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buddielove · 3 years ago

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Hi! I'm a gay fan of 911 and I have a question about the whole Buddie fandom. As much as I like Buck and Eddie, it's frustrating that a HUGE part of the fandom is pushing for these two characters to get together instead of putting energy into supporting Hen & Carla and Michael & Dave. Not to mention Carlos and TK in Lone Star. Can you explain to me the appeal of wanting these two men together? Wouldn't it be more interesting to see two heterosexual males just be able to bond in a non-toxic fashion? That's something we don't get to see often on television.

Hey! This is MAD long lmao I am so sorry! You caught me on a day I felt like talking! Also this took like a year to answer you lolololol. This does have a few ʻhot takesʻ so please be warned! So like in this essay....

So first I am also apart of the LGBTQIA+ community, so I do understand how it could come across as a fetish or being non supportive of the current canonically LGBTQIA+ characters, however I think a lot of the interest around Buddie and the want for them to be confirmed as a couple is how they are being written. Me personally I knew since s2 e1 Buck and Eddie were written not as rivals but as two people who would eventually become friends, but it wasn’t until the Christmas episode with the elf assuming Buck was Chris’s dad and Eddie’s partner that I was like ‘hold on!’ because I was really hoping Abbey would return and I didn’t see Eddie as a possible Buck live interest because of that. The elf’s comment wasn’t played off like most other shows would (think Dean and Sam arriving anywhere in Supernatural) it made me go back and look at the other episodes to see exactly how Buck and Eddie were being framed/written. And as we have moved into further seasons I think there has been a shift in how Buddie is being written, in s3 it was very much like two people progressing into a deeper friendship then the blood clot/lawsuit gets in the way and they both have to deal with emotions surrounding that, then Buck’s response to Eddie being trapped (we see how is he when Boddy is trapped in a fire WITH A GUNMAN, it’s emotional but not to the point is is with Eddie), even the love interests feel very pushed on us and there’s so little banter between Buddie about their gfs and how they feel about these new beginnings. It feels off, not like a friendship in the slightest, more like two people trying to force something and not wanting to deal with any other feelings. Then when Eddie gets shot and reveals Buck is Chris’s legal Guardian in the event Eddie dies, that’s huge, and he did this after only a year of knowing Buck (I have friends with kids. I’ve known one of them for FIVE years, I’m at their house every week, the kid calls me family. I’m person #10 on the list of ‘who gets my kid if I die’, not #1 lol) It just feels like it’s all building up to something, and people are getting tired of waiting for that something! We’re all emotionally tired from the past two years, and probably from many shows queerbaiting us and this is something that could happen, seems to be something the actors are ok with and the fans want. So why do they keep drawing it out. This isn’t about us demanding they ignore the chance to write a healthy platonic male friendship, or forcing two characters to be gay, it’s about holding the writers to what they’ve implied and seeing what could come of it.

Also think of it like this; If Buddie is confirmed it will still be a good example of a healthy friendship which then developed into something else, like Booth/Bones! Showing the natural progression of friendship to relationship that happens a lot in real life. It’s two men who previously (on screen at least) have only been with woman, but now they have an emotionally connection with someone which they then develop and explore. This could be 911’s first nontoxic depiction of two gay characters coming together, because sorry not sorry the canon couples aren’t perfect (which does humanize them) but they also reenforce harmful troupes that plaque the LGBTQIA+ community, which I’m sure you understand: TK was a drug addict, who only got with Carlos at first cause he was hot and sex was TK’s new addition (all gay men are sex addicts who do drugs and sleep with anything that moves). Carlos was ashamed and wanted to keep TK on the downlow (poc gay men want to pretend to be straight but have free access to gay sex). Hen cheated on Karen seemingly the first chance she got (lesbians can’t handle monogamy when pushed, and cheat on their long term partners). All known and documented troupes that happen far too often.

I’m not saying Buddie is some gay jesus ship that’s gonna save the entertainment industry but if done right it could prove to be one of the few healthy depictions of two men getting into a gay relationship we have. If they plan it out correctly, show us the relationship development, like they did with Maddie/Chim for example, Buddie could be used as a positive example of a gay fictional relationship (I really could go into depth about this. I probably should tbh).

As for not supporting Hen and KAREN, or Michael and DAVID, I think fans do support them! The writers don’t. If you read fanfics Henren and Michael/David are featured heavily in many fics, and ik some people might say ‘well they’re only there so Buddie can talk about their gay side!!’ but both these couples have their own fans and fanfic tags! They aren’t just plot devices in Buddie stories. There is a huge side of the fandom that supports Henren and wants to see more of them and their family. Same with Michael and David, during the episode where Michael and Bobby team up to find that plastic surgeon who was working illegally many people where ecstatic that we were getting more Michael/David content and that David was getting more than a couple lines. But sadly it seems like the writers only want to delve into these story lines when they need filler, they even miss opportunities to include these other LGBTQIA+ characters when it makes sense;

(Someone came for me about this but I am going to bring it up again)

When Chris is sad and wants more human connection, instead of bring Harry + Michael/David and Denny+Nia+Henren back into the picture (and yes I understood at the time the pandemic was bad (lmao still is!!), but all the actors at some point would have/had crossed over into each other’s ‘bubbles’, so ALL the actors would have been exposed to each other so getting the children together with adults they had ALREADY been with during shooting wouldn’t have been a super spreader event) but instead they brought in Ana after only two on screen dates and pretended like it was a logical thing for someone who’s up to that point been extremely careful with their child.

They really could have pushed the ‘118 is a family!’ message here and included the canonically gay supporting characters, and the lesbian main character(s) but they did not and instead chose to push the Ana/Eddie coupling even though they hadn’t properly developed it yet. The writers themselves don’t seem to care about developing their canonically gay characters and including them more than they have to but fans are continuously developing Henren and Michael/David with hc and fics.

I’d like to use your logic against you for a second, in s1 we have a very healthy, platonic friendship between Chim/Bobby but that got written out to the point they are more like boss/employee unless the scene calls for them to seem closer, we now have Bobby and Michael friendship but again we hardly see Michael. On Lone Star we have Owen and Judd as a really, really good example of a healthy male friendship but we see Judd more often with Tommy now then we do with Owen, and in s2 it’s overshadowed by Owen trusting Charlie from Twilight and constantly getting fucked over! Why can’t the writter just be happy with these happy, healthy, emotionally well male-male friendship they’ve already included and expand upon them. There’s enough drama because the show literally involves burning buildings and people’s lives being at risk from some natural/man made disaster ever 12 seconds. Does it need to have so much interpersonal conflict and male peacocking??

#Buddie #Please donʻt get offended by anything in this!!!#These are JUST my opinions which MAY change the further we get into this show!!#ALSO IT IS JUST A TV SHOW!!!! PLEASE BE KIND TO ME AND TO EACH OTHER

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hiriajuu-suffering · 3 years ago

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Reasons I believe in Polyamory

I’ll preface this by saying I’m not attractive enough to be able to have more than a single partner at once, but there is a reason for that, and really, the thesis of this wall of text below: heteronormative relationship standards in every culture have always been, and will continue to always be, more about possession than love in a post-imperialistic world.

Personally, I’m a huge proponent of engendered sexuality variance to the tone of males have a constant slow drip of libido and a female’s sex drive hits them like a freight train once a month (in mammalian bioepigenetics, this makes sense). I’m inclined to infer, because I’m not idyllically normatively attractive, only a fraction of a percentage of women will be attracted to me 24-27 days of any given month. As a cisgendered man who is regrettably straight, having the least attractive genoethnic identity intersection (South Asian Muslim) in Western culture, I’m never actually presented with the choices to act on a poly mindset (in fact, I would be ridiculed for it because people think it aligns with some other gross tribal stereotype when it couldn’t be further from the truth). In retrospect, I have everything to gain from interpreting the main benefit of an intimate relationship as ownership like heteronormative culture generally does yet I still think disavowing poly as a legitimate personal choice is immoral.

I know saying monogamous relationships are more about possession than love will offend lots of people, so before you throw hate at me for your emotionally defensive skepticism, hear me out. An unflinching, unyielding love is seen as the highest parameter in any type of romance. So why is it cheating is so much of a bigger problem than a dry spell specifically? Is it because it’s legitimately a breach of trust, or is it more about “if I can’t have you, no one can”? More importantly, does it go a step further and say “if I don’t want you, no one should”? To me, any sort of dry spell (whether physically, emotionally, mentally) signifies a much larger breach of trust than simply having been shared because it shows said commitment in the relationship was not unflinching, not unyielding. The monogamous lens looks at others like: I want to have the best partner, not just so that I’m happy, but no one else can receive the specific happiness I get. Doesn’t that whole mindset come off as brutish? Just me? Well, maybe your pitchforks will start coming down when you realize monogamy is a function of toxic patriarchy on both feminine and masculine ends.

There are bioevolutionary reasons for toxic femininity to value the possession aspect of a relationship over its substantive “quality of life” components, the birth-giving gender in any animalistic specie always had to be beheld to a provider they reproduce with. Does it not then represent a sense of feminine fragility when a single mother immediately demands a long-term relationship and nothing else? If I’m to believe said woman is capable of genuine lust in her system, having a child shouldn’t evaporate all carnal desires completely and, therefore, should leave room for compromise. Said stance also indicates she made some sort of error in judgment of her chosen reproductive mate and feels entitled another man ought remedy her strife even though, evolutionarily speaking, he has nothing to gain from helping to rear offspring not of his kin. Harsh, to be sure, but it does show in the obnoxiousness of the connotation of becoming a stepdad being a positive one and becoming a stepmom assumes the motivation of some gain in status (wealth, fame, power, etc.) which I would argue is negative. Where does toxic masculinity come into play? Desire for possession on the part of a male promotes the viability and exclusivity of his own children with his most desirable partner. While that’s damn near nowhere as compelling, it has to be stated because there are always two benefactors to patriarchy. Patriarchy is not a zero sum game, patriarchy seeks to concentrate all familial social benefits in the monogamously-driven, heteronormative genus, away from those who deviate from the ideal picture of stereotypical gender roles. The ill effects of patriarchal standards exist in every human civilization, but the ontological root to the specific brand of patriarchy that oppresses all genders today was spread by a culture that uniquely preached monogamy.

Polygamy, in a historical sense, was a testament to the more status a person of the provider gender could achieve, the more their genetics would proliferate. Many cultures globally practiced this, the issue is, the ones that didn’t were the ones who, often violently, “conquered” the ones that did. Christian fundamentalism is in every fiber of international morality, whether the nation in question believes in Christianity or not is often irrelevant. Monogamy is enforced, anything outside of that is deemed as necessarily being deviant (whether choosing to be alone or choosing more connections than a monocule). Fetishization of the step relation is eluding to this deviance in a not-so-subtle way because it’s something where its allure is derived from its forbiddenness moreso than its convenience, every one of these scenarios has a subtext of implicit gain, not loss, in engagement. Meaning, the idea is planted because a hot person is there not because a person in general is there and can satiate an urge. Tl;dr - we believe polyamory is a morally negative act because the Holy Roman Empire did and every nation that spawned from it spread, imparted, and coerced that ideal on every culture it came into contact with. Before the Holy Roman Empire, no historical documents made distinctions to behest multiple lovers as desanctifying of life itself, not even the coalescing of nations that made up the Holy Roman Empire before its inception.

We are now in an era when women have access to full reproductive control, yet we still see men lust more than women, e.g. archetypal lesbian tendencies versus archetypal gay male tendencies. Do we not question why this is the case? All lifeforms are hardwired with a desire to survive and reproduce, so why does that drive not reach equity when risk does? There are two answers, and it could even be both: women are only socially conditioned to have sex via patriarchal pressures and don’t have as much inherent desire to reproduce OR sex is a means-to-an-end to exclusively possess a desired provider, whatever said person provides. If said person has a trait valuable enough to want to possess, is it not self-contrived to keep that quality to oneself, not share it with the world where it can provide more utility? Heteronormative relationships, in a sense, are anti-altruistic at their very core. As facetious as this sounds, either of these trains of thought are validated by men being more willing to engage in polyamory than women, not because men are somehow any less loyal than women. On its own, I feel this line of reasoning is enough to justify a vehement disgust of polyamory as immoral, but I want to conclude on the most pivotal facet to this conversation and not just heavily imply monogamy encroachment on moral turpitude is problematic at best.

As I mentioned a few times, I am likely to be a spoke on a polycule, not a member with multiple connections. Exclusive possession is something I probably stand more to gain from than any woman, logically and realistically, given the current social climate and general global beauty standards. My advocacy of polyamory stems from me accepting I may not be enough to be the full extent of happiness my romantic interest desires. That doesn’t even come from a place of insecurity, it comes from a place knowing I could never be perfect even if its pursuit is a righteous cause. I see real insecurity as a fear of loss when the rules of engagement you put into place were exclusivity: you don’t want your partner looking at anyone else because it’s disadvantageous to you, meaning you’re not fixated on their best interest and looking at relationships in said manner is deliberately selfish. To me, the best frame of reference to morality in interpersonal social connections is altruism. Yeah, self-love is important and knowing your own boundaries is beneficial but everyone else’s boundaries don’t have to match yours. I’m not anti-monogamist, really. I’m more anti-polyamorist discontent.

Not having thought this deeply isn’t an excuse, either.

#personal #polyamory #polyamourous #polyandry #polycule #polyam life #polyam relationship #polyamourus pride #polyam tag #polyamorous #polyamoury #polyamorus

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fuckyeahharryhart · 4 years ago

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THE ART OF SEDUCTION PART 2 - UPDATE

KINGSMAN III: REDACTED (MAIN FIC)

Wanted to add this on to Part 2, but tumblr said that it was just too much..Had to add as another post..

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Harry felt as if he had been broken open. Not only was he vulnerable physically, mentally and emotionally with all of his being, another part of him had been laid bare. The surface of who he was felt burned away, revealing a new unguarded self without the shields that he had held up against anyone who sought more than he had to give.

At times, in the past, he had thought himself incapable of finding love. His hand had been dealt. One year would pass by, followed by the next and no one would come to stir his heart. Years became decades. And then the decades had almost become a lifetime. Surely, it would have happened, with all the people that he’d met throughout the years. He had experienced affection, fondness, admiration and respect, and yes, lust and desire for the handful of women who had at one point, entered his life.

But he never felt the visceral sensation of wanting more of a person, not just physically, but more of everything. To experience more of them and experience more with them. The idea of revealing who he was to someone was foreign to him. It was the first time he felt compelled to share not only his life, his space, his time, but share more of who he was. The first time he wanted someone to know more about him.

He had spent his life guarding his privacy. Erecting boundaries so he could maintain a proper distance with the world around him and its inhabitance. He could count days worth of time skirting topics that threatened to glimpse inside the stronghold that held his most personal thoughts, feelings, experiences, emotions. He had blocked off countless attempts that tried to push deeper into his life beyond what he offered. The part of his life that was accessible to others, were the parts of his life that were visible, tangible, concrete things. He could share an evening, a dinner, a drink. Sometimes he could even share his bed. But once someone began to pry under the surface, wanting him to share his feelings, his history, his desires, his fears, he knew it was time to move on.

Part of his disinclination for closeness was his life both as a soldier and a spy. He not only possessed the ability to turn off his emotions at will, but there was also the ability to armour himself against the emotions that others wanted him to recognise in themselves.

Of course he would recognise the emotion, anger, sadness, confusion felt by others, but these feelings failed to rouse in him a comparable response. Some women had wanted to matter more to him. How many times had he been forced into a situation where the only answer he could provide was, “Not as much as you would like me to.” Harry Hart was never one to fake an emotion he did not feel.

All of his relationships and friendships followed a pattern. They always ended. Merlin had been his closest and oldest colleague. His was the most recent loss. The remaining connection that he has was through Eggsy. Eggsy was the last remaining link to his past.

Part of his distance was in self preservation, but there was another aspect to his mindset.

He was in his late fifties, already past the age that most agents never get to reach. Not because they were no longer working. Not because they had retired. But because they had been killed in action. He could not begin to count the number of close calls that he experienced in the past. He had come out of circumstances that others wouldn’t have a prayer escaping. And when he thought the end had finally come for him, one afternoon in Kentucky, telling him his time was up, that all of his cards had been played, he pulled one last ace from his sleeve. Harry Hart had cheated death, too.

One could only skirt death so many times. Being a soldier and being a spy made one very familiar with death and mortality. They were ever present. Harry accepted his mortality long ago and he knew that his end would inevitably come. That it could every time he went on a mission. He was comfortable with his death.

What disturbed him was someone, who was not prepared to lose him, finding him gone suddenly, one day, without warning and unable to cope with the loss, never being able to know where, how or why. With closure never in reach. He did not want to leave behind someone who would grieve his passing. He could not bear the thought of leaving behind a beloved alone. He did not want a beloved to feel the pain of his loss.

Of course his colleagues would mourn, just as Eggsy and Merlin had mourned him when they thought him dead. And now, as he and Eggsy mourned Merlin at his passing. But agents knew what the life of a spy entailed. They were aware and prepared for the sacrifice.

And now here he was. Without ties as he had wanted. He might not be as spry as he was in his twenties, but was still one of the best agents to have ever donned the iconic Kingsman suit. The rigours of the life hadn’t worn him down. Plus, he had decades of experience and knowledge, which at times was even more valuable than physical prowess. However, inevitably, there would come the day when he was not fast enough, his mind not quick enough, his reflexes not immediate enough. When being Harry Hart would not be enough.

Kingsman would go on without him. Even though he had no heirs, Kingsman would carry on his legacy. If he left someone else behind, outside of their circle, they would have no support to help with the loss. No memorial. Not even a grave to visit if they ever felt alone and needed something physical to represent that he was once a part of their life.

It was a suffering that he did not wish to impose on anyone, let alone someone he loved.

Where did that leave Gwendolyn and himself? The law of averages said that his time would come sooner rather than later and also sooner than hers. She admitted the day she joined them that, like Harry, she was leaving nothing of value behind. If they were to get involved, how would she feel then? Could she face another loss? She was a strong and capable person, one of the strongest that he had ever met. But that was an enormous burden to ask one person to carry. Since she had not officially dedicated herself to Kingsman, the support of the agency was not guaranteed. She was able to operate without a full commitment because he was Arthur and he gave her allowances that in turn gave her the room and space to work in such a way she felt comfortable. It was ironic that commitment made her insecure about her future.

Perhaps her refusal to plan was the same as his refusal to allow anyone to become close to him. A way for them each to hold pain and suffering at bay, whether it be their own or for the ones who could one day love them.

He had dug down far enough into the rabbit hole of “what ifs”. He pulled himself away from his thoughts and dedicated the full of his attention to simply be with her. The scent of her hair, the warmth of her skin underneath him, the feel of her body against his. She was spent. The intensity of the experience had left her in a state just below consciousness. A rest that was not quite sleep.

Carefully, so as not to disturb her, he slowly drew himself from inside of her. All the while he was still firmly against her, pressing soft kisses to the side of her face and hair. A sigh escaped her lips, but her eyes did not open. He wanted her to know that while he was leaving her in one way, he was still fully present, and that he was with her in another.

As gently as he could manage, he gathered her up. Tucking an arm behind her knees wrapping his other around her back and under her own arm, he lifted her off of his desk and held her to his chest. Her head rested gently in the curve of his shoulder.

With quiet steps, he carried her over to his settee. Her presence, her strength, her skill, made him forget how slight she really was. She felt delicate in his arms. Not a word he would associate with her. Unless he was thinking about the shape of her mouth. One of his first thoughts about her, upon seeing her for the first time, was that her mouth was delicate. She had automatically wrapped her arms around his neck which allowed him to spread a knitted ivory throw over the sofa so she wouldn’t be resting on cold leather. Holding her tenderly, he lowered her onto the blanket. Rolling onto her side, she pulled her knees into her chest and drew her elbows to her knees. One by one, he unfolded a leg so he could remove one of her heels and roll down a stocking, and then the next. When he was done, she curled up again.

A secure little ball. Her hands made little fists underneath her chin. She looked heartbreakingly beautiful to Harry. Perhaps the most beautiful he had ever seen her. Completely natural, and without any shields. No caution, or a look that said she was trying to be strong. Her face was relaxed, without any need to hide an expression she did not want him to read. Her lips were soft. She felt real to him in a way that no other person had before.

He unfolded a second throw, a warm white, which was larger, softer, with a texture like fur and draped it over her entire body from her toe tips that were drawn close to her body, to under her chin so only the glow of her face and the darkness of her hair were visible. He reached for a pillow for underneath her head. A large one also, with down batting that she could sink into.

Harry knelt down next to her head and simply stroked the side of her face. Making sure that she could feel his presence. She had taken, what was for herself, a great risk, and let herself be vulnerable. She trusted him to guide and protect her and he took his responsibility very seriously. So as long as she was with him and in his space, he would keep her safe. It was an unfamiliar sensation. There were never a great many occasions where he simply desired to just touch a woman in a delicate way, only because he wanted to feel the fragility of her skin, the softness of her hair. It was tender in a way that was both soothing to her, but also for him.

In case she could still hear him, he whispered in a deep, low voice, to make sure she wasn’t alarmed that he might be leaving her alone.

“I will be right back. I’m not going anywhere.”

He stood up, adjusted himself and walked over to his closet, picking up his shirt and her blouse and skirt and any other articles of clothing were tossed aside on his way there. He removed the rest of his clothing, draping his slacks over the hamper. He pulled on a pair of relaxed drawstring silk trousers meant for lounging and reached for the dark, wine coloured dressing gown along with his slippers. He always had a spare set of essentials kept in his office. Not that he expected to use them for an occasion like this, but one is always best prepared.

He shrugged the robe around him and tied the belt loosely about his waist. He quietly stepped over to the bar and poured a glass of water before returning to Gwendolyn. He set the glass down gently on the end table, on top of a marble coaster. He eased himself onto the sofa, in the space between the top of her head and the arm rest. Feeling him taking a seat with her, she woke up enough to snuggle further up the couch so she could lay her head on his legs. He offered her the glass of water and he held her head as she took a few small sips. After she was finished, she turned to her other side and nestled into Harry’s lap. He helped her rearrange her pillow and adjusted her blanket so she was comfortable, covered and warm.

Reaching for a smaller pillow to support his head and neck, he settled in as well. He would rest here with her for the rest of the evening, into the night. Gazing down at her sleeping face, he felt a sudden surge of protectiveness that demanded she never be hurt. He knew it was impossible, but he felt it nonetheless. Kingsman followed the credo that life is only risked to save another. But if faced with a situation where Gwendolyn was in danger, he felt the primal instinct that would drive him to kill or destroy anyone or anything that would cause her harm.

He knew that he would not sleep, but would remain in a state that was rest. Morning would bring whatever it chose to bring. During the time from this moment until the sunrise, he would be with her soley, feel the rise and fall of her chest, the sound of her breath, the weight of her resting on his lap, her stillness when he placed a palm over her hip, or shoulder or hair. Harry would be with her.

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rookisaknight · 4 years ago

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Raf Tanager, meet Hope County

⤘⤘⤘There’s a new Deputy in Town⬽⬽⬽

So as a side benefit of getting into this fandom again with a brand new gender and a brand new vibe: a brand new deputy. Excited to introduce you all to my boy, they were developed for a joint Deputy au with @ophiebot (who will do this for their Deputy Elijah Rook if so inclined). Not exactly reinventing any wheels here, but this time its about the indulgence.

FYI, Molly is still extant, but her story I think has been explored in my brainspace as much as it needs to be.

➷The Basics

1. Give their full name, and describe them or post a picture! (Height, build, hair, eye, and skin color, etc.)

Rafael "Raf" Tanager (birth name REDACTED). 5'4", prone to chub but hardening up with the frequent exercise, solid build. Freckles on cheeks that darken as time goes on. Short hair kept red by some truly obsessive hairdye upkeep, which is harder than you might think. Hazel eyes. Burns and shrapnel scars around the eyes and mouth.

2. How old are they?

3. Sexuality and gender?

Bisexual, transmasc genderqueer. She/they/he but a preference for they/he when he doesnt trust the person using them.

➵Pre-Game

1. How did they end up at the Hope County Sheriff’s Department? How long have they worked there?

Raf grew up closer to Missoula, but he’s still a Montana native. They’ve been at this for around 8 months, pretty much right out of graduating college. Even they honestly aren’t sure how they ended up here, just the latest in a series of adrift jobs after graduating, taken primarily to avoid any potential financial dependence on their family. Probably would have resigned soon were it not for. Everything.

2. Relationship with Pratt, Hudson, and Whitehorse?

Pratt: Used to hate his guts. The teasing felt too much like flirting for their comfort and he was honestly kind of a bully. Now its trickier. He's pathetic in a way that’s hard for them to be around, as awful as that is, because it hits too close to home.

Hudson: Had a massive crush on her for most of their early days that pretty much went out the window post Eden’s Gate. They still try a little too hard to impress her though.

Whitehorse: Intellectually, they resent his passivity since it means a lot of Eden’s Gate ended up falling in their lap and he’s STILL insistent that maybe they should have left it alone when they’ve all had months to realize why that was a bad idea in the first place. Emotionally, well, they’re maybe a little in need of a father figure or two.

Elijah Rook: The former Rookie. They were quietly a little intimidated by him prior to all this and that’s never fully gone away, but they’ve now been able to witness more of his dorky side that makes it a little harder to take him seriously. You try chaperoning this guy from one end of Hope County and considering him at all frightening.

3. Do they have an education?

They have a MASTERS and its never relevant to anything because its a humanities degree, specifically the classics. Part of the reason they’re a little adrift currently, there was no easy dismount out of college. Just a hell of a lot of debt.

4. Where are they from? Did they speak a different language there?

Missoula, or close enough to it. They picked up some Latin and Greek from their degree. The Latin comes in handy more often than you’d think, what with the cult stuff, but the reading material is a real bummer.

5. Is there anyone outside the valley that might have come looking for them?

They’ve never had many friends in college and high school that could outlast physical proximity and they basically ghosted their family since that was easier than coming out to them at a certain point. So no, no one they want to find them is looking.

6. Did they have a religious background of any kind?

His father is a preacher, and while there’s some baggage there they would still describe themselves as broadly religious. Or at the very least superstitious.

➷Inside Hope County

1. What was going through their head when the helicopter went down and during the subsequent chase?

The crash was honestly the easiest part. That was just panic. The chase was the hard part. The helicopter exploding ended up catching them in the face, leaving them with burns and scarring that would remain for the rest of their life. She's lucky she wasn’t blinded. Still, he was forced to stumble out of the woods in intense pain and bleeding out. Had it not been for Elijah they definitely would have been taken then and there.

2. Were they afraid of Joseph and Eden’s Gate? Angry?

Terrified. Not just because of what they’ve done but because Raf knows intuitively that he's susceptible to it. As early as their first encounter they have a hard time breaking the hold Joseph gets on their mind. Even though they’re conscious of HOW they’re being manipulated, its hard to resist it.

3. Did they trust Dutch?

At that point Raf would’ve happily taken literally anyone who seemed to know what they’re doing and wasn’t holding a gun to his head.

4. How did they feel about their team being taken by the cult, did they count them as lost, did they want them back, did they not care?

Absolutely the nightmare scenario: people’s lives depending on them and their ability to be decisive. Had it not been for Elijah they probably would’ve high tailed it out of there and tried to find someone higher up the authority chain to deal with this mess. Still, just abandoning them all didn’t sit right with him either, and by the time they’d liberated Fall’s End even he had to admit he was there by his own choice.

5. How did they take to the idea of being part of, if not leading, the resistance?

Again, Raf doesn’t really do well with people depending on them. Alone. they probably would have found it a lot more miserable, but Elijah significantly helped lighten that load for them in terms of having a direction. They’ve found out they’re accidentally pretty good at working with a variety of people and can even be inspiring without meaning to. Still, in their ideal world they would’ve been left alone, or at least remained a foot soldier.

6. Which companions did they recruit, and who did they travel with the most?

All guns for hire were recruited, but Sharky and Nick were their go-to’s, Sharky for personal reasons and Nick for air support. Grace was usually the adult supervision when Nick couldn’t make it but. To be frank Raf's aim isn’t great and it drives Grace a little nuts on prolonged missions. She’s tried teaching them but it never really seems to stick.

7. Did they have time to find romance amidst the chaos? How did they do it?

Sharky. That relationship was a bit of a cold opener (and don’t bother, Sharky already beat you to that joke). After getting their face fucked up during the escape they’ve had a pretty healthy aversion to fire and explosives, making his recruitment a little harrowing. Still, Sharky's sweet in his way, makes them laugh and breathe a little easier when the pressure gets to them, and operates on a pretty similar brainwave. They’ve been joined at the hip since their first few months in Holland Valley. They’re both a little on the codependent side, but really, who are they to complain.

8. Feelings about Joseph?

Joseph taps into a lot of vulnerabilities inside of Raf intuitively. The absence of a strong support system, the loneliness, the fear, the directionlessness, the relationship with their own spirituality, it all provides him a unique entryway into their psyche that he is exactly the kind of person to exploit. As a result, he tends to fixate on them over Elijah, usually to their detriment. Still, that connection can sometimes go both ways, and there are things about Joseph that Raf understands which even his brothers never fully do.

9. Feelings about the other Seeds?

John: They have a unique capacity for antagonizing him. Probably because as an oldest child themselves they know exactly how to jab at the youngest child insecurities. Still, that relationship didn’t stem any deeper and he focused his energies a little more on Elijah. Still, they have him to thank for the Sloth scars on their arm, thanks for that. They’re starting to run out of unmarked skin.

Faith: Faith, meanwhile, was a little more directly focused on Raf, partly because her region was the first time they had to operate a little more on their own. For personal reasons, Elijah wasn’t particularly able to engage with the Bliss. Meaning if Burke was ever going to get saved Raf had to be the one to go in there, again and again. Faith, like Joseph, can tap a lot of that loneliness that Raf has, as well as some gender and sexuality stuff Joseph can’t touch. Suffice to say Sharky had a pretty good reason for being as overbearing as he was during those months, even though he was eventually able to do the job. As a side note, they haven’t had access to their ADHD meds for MONTHS and it doesn’t help when the cult drug is the first thing to make your head feel clear in a while.

Jacob: Jacob was utterly uninterested in Raf and the feeling was mostly mutual. He doesn’t really get him or what he’s about, just knows that the county would be better off when he was put down. Transition goals, though (don’t tell Staci they said that).

10. How did they handle having to kill animals and other humans? Had they done it before?

Animals yeah, you don’t live in Montana as long as they did without hunting occasionally. People....well. You can get used to it.

11. Which canon ending did they choose in-game, and would you have changed the ending at all?

Resist. I wouldn’t. Raf might.

➷Personal

1. Favorite weapon(s)?

They usually prefer to show up to spots early and lay traps, try to minimize the direct combat involvement. When it can’t be avoided though, their pistol isn’t ever far and neither is a hunting knife.

2. Stealth or firepower?

Stealth, one hundred percent. Sharky and Eli are here to do the firepower.

3. How did they spend their time, when not fighting peggies?

A lot of bad movies with the boyfriend and a LOT of poker, one of their more unknown talents. Resistance isn’t gonna fund itself.

4. Where did they live during the events of the game?

Wherever there was a bed they could fall into. Their little trailer they’d been living in prior to all this got absolutely decimated while they were healing up on Dutch’s island.

5. Any other facts you want to share about your Deputy!

He’s got almost supernatural luck to the point that a couple of their guns for hire have gotten superstitious about bringing him to certain events. Including fishing. The catch just always seems somehow a little better. Also he’s privately obsessed with the 1998 recording of Cats and is terrified of anyone finding out.

#far cry 5 #fc5 #far cry deputy #oc: raf tanager #oc: elijah rook #joseph seed #sharky boshaw #long post #far cry rook

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sakura-blossom28 · 4 years ago

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Modern Day Romance

Chapter 2

Here’s chapter 2! I love Gaara, he’s my favorite character so this was really fun to write! Sorry his history is a little long I tried to make it as close to what it really was with it being modern au! Let me know what you think!! Don’t own Naruto!

Ch 1 /

Dating had not come easily for Gaara. He was always alone, aloof, and reserved in showing any emotions. Well, that’s how he used to be. His upbringing had been a real struggle for his family. When his mother passed away during his birth, it put a real strain on the family. Instead of coming together with his father and siblings, they slowly drifted apart. Being shut out by his own family lead Gaara down a dark and violent path. With no supervision and access to their family’s wealth from a famous fashion magazine, Gaara was able to fuel early addictions that his young body could not tolerate.

Gambling had started his descent into his spiral out of control. By the time he was ten Gaara had started placing bets on games and dice in back allies behind the liquor stores in town, but the thrill of winning wasn’t enough. Eventually, he found his way to street fights. He was good of course from constantly fighting for years, but one night he bit off more than he could chew. The pain was unbearable, but that fight, in particular, had knocked Gaara’s brain around so much that something finally clicked. He needed to stop all of this, drinking, drugs, fighting. It all needed to stop.

Only at the sight of his siblings surrounding him with tears in their eyes did it all come together for him. All the times that he thought they didn’t care about him, didn’t he notice the concerned looks in their eyes? When he came home late at night, wasn’t there always some food and pain medicine left at the kitchen table? Seeing his brother and sister in such a state over him made him realize that he had acted cruelly towards them. They were scared of their own brother and he wanted to change that, but how?

He looked over to his father and did not see any emotions of caring in his eyes. More embarrassment at the situation. Maybe some relationships couldn’t change, but as long as Gaara could have his siblings that would be enough for him. He had no desire to attempt to change his relationship with his father, but it might be easier to deal with him if Temari and Kankuro started to like Gaara more.

“You’ve done enough to sully the family name. You will be sent away to learn how to behave like a proper human being. No discussions, you’re leaving as soon as you’re discharged,” his father said in a stern voice. They locked eyes to see who would drop first in a struggle for dominance. Gaara was the first, but he only closed his eyes.

“Yes. I will agree to that,” Gaara said quietly while keeping his eyes closed. His father turned to walk out of the room, but when he heard Gaara’s voice again he stopped dead in his tracks.

“Thank you… Father,” Gaara had not addressed his father with any form of a name since he was about six. Hearing those words shocked Gaara’s father to his core. The room went totally silent with everyone else holding their breath. Their father relaxed his shoulders and said, “Temari, find a suitable program… for your brother,” and he left without looking back at them. That was the first time that Gaara had been acknowledged as part of the family by their father. Yes, this was a change that Gaara needed…

Years later Gaara finished his rehabilitation with the help of his siblings. They had found a wonderful program that focused on violent behaviors and also allowed Gaara to go to school and earn a high school degree. It was a school located out in the desert and it helped Gaara connect to himself and others in the program. He was able to write letters to his siblings and that’s how they repaired their broken relationships and learned to care for each other again. Not only was the staff educated on how to help Gaara emotionally, but they also taught him better ways to channel his anger.

After graduating Gaara returned home. He had picked up the knack of gardening and especially enjoyed cacti. It helped him remember everything he learned. He also took up material arts which was offered at the school. Gaara was not surprisingly good at his new hobby, but he also made his first friend. On the first day of lessons, Gaara had knocked Lee, the teacher’s assistant, around a bit too much, he had so much frustration built up that he lost control. Gaara was so distraught about the whole situation he visited Lee in the hospital. He expected to be run out by the teacher, but when he walked in Guy and Lee all smiled at Gaara. He was so confused, but it felt so nice to be smiled at that Gaara stayed and got to know Lee. On their way out of the hospital, Guy had said something that Gaara would never forget.

“If you hadn’t come and visited Lee to make sure he was okay I would have kicked you off the team and reported back to the school that you might be unable to change, but the fact that you did speaks volumes. You have a willingness to be a good person. Keep working on yourself, listen to your teachers and people will accept you. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but it will be worth it in the end when you are surrounded by people who truly love you,” Gui patted him on the shoulder, flashed him a toothy grin and thumbs up and ran off down the block. Gaara hadn’t had any form of affection in years and he craved more.

Being on a dating app was not Gaara’s idea of fun. He barely kept up with his own personal social media accounts, except for his secret page about his small garden. Temari and Kankuro had created the profile for him. Kankuro was a photographer for their father’s magazine and Temari was a designer for the label as well. Most of his pictures on the profile were taken by Kankuro. He often posed for his brother because he enjoyed spending time with his family, even though they all started fighting as the session dragged on. No one could take charge. Their father had every attention to give the company to Gaara after he earned his degree, but Gaara knew that was not the life he wanted to live.

When he walked into his father’s office when he was eighteen, walking tall and had an air of confidence about him, his father was shocked at the man before him. Gaara was calm and spoke from his heart about how he had no intention of taking over the company, but wanted to go to school to become a therapist to help people that were like him. And that’s exactly what he did. His father saw that there would be no changing his mind, and he didn’t have the strength to argue anyway with the shock still rattling his brain that Gaara was this new person.

So here Gaara was sitting in his apartment looking at different girls in his area. Life was going well and Temari felt it was time he finally found a nice girl to pull the stick out of his butt. Gaara had never had a serious girlfriend before. Only casual flings, but they never heald his attention for very long. They normally weren’t a fan of his uncaring facade. Secretly, he was still worried about being rejected like he was with his family so many years ago. Was he willing to trust someone with such intimate feelings to have them leave if they didn’t like what they saw in him? He was only overthinking everything because of his job. Sure he helped people with addiction, but they also had their own struggles with relationships. He was just awful at taking his own advice.

He did feel this was better than meeting some girl at a bar. He didn’t typically go out much, but Kankuro insisted some nights to be his wing-man. It was enjoyable to watch his brother fail at picking up women. Temari was also no help. She only recommended women who were like her and those women happened to be a bit too intimidating for Gaara. At least on these dating apps, he could talk to the women first before deciding if they were annoying or not.

Gaara didn’t have a type, but he did seem to be attracted to women who smiled openly in their pictures. As he was scrolling he got a notification from one of his dating-apps. Sakura liked your picture! Tap to match! He hadn’t gotten a like in what felt like forever. Probably another goth girl who would find him boring once they started talking. With his look of mostly wearing black, Gaara attracted a certain type of woman. He dressed professionally while at work but during his downtime, Temari gave him everything that was off the rack that she thought that he would like. These girls thought he was a fashion guru, but he disappointed them time and again when he admitted that someone picked them out for him and he really didn’t care about labels. They seemed to ghost him after that.

When he opened the app he was met with a bright smile and sea glass green eyes that were like his own, but these eyes were filled with happiness. Gaara’s caught his breath when he looked at this girl Sakura. She was nothing like the girls who liked him before. Sakura was all sunshine and bright colors from her pink hair to her clothes. She was a nurse and enjoyed sweets and being outside. What surprised Gaara the most was what picture she had liked.

It was the very last picture on his profile and the only picture of him smiling. He was embarrassed when Temari insisted that she HAD to put in on. It was a dinner party a few months ago that Temari had thrown to announce her engagement to her longtime boyfriend Shikamaru. Lee had eaten something a little too spicy for his liking and was being his ridiculous self and Gaara just had to laugh at his misfortune. The fact that this girl Sakura looked at his whole profile and liked his picture was thrilling to Gaara. He had to talk to this girl, she seemed different if she liked a guy like him.

His hands started to type out a message before he realized what he was doing and pressed send to match with a Sakura Haruno...

Ch 3

#gaara x sakura #Sakura Haruno #Sabaku No Gaara #temari #Kankuro #shikamara nara #Rock Lee #might guy #modern au #dating au #My writing #gaasaku

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violetsystems · 4 years ago

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#personal

The holidays are quiet if not a little more restful than usual. I facetime’d my dad and his wife and talked to my mom on the phone. Since I left my job way back in July I haven’t had much video contact with anybody. Everybody is too busy baking banana bread on YouTube I guess to check in. The final days of my employment had devolved into a virtual SCRUM twice a day led by myself on camera. It was exhausting at times to lead but kept people focused. That is when they bothered to show up. One of my employees was off making music with my boss half the time I was trying to lead those discussions. I’m beginning to sense a theme. People saying they are there but not really. Maybe the mic is muted. Maybe you can’t see behind the screen. All I know is the follow through lately with people is missing entirely. I spent a good hour the last two days trying to decouple a credit card from my old job’s contact info. I’m locked out of both the phone number and the email attached to the account. I got the run around trying to provide a US passport to confirm my identity. It was good enough to enter China alone. The first call that ID was sufficient. They had said they sent an email to follow through with the process to two different emails I provided. The email never came most likely because neither had been tied to the account previously. I called back on Christmas eve and suddenly the passport wasn’t good enough. Neither was an expired driver’s license. The woman actually asked me why I hadn’t renewed my driver’s license. I told the truth. My ex girlfriend stole my car. That didn’t really help the situation. I sent a passport photo to unlock my facebook but they never followed through. I had an easier time unlocking my Fortnite account with it although that took a full week. I ended having to call the police on Christmas eve to explore filing a report for fraud and identity theft. The police officer on the phone pretty much gaslighted me at the end of the questioning. “Nothing criminal.” he stated plainly. I didn’t get mad. I didn’t even complain. I simply said Happy Holidays and hung up. Much like I’ve hung up on the last twenty years of my life at this point. Nobody seems to want to answer the video call. The opening introduction if they did would be something like “What exactly have you done with my life?” Maybe they’re afraid to confront the truth. The media, the government, and even the police seem to not want to believe evidence that contradicts their narrative. I guess you could throw up your hands and revolt. But the holidays have been peaceful and quiet enough to simply roll my eyes and move on. I’ve had years of failures to connect. COVID has taught me a lot of things. I heard the mantra in all the mandatory corporate webinars. This pandemic has brought to light structural problems we were never aware of before. Sexual harassment in the workplace. Check. Organizational corruption. Check. The fact everybody is full of bullshit and will just mute the mic and pretend it never happened. Check. People feel invincible behind a screen and think they know it all. Check. Now that we’re aware. What do we do? How do we move on with our life now that we have all this space? How do I even care about participating in a broken process when I have no debt and fiscal maturity? How can I go back to being the old me when I’ve been completely erased and conveniently forgot about? Why would I even bother?

Mostly I take the time with this process to make sure my identity is completely secure. Which is why it’s not really fun to be locked out of twenty years of your own information in the form of an email account and forgotten about for six months. But this is just the structural reality come to light. Much like the rest of America is waking up to the reality of what greed really does to people. That was my Christmas present this year aside from the coffee that never came and that Cyberpunk game that I don’t really have the time or the subpar computer setup to criticize. I’m guilty of tricking myself into thinking people care about me. I have statistical data from the last six months that proves otherwise. I also have financial data that points to whatever hustle I have been hustling during that time has paid off and will continue to. But I don’t really have an answer to anything. I’m in the worst kind of limbo. I don’t get the sense these days that I should even remotely worry until July. Which is kind of like saying fuck you to the world for the next six months. I spent the last six waking up from a nightmare. The only times I look back is to clean up the mess. And a Christmas Eve call to the police is kind of messy. But the result is more of the same for me. An extravagant “I told you so.” I’ve been telling myself for awhile now a lot of things. Some of them were kind of unbelievable. Now those very dreams are all I really take comfort in. The limbo I’m in is more pointed to the light at the end of the tunnel than the void. But I can’t say the same for everybody else. I work for myself for the time being. It looks really nice on paper. I can even pay myself if it fits into my organization’s financial outlook. But none of this matters when you or your struggles don’t even exist to people other than to mock or judge it. All the work we do to survive. All the work we do to create art and to be beautiful in the face of chaos. All of that is negated by a loud mouthed jerk who can bark you back into submission. A mob of dumb ass fraudsters that talk over and mute any opposition without any warrant or merit. The press follows this mentality pretty clearly. Everybody has a hot take and a theory. But nobody wants to sit down and listen to the culmination of lies spread about people and situations. Everyone is too emotionally interested in sharing their recipe for banana bread to an invisible audience. I guess I could be guilty of that too. Except that I share actual human emotion and care with a community of people who pay attention week to week. For a person like myself who has no real need to worry about money for the foreseeable future what’s the value of care and attention? A lot. I don’t feed myself with vapor or fake sentiments. I take it all at base level as real as it gets. You can’t build a future on speculation. You can technically if you are in the stock market. But risk is risk. And money is money. No one can be me at the end of the day. Sometimes I can’t even prove I’m myself. My mom reminded me I had to provide ten pieces of documentation to renew my passport ten years ago. The reasoning was simple. The government did not believe I existed. No bullshit. A decade later nothing really has changed. I’ve been to Shanghai by myself and eaten McDonald’s. I read all these Republicans talk about how you put your identity at risk just setting foot in that country.

And yet when does the rhetoric and brainwashing fall flat on it’s face? When you can’t pass economic stimulus to not only save your own people but the fragile stock market all this bullshit is built upon. I could keep telling you I told you so. Or I could save my own ass. And largely I did without really owing much to this country whatsoever except taxes in Q1. Taxes billionaires don’t have to pay because they offer us so much relevant employment and benefits that fit on their bottom line. The real truth is that America would rather not face the truth. It hasn’t for years. It’s built on this kind of thing. It always has been. And the world gets bigger and the excuses get worse. And so what does anyone expect a person like me to do after you openly admit that there’s nothing criminal going on here. How does that sound when you’ve been treated openly like a criminal in so many unsettling ways that you just don’t want to participate in society anymore? Not that anyone really asks me to participate. They’re too busy signaling or whispering secret messages. Is it suggestion or valid communication? I’m the one that has to shift through it all and detangle the mess from what is real and what is some sort of mass hallucination. An alternate reality hunger game that the rich have been playing for years without any punishment or oversight. When you get caught up in the crossfire they expect you to know the drill. Keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you. None of this is good for me. You could argue it made me the beast that I am. But I am the one who had to actively make that choice to adapt and survive. But I’m not like any normal person these days. I refuse to admit it anymore. They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. I have a problem. One that it seems I cannot fix. And if you isolate and quarantine yourself from an entire twenty years of nostalgia what is left? Where are the texts of merry xmas from yesteryear. Probably pinging my old work number. I can’t access my facebook. Maybe that’s for the best. I can’t shut down lines of credit until I renew my state ID. I could jump on a plane and visit Shanghai Disney quicker than I could prove I’m alive to the US government. And when does the constant gaslighting break down? When do we realize that people gaslight to cover up an elaborate lie that has gotten out of control. That we are not all in this together. Not by a longshot. That the problem of connectedness is right there in front of our faces. We’re exhausted propping up entire infrastructures that keep a bloated empire alive. Family fortunes built on opioids and war strewn out across the landscape in trusts and elaborate tax schemes. Oligarchs that have generational wealth that buy our politicians and scam people into debt and forced labor. This is America. This is the systemic problem the pandemic brought to light. This shit was built this way. And like any fort constructed with shaky foundations, good luck hiding from the storm in that shit. At least I can still access my Epic account. What am I going to do for the next six months? Complain about something I can’t fix because everybody wants to consider me part of the problem? I don’t know what to do anymore except move forward and lead by example. There’s enough quality people who follow to keep me warm with those thoughts through the holidays alone. I won’t be drunk on a zoom call. I’ll be in bed watching Wonder Woman or something. When everyone you worshipped comes out of this looking fake, tired and exhausted you’ll know where to find me. Unlocking more accounts tied to an identity that doesn’t exist anymore. Nothing criminal. Hopefully people will stop treating me like one eventually. <3 Tim

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nimji-s · 7 years ago

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Klance, and the importance of ‘Bonding’ in Voltron: a small(ish) language analysis

Okay, so I don’t normally contribute much to fandoms, but this is something I’ve been thinking about all week and anyone who knows me knows I’m a sucker for looking in depth at lexical and semantic choice.

One thing I’ve noticed about the Voltron fandom is that when it comes to the breaking down of scenes is that a lot of focus goes into the animation itself, as well as the choice of colour, camera angles etc. - and trust me, I love reading all of this. But I also think it’s really important to look at the language used, and I’m really sorry if this has been done before, but I just really want to get my thoughts down in writing.

So, let’s go I guess!

This might be kinda jumbled, but I mainly wanted to focus on The Bonding Moment™, the language choices, and why they might be significant later on (perhaps season 6?)

But first, let’s look at the definition of ‘bond’ as a verb and as a noun:

bond /bɒnd/

verb

join or be joined securely to something else

noun

a force or feeling that unites people; a shared emotion or interest

Both of these definitions are vital to know when looking at how ‘bonding’ is used in Voltron.

The Bonding Moment is first dubbed this term in Season 1 Episode 6 by none other than Keith himself, in order to express his distress for Lance not remembering their tender moment the episode prior.

So, the reason why I find the use of the word ‘bond’ so interesting, is mainly because of the alternatives that could have been chosen. For example, Keith easily could have said ‘we got on in that moment!’ - although come to think of it that sounds a bit weird. But, Keith could have told Lance what he said: ‘you said we made a great team!’. My point is, there are different ways than saying “Bonding Moment” of all things.

But, Keith did, in fact, use ‘bond’ - and this was a deliberate choice from the writers (we’ll come to this later). What Keith is actually saying here is, we both connected emotionally in that moment.

Another thing to point out is the use of the past perfect progressive tense. This is typically used to indicate a completed continuous action that happened in the past. Bonding, in this case, is the completed continuous action. Usually, when using this tense it implies the action was interrupted. E.g ‘I had been working...’, and this is when you would expect an explanation. And, although not necessary for Keith’s line, it still does suggest an interruption occurred - like Lance having to go into a pod.

Why do I find this necessary to point out? Well, to me, this implies that Keith wants this to be a continuous action.

To back this up, just look at how Lance refers to it:

Bond-ed.

Here, Lance could easily have said “Oh, come on! I thought we had a bonding moment!”. But instead, he goes past simple. I think this is an indicator of how Lance is not emotionally ready to bring The Bonding Moment back up. I’m sure we have all seen that tweet (sorry I don’t have the link but I have a screenshot lol)

Okay, to quickly sum up so far, bonding is a keyword between Klance and Keith wanted to connect with Lance, but Lance wasn’t emotionally ready. But I’m sure you all knew that, so let’s move on to the next point: “Bonding” elsewhere in Voltron.

Obviously, ‘bond’ is the choice of word when it comes to the Paladins connecting with their Lions:

When it comes to Paladins and their Lions, ‘bond’ is used to emphasise the deep connections they have to make - as if their beings are joined. And it’s not as if the word is changed frequently, ‘bond’ is a very deliberate choice of word.

As it was when referring to Keith and Lance.

We have already seen that Keith and Lance have been connected to each other’s Lions:

And most recently, Lance has unlocked the broadsword with the Red Bayard, a sword being Keith’s choice of weapon:

These parallels serve the purpose of visually letting us know that Keith and Lance have a deeper connection.

They have a bond.

Just like how ‘bond’ is used to show the connection of the mind between a Paladin and their Lion, ‘bond’ is used to imply that there is a connection between Keith and Lance.

And if season 6 is going where we think it’s going, I believe that their bond will be crucial for the rescue of Shiro.

Back in season 3, Voltron gave us a lot of moments between Keith and Lance which helped to deepen their connection a lot. This has been said a bazillion times so I don’t really need to say what everyone else has said.

I’m sure you’re all already VERY aware.

So, Lance and Keith were creating a deeper bond in season 3. Then FAKE Shiro comes back and Keith leaves to join the Bar of Mimosa.

The rest from here is mainly speculation, but the main prediction for season 6 from what I have seen is the idea of Lance and Keith going into the Astral Plane to save Shiro. And this is where the idea of ‘bonding’ comes into play.

Bonding is HUGELY important when it comes to the Astral Plane.

In season 2 episode 7, Zarkon and Shiro battle in the Astral Plane. Zarkon loses his bond with the Black Lion whilst Shiro’s bond with the Black Lion gets stronger.

In season 5 episode 3, the five paladins access the Astral Plane, where Lance hears Shiro calling out to him. But the bond isn’t strong enough - perhaps due to Lance not realising that this is the real Shiro calling out.

So, clearly, there is a connection between a bond and the Astral Plane.

And if we are correct about our season 6 predictions, then I believe that the rescue of Shiro will not only need Keith and Lance’s bond, but help to deepen it immensely. Maybe - and this might be a stretch - but if bonding is a large theme in season 6, they could potentially bring up The Bonding Moment? It would be an excellent time to do it.

So, yeah, this is a garbled mess that could’ve been developed wayyyy better if I wasn’t so tired (please forgive me it’s the first time I’ve done this lol) so let me conclude in the best way I can:

‘Bonding’ is a significant word in Voltron as it describes the soul-linking connection between the Lions and Paladins and is also used to describe Keith and Lance’s most famous moment implying a deeper connection between the two. This bond will be necessary when rescuing Shiro and might even help the two be emotionally ready for opening up to one another.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#waddup it's a school night and i'm so tired #this is a mess lmaooo #i hope you understand what i'm trying to say #klance #keith #lance #keith kogane #lance mcclain #keith (voltron)#lance (voltron)#voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender #my post

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psychotherapyconsultants · 6 years ago

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What Does ‘True Love’ Really Mean?

Once you understand, it’s a game-changer.

Many people find themselves disappointed when what they thought was “true love” goes wrong. You may have been through a series of relationships you thought would last forever, only to see each of them end in a matter of months.

If you’ve you been deceived by what you thought was the real deal with someone who seemed to meet all of the criteria on your checklist, you may find yourself wondering not only why finding and keeping true love is so difficult, but what is true love, anyway? What does real love feel like?

Sadly, most men and women have been devastated and deceived by pop-culture’s definition of “true love”.

If you’re ready to get serious about understand the meaning of love and how to love someone in return, you need to begin by knowing which definition of love works for you.

You must be ready to understand love’s meaning, how to recognize it when you find, and how to make finding and keeping it your highest pursuit.

If you’re wondering, “What is true love?”, here are 8 qualities of relationships between people who understand the meaning of loving and being loved.

1. True Love Is Not New — It Is Lasting

It’s true that all love starts out as new love. But new love is easy. It is expansive and romantic. In a sense, it is what the hippie generation used to call “free love”. Everyone feels these emotions in a new romantic relationships. It’s just the way our brains are wired.

Meanwhile, true lasting love is earned love. It takes intentionality.

So you have to decide: do you want to put in the time and effort to achieve lasting love, or do you want to live in the fantasy that true love is simply going to happen to you?

2. True Love Is Emotionally Connected

Research has shown that emotional connection is the single most important factor for creating true lasting love. It is the glue that binds relationships together.

You can have great conversations about life, politics, sports, or goals, but if there is no emotional connection, there will be no sustainable attraction.

Emotions are the glue that bond relationships together. They are the primary way we express our deepest joy and fear.

Emotions are the language of love. Can you imagine a poem or love song that’s not full of emotion?

Emotions make you trust and believe in the sincerity of your partner’s love. They tell you that your partner cares about you, even when you hurt.

Telling the Difference Between “True Love” and “Ego Love”

3. True Love Is Accessible

You need to know that your partner is available to you when you need them. What good is it having a Lancelot if he doesn’t rescue you when the dragon comes? No seriously!

When we bond as a pair, we expect our partner to be the first responder when we are afraid.

When the World Trade Center was burning, the lion’s share of the calls going out were expressions of love to husbands and wives. Being able to connect with the person you love the most when you need them the most calms your emotions and make you feel safer even in the face of the worst kinds of danger.

When a husband is not accessible to his wife in labor with their baby, it is one of the biggest pain points she can experience. If she goes through that pain without him present, she will resent him for years to come, losing her ability to trust him to be there when she needs him in the future.

True lovers are “on call 24/7” — accessible to their partners whether they are in distress or wanting to share in celebrations.

Do you want your partner to celebrate with you on your birthday, when you get that job promotion, or graduate from school? Absolutely! Sharing the good times together strengthens your bond with each other.

But sharing the good and bad times requires more than accessibility alone…

4. True Love Is Responsive

If your partner is in the room with you, you expect them to respond to you when you are trying to talk to them. If you hand them the ball and they drop it, you will be angry.

Most men tend to emotionally withdraw in the times when their partners need them the most. They struggle with handling heightened emotions in themselves or in others. From the time they were young, they learn to stuff their emotions and not feel them.

Meanwhile, most women do the opposite. When they are emotionally distressed, they put it all out there. They express their emotions and expect someone to be there for them. If your guy is in the room and is acting like a dead fish while you’re expressing yourself to him, you don’t feel his love.

Because of this, you’ll ask yourself where your Romeo went. He was so responsive and thoughtful when you were dating. During that time he was amazing. What’s happening now? Are you not attractive enough to hold his attention any longer? You will naturally interpret his non-responsiveness as a sign that he is no longer attracted to you or in love with you and that he just doesn’t care.

However, that’s not necessarily true.

During the new love phase of relationships, you have the advantage of the powerful neurochemical known as dopamine. The brain produces a lot of dopamine during the early stages of a new relationship, helping even the most withdrawn men to be more emotionally expressive than they normally would be.

True lovers learn how to work through “the pursue/withdraw phase” of the relationship that occurs once newness wears off and the dopamine tapers off.

So don’t attack your partner when he’s struggling to not shut down when you’re expressing your strongest emotions. He demonstrates his loving feelings for you by telling you how scary it is to feel his emotions and yours at the same time. In time, you will feel safer with each other and respond naturally.

5. True Love Is Engaged

You can be accessible and responsive to your partner but still be tuned out if you aren’t engaged with them.

Engagement is all about paying attention and being present.

In our current age of smartphone information access, how many times have you been in a restaurant and noticed both members of a couple searching their cell phones during dinner? They should be together during together time, right?

Your social media, your game, or news searching must take a back seat to engagement with your partner. This isn’t easy. Companies invest a lot of money to psychologically manipulate you to engage with them. And, of course, pictures of your friends can be quite engaging.

True love means being able to let go of other distractions like the phone or the TV or anything else that gets in the way of you listening when your partner is talking. You need to know that your words are important.

6. True Love Is Always Growing

My parents have been married for 65 years. They both say that they love each other now more than ever. Watching them together, I believe that is real love.

True love grows until the end of life.

Everyone agrees that life is difficult. Things happen that are hard to deal with and no matter how old we are, we struggle with getting older. When a couple is there for each other during life’s challenges and through the process of aging, they grow closer.

Knowing that you can depend on your partner to meet your needs makes you love him or her more and more.

This is really important to understand if you’re in a new relationship. What you thought attracted you to each other early on in your relationship becomes less and less important over time.

You’re going to become fat and wrinkled, but if you have the money for cosmetic procedures and treatments, you can prolong your youthful appearance. And yes, exercise will help you keep the weight off.

But, over time, how you both look on the outside becomes less and less important than your growing love for each other on the inside. Your memories of sharing life’s most important times together will be irreplaceable.

True love is a journey together through mountains and valleys. There’s nothing more bonding than helping each other through life’s challenges. This often requires that you let go of ego and what you think is most important to you. Couples who grow and survive life’s challenges learn to do what’s best for the relationship.

Just Exactly How Many Types of Love Exist?

7. True Love Is Faithful

For starters, couples need to have faith in their relationship, which really means having faith that the other person will be someone you can trust as the years go by.

Trust is the foundation of every lifelong healthy love relationship.

When you say “I do”, you are putting your future and well-being in the hands of another person. That may sound contradictory to the modern perspective on relationships, but think about it. You will share a house, friends, family, money, and emotions. You may even share your DNA, from which you’ll make the babies that will belong to both of you. With the exception of your jobs, everything that matters to both of you will likely be shared.

So there’s a lot that you need to trust your partner with, and you need to have faith that your partner will be a good parent, housekeeper, friend, and co-provider.

Another part of faithful love is what we normally think of as “fidelity” — not having emotional or sexual affairs. You must protect each other’s hearts by not opening up your emotions or sexual needs to others.

There are other notions out there that say long-term relationships can work while having multiple partners. I have two words for this: no way! In my 30 years of practice, I have never seen it not damage a relationship.

True love means your primary relationship is primary, which relates to the attachment theory of relationships.

Science supports the theory that an infant forms a primary bond with one other person who is its primary caretaker. The infant’s security depends on the health of the nurture and support of that relationship. Neuroscience teaches that our brains are wired to make this two-person connection.

More recent research has found that adults bond the same way that infants do. So we call the infant-mother bond a primary relationship. The adult lifetime couple bond, a primary relationship as well.

Secure true love requires us to make our primary relationship a priority. Both partners need to feel that they are more important to each other than other people, places, or things. When either person feels like they are in second place, they need to talk through what is happening with the relationship.

8. True Love Is Transparent

Intimacy has been defined as “into me, see.” You need to be open and transparent with your partner for them to see and respond to your deepest needs and desires. When there is distance in the relationship, it’s probably not about your waistline but more to do with unmet needs that are not being expressed.

There is nothing more precious to offer to your partner than your deepest needs, fears, and desires.

In her book, The Power of Vulnerability, Brené Brown talks about the importance of transparency in relationships.

And to feel safe enough to be vulnerable and transparent, you need to work on everything you just learned above.

Anything less than lasting and affirming love is not true love. If love hurts you or prevents you from becoming the best version of yourself, then it really isn’t true love.

If you’re ready to find true love, it will change your life.

It’s really easy to “fall in love”, but it’s so much more worthwhile to find and keep true love than it is to settle or give up.

So now that you know what true love looks like, go get it!

This guest article originally appeared on YourTango.com: What It Really Means When People Talk About Finding ‘True Love’.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/what-does-true-love-really-mean/

#World of Psychology

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dragonnan · 6 years ago

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Speaking at a panel at the London Film and Comic-Con today, the 41-year-old said that there could only be one character his detective could be coupled with in the BBC hit series.“Now, there’s only one choice, isn’t there? Come on,” he told the audience of fans, before jokingly adding: “Doctor Watson.” He continued on a more serious note, explaining: “I think it would have to be Molly, wouldn’t it? Love for him, after all, would be thinking more - maybe that’s asking too much - maybe thinking as much of someone else as he thinks of himself.”

Headcanon Times:

I know everyone, including the actors, have their opinions about the characters but this is one where I fully, fully agree with Ben. I want to be clear, I don’t watch Sherlock for romance - though romance, in the broader sense, is integral within the series as a whole. It is heightened and artistic and deep and exciting and adventurous and funny and witty and terrifying and, yes, heartbreakingly romantic, too.

I had always viewed Irene as Sherlock’s first real exposure to love. I think there was an immediate attraction and, possibly (without knowing a thing of his history and only going on what the series implied) his first physical experience as well. I’m very much in the camp that believes he and Irene had a physical encounter after he rescued her from being executed. I think he pined after her for many years but I also find it telling that he rarely engaged her no matter how often she texted him. I think he didn’t know what to do with his emotions regarding her and, as has been his method regarding strong emotions, he set them to the side rather than face them head on. “You didn't win, you lost. Look what you did to her. Look what you did to yourself, all those complicated little emotions, I lost count. Emotional context, it destroys you, every time.”

If the man Sherlock has become is his memory of Eurus then it’s no wonder than his view on emotions would be skewed towards seeing them as a crutch rather than a strength. His connections with people were severely damaged between his two siblings - Eurus for her own inability to healthily relate to others plus, you know, murdering his best friend - and Mycroft, for keeping that truth hidden and for teaching Sherlock that human connection is something to despise. At least Mycroft has begun to see how badly he’d wronged his brother, in that regard.

When he met Irene, he’d already begun opening himself up to humanity again. John was a healer beyond his abilities as a doctor. He was crucial to pulling Sherlock back from the edge -possibly - just in time. It’s terrifying to imagine what would have happened to Sherlock had John not entered his life when he did. Because of John’s influence and heart, Sherlock’s emotional walls developed a significant crack. So, that, by the time he’d met Irene, he was already in a place where he could be blindsided by the power of these newly reborn feelings. I think there’s even room to speculate that Sherlock’s emotions towards Irene were so incredibly powerful BECAUSE he hadn’t had much practice with them, yet. To use the familiar cliche it was like gaining sight where once he’d been blind. He was overwhelmed and, as much as Sherlock could be, nearly sick with his infatuation. (bear in mind, still, this is speculation. Sherlock has always maintained an outer cool for a good portion of the series and there are very few times he’s shown his chaotic feelings - but we’ll get to that...).

We know Molly, by this point, has had an ongoing crush on him and it is implied, based on his response to her, that Christmas, that he possibly wasn’t truly aware of that. Or, at least, not the depth of it - given his shock at reading her card. It makes me wonder, then, what, if any, real experience he’s had with attention from someone who views him in a sexual way. Obviously, with John’s blog making him a celebrity, that would have begun to change quite quickly - not that Sherlock has ever had the desire for such distractions (that he’d have felt desire, in and of itself, is another matter entirely. Ben has stated that he did not view Sherlock as cut off from things such as arousal - but that he’d have repressed them in order to put all of his energies into the Work). When he’d believed Irene to be dead, he came very close to using again - or, possibly, something even worse. There isn’t time to explore what he may actually have done because she revealed herself soon afterwards. It is clear, though, that his care for her developed very fast. He’d met her just one time - was outsmarted by her - drugged by her - and then began receiving repeated suggestive texts from her. And, shortly thereafter, he composed an incredibly moving and emotional sonnet for her. Even Ben isn’t certain whether what Sherlock felt was more love or more lust. I don’t know that it is always one or the other as so often those things are intertwined - though possibly weighted more heavily on the physical. In any event, without delving too far into Irene’s relationship, it feels as though they have little to build on, between them, beyond the physical. They play cat and mouse. They have a game of outwitting one another. But beyond wordplay and the occasional whip... Irene would never be a true partner. She has a life she loves and a career that, by its nature, does not mesh with the sort of partnership needed between a man and wife (not that I think she’d ever want something as domestic as that). On top of all of that, she already has a steady female partner that she obviously loves and Sherlock is an aberration for her. He’s a temporary delight but I cannot see any scenario where she’d want to be at his side, through ups and downs, falling off the wagon, getting lost in his work, family dramas... Well, point in fact, she never was.

So, now to the part of this musing that I’ve been building towards.

I gave myself a series of questions and I’ve spent a few weeks, actually, thinking about them. Faithful characterization is really important to me. I want to see the honesty of how a character is represented without overlaying intent just because I WANT to see it. (to be clear, this is not a comment on fanfiction or various pairings or anything of the sort. This is me trying to parse the authentic character, based on what I've interpreted on screen, for my own creative process).

Sherlock's relationship with John is a powerful friendship that has laid the groundwork towards developing his emotional balance. While he will always be a bit of an arse – suspicious of overt emotional displays – in short, he'll be himself – he has also warmed up in ways that would not have come about otherwise.

Molly is the first person that Sherlock, at least on screen, apologizes to. The reason being for his callous cruelty when he chose to deduce the reason for a gift she'd brought – correct motivations but incorrect recipient in that he hadn't connected the dots in that the gift was for him. Instantly abashed for causing her humiliation, he apologized, begged her forgiveness, and kissed her cheek.

Of course, Sherlock now starts to exploit her infatuation because, still, he doesn't really get what love is all about. He doesn't seem to see what it is to emotionally hurt someone because he's cut off proper access to his own heart. In fact, to leap ahead, it is amazing character growth to contrast his early interactions with her – faking interest in her hair and make up just to have access to bodies – against his honest pleading with her to say “I love you” and then having an absolute melt-down when he realized Eurus had used him to emotionally bludgeon Molly.

“You look sad, when you think, he can't see you.” Molly is one of the few people that Sherlock cannot bluff his way around. But this moment also reveals that she is one of the few people he trusts enough to show his real feelings. Yes, he will show John those feelings as well, but in this circumstance he simply couldn't afford to. But he had to be able to relieve some of that emotional stress with someone and Molly was the one he turned to – even if he wasn't initially aware that he was doing so.

Sherlock Holmes: [waiting for Molly in the darkened lab, she enters and is startled when he begins to speak] You're wrong, you know. You do count. You've always counted and I've always trusted you. But you were right. I'm not okay.

Molly Hooper: Tell me what's wrong.

Sherlock Holmes: Molly... I think I'm going to die.

Molly Hooper: What do you need?

Sherlock Holmes: If I wasn't everything that you think I am, everything that I think I am... would you still want to help me?

Molly Hooper: What do you need?

Sherlock Holmes: You.

When Sherlock prepared to fake his death, one of the few people he implicitly trusted to help him was Molly. Not only did he trust her, he approached her in a very open and emotional way. He didn't simply ask her for help. I've thought a lot about the above lines and Sherlock's build up and what it all meant. What I end up with, basically, is him asking would she help him even if he wasn't the near legend that he has become... if he were the lie he's going to be forced to assume in order to make John think he's suicidal. And Molly doesn't hesitate. She will follow him into hell. And I think this might be a moment where Sherlock was still unaware of how MUCH she was devoted to him. Thus his hesitancy. And, yet, he trusts her completely.

Later, Sherlock spent time living with her while in hiding and sleeping in her room while she took the spare room. “We agreed he needed the space”. I don't, however, believe there was anything intimate going on between them and just given Molly's comments on it, it seems as though it was more awkward for her than anything.

Molly was the one Sherlock asked to go investigating when John was angry with him. He was very quick to understand that it was a one time thing because she was engaged. This was the second time he kissed her cheek; and followed it by saying she deserved every happiness. It's suggestible that he acknowledges her feelings for him by saying not every man she falls for can be a sociopath. Of course, one could read that he's referring to Moriarty but after such a tender moment that would seem a little crass. Though, this IS Sherlock and likely he would think that was a kindness. I find everything about this incredibly interesting. For one, though I've never thought there was anything romantic between John and Sherlock – there also were never any questions that John would investigate with Sherlock regardless as to whom he was seeing/married to. It simply wasn't a factor. For Molly, however, her being with someone else means she can't possibly do this with Sherlock. Why? Because of her feelings for him and, more, him recognizing and respecting that he cannot compromise that. While it doesn't say anything about his feelings for her, beyond friendship, it DOES show that he cares about her and won't ask her to do anything that makes her uncomfortable (another step forwards from series 1 Sherlock). It does, also, reveal something else. That if Molly hadn't been engaged, Sherlock would have welcomed her as a partner and that he'd enjoyed his day with her. Even if they weren't able to go out for chips after – his invitation.

The two people asked to be godparents of Rosie were Sherlock and Molly. If John also died, Sherlock and Molly would instantly be co-parents. I just wanted to throw that out there.

Molly is one of the people entrusted to look after Sherlock when he falls off the wagon. It's a short list.

When Sherlock is dying, it's a mental version of Molly who appears and saves his life. Now, for me, that IS telling in that John is the doctor and yet Molly is the one Sherlock's frantic brain latches onto first.

Finally, as was mentioned earlier, we have the infamous “I love you”. We've seen Sherlock fake emotion – fake tears – fake fear and very skillfully, too. He's gotten one over on John many times. With Molly, though, I feel as though he's learned a hard lesson about hurting her. He's trying to do better by her so he gives her his genuine feelings. And, certainly, in this moment he can't afford otherwise. He believes she'll die and Molly will not say the words unless he does first. “Say it like you mean it” may well have been stated “say it so I could believe it.” And, in fact, the first time he says it, she doesn't appear to believe it. She can tell when he lies and, I think for a long time now, she can tell when he's faking kindness to manipulate her. This is where my honest belief about this comes into play. That in order to get her to say the words to him, he had to speak truthfully. An I think that was why it was so tremendously devastating. It opened a wound he hadn't realized existed until that moment – something far deeper and FAR more demanding than that long ago emotion he'd felt for Irene. Irene would never be compromised by a declaration of love. It's possible she may even find it tragic because part of me thinks Irene, too, finds emotional investment to be compromising. I actually think there's a lot of evidence to support that. With Molly, though; who has carried this steady love for so many years – have carried Sherlock through his tragedies, has been emotional support and safety... he cannot wedge open his heart like this for the moment it takes to “save her”, only to close it once more. This is something that has ramifications for the both of them and there is every chance this forced enlightenment comes at the cost of something he wasn't given the time to figure out and act upon. In finally figuring out he loves her he may have lost her in that same breath.

If ever there is a season 5 I wonder that this would even be explored. It's hard to say. But if this is, really, the end of the show it is just as easy to see where it COULD lead.

#london comic-con #Sherlolly #Sherlock and Molly and the hints at their long game romance

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trekwiz · 6 years ago

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Love, Simon - Consolidated Reflections

Love, Simon is an incredible film that I had no idea I still needed. My boyfriend and I went in expecting cheesy humor and Nick Robinson eye candy, but six theater trips later and we're certain it's the most important movie of our lives.

Even though I'm a very different person from Simon's character, I never felt more represented on the screen before. I have my own stories for nearly every scene in the film, and it's made me reflect deeply about what it was like to grow up as a gay 90's kid in New Jersey, and as a student of Johns Hopkins' CTY "Smart Camp".

I’d like you to take a moment and put yourself in a specific frame: think of how you feel when your media doesn’t represent you. You don’t see people like you on mainstream TV, you don’t see people like you in mainstream movies, you don’t see people like you in mainstream advertising, you don't see people like you on the news, except in murder stories. You're invisible in pop culture.

Now imagine that it wasn’t JUST your media.

Imagine that it was your whole world: you don’t see anyone who looks like you anywhere. Not your family. Not your neighborhood. Not your school. Not your media. You are completely erased.

Growing up in that environment was really difficult, in a way that non-gays really don’t have a frame to understand. It stole a lot of my life from me.

It was somewhere around 2nd grade that I realized the world was hostile towards normal people for no good reason: irrational hostility was present in everything at all times.

Some of it was tangible. Hearing “that’s so gay,” or “fag” as an insult, or hearing classmates brag about beating up a gay kid made it clear that the world really was out to get me. While other stuff was more abstract, like the complete absence of people like me on the screen. Or worse, the token representations of people like me that were poorly written, the butt of jokes, or just irrelevant props.

There are more gay characters today, but often it’s still superficial and sometimes worse, with companies like Bioware using disrespectful and offensive caricatures as a money making strategy.

As a kid, I closed myself off. I became a “turtle”--I hid both from my toxic, abusive family and the anti-gay world around me, behind the locked door of my bedroom. After school I had Star Trek, Legos, and videogames, alone. I stepped away from my friendships in 2nd grade--I didn’t stop talking with classmates, I just didn’t let them get close. I didn’t hang out after school. I kept those relationships superficial.

I didn’t get the option to be a mall rat. I didn’t go see movies with other kids. I didn’t get to hang out at the arcade. I didn’t have friends to go on bike rides with. I didn’t have an SNES player 2 outside of my family.

I was afraid that if I had friends, they’d catch me checking out another guy and either attack me, or out me. I tried to convince myself that I was “alone but not lonely,” but I wasn’t. The only thing that kept me going was the belief that if I worked hard, I could get away from the toxic family and the toxic culture, to make my own life.

When I talk about the experiences that were stolen from me, there’s a reason I have a high level of confidence that it wasn’t merely the way my life would have developed anyway.

I have fairly wild swings between shy/quiet, and outgoing/expressive. I’ve always described myself as an “introvert communicator” because I value my alone time, and I do feel drained from many social interactions, but I also have a lot to say and the need to communicate it. It really shows when you compare how I was in front of a classroom or with clients now, vs how I am in a gathering of 5 or more people. Sometimes even one on one chatting, I’m aware that I'm struggling to do my part.

I wasn’t always an introvert. I wasn’t always socially awkward. I wasn’t always anxious in social situations. Before turtling, I was actually fairly normal, socially--despite the geek tendencies.

Many such memories are lost forever because of how young I was. Before I started kindergarten, I had a best friend--I don’t remember much about him, except that his name was Damien. We did normal kid stuff, including sleepovers. When my family moved for Kindergarten, I adapted quickly: I made friends with two of the neighbor girls. I remember even less about them because we moved back after the school year ended. My family recounted stories of me having a group of my own friends at the time; we were into Ghost Busters, of course.

When we moved back, I still have some memories of good social experiences in first grade. It was a fairly slow process between the end of first grade, up through third grade where I started pulling away. I vaguely recall instigating arguments with friends so I’d have an excuse to play alone at recess. Until that became the norm.

I know what society took from me, because I watched it slip away.

Being in the closet meant going through every day knowing that it’s “your fault” that you're isolated. That you erased yourself and that other people just like you, will never see that they’re not alone, either. Just because you wanted to get through your day without being harassed, or assaulted. That your own defense mechanism is isolating you.

It’s a deep isolation that comes with terror, and (justifiable) paranoia. Going through every day knowing that if you slip just a little bit--say something in a “funny” way, walk in an awkward way, or get caught checking someone out--you might end up in the hospital.

It means that if you're lucky enough to see someone who’s willing to express that they’re just like you, you can never talk with them: if someone sees you, they’ll suspect you. If they suspect you, they may hurt you. It means trying hard to find subtle hints that someone else is like you, and knowing that it’s too risky to say anything if you’re right. That the representation you need in your world, is dangerous to you.

Can you imagine how isolating that is for an 8 year old to know the world hates them, with no where to turn to for safety? To know that there’s no one in the world that they can ever trust? I was terrified: there was no way to know who was an enemy.

People who otherwise pass as nice can still be homophobic; they pretend to be good people, but even that seemingly sweet teacher could be a fatal liability. Complain about the slurs and risk the real, well-meaning teacher telling parents; as a teen, I became aware of groups like NARTH and Exodus International and was terrified that I could be forced into one of their torture camps if anyone found out.

How much anxiety would you have if you couldn’t trust anyone around you? How depressing would that be? How stressful? How would you feel about the culture that did it to you?

To some extent, our society understands what it means to hide: it’s what makes horror-thriller so compelling. Think about the iconic kitchen raptors scene from Jurassic Park. The visual of a person hiding for safety resonates with us all; it’s emotionally very complex.

Really look at the emotion involved in the scene: the kids are stressed. They’re off balance, completely terrorized. And they’re aware that they have to keep moving: that the safety provided by hiding is temporary, and fragile. That if they don’t find new ways to hide, their safety is gone. What is their mental state like? When things settle down, how do you think they’re going to feel when they can reflect on their experience?

Think about that for a minute. Imagine that temporary, fragile safety in hiding exists not for minutes, but for years. Not just in the kitchen, but in all aspects of your life; that it continues not just when you escape the raptors (like Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, et al), but also when your parents return because they’re just as dangerous.

What happens to someone psychologically who must constantly hide in fear; who can trust no one, when the world confirms it’s out to get them? When their whole identity has been erased from the world, while their allies hide, too? How sustainable is it, to be in that heightened state of stress and terror?

That’s what it means to be in the closet. You may be able to hide the target on your back, but it comes at a price.

To a 14 year old closeted gay kid, the internet was a taste of freedom. In fact, the internet is exclusively responsible for the totality of my dating life--my boyfriend of six years is no exception.

About.com had fairly good resources before Google was a thing--it gave me a chance to access information about who I was, and to learn about the things they "didn't have time" to address in sex education. I'll never forget the teacher, who went by "Vivacious Vicki," who communicated that my existence was so unimportant that I had to sit through a class that would never be relevant to me even if I asked on-topic questions that I needed answers to.

Answers and information that I couldn’t just get in the library: being seen looking for it was just too dangerous. The internet opened access to message boards like Delphi Forums. That gave me a space to counteract my erasure; to show that I exist and to fight for my existence in a way that didn’t risk my safety.

It gave me a chance to interact with other gay people. People my whole world taught me didn’t exist, or taught that they would disappear when “they got over” their “phase.” It gave me a safe place to talk about celebrity crushes; I was able to talk with other teens about how cute David Gallagher, and Erik von Detten were. And Xanga allowed me to write about my experiences on my own terms, to connect with others who felt empowered by my words.

It gave me a space to learn that we really are in every population; that anyone in the world really could be just like me. The internet also gave me the means to test coming out.

After I aged out of smart camp, I used AIM to come out to friends. I was able to choose one of the most important people first: my best friend across multiple years of camp. The internet ensured there was no risk--we wouldn’t be back at camp, we didn’t live nearby, and he didn’t have my phone number. That meant that we had no common proximity, or potential for common proximity, for a bad reaction to affect me. And because it was unlikely that we’d see each other again, losing that friendship was low risk.

In contrast, because of the danger involved, my first in-person coming out was very calculated. Much like Simon, in Love, Simon, I had found inspiration and strength from the internet--his nervous retreat from the computer and “FUCK! I can do this…” motion is one I had a lot of practice with. I had come out multiple times online, but saying those words out loud for the first time required a safety net.

I waited until the very end of my senior year of high school. I made that choice because if it went poorly, it wouldn’t matter: I’d be gone from the school, so I wouldn’t have to live with a higher daily risk of assault. I wouldn’t have to go through extended ridicule, or torment because I’d have an easy exit.

That wasn’t enough, though. It had to be in my room--it was my sanctuary, the place I hid from the world for safety. It also meant there wouldn’t be strangers passing by to overhear. It meant there weren’t extra variables to track; I didn’t have to watch my environment to make sure I wasn’t going to be blindsided by someone else who didn't like what I had to say. It meant no risk of embarrassment if my message was repeated.

It also had to be someone that wouldn’t treat it like a joke. Not in the sense of thinking I’m joking; it was important that it be someone who wouldn’t go back to others and laugh about it, as if what I was saying wasn’t serious and important. It was a huge weight I had to release from my shoulders, and I was conveying something very deep and essential about who I am, so it had to be someone who could hear it the same way I was saying it.

And most importantly, it had to be someone that I knew was physically weaker than I was. I knew I was risking being attacked and if I had to fight, I wanted to be confident that I could win. I’ve taken my punches before, but this time it was especially important that insult not be compounded by injury.

So, for the first time in my life, I’d invited someone over to hang out--I think it was about a week after graduation, but it’s a little fuzzy this long after. It was a high school chess club friend, under the guise of playing chess.

For all appearances, it was pretty underwhelming: I came out, he reacted well, and we played chess. But internally, that was huge for me; there was a battle to become comfortable enough to say the words, and a massive sense of relief after. As they put it in Love, Simon, I could “finally exhale.” That interaction gave me the confidence to join Allies in college, and to stop hiding who I am from the newer people to enter my life.

I still used the internet as a means to test the grounds before college. And a bit later, too. Some people acted weirdly right after--they wondered “aloud” why I was telling them, not realizing that I just wanted to stop hiding; some acquaintances even “disappeared” afterwords. But without the internet for practice, and as a shield, I don’t think I’d have found the courage to do it in person.

This is something that non-gay people have a hard time understanding. In any context, no matter how young you are, you can just start talking about the eye candy you see around you. Your biggest worry is that your friend will think your eye candy is ugly and make a joke about it until you see more eye candy cross your path.

That’s a normal part of teen and slightly pre-teen life that I didn’t get to have until my 20’s, AFTER college. It's profoundly sad, but authentic, that Simon's character didn't even start learning how to talk about attractive guys until the end of high school.

It’s such a little thing you can take for granted, that poses serious danger to people like me. You have the luxury of not coming out, the luxury of not having to think about these quality of life issues wrapped up in the process.

When I finally wanted to take baby steps out of hiding and make friends again, I didn’t really have the social skills to do it. I remember someone in 8th grade gym class who tried to be friends, but I no longer knew how how to go from daily chatting, to actually hanging out away from school.

I never got to have a best friend outside of smart camp, and I was terrified of going to school dances, so I didn’t--not that there’d have been a reason to, there was no way to find a suitable dance partner, anyway. One of the most obvious differences between Simon in Love, Simon and me is that I never did go to any high school parties--I was never invited, and I probably would have been afraid to go if I had been.

Smart camp was certainly a lot better in some ways. It was a social oasis. I had friends who are still important to me today, and I was able to go to the dances; mostly, I played cards with my friends because it wasn’t just a dance. But even that didn’t offer me a reprieve from the damaging culture around me.

Friends kept pushing me to dance with girls, and it was too dangerous to say why I didn’t want to. I delayed them by pointing out that I didn’t even know how to dance. In response, my best friend, my real crush, offered to show me how to slow dance. Not by telling me, but by actually dancing with me right then and there. In front of everyone. This was the first time in my life that I experienced bullet time as I scrambled to figure out how to react.

I panicked a little. I said no, and lied: I claimed it was only “fast dancing” that I didn’t know how to do, but that I could slow dance. I couldn’t do either, though. I was worried that if I let him show me how to dance, my friends would have noticed how much I was enjoying it; I was afraid that other onlookers would notice; I was afraid that my safety would be at risk, and that rumors would spread.

And so I rebuffed the chance at dancing with a guy, and in so doing, kept up the facade of heteronormativity. The survival mechanism that allowed me to hide from potential enemies also hid me from suitors and allies; that is the paradox of being in the closet.

I really missed out on something exceptional: I could have had my first dance with a real crush, and I could have learned to dance from a friend who cared about me enough to not even worry about being judged for dancing with a guy friend.

Instead, I completely embarrassed myself when they setup a dance for me, after being pressured to name a female crush. My humiliation was compounded by my attempt to use this fake crush as a means of denial; I was desperate to hold onto the facade of being just like everyone else.

In 2000, my last year at smart camp, a girl asked me to dance. I had said no, and after repeating myself about a dozen times, I retreated to the makeshift movie theater. She followed and kept asking; when everyone stared at me because of the disruption, I left, again.

I had nowhere else to go, since we weren’t allowed to go back to the dorms until later, so I actually hid in the bathroom. I don’t think I can convey how frustrating that is--I literally hid in the bathroom because it was too dangerous to say, “please stop, I’m gay.” Needless to say, the bathroom scene after the dance in Love, Simon really hit home.

That story doesn’t even end there. She asked an instructor for help; he came in a few minutes later to "persuade" me, too. I was backed in a corner with no place to escape, and the authority figure, the one who’s job was to protect me, insisted that I should dance with her. Because being in the closet meant I was perceived as merely being a shy non-gay kid who needed a nudge.

I felt powerless, disgusted, and terrified. Knowing my safety was on the line, I became her default dance partner for a couple weeks. Until she asked for a kiss. I was “lucky” that I only had to say no once before she moved on. Meanwhile, there was a guy in my group who, thanks to the benefit of hindsight, I know was interested--I missed it at the time, and lost the only opportunity I had for any kind of dating life in my teen years.

My hair was freshly cut that summer; it's so thick that the natural spikes of a flattop drew a lot of attention. Some of the staff loved patting my hair, and so did the girls in my group, including the one who compelled me to dance with her.

Our group was sitting in a booth playing card games, and the girls were playing with my hair as usual. There were 3 other guys at the table: I never got the name of the important one, but someone from the alumni association suggested it may be Nathan. Aaron is the second, and I don’t recall the name of the third. Aaron was grumpy and obnoxious in general, and he expressed disbelief that anyone could actually be so fascinated with someone’s hair.

Because of his reaction, the girls tried to convince Aaron to touch my hair--he got really awkward about it, and refused vehemently. The third guy sat there quietly, just watching in amusement as Aaron squirmed.

Nathan ignored the ongoing argument and started playing with my hair without saying a word; not just a quick pat, he let his hand linger on this and another occasion. I remember feeling really happy that I had received attention from a guy for the first time, but for twenty years I've been angry with myself for not having the courage to say anything at all.

In the moment, I didn’t realize Nathan was flirting, so I completely missed out on my only chance to explore dating at an only slightly delayed age. Instead, I didn't have my first date until months before graduating college. Many people underestimate just how much it hurts to watch others engage in normal social activities, while being left behind.

What was especially painful was that I missed out on a chance to talk with someone like me when I needed that the most; someone who could relate, and make me feel less isolated. Someone who could have helped me work through the emotions I was trying to understand just from knowing that he was going through it, too. I missed my only chance as a teen to talk with someone who could truly understand me.

That was my only chance at the time to understand that there really were gay people in my world--I still don’t know with certainty if anyone in my life at the time was gay or bi, and I wonder what it would be like to have that chance to talk with someone who shared some of my childhood and was trying to cope in hiding nearby, too. To see how differently they grew through it, and whether or not they resented the same things in our shared environment.

And worst of all, I never got contact information from Nathan, so I didn’t have the chance to get that conversation at a later time through the safety of the internet. Though I tried, I was never able to track him down.

That’s a regret I still hold onto today: I’ve always wanted some kind of closure. Did he know I was interested? Did seeing me dance with a girl discourage him, or did he realize that was part of being in the closet? Did he suspect that I was gay? Did he realize I tried flirting back? Was he struggling the way I was, or did he find comfort being himself? Did I really lose my one chance at normalcy, or did I misinterpret his gesture?

I don’t know that I’ll ever stop wanting these answers. It’s always there at the back of my mind, venturing to the front every few months.

I don’t want to be the kid hiding in the bathroom at the dance anymore, but sometimes, he’s still present. When people celebrate Billy Graham despite his support for Exodus International. When some complain that we’ve “gone too far” with “that whole equality thing.” When gay couples are still assaulted today, or after Pulse. When gay people can still be fired without cause in some states. When gay people can be turned down for renting or buying a home so long as the owner doesn’t say why.

I don’t think I’ll ever not be anxious when I come out, even in places that I know are relatively safe. And there are parts of life that I’ll never be able to experience because the wider culture took it away from me. But Love, Simon gives me hope that there really is a different future ahead.

Seeing a character experience these struggles without making it disaster-porn was refreshing. Seeing him able to experience the life that was denied to me is incredible. Seeing a mainstream movie with such an authentic, honest representation of someone like me is unimaginably meaningful. This movie showed the universal aspects of the gay experience, without resorting to tropes and trivialization; without getting too caught up in any niche subsets.

I needed this movie 20 years ago. Love, Simon truly could have changed my life if it had existed then. It was written from a place of respect, and showed the same due care as any film: and that means everything to me.

#gaymer #love Simon #gay man #gay #gay life

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tova-onova · 4 years ago

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the school system in Bulgaria is broken. i felt underdeveloped in my school. i wanted to be in what i later discovered is a japanese type of school - where i did sports, arts, and a lot of studying simultaneously. i didn't receive any structured education and any direction for further development from the local education system. in fact the opposite - i was moved from school to school, breaking bonds with teachers and classmates, and falling into communion with delinquent people that were in the classroom with no reason other than breaking order. in bulgaria everything is corrupted and people are placed in every institution deliberately, based on records of services that track information. so you can't end up in any dream place. you are always mushed together with people who are not near your level and they make competition between students and general advancement for the class impossible. i received my best education experiences at The British Council, while studying English when I decided to apply for University at the U.K. Another aspect of education that was beneficial for me was a form of apprenticeship in craft - photography - that my stepfather provided me with, because he was working in that industry. he gave me a way forward and a career i want to develop further into - a photographer. i was very angry and insulted by the education system. because i was set back by everybody who didn't want to study but came from families that believe you have to work from an early age, and not study, because studies are irrelevant. this is the ruling class in bulgaria - people with no education who are acting brutally and vulgarly . and they operate through aggression and terror. so we don't have intelligence. this is just a cattle-upbringing, into a real education system. i was happy with my experience with the UK system because i advanced and developed many skills, apart from my language skills, very fast. i believe my CAE course gave me a structure to follow in my University studied to become better than my average classmates at making academic research and structuring my analysis. i wanted to study in Wales ad continue my development as a photographer professionally, but my family didn't support me financially and emotionally and i became frightened to take the loan, after being accepted in Newport. in my opinion the world is in this state exactly because of lack of structure. People with the most potential have to be selected and trained deliberately. I am gifted in the arts - especially singing. But i have a mindset of a professional in the classical scene. i need very long and personalized training. what music has been marketed as and turned into today by popular media, is outrageous. in my opinion there should be branches of education systems that look for talents and assess every student's capacities for further development. what i experienced was a lack of any mentorship and a sensation of being abandoned and thrown at the wolves to find my way amidst ruins in a desert. children need guidance. not to be ordered what to do and chose, but to know what options there are, and what consequences there are if they chose certain things or fail to chose certain things in the right moment. because bodies change, and so abilities decreace further with age. at least that is the general concept about it. now many people try to break those stereotypes proving that you can become a proffessional in a different area eve t an advanced age with continuous training and re-training. but ecoomies shoudl be structured in a supportive way for that. i cant afford to even pay my rent, let alone to cntinuemy studies. because i'm not in the right place - i made a mistake not following my passion fr photography to wales and i have been devastated nad lost in the last ten years. 'making ends meet' isn't what my standards look like. so i cant be happy with mediocrity. but becaus ethere is not free access to everything, people fight over resources, lie and cheat to get their children ahead and leave you in the dirt even though you are talented and the others are not. we don't exist in an educated reality in eastern europe. its like a madhouse jungle and i have been depressed because of this lack of structure and the sensation of lack of future because of it ever since i was i highschool. to be honest in today's world education is only for wealthy people. because to truly be educated you nee to invest a lot of time and you need to be financially supported throughout that entire time. i have been so i developed a lot of skills beyond my social circle. but i lacked financial education and strategic thinking and planning so i was scared to become an adult ad take a loan to go to university which i regret. i still hold undeveloped potential and this drives me unstable because i don't fit anywhere currently because i am no one i want to be. so i started engaging in activism instead of a career because it seems pointless to strive for money when i feel so isolated and alone. and the isolatio came exactly form breakignthe trust i had in my parents and school that they will discover my abilities and direct their efforts into helping me grow into sucessful humn beig. nobody wants that. the system wants to produce machine replicas who make repetitive tasks. and i cant. i need change and reinventig, since i didnt receive the career i wanted but it seemed so unbearaly expensive to me. i order for childre to get a feel of their capabilities they have to be engaged in a variety of ways - non stp changing - first beig listeners and followers, then eing the teacher and lader, etc. only a dynamic type fo education environment ca crete actual intelligece. nothin static can. you end up in abox if you chose the unilaterl approach to develping self. the self is very complex. so we need open schools and uiversities. which are very hard to manage and a lot of peopel are lazy to do that,this si why they havent still been implemented everywhere. in bulgaria, for example, oly droputs becoem teachers.there is no dignity in that poffession. and it feels shmeful to be a student in this environment. you fel lie second hand citize, eve though you aer supposed to just begin t lear bout the world ad feel fresh and enthusiastic. i honestly dont know by now if there is ny system that helps people into becoming more educated ot its ony a matter fo personal iteersts and desire to ler deeply. my expereice is ot consistent as i have been moved about and didnt receive contiuing support from my family, so i had to reinvent mysef and my choices so many times, i was so stressed at the end, i developed diabetes of the sesation of not being accepted, and not beign good enough, ot fitting in. not because i didnt have capacities, ut becaus ei ddint have uidance nad mentor.i m the kind of person who needs a very profound connection with teachers - based on trut and values. and my etachers were just doing a job. so i didnt connect with any of them. and i still feel empty of that expeeice in education. it was pointless from many sapects. ecause it gave me tons of information, but no sustace. and i dont want that. i was to be directed and given real value. not only used as a recycling bin for someone's handouts on stuff they had to read i uiversity to write a paper. i need personalized approach as a student - lecturer who thinks about their lesson and their audience personally. not mechanically. this demonstrates respect to the listener - and invites them to be a part of discussions and to continue the learning process further than the classroom. it really is an invitation (respect for your audience/students).

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adhdsoras · 7 years ago

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Lotor & Kuron Theory

I would first like to start this off by saying this: when ever I mention Lotor in this theory, and how he’s helping voltron, every ounce of it is simply based off of my perception of how his character functions and how he reacts to situations and in no way a way of me implining that I want/Lotor deserves a redemption arc, because he simply doesn’t. All of this motivations for joining voltron in any shape or form is simply for his own benefit and out of preservation, which is exactly why this theory makes sense and works out.

This theory is also something that makes sense to me, simply because of Lotor and other character dynamics, and how the clone theory is tied to them and how it would make for a really interesting and cool story line, but I doubt that something this complex could be canon considering how the show runners have been handling the situation, but I so think something along these lines may possibly occur.

Anyways, to start it off simply: Lotor knows that “Shiro” is a clone.

There’s a lot of logic to go with this, considering that Lotor was the makeshift emporer of the galra empire in s3, which is when Shiro first returned. Being the place holder for emporer, there’s 95% chance that lotor knew what was going with the cloning process, and the 5% is if, simply, haggar didn’t tell him, but that makes no sense.

In s3 ep6, we see lotor and voltron face off. Lotor directs an attack at voltron whole a cargo ship is trying to escape with the commit. Lotor comments that voltron will most likely go after the cargo ship instead of him, and that they will be able to land an attack. While this is being explained, Keith suggests going after Lotor, while shiro suggests this:

Which is putting Voltron right where Lotor wants them, meaning that lotor was probably aware of the situation, and that he was confident enough to base his entire attack onto this possibility.

So. lotor knows about the clone, and if hes gonna join voltron for his own self preservation, there’s two ways that Lotor’s gonna approach the situation that I see as very likely, which are:

Walk in and straight up kill the clone bitch

Gain everyone’s trust and tell the team member who is most suspicious of Shiro

Lets start with the first theory:

This is likely considering the way that he reacted when finding out that Narti was a spy, which was take out the root of the problem, but this would be highly dangerous.

He will most likely meet resistance by team voltron and not gain any of their trust, and considering that he’s outnumber 7 or 8 (depending on whether or not keith is present) to 1, its not a logical stradegity and will not work out best for him, but might simple happen because of anxiety and paranoia

The second theory is the most logical one to happen, as lotor will probably be brought onto the ship with Shiro’s support, shiro claiming the reasoning as lotor knowing an abundant amount of knowledge about the galra empire- including future plans, bases, and trade routes. This logical explanations about using lotor as a resource will most likely go through with very little resistance bc of how logical it seems and how lotor is simply trying to survive, so it wouldn’t benefit him to lie

Lotor’s goal to get rid of the clone shiro would be tto gain the trust of one of the team members slowly, and then bring forth evidence and information about shiro being a clone, and the last known location that he has of the real shiro.

The most likely candidates to that Lotor will try to convince are Keith and Lance

Keith has the closest relationship with Shiro out of everyone, having a relationship that is considered brotherly, and there’s no way that Shiro’s odd behavior and decisions haven’t gone unnoticed by Keith, so lotor trying to inform him about the clone makes a lot of sense

Keith is also a good person for lotor to go to because of their heritage. Also bc at nycc the creators of the show said something along the lines of lotor being about to connect with Keith easily.

But Keith is also a very hard target at the same time, considering how he has trust issues. Also, when taking I’m the fact of Keith’s living arrangements, Lotor might not have any access to Keith at all, as lotor would be on the castle of lions the entire time for easy access to information and servaliance, and Keith would be with the blade.

But in the chance that Keith returns to the castle of lions, then Lotor could easily inform Keith about the situation and gain his trust.

With Keith knowing about clone shiro, he also has several possible approaches that seem likely:

He’ll either run off to the last location of shiro by himself, or he’ll take a trusted team mate with him who would have faith in his decisions and would also help him emotionally & just over all trust and support him.

Aka: Keith goes on a solo mission to the location, or he and lance go together

Lance has shown to trust in keiths decisions as a leader, and out of all the paladins besides Shiro, who isn’t apart of the equation, has the closes emotional connection

In season 3 lance has been seen to be Keith’s impulse control. He has also been described as Keith’s stability and his right hand man, which makes this the perfect situation for this relationship to come back into play, because not only does lance support keith, but Keith trusts and supports Lance as well.

But keith is extremely impulsive and rash, being the kind of person who follows his heart and instincts more than his head, so the possiblity of a solo mission is very likely, especially considering how emotional the situation is.

Considering this it is also possible that Keith would straight up fight Shiro, but I feel as if keith wouldn’t do that simply because there’s always the possibility that lotor was misinformed, and that rushing in and fighting Shiro would be emotionally damaging at some level.

NOW onto the Lance section of the post:

This post shows how Lance is the closest paladin to figuring out that shiro is a clone. Lotor would most likely notice this suspicision, as he is a very observant and analytical character, and making Lance the easiest target to convince that shiro is a clone

There are several different ways that lance can handle the situation:

Lance tells everyone using the evidence provided by lotor

Lance tells Keith, causing him to go on a solo mission and for lance to stay there and try to figure out what to do with the clone

Lance tells Keith and they work together to go to the location provided

The first plan I could see happening is because of Lance’s personality, and how he has a deep need to protect friends and people, so he would want to tell everyone as soon as possible.

He would most definetly try to convince everyone verbally, but there is a high probability of him getting laughed off or no one taking him seriously, which is why he would turn to Keith in the other situations, because Keith appreciates his input.

Speaking of the other possibilities: they are very similar to the ones before for Keith, but are also different simply because of who initiated the clone theory.

Keith has been one of the few people to listen to Lance’s suggestions and plans as a leader, which is something that he doesnt get in other relationships

Having lance hang back and keith go on the mission allpws for several things, all depending on the arrangements that theyre living in, which if Keith is still with the blade, lower suspicision of lance catching on, as he is still present at the castle.

It also allows for both of them to be in their natural element: combat & communication

It allows for lance to have time to convince his team mates that shiro is a clone, or to add a bit of suspicion into their hearts, while Keith is able to go and find the real shiro

This plan is very risky, though, as Keith has no backup behind him and the only people that know would be lance and lotor, and from the way I see it, lotor is most likely not permitted to leave the castle, so if he gets badly hurt, he can only have one person go and save him.

Having lance and keith go on a solo mission will cause suspicsion, but is also the safest plan as it allows for both of them to have immediate back up if the plan goes haywire, but will result with the greatest amount of evidence.

#vld spoilers #lotor #kuron #keith #lance #yall tgis killed me it killed me ive been thinking about this all weekend #like hhhhnnngffffffgggfgggf what the fuck this would be such a good and cool plot line #especially the lance parr bc then it means that he gets to lead a mission to save shirp!!!!!

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annwinter94 · 4 years ago

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The ones that had caused him or her idea of divorce you'll experience with your spouse is treating you badly, ask yourself these things and you'll hold your partner's habit?No, I am just saying that nothing has worked.Do you think the wife may simply need to move forward.Always express your differences, counseling can provide an objective view point to get home, you should find time in their personal life you have access to their stress.Well... it's not achieving just these three; there are lots of friends who you would like it at your situation and instead of allowing every little thing that will get on with your spouses?

First and foremost, a couple just are not back down remains then it would seem much like the odds of winning back the lost spark of romance in any relationship to work.When these times together, too, so you must first take before it's too late.Things aren't the only way was through the ringer in a loving way what it requires a little bit comfortable.If you are asleep, it is important that women think differently.In fact, learning how to save their marriage,

You can't always be about who wins the argument but to understand your partner as well.To save marriage from divorce, you just don't do anything to do something about it.Using professional counselors is another way.Unfortunately the statistics don't often reflect that many are helped through counseling.Know this though that you are trying to save marriage and improve your relationship.

Hence, it's high time you feel has hurt you, but you can show how they fit their schedules.Regular prayer is necessary for both partners give one another a chance to understand that not all the anger, frustration, and hopelessness that have failed.You no longer feel affectionate and warm towards your spouse.Of course, we are together in paying the heavy issues are in a marriage from divorce even after your appearance and you will then have the possibility of communication problems in our marriage.While you take out divorce from the equation of marriage, has changed and it makes things seem bigger than they solve.

My Girlfriend Wants To Save Herself For Marriage

Try some of the reasons, you might find is hard enough, you do anything to save your troubled marriage seem to act as a smaller space modified to be very upsetting watching it fall apart.Gradually, with time and learning how to find the above methods you will be worth saving!Marriage is not easy, but it has any right to divorce then you have conveyed your thoughts, be ready to confide in anyone, so do not put your finger of blame.They keep their emotions bottled up inside then your marriage to fail.These couple's marriages flourish and provide his valuable suggestions to save their marriage and gain over your actions, forget your pride and the connection is between two people, it will be to end in divorce.

I know you understand they aren't doing anything that you have to work on them may disappear.It is human nature to forget that promise?A marriage should include sparing a thought to be a level of love.These feelings will eat away at a stalemate, or think that it will undoubtedly have a valid reason for such jealously.Analyzing the situation gets complicated.

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