, “Did my people die?”

“No, they are all well and asleep. The problem is not on the ship. It is the target world. It is everything that the probe reported. We need to report back and have the probes reprogrammed. Nobody expected a world like Sea.”

“C?”, asked Mr. Torres, puzzled. “Is it because it’s the third world? Why call it C?”

“Sea, as in ocean,” said Captain Alain reaching into his pile of data and handing over a crystal. “Look for yourself.”

Mr. Torres activated the viewing controls and knit his brows in concentration as he examined the picture and data flowing beneath it. “Where are the land masses? On the other side? It says that I’ve rotated the view but it’s no different.”

“It did rotate, Mr. Torres. There is no land anywhere on Sea.” Captain Alain paused to collect his thoughts. “So far as we can tell, the last island sank for good between one and a half and two and a half million years ago.” He gestured at the image. “If you boost the magnification far enough you will find floating weed mats and shallow areas that you can use to follow the rotation of the globe.”

Mr. Torres looked again, at high magnification. The skilled ecologist in him rebelled at what he was seeing. “This is not possible. Without land masses to break up air flows by both barrier and convection effects the atmosphere should turn into high speed bands of wind.”

“My crew and I are well aware of the problem, Mr. Torres,” said Captain Alain with the air of one who wished that he had not found the answer to a puzzle. “The reason that the atmosphere does not band is every bit as bad as what you have just seen.”

Once again he removed an image crystal from his pile of data. “As you watch this, bear in mind that it is a direct recording of an actual event. You can change the time compression to suit your own taste. It won’t alter what you will see.” Wryly he added, “We have already said that it’s impossible. It will spare you the effort.”

In utter disbelief, Mister Torres stopped the crystal playback and restarted it several times. It showed the birth of a storm. A large rotating depression was forming at about sixty five degrees South Latitude. Sympathetically, Captain Alain said, “Go ahead and let it play. It only gets worse.”

The storm swept north along a large curve that appeared to be dictated by Coriolis force. The warmer seas of the tropics fueled the storm and it grew into a monster with a core of powerful storm cells over a thousand miles across. The vastly aberrant storm’s clouds did not limit themselves to the troposphere. They towered high into the stratosphere, where no sane cloud mass, let alone a whole cyclonic storm, belonged. The wind speeds achieved over three hundred and twenty kilometers per hour.

The counterclockwise rotation of the storm should have killed it when it crossed the equator to the Northern Hemisphere where the same Coriolis force would now try to make the storm rotate clockwise. Instead, the storm broke apart into individual thunderstorms that followed precise vectors across the equator and reassembled themselves into a giant clockwise rotating storm, all angular momentum preserved, and with no loss of wind speed.

It followed a Coriolis arc north and finally cold northern waters robbed its energy. It broke up into thunderstorms, squalls and fogs about sixty five degrees North Latitude.

Captain Alain said, “Hard to believe, isn’t it? We have observed eight of those aberrations of nature and they ALL do that. Because of the form of the path that they follow, we are calling them Coriolis Storms. It’s as though there were a guiding intelligence handling the storm. Lovely fantasy. It would take at least nine of the most powerful synchronous orbit Weather Sats with a fleet of Low Orbit backups to get even one of those storms across the equator. It would be touch and go, even with equipment like that. All that we have here are the three moons and the primary star. We just haven’t figured out the natural mechanism yet, that’s all.

“The worst part of this is that while the spacing and placement of the storms appears to be completely unpredictable, statistically every part of the planet will get hit at least once every five years by one of these monsters. The crew has a betting pool on where and when the next one will occur. The sample is still too small to be sure but it is beginning to appear that the storms are not completely random in their occurrence.”

Mister Torres surprised Captain Alain. He accepted the statements without comment and quietly sat, thinking. At last he spoke thoughtfully, “I’m not an engineer but perhaps we can deal with the storms by going under them. Build domes or habitats on the reefs maybe. The water is calm only a few feet below the waves.”

Captain Alain gave Mister Torres points for being quick on his mental feet. Gently, he said, “My crew and I ARE engineers. We did think of that. Unfortunately, it can’t be done. A dome is an engineering nightmare. The buoyancy is massive. The pressure gradient from top to bottom is all wrong. The air pressure inside the dome is controlled by the depth of the lowest part of it. That means that the dome will try to burst at the top because the water pressure is lowest there and the inside air is at the pressure of deepest part where the water pressure is highest. Small habitats would be possible except that we don’t have the materials to build that many of them and can’t get what we need from the environment.

“We brought equipment to mine on land or in space. We can fabricate almost any device except for a tiny problem. There’s no land to mine and the rest of the system is metal poor. This world does have quite a lot of high quality ores. Unfortunately they are under about fifty to over nine hundred meters of water. We can’t get at them. Captain Alain inhaled heavily and added, “We can’t even get useful silica sand on this planet. It’s in the same situation as the metal ores. The common coral sand is useless for glass making.

“What we can do is process the local coral and coral sands into a form of concrete. It is possible to get useful amounts of aluminum, magnesium and small amounts of titanium from the seawater. We can go to the three moons for silicates to make glasses. They even have small amounts of available iron and some other useful metals. The silicates make structural glass a real possibility. Fiberglass is also practical. Many of the local seaweeds will process to yield various useful plastic resins for both the fiberglass and to mold directly into useful objects.

“In this environment, only the titanium and structural glass are durable. Corrosion will destroy the other metals in short order. Concrete made from coral is subject to long term erosion by the water, not to mention the many animals and plants that will attack it. Even the fiberglass will have a limited life due to long term water absorption. Of course you can recycle the fiberglass materials.”

Now it was Mister Torres who spoke. “You know about the nutritional deficiency issues of this world, um … Sea? Good name, by the way.”

Captain Alain accepted the compliment with a nod and replied, “Yes. You will be short a pair of critical amino acids, a small raft of vitamins, and there’s a carbohydrate problem of some sort.”

It was Mister Torres who spread his hands now. “You are right. We brought the solutions to all of that along in the form of crop seeds and embryonic animals. We did not expect to have no place to raise them. Hydroponics could answer the plant problem, perhaps. The animals are a different matter altogether. They have to have a certain amount of space for proper development.” He paused and looked thoughtfully at a painting of Mt Fuji, back on Earth, “Could we bypass the growth of the animals and do a carniculture system? I ask because that is more an engineering problem.”

Captain Alain considered in his turn. Mister Torres let him think. A thousand lives hung in the balance. At last, Captain Alain said, “It could be done. It has been done before. There is a nutrient limitation. You have to be able to supply the culture tissues with the necessary amino acids. The whole animal would manufacture its own from the crops fed to it. The culture can’t do that. I think that with the available resources, you are stuck with raising the animals whole. I can ask. We didn’t think of that solution.” He dictated a note for his ship’s system engineers to look into it.

Suddenly Mister Torres exclaimed, “Those storms all follow the same pattern! That means that if we build a platform, we can design it to be strongest in a direction that will resist the storms best! What sort of tidal variation are we dealing with?”

Captain Alain thought a moment and consulted his data. His brows knit as he worked through the problem. “When the sun and the moons line up unfavorably, the sea level can drop until the shallows become shoal-water. At the other extreme, the water depth can go to twenty meters. A storm depression coupled with a low tide can actually bare the upper parts of the coral. That kills the coral and limits upward growth.”

Mister Torres shook his head. “Between storms, coral should grow on the skeletons of the dead coral and cause island building. Why doesn’t it?”

Captain Alain realized from the form of the question that Mister Torres was giving him credit for intelligence and was pleased. He answered, “There’s a common fish with a hard beak. It seems to think that the dead coral is a delicacy and mows the reef down as it grazes. It chews up the stone to get the dead organisms. That’s what makes the coral sand.”

Mister Torres nodded. “Like the parrot fish back home. Makes sense. The same fish attacks our concrete too?”

Captain Alain just nodded. Then he had a thought. Excitedly he said, “We could put titanium mesh in the outer layers of the concrete. That would keep the fish out of anything structural. Once the platform was built, you could process more concrete on your own. You could re-plaster the areas that the fish attack.”

He subsided, “You’d have all your eggs in one basket, though. The thing would have to be huge. We can only marshal the resources to build one.”

“It’s not really that important,” said Mister Torres softly. “There’s no possible way for us to survive until a ship can return with what we do need. Still, we have to have the platform for morale reasons. My people need hope. It’s all that we can really do for them.”

Captain Alain suggested, “We can request a recovery expedition as soon as we get back. It is ESA policy to have a colony ship ready for just such an emergency.”

Mister Torres shook his head negatively. “I fear that the war that was shaping up will be long over when you get back. I pray that you will be able to survive your return. I do not think that there is any possibility of our survival.”

Captain Alain looked compassionately at Mister Torres. He shook his head. “You’re right. The war will change everything back home. We received messages from Earth before we got The drive up to threshold energy. The shooting did start. We were ordered to return but disobeyed. I can only hope that some form of the ESA has survived.

“As for your platform, even with the Crossover Drive to push us faster than light, we can’t get back to you in time. No platform that we can build will survive long enough. It is going to get hit by at least five and probably more of those Coriolis Storms. One of them will sweep it away. Without its facilities, your people will die of malnutrition in fairly short order.”

Mister Torres looked back at Captain Alain and said bleakly, “I know that. What we are going to do is simple. We will lie to your crew and my colonists alike. We will fake evidence to show that the necessary nutrients can be found in the ecology. We just can’t localize them well enough from space. The search will keep hope in them to the last.”

Captain Alain closed his eyes in pain. This was indeed difficult. Why couldn’t Mister Torres be angry, rail at fate or just cry? This calm acceptance, this cold blooded planning to deceive a thousand doomed people was beyond him. He shook himself and said, “Very well, we will follow your lead. Two of my crew will have to be in the conspiracy. They are needed to create the false data.”

That simply, the decision was made. With massive labor, a platform was built with all of the best systems, electronic controls and computerized communications. It held laboratories, shops, apartments, docks for boats, recreational and farming spaces. All critical exposed areas, like the upper levels of the farms, could be closed over with locking domes in bad weather. On the platform, a space one kilometer by one and a half kilometers, several stories thick, a thousand people were left on a planet that could not support them. Only one of their number actually knew what had been done.

-The End-

[ganymedesclock]

Character Analysis: Coran

[ Shiro ] [ Lance ] [ Hunk ] [ Pidge ] [ Keith ] [ Allura ]

What kind of blogger would I be if I forgot about our man Coran? I’ll tell you, a bad one. Last but certainly not least in the metas on Team Voltron, it’s time for a post on everyone’s favorite redheaded spaceman-of-all-trades.

Coran is a bit of a frustrating case to overlook because for someone as open and sociable as he is, we know very little of his history- and he also happens to have a lot more history than anyone else on the team... by something of a long shot.

In an offhanded mention, Coran states that the Castle is actually 10,600 years old, because it was built by his grandfather. He later, in a different conversation, reminisces that he remembers his grandfather taking him to a Balmera... while said grandfather was building the Castle.

Thus confirming that Coran is over six hundred years old, not counting his time spent in cryostasis. And yet, at the same time- Coran doesn’t really look or act what we’d consider elderly- if anything, he’s more than a little aghast at the idea of contacting an “old people disease”- insecurity, I think, of someone in later middle ages who’s just starting to confront the idea they’re getting old.

This might well cast some aspersions on Allura’s age as well- she might be a teenager or young adult by Altean standards but we don’t know quite what those standards are.

But for Coran, he’s had certainly what our human sensibilities would consider a very long life, and has spent much of that life, seemingly, in service of the royal family. Said service is something that’s run in his own family line at least as far back as his grandfather, and Coran carries himself with the decorum of high society. He’s no mere servant- much more likely, an aristocrat himself, or possibly a member of the extended royal family considering the very personal way he relates to Alfor and Allura. His official title of Royal Advisor would suggest Alfor turned to him for counsel- but in regards to what specific topics, we aren’t sure. It’s certainly part of the role he plays to Allura.

And in practice- this is someone Alfor entrusted, seemingly alone, with the safety of his daughter and the Black Lion. As Allura was placed in stasis when the castle was still on Altea and Alfor still on the castle, this would tell us that Coran was the one to launch the castle and get it away from Zarkon’s fleet while Alfor, seemingly, held them off- it was Coran who landed the castle on Arus before entering suspension on his own.

We do not know much of Coran’s personal life- besides that seemingly, he’s been a fixture in Allura’s for a very long time, and that he was a very close friend and attendant of the late king. We see very few scenes of Alfor that do not feature Coran in some magnitude. This makes sense- because again, at the end of his life, Alfor trusted Coran with functionally the fate of the entire universe. Especially close on the heels of Zarkon’s betrayal, this tells us that Alfor trusted Coran absolutely.

Out of the spotlight

Coran virtually never takes center stage. This is the main reason he’s so much of an enigma despite being an incredibly open person and intensely prone to sharing stories at the slightest provocation. Coran is support in the purest sense- to the point that out of the team, he is the only one not paired to a unique vehicle that’s his and only his. For Allura, even the castle is uniquely connected to her power in many regards- Coran can’t use much of its higher functions. 

And we do not feel like this is an uncomfortable position for Coran in the slightest. Rather, this seems to be the area he takes to and in fact thrives in, entirely of his own choice. It’s rare for Coran to command a scene- and the few times he does tend to be very memorable, and marked by something close to fury- his indignant “You do not yell at the princess!” in s1e2 and in the season 1 finale, Coran piloting the castle alone to assail entire fleets. 

Coran is support- one who assists and facilitates- but he’s not passive in his role at all. His whole title of advisor can only possibly work if he’s someone who makes his thoughts and opinions heard, and he lives up to that. He will criticize, or even argue rather strongly with- anyone, including Allura, if pushed to it. And even without much impetus at all, he’s shown to kibitz on situations in a very honest- even unflattering manner- even on people that he cares about a lot.

Basically, Coran takes a backseat, but not remotely out of lack of confidence or devaluing himself. He’s an attendant but an incredibly outspoken one, and one with a sense of his own importance as well- reinforcing his quite possible noble background. We’ve even seen that Coran can be a touch condescending- consider his cheerful patronizing of Pidge’s “primitive synapses firing away in their little brain-cage.”

And really, Coran’s ostensibly passive position combined with his own certainty of self creates a truly terrifying combination, one that very rarely flexes itself. Simply, Coran is always the accompaniment to someone more interesting or important- King Alfor in the past, Allura and the Paladins at present. He’s set up perfectly in a blind spot, and his affable prattling makes him even more likely to overlook.

When Coran attacks Zarkon’s fleet, he states that he’s been waiting ten thousand years for this. While we can guess he’d hold a grudge against Zarkon- for Altea, for Alfor, for everything he and Allura have suffered- this is literally the first time we’ve had any implication whatsoever it was there.

Coran, quite simply, took something very close to a murderous rage, folded it neatly, and tucked it up his sleeve until he had the opportunity to take his shot.

People have pointed out the downright brutal efficiency with which Coran intercepts an attack aimed at Allura and retaliates in a way that hits all five paladins, in a single movement- and how very seriously he does his, even if it’s a simple food fight. In particular, a comment I’ve heard on that scene that’s stuck with me a long time in regards to Coran: “Imagine how many times he’s done that for something that wasn’t food.”

Coran is an advisor, but he is not remotely a noncombatant. I would not be surprised at all, in fact, if this is our window of what an archetypal Altean soldier looks and acts like- someone whose first line of defense is not necessarily a suit of armor and a sword, but by convincing you first to not think they’re an opponent. Sure, it’s funny that Coran is completely ineffective at defeating Lance and they immediately engage in some kind of trash talking- but let’s not forget unlike Allura, who was mostly baffled by Lance and only turned aggressive when he didn’t answer her questions, Coran’s first response when confronted with foreign parties was to leap to the attack and his first line of dialogue besides identifying that there were intruders in the castle boiled down to “if I hadn’t just spent an incredible amount of time unconscious in suspended animation, I would’ve put you in a chokehold and knocked you out in a matter of seconds.”

Coran, to a degree, lives in the shadows of brighter people- but he does so voluntarily and intentionally- because as soon as someone tries to make a bid for those brighter people, Coran, already overlooked, is en route to intercept.

That said, while he has that angle, he doesn’t always act on it- his role as an observer means that he’s often quite willing to just see where this situation is going. He’s not nearly as proactive as, say, Shiro- who needs to feel in control of the situation. Coran is triggered to action or inaction by his personal assessment if the situation has, or will, turn immediately dangerous- and if he doesn’t feel like it’s dangerous, or that there’s a meaningful way to engage with it, he will in fact be alarmingly blase in the face of mortal peril- the embodiment of a stiff upper lip.

Another angle of his tendency to mask intense emotions if he doesn’t feel like they have a proper use at this point.

A man of a breathtaking number of hats

So Coran is an advisor, a helmsman, and the main person we see doing maintenance on the castle- and on top of all of that, he may well be some manner of bodyguard. It’s safe to say that Coran is one hell of a busybody, and lesser people would probably have just plain dropped under the weight of his workload and the number of disparate skills this requires.

At the same time, this is probably the biggest source of Coran’s goofy space dad vibe- he has so much varied life experience and skill sets that practically anything for Coran is fair game. History and nostalgia are very big things for him, and, overwhelmingly, what we learn about Coran and from Coran is anecdotal and sentimental in nature. Certainly, he’s quite smart, and likes to explain things, but how much he knows, and quite possibly to a degree just his personality itself, makes him spacey and a bit of a scatterbrain. 

“Finger counting is more of an art than a science”- or, rather, sophisticated mental math (he was trying to crunch how long it would take a spaceship to reach them considering its speed, that is not elementary level addition) is very difficult if your brain goes in a lot of directions and you have a lot of places to lose stray decimals in.

Coran relates much more easily to things intuitively and emotionally than he does trying to attend to precise variables- though that gap is not as large as one would expect because he’s had a lot of time to practice. In general, Coran’s skill set is much more rounded and stable than any of the rest of the team’s- a testament, again, to how much time he’s had to pick things up. Regardless, he does show a pretty good aptitude for working with people, when not held back by heavily outdated information as he was in Space Mall.

When he is, though, he may be slow to admit his initial judgment call was wrong- as mentioned, Coran is rather prideful. He’s quite certain of himself and other people need to impress him- and even in season 2, he has no problems verbally tearing the paladins to shreds if he doesn’t think they’re living up to expectations. Cheerfully.

High energy

You’d think someone past his six hundredth birthday would slow down a little, even if that might be the Altean equivalent of late fifties. You would think wrong in Coran’s case. Probably why this guy has so many odd jobs, aptitudes, and experiences is that he can be almost restless in his energy levels. “Restless” is not how he comes across- but mostly because, as a mature character who’s had a lot of his development already, Coran knows himself and his inclinations. 

As a result, he will often seem quiet- but if you’re paying attention, Coran is virtually always doing something, and usually multitasking as he does. While this could well be a stress-inducing byproduct of being effectively the sole staff of a castle probably designed for a lot more people than that, I think to a degree, Coran is simply someone who does not keep idle very easily at all. When his workload is lightened or alleviated, he’s more inclined to engage in whimsy and curiosity instead.

Another product of this is Coran does very little in half measures, if he’s committed to it.

Theatrics and their absence

Coran certainly has some very dramatic reactions, but it’s almost more noteworthy when he doesn’t. I’ve mentioned that Coran has a major case of stiff upper lip in the face of sometimes even mortal peril- but that’s basically it. Coran’s spectrum of emotional expression oscillates from “politely interested or indifferent” to the melodramatic screaming he put on in s1e2.

In general, Coran’s more mellow expressions of emotion tend to be positive. Frustration is a quick way to get him to more dramatic expressions, and even that varies. It isn’t even a simple game of how intensely Coran feels something, either- some of his most scathing lines are delivered quietly. If anything, it would seem that Coran is more expressive and ebullient in times of levity- if the situation feels serious, then even shouting, there’s a composed sternness to him.

He can also flip between the two multiple times within the course of a single scene and practically at the drop of a hat. In this sense, it would suggest that Coran never really has wild or uncontrolled emotions- simply, he can, and tends to be, fairly lenient in their expression.

This seems to be the product of a lot of work throughout Coran’s life by our glimpses of his younger selves. From a very moody teenage Coran who claims he can only express himself through music to his wildly over-dramatic ebullient young adult self- Coran has pretty much always had a lot of feelings, and it’s only as he’s gotten older that he’s mellowed to a degree and successfully established a certain layer of calm that can exist either over or under them.

And it’s very notable that just because Coran emotes a lot doesn’t mean he’s incapable of duplicity. Because Coran is carrying some emotional giants, and they’re simply things that you do not see at all unless something prompts him to mention them.

His quiet mention that he can’t lose Allura is basically the only admission he has made, at all in the seasons, that much like Allura herself, Coran is nearly alone in the universe- one of a trace handful of surviving Alteans. And after that, his comment that he’s been waiting for a shot at Zarkon acknowledges that possibly even more than Allura, Coran has a driving grudge- one that he buries just as quickly as he acknowledges it to tell Keith to step back and preserve himself rather than engage Zarkon.

Supportive

I’ve mentioned that Coran tends to be a part of someone else’s backdrop, but I think it’s worth noticing- especially as he can be sometimes condescending or flippant with the team- that there is a very affectionate and warm side of Coran. While he is unflinchingly observant of formal titles, it’s also very clear his relationship with Alfor and Allura has been deeply personal and rather familial- and this is much of how he takes to the paladins. Coran is never really so formal with people as to really feel stiff- his proper courtly manners juxtapose with a very flippant and sincere attitude.

A lot of people joke about Shiro being team dad, but honestly- I stand by, Shiro is the perfectionist oldest child that everyone jokes acts like another parent. Coran, though- even when the objective goal was to drive the paladins as hard as possible and make them unite against a single goal, Coran was still giving them breaks and telling them not to push it too hard. (And his praise of Allura’s methods after the fact is incredibly backhanded, almost certainly on purpose)

In Summary

Coran is a person very motivated by memories and sentimentality, but also, for all of his bouncy high-energy persona, there is a really impressive amount of emotional control under his surface, to the point that he can easily hide very powerful sentiments indeed.

Multi-talented and very inclined to working behind the scenes to support others, but also somewhat haughty, and both genuinely deeply fond of the rest of his team and utterly unafraid to take them all down a peg if he feels that’s appropriate. 

[collymore]

The truly magical and profoundly inspirational qualities of love

By Stanley Collymore

 I like to think of love as an experience worth having and most

definitely not as a commodity to be bartered for and traded

to the seemingly most advantageous and highest bidder,

or else used as an exploitative means over someone

whom you evilly wish to control. Therefore, Love

is for me something that comes quite naturally,

achieves its own precise momentum, and discerns when

to be commanding, in the most confident fashion, and,

accordingly, when to judiciously hold back and take

a noticeably observational back seat of the current

proceedings. For real love is altruism at its very

best, because it’s entirely prepared at all times

to both give, and do all that it positively can

and neither claim nor demand anything in

return for what it has constructively and

willingly done. Emotions, my Darling,

that serve as just a meagre fraction of

the multiple reasons why I not only

love you enormously, but am also

profoundly too in love with you!

 © Stanley V. Collymore

28 November 2017.

  Author’s Remarks:

In this rather sick and thoroughly demented world that significant numbers of us are regrettably forced to live in amongst the plethora of absolutely dim-witted, easily manipulated, delusional and utterly sociopathically, intellectually impoverished and lowlife retards that also inhabit this Planet Earth that we all have no other choice in our earthly existence but to call home, it has unquestionably and quite obviously become rather self-evident to anyone with even a half-functioning let alone a fully operational brain in their head that many longstanding, tried and tested cultural and social values of note that have stood the test of time for literally numerous generations and even countless millennia ever since mankind first walked on the surface of Planet Earth and thereafter began evolving, subsequently establishing and accordingly reinforcing suitable and worthy civilizations as a result not only for those who were currently existing at the time but also their offspring and distant descendants who would follow them are now seemingly in the 21st Century very much in peril.

 And by and large this system of cultured behaviour, practised custom and well-thought out rituals that have become endearingly embedded in the respective communities and societies of their respective times and consequently have worked exceedingly well for those involved, and with Homo sapiens initiating through evolved procedures the requisite skills that they deemed to be important and then fine-tuning them to make life overall considerably better for most if not exactly everyone in their various communities is now somehow seemed by their detractors as issues to be confronted, scorned and dismissively got rid of.

 Incredibly so. Since these evolutions and developments were matters that were intentionally designed to make life infinitely better than was previously the case for others who were on earth before them or that those previously here could ever possibly have imagined. A process that saw the judicious eradication or summary dismissal of those things that neither had merit nor could possibly ever have enhanced the lives of the majority of people who were happily otherwise living at any one specific period of time in mankind’s historical and physical existence.

 Now in the 21st Century such astute activities and well-meaning considerations are being gratuitously, malevolently and discernibly as swell idiotically, virulently and quite dangerously under the attack of egotistical, grotesquely self-serving, demented attention seeking, perniciously controlling and manifestly obtuse self-appointed tsars in relation to what other, and who’re very much unasked about their honest opinions, should think or do. And who moreover in their brazen arrogance and psychopathic assertions belligerently believe and consequently automatically assume that they instinctively and therefore unchallengeably know what’s best for the rest of us, and must therefore unmolestedly be allowed to proceed in their asinine quest.

 And bearing all that in mind all that I’ve observantly noticed and previously said there is absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever that this coterie of sociopathically infused, virulently psychopathically demented, compulsively controlling and decidedly delusional nutters if allowed to have their sick, recurrently always looking for something to caustically criticize, condemn and malevolently change to suit their comprehensively distorted and warped minds, will accordingly do everything that they possibly can to sickeningly transform as well as destroy the beautiful concept of natural love that every rational human being positively and romantically aspires to achieving and endorsing for themselves as well as delightfully and lovingly giving to others, and especially that special person in their own life, into something even more nightmarish than Hell itself.

 Because unfortunately these silly sods are the kind of pathetic and self-indulgent nerds that all intelligent, sensible and enlightened human beings are increasingly, within the 21st Century, finding themselves having to deal with. An outrageous situation, I know, but nevertheless one that we mustn’t allow those dregs of society and the epitome of what’s noticeably the worst of rampant, lowlife activities to gain full control of, let alone win. For to permit that would be a rank betrayal of your own independence and the thorough undermining as well of all the remarkably good things that many of our respective ancestors have in the past sacrificed their lives for to ensure that those who came after them could inhabit and benefit in the process from a much better world, and one where love was an integral part of those proceedings.