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sinceileftyoublog · 3 years

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Doug Clifford Interview: Shuffle & Flow

Photo by Brent Clifford

BY JORDAN MAINZER

For All the Money in the World is a time capsule. The album, written by Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug Clifford and Greg Kihn Band bassist Steve Wright, was recorded in 1986 but won’t see the light of day until the end of the month. Since then, it’s been waiting in Cosmo’s Vault--the self-proclaimed storage area for Clifford’s unreleased music--until the right time. “There’s some good music on this album,” Clifford told me over the phone earlier this month. “Right now, more than ever, we need some good music that’s uplifting and makes you feel good.” Plus, for Clifford himself, the tunes have barely scratched the surface: “To me, it’s still new.”

After Creedence Clearwater Revival broke up in 1972, Clifford released a solo album and later joined the Don Harrison Band, which also featured former CCR bassist Stu Cook. In 1995, he and Cook formed Creedence Clearwater Revisited to play CCR songs live without singer John Fogerty, who retained artistic control over CCR. Revisited’s last show was in February 2020 in Mexico, and based on what Clifford told me, that’s likely their last, at least in this version, as Clifford is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. All in all, though, he’s ready to move on from those songs, instead choosing to look into different parts of the past. Last year, he unearthed his lost second solo album Magic Window. And now, with For All the Money in the World, released under the name Clifford/Wright, he’s beginning to revisit a series of recorded writing collaborations whose release never came to fruition.

Though Clifford/Wright was formed around the rhythm section, the rest of the band that plays on the album is nothing to sniff at: guitarists Greg Douglass (Steve Miller Band), Jimmy Lyon (Eddie Money) and Joe Satriani and keyboard players Tim Gorman (The Who) and Pat Mosca (Greg Kihn Band). The lead vocalist picked for the project was Keith England, whose emotive howl ties it all together on the title shuffle and stadium anthem “I Need Your Love”. While the first two songs sound like something you might expect to be recorded in 1986, other tracks operate under different styles and recording aesthetics. The rockabilly echo of “She Told Me So” lies in stark contrast to the ripping guitar jaunts of “Lost Pride Fever” and “Weekends” and the funk snap of “You Keep Runnin’ Away” and “Just In The Nick Of Time”. Indeed, some songs on here sound like they could be Steve Miller or Eddie Money jams, but for the most part, they sound like lost relics of rock radio, comfort food for troubling times.

Clifford hopes For All the Money in the World is more than nostalgia, though. For one, he’s “calling the shots,” releasing the album on his own label, Cliffsong Records, with a distribution deal through Bob Frank Entertainment. “It’s like a publisher’s outlet for the songwriters involved,” he said. “It’s really kind of exciting.” His hopes are that the songs do land on today’s rock radio or do well streaming so they can release it on vinyl. “I still get a kick out of it,” Clifford said about hearing his songs on the radio. Not bad for somebody who started playing in bands at age 13. And while it’s very much not a CCR album, he’s excited for CCR fans to hear it, okay with the long-disbanded legendary outfit as the connecting bridge for listeners. They might just come away with a new favorite song.

Pre-save/pre-order For All the Money in the World, out August 27th, here, and read my conversation below with Clifford, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: I was struck by the variety of styles on this album. You think to yourself, “What would music written around the 80′s sound like?” There’s some of that, but there are other sounds, too. Do you remember consciously trying to write in a number of styles?

Doug Clifford: Yes, because we were trying to get a record deal. We were the only writers in the group, and we wanted them to know we could write more than just “Bad Moon Rising”. There’s really not much in there that sounds like Creedence. With Steve Wright on bass, that changes a lot of things. It puts a different spin on it from the standpoint of the house the songs are built on, the rhythm section. It’s exciting. I listen to it as if it’s another band. [laughs] Normally, I don’t do that. Steve passed away in [2017], so we won’t do any more writing or playing, but this album is a chance to hear a great bass player and songwriter. I’ve got three terrific guitar players in there, too, Joe Satriani, Greg Douglass from Steve Miller Band, and Jimmy Lyon from Greg Kihn and Eddie Money. A guitar extravaganza. A lot of good stuff coming from this record.

SILY: Not only does the record sound different from CCR, but I heard a lot of the other projects the players were involved in, like Eddie Money and Steve Miller.

DC: Yeah, but when we were doing the writing, those guys weren’t in the band. Steve Miller is one of my best friends. He loves “She Told Me So” on this record. He sent me an email all excited that said, “I was dancin’ around my studio! You still got it!” [laughs] I love that guy.

SILY: I like songs like that, that have a little more of a shuffle.

DC: That would be [the title track], too. I love shuffles.

SILY: You’ve said people need songs like this at a time like now. When you wrote and recorded them, did you know you’d put them away for a while?

DC: Not really. If you’re a songwriter, you want to have versions of your songs that sound radio-ready instead of just [recorded on] an acoustic guitar. I produced everything that we wrote, so we had good versions of our work and presented it that way. The idea was not to put these things out as albums, but for record companies. Then you’d go out and play, and they’d send their A&R guy. Steve didn’t want to play in any of the clubs we’d have played in, and you need a band that plays, so that started the tailspin of this project. [After that,] I did a solo singer-songwriter album [Magic Window], and I did projects for areas that had overgrown forests and droughts. I had kids that were going to school. So I sort of slowed down on the music and slapped [these songs] in Cosmo’s Vault. That’s where they stayed till a year or so ago. I [finally released Magic Window], but nothing happened because...COVID hit, and it really changed everything. There’s been enough time that we’re all living through the virus that it’s time to hear [For All the Money] on the radio to make me feel good. It’s a labor of love that all songwriters have. Allowing people to hear the excellent musicianship of Steve Wright playing bass. There’s a little difference in my playing as well. It’s fun, really enjoyable.

SILY: When you were originally writing the lyrics and instrumentation, were you going for a feel-good, uplifting type thing?

DC: When you’re looking for someone to invest in you and put you on their label, you want them to like your music, too. I’ve never been a guy to write songs that make you feel bad. [laughs].

SILY: What were you looking for in a vocalist, and why did you end up going with Keith?

DC: We were so fortunate to have Keith in many ways. He was the youngest guy we were working with. I would be the guy to teach him the songs, as the writer of the words. He had to sing those words and get the idea of the song across, which is a big job for any singer. He took special care to get the essence of the song. It makes a big difference to learn the words and melody. I took extra time to write the melody, because I’m putting the words out there, and a lot of time, the melody would depend on what the words were. You have to give the singer places to breathe. I gave Keith liberty to let me know if something wasn’t working for him vocally, to sing it the way he was comfortable. He always came through. The idea of a song is like a chapter in a book. It has to have meaning and a certain ambiance and feel to it. That’s at least my approach to writing and performing, really. He nailed every song in a very professional approach. That’s not an easy thing to do, especially over 11 songs.

There are other songs in the vault from the sessions that he did. He was the only singer we had. I’d like to see success, not just for myself and Steve, but for Keith. He was the only guy on the session that wasn’t in a band that had a Gold or Platinum album, and he’s very deserving of it. I’d love to see this thing be successful on that level because I’d love to walk up to his front door and knock on it and hand him a Platinum album. He’s still trying to do it. He has been for 30-some odd years. He can still hit most if not all of those notes. He doesn’t complain about it, he just stays at it, trying to get to that spot. I’d like to see that happen for him.

SILY: This album was recorded in a number of different studios, and some tracks do sound a bit lower-fi or raw. Did the difference in sounds among the tracks correspond to the different studios you recorded in?

DC: Not really for that reason. What’s really important is trying to get an attitude out of a certain song. It is rock and roll after all. The sound of the studio wasn’t something that dictated the direction.

SILY: At what point did you decide to name the album after the title track?

DC: That song, the first time I heard it, it was one of those that Steve said, “Listen to this!” He had the chorus and the lyrics. [sings] “For all the money in the world, girl / For all the kisses in the sea, baby...” I went, “That’s a hit.” Whenever I play that song for people, they all say, “That’s a natural hit.” Being a shuffle adds a lot to do with it. Shuffles have a magic to them. You just can’t help but tap your foot. Your body moves with it. The approach to have it be a shuffle is right up my alley. Creedence didn’t ever do one, and I always wanted to have a shuffle to record. There it was! It was a natural as the first song on the record. The second one that’s out now is a different type of song, to show the album’s versatility, but I had an inkling that it might be a good idea to name it after the first song on the album.

SILY: At what point did you come up with the order of the tracks?

DC: Listening. [laughs] That’s very important. Again, they’re like chapters in a book or story. I did a lot of shuffling around--there’s that shuffle again--seeing which order played best. It took a while, but that’s something worth spending time on. You want to get it right.

SILY: You’ve said any of these songs could be a single. Do you have a favorite?

DC: [The title track] is probably my favorite for that reason. It’s simplistic in its style, and usually, those are the best ones, the easiest ones to understand, though everybody has their own understanding of music. It is art; you can look at a painting, and 10 different people can have different opinions on it. It’s the same with music. Each song has a different meaning to a different person. That’s great; that way you can touch millions of people instead of 10.

SILY: What’s the story behind the album art?

DC: The story behind the album art is my son [Grady Clifford] did it and I needed a cover. That’s it! I didn’t tell him anything. When I saw it for the first time, I just went, “Wow!” He’s very talented. He did the Revisited cover. Whenever I need art, I don’t tell him what to do. He just does it. My wife [Laurie Clifford] is an artist, too. She did the artwork for [CCR]’s first album. Very recently, she got it in the de Young Museum. They had a show of album covers from the 60′s. The Clifford family has a drummer and artists. One of the things about going from vinyl to CDs is the art is a pretty good size. I miss a lot of aspects of the packaging. I have a couple of good album cover folks within the confines of the house here.

SILY: What’s next from the vault?

DC: A project I did with the same songwriting concept. Two of us did all the writing. The other guy was Bobby Whitlock. I’ve got a Bobby Whitlock album with a group we had for a short while. Bobby’s wife didn’t like living in the East Bay. She wanted to live in the Northeast. Happy wife, happy life, so we had to split when we were close to getting a deal. Another addition to Cosmo’s Vault!

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mckinlily · 4 years

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shalluraweek day 1: stars/sky

Summary: stars/sky Shiro had a celebrity crush.

read on ao3: here

“Sure you’re not freaking out, Shiro?” said Keith, his voice bland and amused.

Shiro realized he was repeatedly doing and undoing the Velcro on the back of his (one) fingerless glove and quickly put his hands behind his back. Behind him, someone—probably Pidge—snorted.

Shiro breathed and looking around, forcing himself to take in his surroundings. Small office, lots of sound equipment, his and Keith’s guitars against the wall, air conditioner that made that annoying hum. Keith was nearest him, slouched in his leather jacket in a way that made Shiro wonder if he and Keith made it as a punk duo on Keith’s emo vibe alone. Sprawled across the couch was Lance, their PR and social media manager, sipping on a smoothie and clearly snickering at Shiro. Pidge was fighting Lance’s legs encroaching on her space on the couch. She worked on post-production with Hunk, a musical genius who played an impossible number of instruments and had a knack of fleshing out every song idea Keith and Shiro had into a massive hit, and helped Lance out where PR became technical. She was also definitely smirking at Shiro. Really, Hunk was the only one of them not actively laughing at him, and that was because his expression was worryingly close to pity.

Why did Shiro like these people again?

Oh yeah, because his band and the team behind it had become something like a second family.

And sometimes “family” meant “incredibly annoying.”

Shiro resisted the urge to fiddle with one of his piercings. “I’m fine,” he said stiffly.

“Yeah. Suuuuurre, you are,” drawled Lance.

Hunk shot Lance a look, clearly chiding him for not being sympathetic. He looked back to Shiro. “You really don’t need to be nervous.”

“Sure he does,” said Pidge, grinning over her glasses at him. Besides Keith, she has known Shiro the longest, and Shiro could see the blackmail in her eyes as she looked at him. She took on a sing-song voice, “It’s Allura.”

Just the look in Pidge's eyes was enough to make Shiro blush.

“Ugh, why are you like this?” Keith threw his hands in the air. “You sing your heart out to thousands of people an audience, take the lead in interviews, talk openly about being bi and having PTSD on YouTube, but having a conversation with one singer—”

“She’s not just another singer!” objected Shiro, scandalized. “She’s Allura. Do you have any idea the kinds of records she’s broken? Her latest album—”

“Yeah, yeah. We all know about your massive crush on Allura,” laughed Lance.

Shiro huffed. “That's not it.”

They didn't get it. It wasn’t just that Allura was totally hot (breathtakingly beautiful more like) or an incredible musician (which she definitely was) or had a voice that when she sang would make even sirens weep in jealousy (though she definitely did). She also was the kind of social activist Shiro dreamed of learning how to be. A political refugee who climbed her way to the top from nothing, she used her massive following to push for social change and speak out against inequality in all its forms. The way she handled personal attacks—on her race, her gender, her sexuality (pan, as seem on the flag in her Twitter profile)—with grace, dignity, and yet absolutely no apology left Shiro in awe. He respected the hell out of her, ever since the first time he saw a video of her neatly dissecting the intersection of racism and sexism in the music industry, and privately considered her one of his personal heroes.

And she was coming to the studio because someone thought it was a good idea for them to collab, and Shiro didn’t know how to deal.

“Okay, okay.” Lance rolled off the couch, picking up a can of whatever sugary death drink they were supposed to be promoting and opening it to hand to Shiro. “Time to chill out. Take a sip of our ‘paying for Pidge’s new sound system’ drink and remember you’rean internationally known star, too. It’s going to be fine. I planned it.”

“Oh, and that’s never come back to bite us before,” said Keith.

“Excuse you, I made Grumpy Cat Keith a meme! It’s was a stroke of marketing genius!”

Shiro opted to ignore Lance and Keith’s bickering, choosing instead to take a sip of the dubious promotional sports drink—

“I mean, worst come to worst, we could always use the footage to make another meme campaign if Shiro completely falls on his face.”

—only to immediately spit it out again. “Pidge!”

“Sorry,” smirked Pidge, unrepentant. Then her eyes fell on his shirt that he’d spilled his drink all over. “Oh. Uh. Actually sorry.”

Shiro looked down at his chest with mounting dismay. Of all the days to wear a white shirt (this was why he wore black: it wasn’t depressing, it was practical). The promotional drink was an unnatural red and splattered over most his front. It wasn’t something that could be hidden and Shiro could already tell the color wasn’t coming out.

“We could try rising it?” said Pidge, and she honestly sounded contrite.

“Dump the drink over all the shirt?” Keith offered.

“Hold on,” said Hunk. He started rummaging behind the couch. “I think Shiro’s vest from the Toronto show is in here. I know that shows off your prosthetic a lot without anything to go under it but—”

“That’s fine. You’re right: it’s probably the best option. Lance, when is Allura supposed to show up?”

Lance glanced at his phone. “Uh, now, actually?”

“All right. Not much time.” Shiro forced the panic to stay out of his voice. “Hunk—”

“Found it!”

“Good.” Shiro grabbed the back of his shirt, getting ready to pull it over his head. It had stuck to his chest where the drink spilled and was starting to feel sticky.

“Um, guys?”

Shiro yanked his shirt off, turning as he said, “Yeah, Pidge?”

But it wasn’t Pidge who answered.

“Oh my.”

Oh no.

Oh no nononononononono.

Allura—superstar, perfect, idolized Allura—was standing their doorway, blocking the way for the rest of her entourage. Shiro pressed his crumbled shirt to his chest in a vain attempt to preserve his modesty. Which was helped not at all by the way Allura (unfairly hot in skin-tight silver jeans and an adorable crop-top) was staring.

Staring. At him. Shiro. Who could feel that last of that godsforsaken drink drip to his bellybutton.

They both started talking at once.

“Sorry—”

“So sorry—”

“—I was just—”

“—Of course! Abs—I mean! Absolutely—”

“—you too—wait, that’s not—”

Pidge’s cackling laughter put a stop to their train wreck, but only gave more time for Shiro’s blush to attempt to melt his face off. Fortunately (or not so fortunately?), Allura didn’t seem to be faring much better.

“Should we give you two some privacy?” asked Lance, all waggling eyebrows.

“No, you should not,” said Allura, drawing herself up and doing a nice job of returning to professionalism considering Shiro was still half-naked and drowning in mortification. She brushes her hands on her pants. “Let’s return to business.”

Her assistant snorted behind her. “Like you can talk business when you just ogled his chest for five minutes.”

“Romelle!”

Well, at least Shiro wasn’t the only one mortified now.

“We’re here to discuss a collab, which is what we’ll do,” said Allura. But she met Shiro’s eyes looking sheepish and a tiny bit shy. "Unless..."

“Could I buy you a drink after this?”

That was not what Shiro intended to say.

But, holy crow, if Shiro had thought that pink crop-top looked hot on Allura before, it had nothing on the tiny, confident smirk growing on her face. “Hm. Are you referring to the one on your chest?”

Shiro's mouth continued to run without his permission.

“I was thinking we could work up to that.”

Keith pretended to gag behind him, but Shiro didn't care because Allura, freaking I-don’t-need-a-last-name-I’m-like-Beyonce Allura, was flirting with him and Shiro was pretty sure if he tried right now, he could fly.

“Ugh, gross. Gross! Hunk, don’t look!” said Pidge, scrambling to put her hands over Hunk’s eyes. Meanwhile, Lance was smiling like a shark.

“Perhaps we finish this up first?” said Allura. The way she was smiling at him made Shiro feel like there were tiny supernova going off in his chest.

“That—that works.” Frankly, Shiro was astonished his words still worked at this point.

Allura clapped her hands together with an authoritative “All right!” and yep, Shiro was in love. “Enough of this. Let’s get down to business.” She strode further into the room and consequently closer to Shiro. “On one condition,” she said, tapping Shiro’s chest.

“Yeah?”

“You keep that shirt off.”

Well.

Shiro felt his own smirk blooming on his face. He could work with that.

#shallura #shalluraweek2020 #mckinlily writes: VLD fic #can't follow a prompt to save my life but i'm going to try

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daphne-miles · 3 years

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One Tree Hill rewatch (Season 1, Episode 2 - The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most)

I’m back with my thoughts for the second episode of season 1! If you want to read my thoughts about the Pilot, here they are. I’ve also created a masterlist where I’ll have my thoughts for every OTH episode, which is here.

Note 1: these posts of mine are not meant to be a recap of the episodes, simply what I was thinking as I as watching the episode!

Note 2: I *think* I’m going to be doing these once a week, so the episodes are fresh on my mind when they’re talked about in the podcast. However, if I find the time and/or want to, I might start doing these more regularly! Who knows, I’m not sure yet what the schedule will be.

Note 3: these will not be spoiler-free. So if you haven’t watched the show or are rewatching and, like me, don’t remember much you can filter the following tags: “one tree hill rewatch”, “one tree hill s1 rewatch”.

Before I start though, I want to say that you can always send me a message (via ask or chat) to talk about the episode! I’m rather useless talking about future episodes because, as I said in my first post of this series, I watched this show only once and it was like 8 years ago, so I don’t remember much. But feel free to talk to me about the episodes I’ve already rewatched, I’d love that!

Episode synopsis: Lucas plays his first game as a Tree Hill Raven...and chokes. He isn't the only one confronting insecurities: Peyton can't find the courage to submit her drawings for publication.

So, without further ado, here are my thoughts:

Keith and Karen at the cafe 🥺

Haley OMG!!! This girl talks so much lmao

When Coach Whitey Durham calls “Scott” and both Lucas and Nathan look up lmao

Ahah, Mouth and Jimmy trying to interview Lucas before the game 😂

Mouth (to Jimmy): “Did you just hear that? We’re media” 😂

God I hate Dan so much (and he was just talking to Keith in the stands at the gym)

God I can’t wait for Nathan to be the Nathan we know and love!!!

OMG BROOKE DAVIS, LOVE OF MY LIFE, FINALLY APPEARS!!! Mind you, from what I remember, I didn’t really like her until like s3-s4, but still 🥰

Peyton (to Lucas): “Nice hands”; Lucas (to Peyton): “Nice legs” - lmao

Wow Lucas is really feeling the pressure during the game. I actually feel bad for him

The cheerleading uniforms from these first two episodes are actually kind of cute, but not anywhere near the s4 uniforms, which were a beauty 😍

OMG, the first time the theme song plays 🥺🥰 ngl, it made me emotional

Ewwww, Nathan and Peyton 🤢 - I want Haley!!!

Nathan (to Peyton): “Hell yeah, didn’t you?” - Nathan, sweetie, why do you have to be such an arsehole?! And what he said to Peyton? Omg, fuck him!!! Man, he’s such a little shit (in a bad way)!!!

Ahah, Karen upset at Keith. But mostly at herself for not being at the game for Lucas 🥺 oh Karen sweetie 🥺

Peyton (to Lucas): “Guess misery really does love company”. Also, what a great way for her to cheer up Lucas: “Look, it’s just a game. Who cares if the entire school, most of your friends and half the town saw you suck?” LMAO

But also this hairstyle looks so good on Peyton 😍 (as Sophia, Hilarie and Joy said on the podcast, it always comes back to hair 😂)

I think I’m going to roll my eyes every time Dan is on screen, ngl. He’s such a little shit, it makes me want to scream! Or beat the shit out of him!!!

Peyton (to Lucas): “Do you want to come in?” and “What are you doing? (...) I didn’t invite you in, I just asked you if you wanted to. Thanks for the ride.” Peyton 😂

Karen (to Lucas): “I’m sorry I missed it”; Lucas (to Karen): “Yeah, me too.” 🥺

Peyton’s drawings!!!

Peyton (to Nathan): “Peyton’s not here right now, just her lame music” 😂

Yeah, you should be sorry Nathan! You’re being such a little shit!!! Also, have you ever actually been good to her?!

Again, Lucas really feeling the pressure, can’t even score in the playground

Teacher (to Peyton): “Peyton, describe Lucas using only one word”; Peyton (to Lucas/classroom): “Choke”; Teacher (to Lucas): “Lucas, care to respond and describe Peyton?”; Lucas (to Peyton/classroom): “Lonely”; ooooh indeed

Nathan (to teacher/classroom): “I can describe Lucas in one word. Bastard.” - NO NATHAN, YOU’RE THE BASTARD!!!

Jake LMAO you little shit (in a good way)

Lucas and Haley’s friendship 🥺

Brooke (to Peyton): “You know, it’s really too bad Lucas is poor and can’t play because he’s fine.” - ewwwwww 🤢 (disclaimer: I strongly dislike/hate Brucas, so any kind of comments like this or, worse, when they’re together will involve these types of comments and emojis)

Brooke (to Peyton): “I think about the future sometimes and it scares me. But then I think I’ll go to college, I’ll join the right sorority, marry a rich guy... unless I get fat” 😂 But wow, that first sentence is such a mood

Keith and Lucas 🥺

Keith (to Lucas): “It’s the rule of life. Prettier the girl, messier the car.” 😂

Hum, Lucas, sweetie, why did you think it was ok to go through someone’s private belongings?! That’s not right!

Dan for fuck sake!!!!!!! Go fuck yourself!!!!!!!

Nathan (to Dan): “He wasn’t swinging at me, dad. He was swinging at you.”

Haley: “Is that the phone?” 😂

Karen (to Lucas): “So why go down to his level?” - wise, wise words

Lucas (to Karen): “How would you know, you weren’t even there.” - yikes Lucas, but also I feel bad for him

Lucas and Karen the next morning 🥺

Oh Karen sweetie 🥺 you deserved so much better!!!

Dan certainly has (and always has had) a healthy ego 🙄

Jake (to Lucas): “Just remember, don’t let him take it.”; Lucas (to Jake): “I don’t know what that means.”; Jake (to Lucas): “Yeah, I know, but you will.”

Nathan stop being an arsehole!!!

Peyton (to Lucas): “I wanna draw something that means something to someone” sweetie 🥺

Ugh, Dan go fuck yourself!!!!! Ugh, I hate him so much 🤬

Coach Durham (to Dan): “Make you happy, Danny? Seeing the demise of the kid you fathered and then abandoned?” and “You’re just destroying kids’ lives left and right, aren’t you?” you tell him!!!

While the teacher is reading the answers the students wrote on the papers, I’m realising that so far it’s really only Peyton, Lucas and Nathan the main characters. We barely see Brooke or Haley.

Ewwww, Nathan and Peyton 🤢 - I want Haley!!!

Again, Haley and Lucas! I love their friendship 🥺

Karen and Lucas 🥺 oh Lucas, I feel so sorry you had a shitty “father” who abandoned you 🥺

Dan (to Lucas): “Give this to my boy, will you?” - Fuck off Dan!!!!!

Jake (to Lucas): “Don’t let him take it - your talent, it’s all yours.”

Oh Karen, what a brave step going to the gym where the arsehole broke your heart 🥺

Lucas (to Peyton): “Hey... your art matters. It’s what got me here.” 🥺🥰

Get fucked Dan!!!!! Lucas isn’t quitting the team!!!

#drama queens podcast #one tree hill #one tree hill rewatch #one tree hill s1 rewatch #m*

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battlestory · 4 years

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BATTLE ROYALE: MANGA

Newsarama’s article on Battle Royale manga and an interview with editor Mark Paniccia and adapter Keith Giffen. Originally published on Newsarama’s website in 2003.

The five stages of becoming a warrior on The Program.

In May (2003), Tokyopop will shrug off the image of a company that mainly publishes shojo manga with the debut of Battle Royale, the manga based on the highly controversial novel and movie. Newsarama spoke with editor Mark Paniccia and adapter Keith Giffen for more.

First things first, make no mistake. Tokyopop is publishing Battle Royale with its 'Mature Ages 18+' advisory on it. It is not for anyone under 18, and even some readers over that age will find it a tough read.

Combining themes from Lord of the Flies and The Running Man, creator Koushun Takami wrote the novel Battle Royale in 1999. The novel was then adapted into a movie by the late director Kinji Fukasaku and has spawned legions of fans. Takami went on to write the manga of the same name, collaborating with artist Masayuki Taguchi. The series is still being published in Japan.

▼ READ MORE ▼

The novel, movie, and now manga have polarized readers in Japan, due to the manga's content. In a nutshell, the "Battle Royale" itself is "The Program," a television show in a morally and sociologically bankrupt, Stalinistic future that picks random classes of 9th grade students and puts them on an abandoned island for a televised fight to the death.

The future depicted by Takami resonates with a 1984 (or current-day America, depending on your viewpoint) feel - the students who are enlisted into the game are doing their patriotic duty, and the state is very proud of them and their "willing" sacrifice.

Mr. Kamon - administrator of The Program

The island is divided into grids, and the students are all given kits, which include one weapon, as well as the basic necessities, such as first aid, a compass, a map, field rations, and water; and explosive collars which detonate if a student tries to escape or goes into a forbidden grid. The beaches of the island are guarded by soldiers, and from time to time, random grid squares are declared danger zones, and after a given time, the explosive collars of any students in the square will detonate. If the students band together, after a period of 24 hours with no kill, all the explosive collars will detonate. Forty-two students begin the game, last student alive at the end of three days wins.

Battle Royale's editor knows what you're thinking. "You're right, that's pretty depressing," Paniccia said. "But the themes that play throughout it - friendship, trust, loyalty, faith - keep you glued to the page because you can truly relate to some of the stuff the teens are experiencing.

"We can all remember having a crush on someone, or wanting to be like the cool guy, or having a friend who stood up for you. Now you're thrown into a situation where you have to kill the girl you like, or the guy who stuck up for you or the kid you admire and that's where you really get drawn into the series."

In the first installment, students who stand up against authority of The Program are killed, alliances are formed, and despite the hopelessness and virtual nilhism of the story, a sense of optimism sneaks in - maybe the story's two protagonists will beat the odds and will both come out the other end alive.

It's a unique story, and that was one of the things that made Tokyopop want to bring it to American audiences. "I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it before," Paniccia said. "It's a really strong story with strong messages and it's not afraid to use really, really strong images. Tokyopop wanted to publish something that would strike a nerve. My nerves are struck."

Choices, choices...

Tokyopop isn't pushing the project out for its salacious value alone - not by any means. While, as with all product they carry, retailers will be responsible for the location and clientele allowed to purchase Battle Royale, Tokyopop is sensitive to concerns over the content. "My jaw dropped when I flipped through the pages of the first volume," Paniccia said. "I'd have to say I was more than a bit concerned about the extremity of the content. But thanks to Keith's experience and his compulsively creative mind, the adaptation of this book is in good hands."

That's not saying it's cleaned up or sanitized for American audiences by any means, though. If anything, Giffen delighted in aiming the disturbing nature of the story directly between the eyes of an American audience. But more on that in a minute - according to Paniccia, Giffen was a needed ingredient in the Tokyopop version of Battle Royale from the beginning, something that will hopefully allow the publisher to make a strong presence in comic book shops.

"Who else could this? In the beginning, one of the things we thought we needed was a recognizable comic book writer on the series," Paniccia said. "I figured the content would turn off the book retailers and the comic shops would be our best outlet. When I found out from Keith's Dominion partner, Ross Richie, that he was a big fan of the Battle Royale movie, I called him and we talked about it for a while. Keith's reputation for controversy and his enthusiasm for the property were the perfect ingredients. And thus, soon, people will hold in their hands the most infamous manga in history."

For adapting the work, Giffen was given a tight Japanese-to-English translation of the story, but his assignment was by no means just to tweak a translation. "I told him to do what he felt he had to do," Paniccia said. "I told him to Giffenize it."

It was a charge Giffen was more than happy to accept. "It's a good story that Takami is telling," Giffen said. "What I do is go in and make bad scenes that much worse. I loved Battle Royale the movie, and also love the manga. I just wanted to do it right. I wanted to do justice to it, and I knew I couldn't get away with doing a straight translation, because it would be horrifyingly bad.

"A lot of times when you work on Japanese books, you realize that they have a different pacing from us, and they also have different visual and narrative shorthand," Giffen continued. "For example, somebody may be looking at someone else with gossamer eyes and thinking good thoughts about them, and the word balloons will just say the person's name - over and over, or spend two pages trying to get the name out. That wouldn't play with American readers.

Deceiving a Friend.

"Battle Royale had stuff like, "I have to kill you first, because you would have killed me otherwise." The translation is right on the nose. You can't give that to an American audience. Specifically, in the scene where the wicked girl almost slices her friend's head off with a sickle - in the translation, she said, 'I had to kill you before you killed me.' No way - I changed it to 'Fashion tip, red's not your color,' as the dead girl lies on the floor in a growing pool of blood.

"There was another line, during the orientation where the students want to know what Mr. Kamon did to the lady at the orphanage. The scene of what he did is pretty graphic, and the original translation had him saying, 'Oh, I sexually assaulted her.'

"I wanted to make it worse. I changed it to, 'With the right persuasion, she was more than willing to share it around.' Not quite as literal as the translation, but it clearly, clearly expresses just how sleazy and reprehensible Kamon is. That's the way it is with all the graphic content in the book - it's there, and some of it is even of a sexual nature, but it's not like you're going to enjoy it for its own sake. It's my job to make sure you don't."

It's a tightrope, Giffen explained, that he has to walk in adapting the work for American readers. Go too far, and you can end up writing your own story. Don't go far enough, and you end up with a jumbled mess that halts the story.

WARNING! VERY GRAPHIC IMAGE - the price of being deceived

"To do this right, you've got to keep the basic flavor of the original work - this is a guy who wrote the original novel who's doing this, so you can't go in and completely rework it and change it around, but you've got to filter it for American audiences," Giffen said. "You've got to massage it a little bit and see if you can move it just to a place where an American audience will appreciate it.

"Being able to go in there and while keeping the tone, tweaking it a little bit, I'm able to put my voice in. Rather than making it 'mine' though I'm doing a lovely two-part harmony with Takami. It's not my story, so I try to remain true to the spirit of the work. Sometimes that means dropping a colloquialism or adding blocks of copy that will allow the American audience to understand it the same way a Japanese audience would. The key rule that I always keep in mind though is: don't violate the story, don't violate the work."

But even for the creator of Lobo, Battle Royale can occasionally offer Giffen some material that is a challenge to take from simply bad to worse. "There are scenes coming up that poleaxed me," Giffen said. "This is intense shit. Brutally intense, and it does freeze me in my tracks sometimes. I'm no stranger to the gutter, but there are two scenes coming up where I had to call Mark and ask if he was sure we wanted to reprint them."

At the same time though, Giffen echoed Panaccia's sentiments on the work and how, while the violence can be frankly, distasteful at points, the emotional connection Takami creates between the readers and characters keeps you hooked.

"It's not just kids slaughtering one another," Giffen said. "It's fascinating because there's all this background there of who these kids are, and why they react the way they do to this horrific situation. For example, when Akamatsu climbs on the roof with the crossbow and becomes the game's first killer, Takami takes the time to show you why the gentlest, nicest kid in the class has become this cold-blooded killer.

"The most reprehensible acts are not by any means excused, and they're not always explained, but you see incidents in the person's past where, because of particular life experiences, characters act in certain ways when confronted with this horrific situation. It's really well thought out."

While he's able to admire the approach Takami took with the characters, Giffen also reiterates Paniccia's admonition about the series. "This is in no way, shape or form for kids," Giffen said. "This really, really is an adult comic, just due to the intensity of the content, from the ideas behind it, to the graphic depictions of the actions. There's more than just the violence, there's more than just the controversy. There's a lot of stuff going on here. It's not for kids. It's a multi-layered story. It sure as hell ain't your daddy's comics, I'll give you that much.

"But maybe it will open a few doors. My son and his friends are in the 18-19 year old group, and they're dying to see it. There's a real hunger for manga out there, and so far Tokyopop has managed to corner the female market, as well as the manga enthusiast market. Battle Royale can kick open that door even farther - it's much, much more accessible a book to the straight, standard comic book fan than a lot of other manga product out there. It's very linear, very straightforward. The art is obviously manga, but no so far out there that the American sensibility falls apart. It's going to be an interesting project. Even if it's not the most popular book they publish, it's certainly going to be the most infamous. That said though, kudos to Tokyopop for publishing the manga series of a property that the American film companies were terrified to release the movie of. It puts Warners and Sony and Fox to shame."

With the first volume due in May, Paniccia said that Tokyopop has the rights to reprint the first eight volumes of the manga, and he's planning in his adapter sticking around for the run.

"Keith seems to be having the time of his life so I hope he sticks with it for the grand finale," Paniccia said. "It wouldn't be the same without him."

And that sounds fine by Giffen. "It's a kick when you get to contribute in some way to something that you originally came upon as a fan, and just love, as I do with Battle Royale," Giffen said. "I was happy to contribute however little I could to Battle Royale, and wouldn't mind give some other manga series a try. I just wish I could get my hands on Love Hina…"

#battle royale #batoru rowaiaru #バトル・ロワイアル #manga #horror manga #gore manga #mangacap #keith giffen #takami koushun #Masayuki Taguchi #tokyopop #interview #text

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alistairlowes · 4 years

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Okay you really (obviously) do not have to answer this if you don't want to but i've been wanting to watch vld but the i've seen people refer to it as the "v slur" or like tagging their posts with content warnings? I was just wondering why and what happened with the show but it's 100% okay if you don't wanna answer

hi! i’m fine with answering it’s under read more because idk how to explain without writing an essay

contains spoilers!

i’m giving an overview because it’s been a while and it would take me 3 days to explain everything that actually went down with that show and it’s production.

first things first, i think most of the fandom will agree first 2-3 seasons of vld were actually good. the animation, art and music were always on point. generally majority of the problems could be tracked to showrunners joaquim dos santos and lauren montgomery. if you watched the show without much background context and focused purely on storytelling… like it would still suck but it probably wouldn’t make you as angry. as someone who actually followed interviews and production and can’t look at it inside vacuum, i’ll summarize it like this:

plot had no sense of direction. jds and lm said they didn’t have a plan instead the writing was done as the show went on. which is why the plot is all over the place.

too many characters. none of them properly developed. even main characters were eventually stripped to their main traits (ex. hunk making food jokes; lance being comic relief), not addressing any trauma characters experienced and you can actually tell which characters were prioritized.

shiro was originally supposed to die. but because his toys were selling and capitalism always wins jds and lm had to keep him alive which resulted in some very weird and non logical arcs for him.

queerbaiting. this one will vary depending on who you ask because a lot of people pointed out show did bating with “certain” scenes. now listen, EVEN if we ignored that this is still where they fucked up the most. big part of the older audience consisted out of either lgbt fans or shippers and production was very aware of that (ex. they tagged trailers with #klance and they also sold merch which had only keith and lance on it which is…yeah). now the worst part. during season 7 promotion they announced we would meet shiro’s love interest that season. said love interest was a man and shiro (you know character they previously wanted to kill) was actually gay and suddenly very important representation. so naturally fans were excited. that ended up with them killing off love interest (ex-fiancé) in the first episode of the season. also i remember two voiceover version existed, one being more censored. the show ends with shiro marrying a guy (which should be a big win for kid’s cartoons). however those screenshots leaked before final season aired and by the time it did they changed guy who he married from one random bg character to another one. instead of owning up to having lgbt characters they put wedding scene at the end which made them avoid any potential backlash of financial loss. there was also some wlw baiting but it doesn’t matter they killed them off too.

forced tragedy porn. in an interview jds and lm stated they wanted to kill and hurt more of the characters but the weren’t allowed to. allura (one of only 2 main female chars) dies in the end as some kind of heroic sacrifice and i can’t even begin to unpack everything wrong with that. after 8 seasons of lance pinning after her they got together just before she died which left him heartbroken and he decided to become a farmer because you know makes sense. lotor who was off and on villain died melted in a chair (this is still technically kids cartoon and that scene was terrifying). there’s also constant shiro torture.

toxic fandom. although not exclusively fault of the shippers they did bring the bad name to the fandom. constant ship wars, people asking ship questions on every panel, harassing everyone involved, showing nsfw art to voice actors (yes really). by the end actors didn’t wanna do anything with the show either. they usually did panels after the new season but s8 was so bad not even jds or lm dared to do one <\3

there was more drama and a lot of rumors but i won't include those because i don't know how true they are. voltron is basically what happens when you have a big demanding fandom and tone deaf showrunners. there is few video essays on it on youtube if you want to know more about issues with the plot and other stuff. censoring tags and trigger warning became like one of those fandom things as a result of fans who were disappointed. vld became he who must not be named basically lmao.

#this is one of those things you just have to experience because it's v hard to explain sasdjjs #there was always just so much drama rumors leaks conspiracy theories #hope this makes some sense at least #answered

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spiftynifty · 5 years

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On Let’s Voltron, the showrunners, and fandom

On Thursday an interview came out on Let’s Voltron, the ostensibly final interview with the showrunners of this now-completed show. Within an hour a few tweet threads appeared and incited a new wave of hatred and anger towards the showrunners, mostly by people relying on these tweet threads rather than listening to the interview themselves.

I don’t like secondhand info that sparks outrage; and having watched both AB interviews and seen how outraged people got over them, without having seen either, I strongly suspected that this interview was nowhere near as incendiary as the tweet threads suggested.

And lo and behold, I was right. Much of what was reported in tweets was misconstrued, or lacking the additional information that listening to someone’s tone provides. I didn’t hear two snarky showrunners smugly enjoying the chaos that their truly lacklustre season provided. I heard two people who were exhausted and beaten down by both the expectations of the fandom and the limitations placed on them by people with more money and power. They didn’t call Shiro “boring”, they referred to their initial vision of him as boring. They didn’t say he was repetitive, they said his backstory was repetitive of other characters’ in the series and was cut. There was one salty comment from JDS about how Voltron and Atlas merging was cool but everyone was too bummed about s8 to appreciate it, but there’s a dark humor to it that reads to me like a man struggling to joke about something neutral and positive in a season that was poorly received by fans and many critics alike. The vast majority of the interview is not much we haven’t already heard, though there is a very telling segment that lasts about 5-10 minutes where they discuss the heavy limitations on representation in cartoons. Ezor and Zethrid were allowed to exist, they say, because they were secondary characters. And female. The words “main heroes” with an S, are repeated several times by LM when describing who was and was not allowed to be LGBT. She explicitly states that wlw is one thing, but mlm is a whole other battle.

As disappointed as I am in the mistakes JDS and LM made, I find myself feeling very defensive of them as I see the people who once defended them from ants now begin to exhibit ant-like behavior themselves. “They should never be allowed to work in animation again” says one tweet. “They never gave a shit about this show” says another. “S8 was their explicit revenge on fans.”

It makes me unbelievably sad to read this. JDS and LM made mistakes. S8 was objectively terrible. Their attempt to shoehorn in “bonus” representation backfired terribly. They’ve been upfront about Voltron never having been planned with a happy ending in mind, and buckle down hard when confronted with the notion that killing Allura was a bad move.

But as they’ve said many, many times, this show was a labor of love for them. They worked their asses off to pitch something grand to Dreamworks because they were fans of the original and wanted to do it justice. But then they got the show and proceeded to get buffeted around for 4 yrs by dreamworks and the rules of a pre-existing IP and half the story ideas they come up with get shot down by execs for any number of reasons. People have latched onto the fact that the last third of the series wasn’t properly planned from the beginning, but I’d like to remind people that the plan they had for s3-6 was completely upended by one (1) executive call. The showrunners have said that they purposefully left things out of the bible to make it harder for execs to say NO to something well in advance. They were, as my director frequently calls it, “playing the game”, the careful balance of trying to tell a good story while also pleasing the client demands for a robot toy show. It’s a fight. Part of playing the game is leaving decisions so late that it becomes far too late to be changed by executives. But the downside of this is sometimes running out of time to do the things you want to do.

I’d like to point out too that in the interview at one point they actually say, “we knew who our audience was. They [the marketing people and higher ups] didn't.” So for 4 yrs they struggled to make the story they wanted to tell, they lost directors and writers, because the demands were way too high and people were burning out and leaving in an industry where being overworked is so par for the course that burnout is just a constant state of being. In other words, it takes extreme amounts of stress for people to burn out, and there is a certain mentality in this industry of burning out being a sign of weakness. When 2/3 directors left (one of them without the safety net of another offer) they put a bit of their reputation on the line-- and left anyway. And through it all JDS and LM, like any creators, were just trying to tell the story they wanted to see, scrambling to manage executive demands, working on multiple episodes at once and trying to maintain the storyline through them, losing people to burnout, having to rewrite entire scenes when voice actors weren’t available, and fighting for the show to be better than it was.

I'm not absolving the showrunners of guilt, I'm just feeling bad that this is where they ended up because at the end of the day they genuinely were coming from a place of good intentions and a desire to tell, from their perspective a good story. And they did fight for rep, to the point that when initially Shiro was not allowed to be gay, they considered getting up and walking away and ending the project but they stayed because of the crew who would have been summarily put out of work. They weighed the importance of having that representation vs the jobs of 100s of people. That’s how important it was to them.

Obvious, they didn't stick the landing, and it’s fair to say they outright screwed it up in a massive way that’s going to be remembered for a very long time. On the Shiro front they didn't have time to, in a way that would have felt genuine and agreeable for everyone. Keith was never ever going to be allowed. Maybe if Shiro and Keith had both been women, it would have been, which is a sad thought on the state of this industry and the kind of gendered homophobia that still exists in media both animation and otherwise. JDS and LM didn’t think far enough ahead on this, didn’t think outside of their pool of internal knowledge as non-LGBT people. As terrible as it is, it’s important to note they did this not out of a place of malice or vengeance, but an earnest, if misguided attempt to try and diversify the landscape. It did a lot of damage and they should not be rewarded for this move; but they also shouldn’t be being painted as the mustache-twirling villains so much of the fandom tries to make them out to be.

I hope this has been a huge lesson for them on the importance of stepping outside of your own situation when creating minority characters and properly discussing these characters with multiple people in real life who fall into those categories. No one LGBT person can or should speak for the entire community, as we’ve well seen with certain crewmembers.

Killing Allura is a much harder act to forgive because that was something they had time to think about and plan for and it should have been the more obvious lesson. There was ROOM to ask someone outside of themselves, “does this work”. There was room to be educated on why this was a terrible move both socially and narratively. There is room and time now, and dozens of articles about this very issue, that both showrunners should be reading and absorbing especially as their next projects involve a host of diverse characters. Their insistence to buckle down on the Allura Issue to me reads as; they haven’t learned anything from this, or taken the time to understand people’s pain about it. This is something that desperately needs to change especially as they continue to make movies and presumably TV shows. I do hope it’s something that will.

All this to say, please listen to the interview yourself before adding to the hate mob. If you’re still angry after listening to the interview yourself, that is your prerogative but I encourage you not to transform that anger into venomous hatred against the showrunners. The show is over; as fans we can transform this space into whatever we want it to be since Voltron is effectively ours now. Is attacking the showrunners, as ant1s have famously done for years, the image we really want to hold onto going forward?

#voltron #salt #sorta??#i just want people to be mad while also maintaining compassion towards other humans #the animation industry is a brutal one #especially for creatives #vld

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justheretobreakthings · 5 years

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The Least of These - Chapter 4

(Previous Chapter)

Word Count: 2,174 (Total Word Count: 12,464) Read on AO3

Short update, yeah, and not exactly action-filled, but hey, it’s been what, three months? Y’all deserve something at least.

Story Summary:

There have been plenty of people throughout the universe who weren’t exactly keen on the idea of a half-Galra being a paladin of Voltron. Why should things be any different on Earth?

In light of the paladins of Voltron being officially given a clean bill of health across the board as of this morning and being approved to participate fully in reconstruction efforts, Voltron and the crew of the Atlas will be stepping back from the public until further notice. Instead, their time will be devoted to actively assisting in restoration, relief, and security services.

For this reason, Voltron in association with the Galaxy Garrison will be limiting press presence from this point forward. Certain future planned public appearances by the paladins have been cancelled, and no interviews, photographs, video, or other media may be taken of the crew of the Voltron or the Atlas without direct approval from the Galaxy Garrison Department of Public Relations. This measure is to ensure the peace and privacy of the crews and prevent interference with their work.

Questions or requests for official press authorization should all be directed to the Galaxy Garrison Department of Public Relations.

“So, what, we’re talking media blackout here?” Pidge asked, looking up from her tablet. Shiro had forwarded the press release, one that was scheduled to be officially released this evening, to the other paladins as they had gathered for their group meeting in the rec room. Pidge was the first to break the silence, and the others looked up from their own devices or from where they had been reading over others’ shoulders, as they finished reading it as well. Keith was the only one who didn’t, and instead he continued scowling down at his knees where he sat scrunched and cross-armed in the couch corner. Shiro had already shown him the press release beforehand.

“Not a total blackout,” Shiro answered. He was the only one standing, his hands grasping the top of an empty chair as he faced the others, straight-backed and authoritative. “We’re not cutting off the media altogether, that would just seem suspicious as hell. But the Garrison wants us to limit our media presence as much as possible for the time being. And for the few media appearances we do make, it seems they want us to, ah, limit the scope of discussion topics. No talking about relations with the Galra, nothing about Keith’s role on the team; we’re supposed to focus only on reconstruction on Earth, and direct the focus back onto that topic if they try to bring up anything else.”

He lifted his own tablet, pulling up the e-mail he had been sent by the communications department. “Apparently we’re gonna be meeting with them tomorrow to go over protocol for dealing with the press right now and getting briefed on whatever damage control campaign they come up with, but I thought it’d be best if you guys knew now, so we can, um, discuss it without interference from the PR people or - or judgment.” Keith didn’t miss the way Shiro’s eyes flicked toward him before he continued, “So if you’ve got anything you want to say about - ”

“Yeah, couple things,” Lance said. “First off, does this include, like, just fan photos and stuff like that? Like, you know, if I’m out walking down the street and someone wants to take a picture with the legendary paladin - ” Keith rolled his eyes. “ - Is that allowed? Or does that count as, like, an unauthorized photoshoot? Because I’d kinda hate to deprive everybody of the chance to get their very own personal pictures of this beautiful face, you know?”

“Probably,” Shiro said. “If you do that too often, it may contradict the whole thing about us all being busy and wanting privacy.”

Lance nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, guess that makes sense. Secondly, more of a comment than a question: this is bullshit.”

Shiro sighed. “Look, I know that these measures may seem a little annoying, but - ”

“No, no, it’s not the measures themselves,” Lance said. “I don’t like them, sure, but all things considered, I guess they sorta make sense. They don’t want us adding fuel to the fire, that’s fine. The bullshit is the reason they’re doing it. They decide to just cut off our media presence and drop the subject of the Galra altogether because some assholes are getting pissy about Keith?”

Keith hunched his shoulders, eyes down so as to not have to meet the gazes of the rest of the team. There it was. He had wanted to avoid trouble, wanted to avoid causing any difficulty for the other paladins. But it seemed that it wasn’t an option for him. His very presence on the team was always going to be a problem, one way or another.

“It does seem rather strange that they’re going about things this way,” Allura said with a frown. “Granted, I’m hardly knowledgeable in how Earth’s media or this Garrison works, but if there is such tension over the issue of cooperation with Galra, wouldn’t it be best to address the matter directly to the masses rather than push it into the background?”

“Apparently not, at least not while tensions are so high on the matter,” Shiro said. “Keep in mind, the Galaxy Garrison’s got its media and public relations department and all, but it’s not a news station. They’re not under any obligation to try to raise awareness of any issue or sway public opinion in any direction. Their job is the space program and military efforts, and if staying neutral on the whole thing is the best way to focus on keeping those running smoothly and safely…” He shrugged, and Keith detected a hint of bitterness in his voice when he finished, “I guess it’s their call to make.”

“Yeah, but to go straight from having Voltron be the Garrison’s media darlings to suddenly wanting us out of the spotlight as much as possible?” Hunk said. “Pretty big shift in plans, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid I’m probably to blame for that,” Shiro said. With another sigh, he moved around the chair to sink into it, pausing to rub at the bridge of his nose before continuing, “Even with all the press stuff we’ve been doing, they’ve all been about that battle with Sendak and how Voltron works and the Garrison’s operations. Tensions against the Galra were there, sure, but they weren’t really a point of focus for anyone. When I made that speech at the medal ceremony, I guess I pushed the issue in the spotlight, and also kinda made it look like Voltron was warring with the Garrison over the whole matter. Guess it was a polarizing move on my part.”

“Well, uh, for what it’s worth, I think you did a good job,” Hunk said.

Shiro gave him a little smile. “Thanks, Hunk. But, still, I should’ve thought it through more. I was fired up, and I made a poor judgment call.”

“You didn’t,” Keith spoke up. He didn’t lift his gaze, but he felt the others turn to look at him even without seeing them. “People listen to you, and they gave you a platform and a microphone, and you used that to speak up about something that matters. That’s a good thing. But you - you shouldn’t have had to make a stand about anything at all.”

He took a deep breath and looked up, eyes flicking between his teammates’ attentive gazes. “Look, I, um - I know that having a half-Galra on the team doesn’t exactly - doesn’t exactly make things easier for us. For Voltron. And it’s caused problems before, and I should’ve known it would cause problems here too. I’m really sor- ”

“No,” Pidge cut him off.

Keith blinked over at her. “No?”

Pidge scowled and jabbed her finger toward Keith. “I know what you’re about to do. You’re about to apologize for, what, existing? Being born? Well, stuff it, Keith. You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

Keith sighed. “That’s not it, I was just going to apologize for, you know, for causing trouble…”

“Yeah, trouble just based on the fact that you’re half-Galra, which is something that you can’t fucking help. It’s not your fault that people are idiots about it.”

“Look, I’m just saying, if it had been someone else on the team instead of me, someone less… controversial... hell, if I just weren’t the one piloting Black - ”

“Then it’s doubtful we would still be alive to be having this discussion in the first place,” Allura finished for him. She tilted her head as she looked at Keith, a furrow in her brow that suggested either sympathy or pity; neither was particularly appealing, but between the two, Keith hoped it was the former. “I know how the people who have this problem with you are thinking, and why they feel the way they do. And I know it’s not right. It… wasn’t right when I was the one who thought that way, and it’s not right now.”

“And, hey, long as we’re talking blame,” Lance said. “Isn’t this kinda the Garrison’s own fault? If they hadn’t pulled Keith out of that ceremony thing, Shiro wouldn’t have made the speech in the first place.”

“They had their reasons,” Shiro relented. “Admittedly, it seems they were right in thinking it was safer to keep Keith out of the spotlight.”

“You saying you agree with them?”

Shiro hesitated. “I… understand their viewpoint.”

“So that’s a no.”

“It’s just us here, Shiro,” Pidge said. “You don’t need to be diplomatic. You can say it: fuck the Garrison.”

“Language, Pidge.”

“Oh, please, I know for a fact that you swear like a sailor too when no one’s around for you to be a ‘good role model’ to.”

Shiro turned to stare at her. “How do you even…?”

“Matt shares stuff, Shiro.”

“Ah. Remind me to slap him later.”

“Will do. Seriously, though, come on. The Garrison’s PR people may be trying to keep the peace and all, but let’s not pretend they’re all-knowing or unfailing or anything. These are the same people who tried to cover up what happened on the Kerberos mission, remember? The ones that claimed you and my family were dead, blamed you for it, tried to keep everything secret when you crashed back to Earth? And now they’re screwing Keith over. Just doesn’t end with these people.”

Shiro set his jaw. “I’m… certainly not their biggest fan,” he said slowly. “But while we’re here on Earth, we’re working closely with them. I’m captain of the Atlas, after all, and that’s their ship. It’s easiest and best for all of us if we play nice.”

“Okay, fine,” Pidge said, crossing her arms. “I’ll play nice, but first you gotta say it.”

“Say what?”

“Fuck the Garrison.”

Shiro rolled his eyes. “Pidge - ”

“Aw, come on, Shiro,” Lance said, a grin splitting across his face. “I said it about twelve times a day while I was a cadet. It’s cathartic.”

“I really don’t think - ”

“Say it or I’ll dedicate all my waking hours to finding every reporter in the city and inciting riots.”

“For the love of - fine. Fuck the Garrison.”

Pidge and Lance both let out whoops, and Hunk even clapped, while Allura simply stared at the lot of them in confusion. Keith couldn’t stop his own little smile from escaping. “Now,” Shiro said. “If that’s all taken care of, guess we’re done here. Officer Hannegan said he’s gonna try to get some candid photos arranged of us helping at a cleanup site, so someone will let you know when that’s scheduled. You’re all dismissed.”

The paladins got to their feet around Keith, some soft grumbling among them as they made their way to the door. Shiro got up from his seat, but rather than leave, he moved to the couch settling down into the corner opposite Keith, who was still stiffly scrunched in place like he had been through the whole group meeting. Once the team was all out of their room and the door had closed behind them, Shiro cleared his throat. “How you doing, Keith?”

“Fine,” Keith answered.

“Really?”

“Mm.” Keith straightened his posture and stretched out his legs. “Really. That… went better than I’d expected.”

“Oh?” Shiro raised a brow.

“Well, I just had thought that - that the others would, uh, you know…”

“Blame you?”

Keith shrugged.

“Yeah, kinda figured you were thinking along those lines,” Shiro sighed. “Pidge was right, though, Keith. If people have a problem with you being Galra, that’s their problem, not yours.” He nudged Keith’s foot with his own and gave him a small smile. “And give your team some credit. They know that too, and they’ve got your back.”

“Yeah...”

Shiro let out a huff of breath. “I know this is frustrating, but - but for now, we’ll try to keep busy. And if anyone gives you trouble, you come to me, okay?”

“And what?” Keith asked, quirking a brow. “You’ll beat them up for me?”

“I’ll give them a scare, at the very least.” Shiro yawned and got to his feet. “Speaking of keeping busy, I gotta meet with the Atlas crew and give them this whole rundown too. You need anything, you tell me, okay?”

“Okay.”

#vld fic #voltron fic #keith #voltron fanfic #vld fanfic #my writing #fic: the least of these

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thecoleopterawithana · 5 years

Video

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I have to once again thanks @vairemelde for her ask, because it brought to my attention this wonderful piece.

‘Scared’, produced by Giles Martin, is the hidden track at the end of Paul’s 2013 New, an album inspired both by his new life with Nancy and a return to the simple happiness of his pre-Beatle days, with tracks like ‘On My Way To Work’ and ‘Early Days’. This last track - about the early days of his friendship with John Lennon - shares the spot with ‘Scared’ as the songs Paul is proudest of in the album.

On the general tone of the LP, Paul had this to say:

Is New a joyful album?

This is a happy period in my life, having a new woman - so you get new songs when you get a new woman. But in actual fact there is a lot of sadness mixed in on the record - the more you listen to it you’ll find pain getting changed to laughter - there is quite an undercurrent of that. But generally I’m having a good time so I hope that’s made it onto the record.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Francis Cronin for BBC News (4 October 2013).

Though, in my opinion, ‘Scared’ goes into the pain territory and stays there, offering no catharsis or transformation into laughter.

Maybe that’s why it was included as a hidden track. Or perhaps, the fact that it was left ‘hidden’ is a clever play on - and emphasization of - the theme of the song:

I’m scared to say I love you Afraid to let you know That the simplest of words won’t come out of my mouth Though I’m dying to let them go Trying to let you know I have to say I’m sorry Don’t feel sad for me But the beautiful birds won’t fly out of their cage Though I’m trying to set them free Trying to let you see, how much you mean to me I remember the first time we met Tears in our eyes reflecting Something connecting from so long ago It might have been told in the stars, maybe that’s what it was It doesn’t matter because I’m still too scared to tell you Afraid to let you see That the simplest of words won’t come out of my mouth Though I’m dying to set them free Trying to let you see, how much it means to me How much you mean to me How much you mean to me now

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Here Paul seems to explore more deeply and explicitly his fear of saying ‘I love you’, a demon that he has been trying to exorcise for quite some time.

‘Here Today’, written right after John Lennon’s death, was an exercise in just getting it out.

Songwriting is like psychiatry; you sit down and dredge up something that’s inside, bring it out front. And I just had to be real and say, John, I love you. I think being able to say things like that in songs can keep you sane.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Robert Palmer for the New York Times (25 April 1982).

And more recently:

It’s funny because just in real life, I find that a challenge. I like to sort of, not give too much away. Like you said, I’m quite private. Why should people, know my innermost thoughts? That’s for me, they’re innermost. But in a song, that’s where you can do it. That’s the place to put them. You can start to reveal truths and feelings. You know, like in ‘Here Today’ where I’m saying to John “I love you”. I couldn’t have said that, really, to him. But you find, I think, that you can put these emotions and these deeper truths – and sometimes awkward truths; I was scared to say “I love you”. So that’s one of the things that I like about songs.

— Paul McCartney, on the challenge of giving too much of himself away when writing meaningful and truthful songs. Asked by Simon Pegg and interviewed by John Wilson for BBC 4’s Mastertapes (24 May 2016).

Paul is also asked about ‘Early Days’ in this last interview.

In February 1985, Paul and Eric Stewart start working on a song that would come to be titled ‘Yvonne’s The One’. In the middle-eight, we find Paul’s first actual expression in a song of the regret of not having made his affections clearer to someone recently deceased:

She never knew how much I loved her I never got to tell her We never found a way to say farewell

The theme of his inability to express his feelings is revisited some years later, in ‘However Absurd’ (1986):

Something special between us, When we made love the game was over. I couldn’t say the words, Words wouldn’t get my feelings through, So I keep talking to you

However absurd, however absurd It may seem.

Paul had this to say of the track:

There’s a sort of ‘Walrus’ intro to this track, but of course any time you play that style on piano it evokes that. It’s a style I know and love. The lyrics on this song are a bit bizarre, but then again they make a kind of sense, a strange kind of sense. […] In the middle section it explains itself a bit, less surrealist: ‘Something special between us… Words wouldn’t get my feelings through… However absurd it may seem.’ That’s taking off into The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran – there’s a line of his that always used to attract me and John, which was ‘Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you.’ So it’s that kind of meaning to ‘However Absurd’.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Patrick Humphries for Club Sandwich nº 42 (Autumn 1986).

And in another revelatory exploration of his love and his regret at not being clearer in his affection, we have ‘This One’ (1989):

Did I ever take you in my arms, Look you in the eye, tell you that I do, Did I ever open up my heart And let you look inside.

If I never did it, I was only waiting For a better moment that didn’t come. There never could be a better moment Than this one, this one.

In the video of the studio recording of this song, Paul can be seen imitating one of John’s characteristic silly smiles, after he sings the lines “Did I ever touch you on the cheek / Say that you were mine, thank you for the smile?”.

When asked about the meaning of this song, Paul said the following:

Q: One of the new songs, “This One”, is it about a marriage?

Paul: A relationship. Yeah.

Q: And about, not expressing emotions and feelings?

[…]

Paul: You get those moments, late at night or when you’re feeling good and you think: “I hope I tell her I love her, enough”. And then come the morning, when you’ve got to get off to the office and it’s [brusquely] “Love you, goodbye!”, and so on. Life’s like that, there’s never enough time to tell them, like your parents for instance, oh god just what you meant to me. You always think, “I’m saving it up. I’ll tell ‘em one day”. Something like John, for instance. He died.

I was lucky, the last few weeks, months that he was alive, we’d managed to get out relationship back on track. And we were talking and having really good conversations. But George actually, didn’t get his relationship right. They were arguing right up to the end. Which I’m sure is a source of great sadness to him. And I’m sure, in the feeling of this song, George was always planning to tell John he loved him. But time ran out. And that’s what the song is about. There never could be a better moment than this one, right now. Take this moment to say, “I love you”.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Bernard Goldberg for 48 Hours (January 1990).

I find it amusing that here he uses a fairly similar expression - “just what you meant to me” - to the one he would trice repeat at the end of ‘Scared’.

About the meaning of this latter track, Paul explains:

Well, I’m just like anybody else, man! You know? You get those moments. I don’t normally write about them; but it’s a good thing to use. I was feeling it, as well. I was newly in love with Nancy, and I was finding it a little difficult to say, ‘I love you.’ Number one, I’m a guy, and that’s a big excuse, I know, but it is a bit true to form… That song is basically about she and I, and the middle eight is about when we met. And we did exactly as I say in the song, we welled up.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Miranda Sawyer for The Guardian (13 October 2013).

And a month latter:

Q: Like ‘Scared’ – a ‘hidden’ track on New – which is a stark confessional about baring your soul to another person. Did you find that easy to write?

Paul: You can actually say, “I love you,” to someone, but it’s quite hard. And so that’s why it’s usually easier when you’re a bit drunk. It’s like ‘Here Today’ [on 1982’s Tug of War], which was for John, and there is the line, (sings) “Du du du du du du du, I love you,” and it is a bit of a moment in the song. It would be a bit like Keith Richards saying to Mick, “I love you.” I mean he does, but I’m not sure he’s going to say it. I’m sure the Gallaghers love each other on some level, probably quite deeply, but that certainly isn’t going to get said soon. I think it’s quite an interesting subject and I felt it most recently with [wife] Nancy, I knew I loved her but to actually say, “I love you,” you know, it’s just not that easy.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Pat Gilbert for MOJO (November 2013).

The quip about it being easier to say when drunk is probably in relation to the Night We Cried referenced in ‘Here Today’, an episode Paul describes as an “important emotional landmark” for it was “probably the only time we just got that kind of intimate with each other” and actually said the big ‘I Love You’.

And though he says he faced similar challenges with being emotionally open with his new wife Nancy, he shared this pain at his lack of expression in relation to John as well.

The sole verse in which he deviates from this main theme is also very interesting:

I remember the first time we met Tears in our eyes reflecting Something connecting from so long ago It might have been told in the stars, maybe that’s what it was

Paul has also explained that the first half refers to the circumstances in which he first met Nancy, on a surf shop in Long Island:

Out of the blue, I met this girl and we started talking and she happened to say, 'I knew Linda.’ So that was emotional. I wouldn’t meet, typically, many people who knew Linda, and who knew her during her cancer treatment – and Nancy did. She’s a cancer survivor herself. So it got very deep, very quickly, and it was like, 'What the hell was that?’ And then I ran into her a couple of more times on the holiday, and we got to know each other and started dating. So the song is about that, about this depth of emotion, of feeling – but totally being scared to say or do anything about it. Like a tongue-tied teenager.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Miranda Sawyer for The Guardian (13 October 2013).

But it’s interesting how even here we could read a shared inspiration in his relationship with John. Could the tears in their eyes be also double a reference to the shared pain of both losing their mothers around the time they met? This emotional connection was always something that Paul valued.

And then, in the second part, he seems to get to the notion of them being Cosmically Connected, soulmates fated to meet, part of each other’s karma, that John held onto throughout his life and Paul seemed to also embrace, as the passage of time proved again and again just of special what they had was.

It is also entirely probable that the song is exclusively about Nancy, with no direct references to John whatsoever. But we can’t deny how his relationship with John was also deeply impacted by this issue, and thus him facing this fear in relation to Nancy is invariably informed by his previous experiences with John. So even if Nancy was the motivator for this introspection, the exposition of his mental state is nonetheless useful in understanding what he was feeling in relation to John.

All in all, this song is a beautiful exploration of one of the core issues in their relationship, and I’m continuously grateful and overjoyed that their music to each other never seems to end, as I continue to explore their solo catalogues!

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sugar--pie · 6 years

Text

Recently I made a post talking about Barlee’s recent tweets and how I personally believe it doesn’t kill off Klance. I recommend reading it before you continue reading this HELLA. LONG. POST. As I might refer back to it a few times.

Edit: just want to add in here, that Barlee said those tweets weren’t about Klance, and that they were about Shiro being Rep. She also said she doesn’t know the end result of the series though... so I’m still gonna keep this post. But a lot of the things I talked about in that post about Klance in general, I’ll still refer to. Please remember to read my edits at the end too! Thanks :)

Okay.

So even after I made that post, I still had a major panic attack and slowly lost hope in Klance again. Idk, I’ve fallen way too deep into this it’s not even healthy probably, it felt like literal heart break. And I’m not even LGBT, I have another reasoning behind why I’m not really for Allura/Lance... and Season 7 kinda fuelled it a bit more. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. That post will be made after Season 8... if I manage to somehow be horrifically incorrect about what I’m going to talk about here. Which... I highly doubt I will. But I’ll keep a cushion to be safe.

I’m going to make bullet points:

One of the biggest problems the Klance fandom had before was that they put the Klance GogglesTM on for everything. Some specific things in the show were obvious yes, or at least it should be to everyone, but some things were stretched out way too far.

One of these scenarios is the theory (yes theory, this was never confirmed to be true, it’s just an assumption) that Hunk was given what was meant to be Lance’s arc with his family.

Reason why this became a theory was because of Barlee’s Tweets. And this is kind of where I started to lose hope again.

If Hunk was given Lance’s arc then that must mean Klance was written out. Because it was all about Keith and Hunk, when it “should’ve been” Keith and Lance.

However, I was seriously thinking about it as my last few morsels of hope started leaving me during work UNTIL BAM! IT HIT ME!

Yeah. Klance gogglesTM. Fans have grown to projecting Klance on to everything. And that includes Hunks arc, but trust me when I say this. Hunk was never given Lance’s arc. This is meant to be Hunks arc, through and through.

Keith was also included in Hunks arc because he is the one who didn’t have a family from the start. Including Keith in Hunks arc is demonstrating the growth Keith has had throughout the series.

Hunk was admitted to being the most underdeveloped character in the show. I remember it from an interview (video I believe) where Joaquim and Lauren say they had trouble with Hunk when creating him because, comparing him to his 80’s counterpart, was a lot different and they had trouble putting him in certain roles.

That is really lame, don’t get me wrong, but this explains why Hunks arc in Season 7 felt rushed and out of place. Hunk only mentioned missing earth or “not wanting to be a paladin” once in the beginning. And he wasn’t super upset about it.

Lance on the other hand was. He was vocal about missing earth, He was shown getting upset, leaving the room and opening up to Coran about it. This is where I think people mistook what Lance’s arc was meant to be. Even I misunderstood because of this scene.

however, this is where I’m going to point out, that yes, this is the start of Lance’s arc (“Lance and Keith’s arcs have been the only two that have lasted the entirety of the series” - incorrectly quoted by Joaquim)(I’ll expand on this a little later), but Lance’s arc isn’t about family.

I know, shocker. And it should’ve been obvious from the get go. But oooooh nooo, it wasn’t because we focused too much attention on Lance missing his family here. But let me ask:

How many times in the show has Lance voiced about missing home besides this scene? Yeah... try making a list for that lol. That’s because we took it way out of context and made it a bigger deal for Lance’s character when... it isn’t. Lance’s arc was never about family or missing earth.

Writing a show, you need to make sure the characters move into the spot they’ll need to be in. They used Lance missing earth in order to make him go off on his own, and have Coran follow.

Why you ask? It should be obvious. This could be a stretch but a very realistic one: Lance needed to be by the Crystal with Coran when it explodes, to ultimately, lead to the Bonding moment. Boom.

Lance’s Arc started here. Lance’s arc is a Romance Arc and it’s been in our faces the whole time.

He’s had more scenes voicing his charm and making it known from the get go.

He’s flirted.

It’s canon he wants to fall in love with someone.

His blog talked about crushing on Allura and wanting to be called pretty.

He’s the most feminine coded character as he enjoys generally feminine tropes like taking care of his appearance, even more so than Allura, who has only ever referenced being “girly” by having her hair done by mice(?) and wanting something sparkly.

This is also why Lance’s romantic life is such a focus not only for us, but when being talked about at Conventions. He’s the only one to have a canon romantic endgame. Gee, should’ve been obvious there what his arc is about.

And what finally made me realize Lance’s arc is a romance arc, is remembering when Lauren and Joaquim told us during a discussion that “Lance doesn’t know what he needs. We know what Lance might look for, but it’s not necessarily what he needs.” Lance being the only one known to have a canon endgame, ties into this.

This, made me realize. Lance’s arc, will be him realizing what he needs. I think it’s already leading up to it, personally because of this season alone. But arguably, it started picking up once Keith left in Season 4.

So No, Lance’s family arc was never given to Hunk because Lance was never meant to have an arc based around his family in the first place. We knew Lance missed his family and earth, but it wasn’t the main focus for him so that’s why all we saw was this glorious reaction to seeing his family again. And why the only lead role out of his family is Veronica.

(Keep in mine Keith is made out to be a focal point within this scene as well. Hunk too. I’ll bring this back up.)

So... now that I’ve covered the ground work in this long ass essay. Let’s continue the essay!

Now that we know Hunks arc was never meant for Lance, and Lance instead has a Romance Arc, let’s consider his endgame options:

In my post about Barlee’s Tweets, a lot of people assumed she was referring to a lot of things implying Lance will just end up in a rushed relationship with Allura, and I was one of these people too at first. But then it made me think. There was a lot, and I mean a lot of Keith and Lance interactions, and most of those, as I said in the Barlee post, demonstrated the trust and teamwork between the two right away, as well as had undertones and subtlety towards romantic intentions. Keith also has been a focal point in generally Lance centric moments, like above when he runs to hold his family. Hunk makes sense of being present because it starts the “family” portion of his arc this season. Keith however, only makes sense if he has purpose in Lance’s Arc, otherwise he wouldn’t be a focus and made apparent that he’s watching Lance reunite with his family. Make note that Allura was not.

The game show for example, If Lance liked Allura so much and was meant to end up with her, he would’ve picked her to leave. But instead, he chose Keith and also had a very sweet reasoning behind why, including a very dopey fond look on his face.

That’s why I love Pidge’s reaction in that scene because she practically sums up pretty much everyone’s reaction. Even mine. All of them were probably expecting him to pick Allura, (maybe even himself) but nonetheless, they weren’t expecting him to pick Keith, even Keith himself.

That’s why Keith reacts the way he does. I guarantee you he panicked.

Filler episodes in Voltron have always foreshadowed in some way, I wouldn’t be surprised if having Lance and Keith choose each other isn’t blatant foreshadowing.

Overall, there was more Keith and Lance interactions that included romantic subtext, compared to Lance and Allura, this season alone.

This is why it confused me a lot if the showrunners did write out Klance. They wouldn’t have included such strong scenarios with the two in this season if that’s the case. Not only this season but also the smaller ones that implies something more between the two in season 4, and season 6.

This is the point I’m going to bring in something interesting I read in this post. The OP said it’s probably a reach (when are they ever not?) but this is where I think Allura randomly having feelings for Lance, comes into Lance’s Arc.

Like we’ve been saying since the beginning, Allura has been what Lance has wanted from the start. But in OP’s post, they mentioned how the only time Lance had shown insecurity and being unsure of himself this seaosn, was right after his scene with Allura (and Veronica teasing him about it). That was the only scene that caused insecurity.

THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT TO POINT OUT YALL.

Lance had been secluded from season 4-6. He started getting closer to Allura, but then Lotor came along and changed that.

This is where I believe “what Lance wants isn’t necessarily what he needs,” makes sense. Allura has started having feelings for Lance, but then ending up together would be, as said by Lauren, “a disservice to both their characters.”

Allura getting feelings so soon kind of proved to me after realizing all this, that, no she isn’t Lance’s endgame. Like we’ve been saying Allura is what he wants. But not what he needs.

But who... pray tell.. is what he needs.

Keith.

I know, I know. This is the part where the typical Klance Goggles would probably come in. But I’m serious about this guys.

The moment Keith came back into the picture, Lance had been put into a more important role.

Keith listened to him, trusted him immediately and asked Lance to take over multiple times. Lance never had a moment of insecurity because everything fell back into place, and Keith made him feel useful again. Lance was once again the Red Paladin and Keith’s Right hand.

Tying in Lance being vocal about Keith “running away”, I don’t think people are far off from thinking Lance actually opened up to how he actually felt when Keith Left. And even showing worry when Keith said he’s going back for Acxa. Might as well put it in a present and wrap it up with a little bow.

Keith is ultimately what Lance had been needing the whole time. And Lance, I believe, will realize it. He’ll figure out that Allura isn’t what he needs, and because his moment of insecurity stems from an interaction he and Allura had, is also foreshadowing it too.

Throwing back to when I said Lance and Keith have had the longest arcs since the beginning, (quoted by Joaquim himself), this would explain why Lance’s finality to his arc hasn’t happened yet. It’s because it includes Keith, and Allura (possibly even Acxa which I explained in the Barlee post) and will most likely happen in season 8. The ultimate slowburn endgame.

This is where the bonding moment will be acknowledge.

They’ll also acknowledge two important scenes; Keith’s almost sacrifice, and Lances actual death (which included parallels to their season 1 bonding moment with Lance and Allura.)

And also “the other part” to Keith’s reason for leaving the team for the BOM.

Parallels are for a reason. And oooh boi.

Did my brain manage to restore faith back in Klance. Yup. Even if I’m the ONLY ONE LEFT IN THE FANDOM, I know what I’m talking about here. And if Allura/Lance do end up canon after all when it really makes no sense to, I will be one confused fucking bitch.

I believe I covered everything my jumbled brain puked out. So please, keep the faith Klance fandom. There is more story to unfold!

Edit: and technically I’m already again a really confused bitch. The Barlee post might be useless now, since she specifically stated she was referring to Shiro. And he was the intended rep.

I’m not upset again I’m just downright confused once again. Butttt... at this point. Maybe stuff will be answered in season 8. But overall, a lot of my points in this still stand!

Edit 2: Ultimately (I say this a lot), the one thing I knew from the start, is that Keith and Lance would have something to do with eachothers arcs, and arguably, they have, considering Lance and Keith’s arcs have been the longest arcs in the show. So even if Klance isn’t endgame. At this point, they have definitely become best friends and have grown on their own and with each other. And that, is still a very, very beautiful thing. No they don’t have to be together romantically. But they can and will be by each others side for a long time after the series ends.

Because that’s what Klance is. Lance and Keith, back to back. Thank you for reading. :)

#klance #laith #voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender #voltron crew #voltron s7 #voltron season 7 #keith #lance #kogane #mcclain #faithinlaith!#voltron season 8

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storiesbeyondthestars · 6 years

Text

I got this ask, and wanted to talk about it in a separate post for obvious reasons.

Do you think at this point in the series, is it possible for Keith to possibly be fully in love with lance? Or is it still just a crush?

Short answer: Keith’s in love with Lance.

Long answer: Read below. There’s even pictures.

Having genuine feelings for someone, loving them for who they are, is the end goal, but there is nothing wrong with first noticing someone due to physical attraction, a bit of a crush. I think Keith started out there pretty earlier on:

This is from S1E2 (or, you know, the fourth one if you break the first into three). Body language is very important with everyone, but especially Keith’s where he doesn’t always say what he’s feeling directly. Here his posture is completely open and relax like I don’t recall ever seeing him before or after this. The tone he uses when he talks is oddly flirty, and the frame (though I cut it out cause I’m focusing on Keith’s expressions) shows the side of Lance’s face too so you know who he’s talking to. The way he’s looking at him? Despite the fact that they’ve been little shits to one another, competing, that’s pretty fond. I’d say even at this point, he probably thought Lance was attractive. Probably could see some of the good things outside of the ‘rivalry’ aspect.

Of course, this changes pretty quickly.

We all know this moment. Now, I will admit, when Lance says ‘we do make a good team’ he could very well be referring to the entire team, I will not deny that. It doesn’t matter either way because the words have the same impact. Keith’s seeing the real Lance, not the overly boastful one. He likes this Lance a lot. This is absolutely the moment where Keith started to actually fall for him. Still just a crush here, but that’s okay.

Here everyone always points out that he’s the most eager for him to get out. He’s certainly very impatient. Also, note Shiro in the second pic. Shiro isn’t looking at Lance, otherwise he’d be looking up more. He’s looking at Keith like ‘bro, chill’. Allura tells him to stop, and he instantly goes back to being defensive. He wants to talk to Lance. Maybe it’s just about how they do work well together. Maybe he’d be cool with just being close friends for a little bit. We know Keith has walls up, that he runs instead of letting people in, so the fact that he was willing to approach this tells me that even now, he didn’t think it was just a crush.

Look, if the lines under Lance’s eyes when Keith left means that he was genuinely upset (which was proven to be true later), here we can see that Keith is genuinely upset. He’s hurt. Feeling completely rejected. However...

Same episode. The first one is when he’s pumped that he got Blue back. Then he’s talking to Lance and by the third one...please tell me when someone in fiction has ever made that expression towards a platonic friend. Please tell me, I’ll wait.

Keith’s feelings for him are strong enough even now where he’s still hurt (we know Lance rejecting the bonding moment continues to bother him), he’s able to tease him, to work with him, to stare at him fondly.

This boy, he fell fast and he fell hard. I’d say that in S3, even if he didn’t realize it, couldn’t put a name to it, he was in love. I mean...

Looking at Lance and looking at his mom. He quite literally tells his mom that he loves her in the second picture. That expression is 100% confirmed to be love. Yes, it’s directed at his mother, so that’s a different form of love, but still love.

So why draw him looking at Lance like that multiple times? It’s even the same expression as the third picture in the last set.

Even after two years (to him) away, I think it’s still there. That’s why I think this reaction is so important:

He hasn’t reacted to Lance this badly since very early on, and Lance said something really nice to him, so the reaction doesn’t make sense. Why be so defensive? He’s been distant with Lance in S7, and that isn’t bad writing, that’s on purpose.

Whether he saw something while he was in the Quantum Abyss, or he thinks that Lance and Allura are together/are going to get together, his reaction in S7 is so different from early seasons.

In early seasons, when Lance snapped at him (like in S7E6), he snapped back. In that altercation, he didn’t actually fight back against him once. It was Allura and Hunk. Keith is purposely keeping his distance. We know he slams those walls up to protect himself, but from what?

Lance hurt him by rejecting their bonding moment (which we know he remembers), and he still communicated with him, teased him, etc. Here? He tries to tease him later but it comes off as a bit rough.

I think, early on, he was starting to fall in love, so he could work with the rejection a little more, maybe even thought he had a chance. Now, he’s in love, and doesn’t think there’s a chance and he’s protecting himself.

It’s sad, because it’s almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So yes, in my opinion, based on my interpretations of the show alone, and nothing to do with interviews and things like that, Keith is in love with Lance.

#klance #theorytime #my thoughts #analysis

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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sol1056 · 6 years

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EPs: "we chose Netflix to explore things like sexuality" (nothing was explored or was explicit for even 2 seconds) "when they told us u cant kill Shiro, we knew we could push the reveal 4 later" (so nice of them to admit they stopped our rep just to be able to kill him) "when we found out about byg we knew we coulnt kill Shiro & we thought we'll find rep w another character. Then we learned we could go on w/ Shiro as the rep" (theres ANOTHER REP WE DIDNT GET?? Was it vague then erased? Whatt??)

I think these are two separate issues. One is related to who made VLD, and the other is related to the EPs’ ignorance of characterization. The second overlaps with a bunch of asks I’ve recently gotten about race and representation, so here I’m just keeping it to a general discussion of characterization, with Lance as example. And then about Shiro in particular, how the EPs’ statements reveal their lack of thought.

Behind the cut.

remember where these people came from

The team behind VLD is almost entirely formerly Nickelodeon. DreamWorks wanted to break into television on a much larger scale, and since they almost always promote from outside the company, they lured over Margie Cohn from her position as a Nick VP. As VP/exec levels tend to do, Cohn brought a bunch of people with her.

One of those was Mark Taylor, who’d been involved in both AtLA and LoK. Taylor, in turn, brought JDS, LM, and I think one or two of the other producers. Taylor also probably brought over Hamilton, Chan, and Hedrick, as known entities with proven track records.

These are people who — for for the last ten or more years — have swum in Nickelodeon’s considerably more conservative fishbowl. It’s entirely possible (given what people tell me about storylines in HTTYD, and DW’s open support of She-Ra) the former Nickelodeon team automatically downgraded DW’s “go ahead and explore these heavier/darker topics” to mean “maybe kinda mention in passing but don’t be too obvious about it.”

Now, to be fair, the EPs may have pushed for more LGBT+ rep, and their obstacle might not have been DW, but Taylor. It’d explain how the EPs could praise everyone (read: DreamWorks staff) as supportive, yet allso complain about pushback (read: Taylor’s Nickelodeon-influenced sensibilities). Two different parties were calling the shots.

It’s also possible what the EPs saw as ‘rep’ was still considerably toned-down from what DW execs (and the VAs) may’ve expected. After all, that one-minute scene in VLD might’ve required an act of god at Nickelodeon. VLD’s staff may have genuinely considered this scene landmark because even that tiny bit was far more than their previous employer would’ve allowed.

Cue the victory lap and excited chatter, and seeming blindness to Korra being long since surpassed by Steven Universe, Young Justice, Bob’s Burgers, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, RWBY, Rick and Morty, Clarence, BoJack Horseman, Danger & Eggs, Big Mouth, and Summer Camp Island. Remember, it wasn’t until 2016 that Nickelodeon would have a married gay couple (in The Loud House), and they’re not even central characters. The VLD staff may’ve thought itself bold, and unprepared for the reality of modern (non-Nickelodeon) audience expectations.

No, I don’t think that absolves them. It just seems the most reasonable explanation. That is, short of seeing the EPs as so utterly cynical they’d pump up the audience for what amounted to a nothingburger in light of what else popular media now delivers.

and then there’s representation

VLD’s troubles can all be traced to one crucial detail: the EPs don’t understand that characters are the bedrock of stories. And as such, there are no shortcuts.

Ever had the misfortune to catch a home decorating show? Here we have a windowless basement: mock up a mantle from polystyrene, paint the walls gray, put up sconces with flickering lightbulbs… it’s still a basement. It’s just now desperately pretending to be something it isn’t. The bones of the structure are undeniably American Suburbia, not generic castle keep, and those bones are integral to how we experience the space.

The average person isn’t trained to be aware of those bones — the underlying architecture — and its subtle impact on our experience, just as most non-storytellers aren’t trained to see how and where and why characters create plot. I guarantee you, though, you will never mistake a late-century Kmart for the Centre Pompidou or the Forbidden City or Mount Vernon. Just as you would never mistake a beginner’s first novel for Lord of the Rings or Left Hand of Darkness.

That is, the dressed stone isn’t paint and plaster; it’s a core element informing (even dictating) height, width, and depth of a space. Characterization is the same: it must be structural. In turn, characters inform the breadth and depth of the story. If your characterization is shallow, wild swerves and dramatic reveals can make the story fun, but they will never make it deep.

I empathize with the (hopefully genuine) intent to avoid making Shiro’s sexuality a ‘reveal.’ The unfortunate truth is: waiting 60+ episodes to even mention in passing makes it a reveal. It wasn’t structural, or viewers would’ve been sensing it from the very beginning.

This isn’t a haircut or a pair of jeans. It’s a person’s identity, and that has crucial impact on hopes, fears, desires, and needs. It doesn’t start only once the audience is let in on the secret; it was always there. It should’ve informed the character’s actions and reactions all along.

If Lance is Cuban, and the story takes place in a quasi-future America, then to understand Lance’s perspective, we need to ask questions like: is Cuba still under embargo? Is it a free democracy now, or did Lance’s family flee at some point? Is he part of an exchange program, or is there a lottery that let him come to the US for his education? Did he leave his family behind? How young was he, when he left? What was his childhood like, and how does that differ from what he found in America? What was his parents’ relationship like, and how does that influence his expectations for friends and lovers?

Was he fluent in English when he arrived, or did he only become fluent later? Does his Spanish have a noticeable accent, and if so, has he felt isolated from other Latinx at school? Or is he the only Latino at the Garrison? Is he proud of his heritage, or ashamed of it? Did he get bullied for being foreign, and how did that change what he says/does? Even if America is joyfully multi-cultural, he’d still be an immigrant or foreigner, and that’s a different experience from a non-white community that’s multi-generation American. What was his impression of his new life? What compared favorably (or not) to his childhood?

It’s not just, “He’s a boy from Cuba.” You have to think about what it means to be ‘from Cuba’ and how this is different from, say, growing up next door to the Garrison (like Pidge probably did). If you put that much thought into it, if you talk to people who’ve lived that experience, if you push yourself to imagine as deeply as you can how Lance’s life would have shaped him?

By the time you’re done, Lance would never need to say a word.

His reactions, his assumptions, maybe a few mannerisms, his humor, a few throwaway comments about his family or things he did as a kid — and there would be Cubans in the audience going, “hey, wait a minute, he’s just like my cousin.” Or brother or uncle or friend. By the time someone asks at a panel? Half the audience would be saying, yeah, we were right, Lance is totally Cuban.

Or you don’t think about it, and you use stereotypes in hopes that’ll do the work for you. As @sjwwerewolf commented:

Man, I’m ready to rant about Voltron. I’m Cuban. Lance, oh boy, Lance. From season 1 on, he has been written as a huge stereotype. The flirtatious, passionate comic relief character who’s dumb. Like. He’s literally Antman’s sidekick. That character. All you need to make him a full caricature is like, “I have a gangster brother.“

The stereotype is a shortcut. It’s slapping on behaviors without thought for a real person’s experiences or perspectives. VLD is, sadly, full of them: the Latino (wannabe) lover, the big guy who likes food (with only the slightest twist to have him actually good at cooking), the boyish-girl who’s a brain and likes computers more than people, etc.

just pull shiro out of a hat

At some point early on, the EPs said (once again in an interview, not in the story) that VLD is a world without homophobia. The story itself contradicts that ideal, or at least, it emphasizes a certain level of heternormativity over an open embrace of diverse relationships. What’s in our face for six seasons is Lance’s lover-boy stereotype, Allura’s attraction to Lotor, Lotor’s attraction to Allura, Matt’s attraction to Allura, and so on… and the closest we get to anything resembling an alternate attraction is one blush from a servant in a flashback, and Kuron’s startled reaction to Keith’s return.

All VLD had to do was have Hunk mention his moms. Or Coran mention his late husband. Or Lance mention his sister’s wife. Something explicit to offset the heterosexual attractions going on. Frankly, for six seasons it was an open question whether homosexuality even existed in VLD: the absence of a negative is not proof of the presence of a positive.

That absence means we really have no idea how being queer in VLD’s world would affect a character — and it would, have no doubt. Our sexuality affects every single one of us; it’s just that straight people have the benefit of seeing the roadmap of their sexuality played out in a million books, movies, and television shows. If you haven’t given thought to whether this is also true in your world, then you don’t really know how a character could discover, define, and map their sexuality, or how they’d quantify or qualify relationships that overlap their sexual preferences. You don’t understand the structure.

That lack of thought means, nine times out of ten, the creator has said to themselves, “it’s easier to just say this character’s experience of their sexuality is exactly like the one I, as a straight person, vaguely recall having (that I never actually had to question because it was already mapped out for me, everywhere I looked).” That’s not a queer character. That’s a character with a label slapped on their forehead that says here be a queer character. It’s paint, because the structure underneath is straight person.

Which means that of course the EPs could consider making someone else “the rep,” because they really seem to believe this is as easy as removing the label from Shiro’s forehead and sticking it on someone else. And it’s not. People don’t work like that. Sexuality is no more a simple paint-job than race, gender, culture, or dis/ability. Each of these things is etched on our bones, literally or metaphorically, and that changes us all the way through.

The short version, then, is: no, we wouldn’t have gotten any other rep, just as we haven’t truly gotten any rep as VLD was delivered. Shiro has a label on his forehead, but unless and until the canonical story demonstrates this goes all the way down to his bones… he’s just a straight suburban basement with a mediocre paint job and some fake queer columns.

#vld #voltron #characterization #representation #sol thinks about stuff

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yurigoggles · 5 years

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Joker [Movie]

JOKER

Joker is not only the greatest origin movie I have ever seen, it is not only a villain origin movie, but it is also a great hero origin movie and thus by extension, it is also a great origin movie for the greatest antagonistic relationship in all of comic books!

For dear Readers who are scratching your heads wondering why this movie is here, it is no secret that I love comic books and CBM, I mean, I am only alive currently, right? In all seriousness, I do love comics, I think everyone grew up with some kind of comics. Yeah, sure I have more manga in my collection than DC/Vertigo/Titan comics but believe you me, I am a die hard fan of Batman and everything Batman! Well, not everything (see Batman/Catwoman relationship…bleh)

Which brings me to this movie JOKER. If someone is going to sit there and they are fans of Batman but don’t have this movie in their top movies of their CBM list, please don’t let me know because I will do everything to ignore you from now on!

Another point, JOKER is a true comic book movie! It is more movie than comic (like Batman v Superman, The Dark Knight) but that is more because the director (Mr Todd Phillips) actually gave a fuck about what they were doing and made a true to god film, based on a character from comic books!

There is no live action CB reality where this Joker can fit in except the original DCEU world. Hey, there is one point to add to my list as to why American beta critics hate this movie so much! Speaking of which, all this propaganda about the violence in this movie? Like WTF, you all need to watch more movies! If there was a list of violent movies, Joker doesn’t even make it in the top 20%! It is so tame all these loud mouths must be having their adult movie cherries popped or something! Seriously, like, it is even rated 16 here, that’s teen years like…

Any way, what a movie! It starts slow, and so blank that I gave up at one point looking for Easter Eggs because I surrendered to there being none. Big Mistake! If you have seen every Batman movie there is to see and you are a Batman fan, you are going to be grinning from ear to ear in that third act! It is not my character but I nearly stood up and fuckin hollered in the cinema at one point!

Speaking of hollering, this movie is actually pretty funny! Not in the *brunch* kind of funny but more like in the Snyder kind of funny! Yes, I am saying that you all fellow Cultists, this movie is basically for yous all! You have to go watch this movie if only to thank Mr Phillips for fighting the good fight! Hell, I shudder to think what kind of Batman this Bruce will grow up to be! Jesus!

Speaking of that, you can’t mention Joker without bringing up Batman! While I am lost as to what they did with the Batmobile that we saw on set of the movie, this movie had waaaay more Bruce than I was anticipating! And I don’t even mean to show off but when I watched the trailer and saw Arthur with that boy (the one he forced to smile), I fuckin knew it was Bruce Wayne! And yes, that was Bruce Wayne!

And yes, when I mentioned this was also a great hero origin movie, I was talking about Batman of course! Yes, they were killed, again, and I have to confess right here, I have always been lost as to why his parents got gunned down like so. All the previous reasons we got never quite clicked with me! There was always a vagueness about it! Also, I always had this urge to know why they were killed! I always had an inkling that maybe they weren’t such good people as they have always been made out to be! Billionaires like themselves in times like those, that money had to have been made on top of some skulls and I finally got that side of the story touched upon in this movie!

Perhaps it’s the saying that every person is a hero of their own story but scratch that, the world in this movie supported the theory that these Waynes were dicks! Bruce himself and even Alfred (I think that was him) were also proof that they were dicks! Bruce looked like what most movie rich kids look like, totally depressed and sad and lonely, something that always points to cold parents!

Speaking of the Waynes, there was this thread that ended up being left to the viewer to decide if it was true or not but at one point, it was made out to be that Arthur is actually Thomas Wayne’s son and that after some legal things went down, they decided to keep that life a secret! So his mother kept sending these letters to Thomas Wayne in order to get help in their hard times and one night Arthur opens one of the letters before it was sent out and finds out that he was an abandoned son.

I so fuckin wanted that to be true because can you imagine the implications of that when Bruce grows up to become Batman and has to fight Joker?!! But from the looks of things, I think they decided to go with it being a lie and Arthur’s mother being insane which I think is a complete waste! I mean it’s not like they were going to make a universe out of that so what if they were related? I could have read those fan fics so damn hard!

I still will, if there is some sane people that decide to do them!

And speaking of that, remember the Easter Eggs I was talking about? If you watch this movie and don’t get the connection with Batman v Superman, you failed! All I could think of was Wally Keith and his letters/checks from Bruce which were meant to help him while here Arthur’s mother kept sending letters to Thomas asking for help but either none got anything or the receiver kept rejecting them (MoSAnswers has the theory that Wally got the checks but kept sending them back)

Speaking of Easter Eggs, there are others, like Arthur’s name which we all know (A. Fleck as in Ben Afleck, get it?), then when Joker went on Robert De Niro’s Live TV and just before he was cut off, he almost said Ledger Joker’s line. Also when he was getting a ride on a police car afterwards, he looks like both Ledger and Let’s Jokers in cars! Heck, even the interview where he was asked if the chaos was his plan and he asked if he looked like a guy with a political agenda, almost like, yep, Joker asking Dent if he looked like a guy with a plan!

And then the McGuffin of all Easter eggs – The Death of the Waynes! Heck, that was no Easter Egg, that was the real shit! In fact that scene had two other BvS eggs, one being the Zorro movie showing, though I think it was coming soon in BvS? No, it was Now Showing and Excalibur was the one coming soon! Here though thehre was a twist. It wasn’t The Mask of Zorro but rather some title that went something like, Zorro; The Gay Something…I forgot the what the last word was. Believe you me, I want to watch that gay version of Zorro! And no, I am not making things up!

In fact the killing joke (heh couldn’t resist), I mean the last joke that made the Joker laugh was in fact the birth of The Batman! No idea how he would know or why he was 4th wall breaking but they made a point of showing Bruce standing over his parents’ bodies and to bring my point about the Waynes here back, he wasn’t crying over them like all the other interpretations. One can argue about it being shock of it all but I think there passed enough time for him to at least get on his knees and cry out in despair.

But he didn’t!

Hence why I am scared to think of what kind of Batman this Bruce would become! Just thinking about the Gotham he is going to grow up in…Jesus!

Which brings me to another thing, this movie is also the origin of the Gotham that we know, the Gotham that is a dumpster fire, the Gotham that will need a Batman unlike the one we have ever seen before, well, partially with BvS Batman after the Black Zero event! That Batman is the Batman that this Bruce will be since the moment he is born! But he will be necessary with the type of villains he will be dealing with if his Joker is this kind of Joker!

God, I love this movie! I love it so much it made it on this site! So forgive me dear Readers, I just can’t contain the love!

Best! Movie! Of! The! YEAR!

JOKER [Movie] JOKER Joker is not only the greatest origin movie I have ever seen, it is not only a villain origin movie, but it is also a great hero origin movie and thus by extension, it is also a great origin movie for the greatest antagonistic relationship in all of comic books!

#CBM #JOKER (2019)

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bazzledazzled · 6 years

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Have you seen that fanart of beauxbatons!Lance and Durmstrang!Keith? You could write about them meeting during the Triwizard Tournament... Maybe even attending the Yule Ball?

anon u have answered my prayers all i have been reading is harry potter fanfic I AM READY AND I LOVE THIS IDEA AND I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVENT THOUGHT OF IT YET????? Anyways here we go this is gonna be great.

Also lance with glasses fite me

also i feel like i should have a warning about this but there’s langst which means basically boggart lance is telling lance that he’s terrible and ye (like the squip!)

This turned out way longer than expected so here’s a 10k word fic!

I am going to kill this boy, Keith thought to himself as his eyes narrowed at the Beauxbatons boy. The names had just been drawn for the Triwizard Tournament, and Keith was a whirlwind of emotions.

For one, there was the fact that of all the people from Durmstrang including his adopted brother, Shiro, he was the idiot chosen to compete. He was the one chosen to be put in the spotlight when he barely even wanted to be at the stupid Tournament, even as a spectator. And now everyone was giving him attention, including a painfully cute brown haired boy with glasses and the most dazzling smile that would make anyone swoon.

Except the brown haired boy wasn’t making Keith swoon at this very moment, because the brown haired boy decided to be annoying and actually talk to Keith, even though they were competing against each other.

“So….. you nervous?” The boy asks, casually seating himself beside Keith. They were supposed to attend a meeting after the drawing to discuss rules and stuff for this years tournament. The brown haired boy named something stupid that started with an “L” was from Beauxbatons, the Hogwarts girl named something that Keith couldn’t remember who was wearing a Slytherin tie, and Keith, representing his own school, Durmstrang.

“No,” Keith says, brushing the other boy off, ending his sentence with a definitive end to tell the boy to go away. The boy did not go away.

“I’m nervous. I mean, I guess I’m not super nervous because I’ve seen this happen before and I’m pretty sure I could handle the different challenges, but it’s exciting, isn’t it?” There’s an excited smile on his face, one that could’ve been contagious if Keith wasn’t so angry at him for interrupting his brooding session.

“I guess.”

“You guess? Wow you Durmstrangs are lame, am I right Ravenclaw?” The Ravenclaw girl seems caught off-guard as she looks up, eyes wide before nodding in agreement, definitely not knowing what he just said.

“Are not!” Keith says, not sure why he’s getting defensive. He himself has said that Durmstrang is lame, but it hurt coming from someone else’s mouth. Especially from a Beauxbaton who had horrible taste.

“Mmkay,” the boy says with a sly smile. Keith wanted to punch him.

“You Beauxbatons are to pretentious,” Keith says with an eyeroll. The boy raises an eyebrow. “And the Durmstrangs aren’t?” Keith looks at him with an “are you being serious?” expression.

“What! You were all flashy and stuff when you came in.”

“And you weren’t?!” Keith says, still confused as to where the boy was going with this.

“Yeah but we did it in a cool way.”

“So did we!”

“Nuh uh!”

“Yeah huh!” The Sytherin girl bangs her book on the table, causing both of the boys shut up.

“I am trying to read,” she says, exasperated. He wrinkles his nose.

“Since when do people read?”

“Since forever??” The brown haired boy rolls his eyes.

“That’s lame.”

“Beauxbatons is lame,” the girl shoots back. The boy looks offended.

“HAH! See?”

“You two are getting taken down.” The girl just rolls her eyes, turning back to her book. Keith tries to come up with a witty reply, but not before the headmasters of the three schools come in.

“Congradulations! You three are the champions for this years Triwizard Tournament! Lance Mcclain will be competing for the Beauxbatons,” –Lance gives a charming smile– “Katie Holt will be representing Hogwarts–” “It’s Pidge,” the Slytherin girl pitches in, not looking up from her book. “And from our very own Durmstrang, Keith Kogane!” There was the sound of crickets. The headmaster of Durmstrang takes a deep breath.

“Your first trial will be held next week, which should give you plenty of time to prepare.” The headmasters go on about rules and make sure they know that the games are dangerous and that they accept the conciquences, and basically reading over the terms and conditions everyone usually skips over to get to the good stuff. The Beauxbatons boy– Lance– couldn’t seem to sit still as he went from tapping his foot, to tapping his fingers, to fidgeting with his hair. It started to irritate Keith to the point where he wasn’t paying attention, just glaring at Lance.

“Any questions?” There were none.

“Great! We’ll see you next week for the tournament.” They leave the room, leaving the three of them to assume that they were dismissed. Pidge didn’t even skip a beat, definitely seeming to get some time to herself before she was pushed into various interviews with flashing cameras and annoying fans. Keith was about to do the same, but not before Lance grabbed his elbow. Keith turned in both surprise and annoyance. Lance was lucky he had such a pretty face, or else Keith might’ve broken his nose.

“May the best man win,” he said with a smirk, holding his hand out. Keith hesitated before shaking it.

“Good luck losing.” Keith walked out of the room, the tiniest of smiles on his lips.

The first challenge was… moderate. At least for Keith.

Lance on the other hand… struggled.

The task was simple. They were to walk into the arena where a boggart was waiting for them. The boggart would morph into their greatest fear and they would yell “ridiculous!” and it would be gone.

Except it didn’t end there. Because as soon as you got rid of one boggart, two more would take it’s place. And you would keep doing that again and again, until you were surrounded by hundreds of boggarts, all portraying your biggest fear, which is something that Lance never wanted to become public.

Lance stepped into the arena, heading for the closet, his head held high. He opened the door boggart walked out of that closet, taking the form of Lance, except it was some form of a twisted Lance, with glowing yellow eyes and fangs.

It wasn’t scary or frightening in the way a spider was. It wasn’t stupid like Pidge’s where the boggart turned into one of her teachers saying she was failing every class except lunch. But Lance knew, as soon as the creature opened its mouth, the monster was supposed to represent his insecurities.

You’re a coward. You don’t even belong here. Filthy mud-blood.

Lance gulped, the spell on the tip of his tongue. It wouldn’t come out.

Your parents would disown you if they knew who you really were. All your friends are faking it. They don’t care about you. No one does. You can’t even care about yourself.

Lance squeezes his eyes shut, hearing the words echo and bounce around inside his head. They were always there, at the back of his mind whenever he talked to a friend or he didn’t tell his family that he was actually a wizard instead of just going to some fancy private school he got a scholarship for. Or when he found himself daydreaming about a black haired boy, knowing that he was out of his league and the boy was probably straight anyways.

You’re selfish. Everyone hates you. The world would be better off without you.

Lance takes a deep breath. He can feel the tears welling inside him, and he knows everyone is watching. This is supposed to be a test of strength, a chance to prove that he isn’t some shitty wizard who everyone thought cheated the system to get into the Triwizard Tournament even though he didn’t. But standing there, facing the bogart, he started to wonder if the whole thing was a mistake.

“Ridiculous!” He cries, summoning all his energy, every single pent up emotion inside him as he looked the bogart in the eyes, telling himself one thing over and over. I am enough.

There was something different about the way his wand cast the spell than when he cast it before. For a moment he thought it was because he did something wrong and the spell was backfireing as a blue light started to glow from the wand. As it got brighter, to the point where it was blinding, Lance started to worry he might blow himself and the rest of the spectators up. Some Triwizard Tournament that would be. He could already see the headlines of the boy who ruined everything.

And then.. something amazing happened. It was almost as if he cast a patronus charm, which didn’t make sense. The light danced in the air with no distinct shape. It saw the bogart, darting for it and causing it to disappear. Like before when Pidge did it, two more took its place, but before Lance could even raise his wand to get rid of them, the light darted through them, and they were gone just like the first. There were gasps from the crowd and Lance gaped in amazement as the spell took out bogarts faster than his eye could catch. It only faded when the biggest one of all appeared, towering over Lance in all its glory. Lance gulped, facing it, trying to tap into the same energy from earlier.

As the bogart took form, Lance realized instead of being a large version of himself, similar to the ones before, it was shrinking, taking the form of a large mass of people, all of which he recognized. All of them were shouting insults as they surrounded him.

His family was there, his sisters and brothers and niece and nephew. His mom and dad too, both barely looking at him, telling him he was a disgrace to his family. He turned away, only to bump into his friends, shouting insults at him. Allura told him that he was a thorn in her side for years, and how she wanted to get rid of him, but he kept coming back. Hunk told him he never did everything right and that he would never be taken seriously as long as he had Lance for a friend. Tears pooled in Lance’s eyes as he turned away from them, wrapping his arms around himself.

There were teachers there too. The told him he was failing, said that he was barely even a wizard considering how bad he was at magic. They said he was probably more of a muggle and never had a spot in Beauxbatons to begin with. Classmates taunted him, calling him crude names, chanting “mud-blood” as they grinned viciously. Lance curled in on himself, not sure what to do.

“What’s taking him so long?” Pidge says inside the tent, fiddling with some muggle device. Keith leaned against the wall, practicing spells and ignoring her.

“You’re just mad because you failed.” Pidge shoots him a glare, but Keith doesn’t give her the satisfaction of even looking at her.

“I did better than he is if he’s taking this long.” Suddenly shouts Keith assumed to be the crowd at first, grew louder and more vicious. It startled the two champions and they shared a look.

“That doesn’t sound good….” They rush out of the tent, looking around, trying to figure out what is going around.

The arena was filled with people. All of them were shouting angrily, at a specific person who Keith could only guess was Lance. The crowd was completely quiet, some of them turning away from the scene, feeling bad for the boy at the center of the chaos. The judges were talking amongst themselves, not yet sure if they should call it. Keith takes a look at Pidge and Pidge looks at him before he darts into the arena. He hears Pidge call his name, but he doesn’t listen.

Inside the arena is madness. People were yelling and screaming and throwing things. They were trying to push their way through the crowd to get to the center, all of their words negative. None of the words were directed at him, but Keith could feel his self-esteem lowering, making him feel weak inside. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Lance. He pulls out his wand, casting spells to get people out of his way. He needs to get to the center. From there, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He doesn’t even know what Lance is facing since he was supposed to go last.

He makes it to the center and sees Lance. The poor Beauxbatons boy is on the ground, curled up into a ball as tears stream down his face. A boiling hot anger suddenly fills Keith, one that he’s experienced many times before. He didn’t care if they all signed up for this, nobody should be put through this much emotional trauma.

“Lance!” Keith calls as people try to shove him back. Lance doesn’t move.

“LANCE!” Keith calls again. Lance grits his teeth.

“LANCE!” Keith emerges from the crowd, looking down at Lance, who looks up at him, hatred shinning through his expression.

“I just met you how can you already hate me?” Keith frowns, bending down to Lance.

“C’mon. Your trial’s over.” Lance looks up at him, his chin wobbling. Keith immediately feels a sort of protectiveness for this boy. He was battling too many monsters, many of which Keith found himself battling as well.

“Shove off, Kogane.” Keith huffs, grabbing Lance’s arm roughly and pulling him up. Lance pulls away, his shoulders hunched.

Someone jumps out at them, their expression vicious as they spit out words, calling Lance things like “mud-blood” and other even worse variations. Without thinking, Keith throws himself in front of Lance as if he could protect Lance from the person’s hurtful words.

Then something interesting happens. The crowd merges together in one large form, the image flickering and stretching. Keith furrows his brow in confusion

It starts to take form, glimmering black hair styled like Keith’s and bright, glowing yellow eyes with purple irises. The creatures fingers elongated into talons coated in blood and even around it’s mouth Keith could see traces of it. There was a wicked grin on its face and its clothes were in tatters. Keith recognized it immediately. He recalled a Defense Against the Dark Arts class from years before when they first learned about Bogarts. He was faced with this same monster, his greatest fear.

He was scared he would turn into this monster.

He grabs his wand, ignoring the fears rooted deep in his stomach as he shouted “RIDICULOUS!”

The air was still. The bogart was gone. Behind him, Keith heard Lance sniffle. Everyone was looking at him with disbelief, including the Beauxbatons boy.

“Why would he do that!?” Lance says exasperatedly as he talks to his friend, Hunk. Hunk was from Hogwarts and an old friend of Lance’s. Their families were close and Hunk was surprised learn that Lance too was a wizard. They usually didn’t talk much over the school year considering they went to different schools, but they hung out almost all the time over the summer, telling school secrets about Hogwarts and Beauxbatons that they thought the other might find funny.

Hunk shrugs, obviously tired of this conversation. This is the third time Lance has talked about it since the competition. “Why don’t you ask him.” Lance gave him a repulsed look.

“I can’t ask mullet why he saved me.”

“Awww you have nicknames for each other.”

“No we don’t! We barely even know each other.”

“Just because you don’t know him doesn’t mean you don’t like him.”

“Wh-what?” Lance says, his cheeks reddening. Hunk laughs.

“Look Keith probably saved you because he felt bad for you. I would’ve done the same.” Lance crosses his arms and sticks out his lip.

“I didn’t need saving.” Hunk sighs, knowing that Lance was probably embarrassed that he wasn’t able to handle a simple bogart.

“Did you prepare for the next task.” Lance groans.

“No.”

“Do you know what it’s going to be.”

“I don’t know! They gave us a vague clue.”

“Clues are supposed to be vague.” Lance huffs, hitting his head on the table.

“What is it? Maybe I can help.”

“They said something about looking through the history of Triwizard Tournaments.” Hunk furrowed his brow.

“Why?” Lance shrugs.

“If I had to guess, they ran out of ideas and they’re stealing one from a previous one.”

“Did they say anything else?”

“They said it would jump out from history, that there was something about the tournament that was different than the others.” A lightbulb goes off in Hunk’s head.

“We should head to the library.”

Keith just wanted to have a quiet study session for the tests he had to take, was that too much to ask? It didn’t seem like much and, for the most part, people kept to themselves in the library because that’s what people do at libraries.

Lance Mcclain seems to have not gotten the hint.

“What are you doing here Kogane?” Lance says, looking at Keith with narrowed eyes. Keith looks up at him, a bored expression on his face.

“Some of us actually go to school her,” Keith says, turning back to his textbooks. Lance huffs, siting beside Keith.

“Do you want something or are you just here to make sure I fail potions?” Lance glares at him, getting more annoyed when he sees that Keith just ignores him. Lance puts his hand over Keith’s textbook, forcing him to look into the Beauxbaton boy’s blue eyes. He’s aware of how close they are and how cute Lance is… for a Beauxbaton. Too bad Lance hates him, Keith might have even dated him.

“What do you want, Mcclain?” Lance’s jaw is set. He looks like a boy on a mission.

“Why did you help me?” Keith bites his lip, trying to actually figure out why he did it. He shrugs.

“I felt bad for you,” he says, grabbing his textbook and scooting away from Lance. Lance grabs his arm.

“I didn’t need saving,” Lance says, pratically choking on emotion. Keith puts his books down, turning back to Lance, concern in his eyes. Lance’s face flushed with embarrassment as he let go of Keith’s arm.

“I just… I’m not stupid, alright?”

“I didn’t say that you were?” Keith furrows his brow in confusion.

“The cup picked me for a reason this isn’t some mistake.” Lance clenches his fists, barely even looking at Keith.

“Are you… okay?”

“No.” Lance slumps against him, crossing his arms. It catches Keith off-guard, considering he’s not the most affectionate person, but a look into Lance’s eyes tells Keith that he needs something to ground him.

“Um….” Keith doesn’t know what he should do. In his head he’s going into a gay panic.

“I’ll show them,” Lance says determinedly to himself. Keith doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. “I’m going to place first in the next challenge. I’m going to win.”

“Hey Lance!” A voice calls. There’s a chorus of “shhh”s directed at a boy in a yellow Hufflepuff tie, he apologizes, running towards Keith and Lance. Lance jumps away from Keith, perking up slightly. Hunk takes the seat next to Lance, making Keith even more annoyed. Really he just wanted to study, not have a party with his rival and said rival’s friend.

“What’s up?” The Hufflepuff flips through a book that seems to be full of old records. Keith can’t help but be slightly interested. He leans over Lance’s shoulder. Lance turns to him, a smirk on his face.

“You trying to cheat, mullet?” Keith turns bright red. He moves away from Lance.

“I wasn’t– I was just–” Lance looks thoughtful.

“Tell you what…” Both Keith and the Hufflepuff boy raise an eyebrow.

“I’ll help you in the next challenge.” Keith’s eyebrows seem to raise even more.

“Okay?”

“I mean, it’s the least I can do after… the incident that shall not be named.”

“Okay??” Lance nods, satisfied, and turns back to Hunk.

“Go on.”

“Do you remember Harry Potter’s Triwizard Tournament?”

The weeks leading up to the second trial were… interesting to say the least. Lance was dead set on repaying Keith after the first trial, which meant that he followed him. Everywhere.

Keith wanted to complain but… he began to enjoy Lance’s company. Because they were visiting, students from Beauxbatons and Hogwarts weren’t required to go to classes like the rest of the Durmstrang students, but they were highly encouraged to go to these classes and experience new “cultures.”

Lance claimed that he didn’t have a choice, but Keith knew that he secretly loved accompanying Keith to his classes, helping him figure out potions and listening to Keith laugh as Lance messed up a charm. But Lance was determined to do his hardest in everything, as if he had to prove something. Sometimes he failed, sometimes he embarrassed himself miserably, but he still kept trying, and Keith found it almost admirable.

Despite being sort of kind of friends now, they still held onto some rivalish qualities, probably because everyone kept fitting them into those roles. They were going head to head in the Triwizard Tournament still, and Keith and Lance weren’t shy to go into a not so friendly competition during Transfiguration, much to their teacher’s annoyance.

That’s probably why the media was always buzzing about them.

There were tons of articles, some of them ridiculously sappy about how it’s beautiful to see their friendship blossom even though they’re from different schools. There were debates about Keith saving Lance, some people even saying that Keith should be disqualified. Some say Lance should be disqualified because he accepted Keith’s help. Some people, deep on the internet, suggested that Keith and Lance’s friendship is something more. Maybe it always has.

Except Keith and Lance were too busy for the internet, between planning how to get through the second challenge, brewing potions to help them breathe underwater, and Lance pretty much tutoring Keith in potions, there was no room in between classes to casually surf the internet. Maybe if they saw these speculations, it would’ve drawn them apart with repulsion, feeling uncomfortable with this development. Or maybe it would’ve made them realize what they really wanted.

“Scared mullet?” Lance says with a smirk, looking over at Keith as they stood over by the Lake, getting ready for the competition. Keith scowled.

“Stop calling me that.” Lance sticks his face in front of Keith’s, a mischivious grin on his face. The slightest blush crosses Keith’s face.

“Why?”

“Because my name is Keith,” Keith says, crossing his arms. Lance’s playful energy was contagious and that’s probably what Keith liked the most about him.

“You’re the one who chose to have bad hair!” Lance says defensively. Keith gasps, touching his hair.

“You take that back!”

“Seriously who cuts their hair like that!” Lance says. Keith pouts.

“You’re jealous.” Lance rolls his eyes.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if you just…” Lance digs through his pockets, looking for something. He frowns.

“Hold on.” He runs over to someone Keith supposes must be a friend who’s standing a few feet away in Beauxbaton robes holding a flag with Lance’s face on it.

“Yo Allura you got a hairtie?” Lance calls. The girl– Allura– furrows her brow.

“Yeah why?”

“My buddy Keith needs it,” Lance says, pointing over at Keith. Keith’s face goes red as he buries his head in his hands, wondering why he still let Lance do these things to him.

Lance runs back over, hairtie in hand.

“Turn around,” he orders. Keith huffs, doing as told, his face still red. Lance runs Keith’s hair through his hands, untangling any knots. He gathers his hair, pulling it up and tying the elastic around it. He turns Keith around, smiling and brushing his bangs out of his eyes and behind his ears. Lance smiles.

“You have eyes,” Lance says dorkily. Keith starts to snort, erupting into giggles and leaning on Lance slightly, the purest of expressions on his face. The smallest of blushes passes across Lance’s face and a thought flitters through his head.

Oh god help me.

Pidge, Keith, and Lance stood side by side, looking over the lake, their stomachs filled with anxiety. They all knew that they would have to find something at the bottom of the lake, thanks to them all being friends with Hunk, who was having a hard time choosing one person to root for, but they had no idea what they were actually looking for. The books from the library full of records had certain words blacked out, giving the competitors a vague idea of what the actual challenge would be.

Then, there was a loud whistle, and the second trial began.

Pidge shoved some sort of plant in her mouth, jumping in without hesitation. Lance chugged a bottle of a blue liquid that looked like water, sputtering at the taste before jumping in. Keith, since him and Lance worked on the potion together, not only for Keith’s potions project but also for this competition, did the same.

Being submerged in water was an… odd feeling. For a long moment, Keith floated, the potion taking a little longer to take effect, unlike Lance who was already halfway to the bottom.

Then he felt something pull at his feet. He looked down, gasping in shock, fumbling for his wand to cast a stupefy on whatever it was.

But there was nothing there. It was the potion, starting to take effect. Keith remembered what Lance told him, how it not only allowed you to breath underwater, but it made your body mass heavier, allowing you to sink all the way to the bottom of the ocean at a rather quick pace. It was a complex spell, one that Keith had struggled with greatly, but he got an A on the assignment and it didn’t seem to have any after effects.

When Keith got to the bottom, he saw what the “treasure” was. There was three people floating in the water, tied there with seaweed. Mermaids flocked around them.

The first person looked a lot like Pidge. In fact, it was eerie how close they resembled each other. Keith knew for a fact that it had to have been Pidge’s brother or something.

The second person was a girl. She had hair cut to about her shoulders and glasses that sat askew on her face. Her features vaguely resembled Lance, which obviously could only mean that it was Lance’s sister. Keith recalled Lance talking about her and the rest of his siblings.

The third was someone Keith knew. He didn’t have to guess to know that this was his treasure.

He would recognize his brother anywhere.

His feet touched the ground and he ran to Shiro, his jaw set. It was an odd, running in water. What was weirder was, even though Keith could see the fish swimming around him, it didn’t feel like he was running anywhere underwater. It almost felt like he was on dry land.

The mermaids didn’t stop him as he passed them. Lance was already there, tearing at the seaweed for his sister. He turned to Keith, flashing one of his dorky smiles. Keith rolled his eyes, smiling slightly as he used his wand to to cut the rope. He grabs Shiro, turning back to Lance. Above them they saw Pidge, looking angry at the fact that they beat her here. Lance pulled out a second potion from his pocket, this one more sludgy and red. Keith did the same. They looked at each other before, emptying the bottle.

Pidge got to the bottom, letting her brother free. That’s when the potion started to take effect as Keith and Lance started to rise back to the surface. As they rose, Keith started to notice the effects of the other potion start to wear off. He found it more difficult to breathe and he saw Lance seem to have the same problem. But it didn’t matter. He could see the sun above him, feeling the warmth. Lance was a good deal ahead of him, but he didn’t think anything of it.

Until he realized he wasn’t moving at all. Lance kept going up and up and up, but he stayed right there. He started to gasp for air, trying franticly to swim back up to the surface. But it wasn’t working. He felt himself inhale water and his eyes widened with panic. He tried to call out for Lance, but Lance didn’t seem to hear. Pidge swam by him and he felt the truth sink in on him.

He messed up the potion. He was going to die down here.

Lance felt like he was on top of the world. After the first challenge, he was sure the goblet made a mistake. The first challenge was supposed to be the easiest, and he couldn’t even face a bogart.

But this? This was almost too easy. He always loved potions so as soon as he heard about the challenge he knew exactly what potion he needed to make. He didn’t need the weeks to prepare it. He could’ve done it that day and had it done by dinner. But he knew that Keith struggled with potions and decided to take things slow, taking his time to explain to Keith why things worked a certain way and how to be careful with the measurements. Still, Keith struggled. The poor boy always looked so defeated when the potion blew up in his face, saying that Lance should stop trying to help him it wasn’t going to work.

But Lance didn’t give up. He wasn’t going to give up.

He can see the surface, he’s almost close enough to touch the surface and feel the cool air. He grins, looking down to share a smile with Keith, who was no doubt behind him.

Except Keith wasn’t behind him. Lance started to panic, looking around wildly. He saw Pidge come up behind him, her brow drawn. But Keith wasn’t there.

Lance pulled out his wand, casting the spell to momentarily stop the effects of the potion, just for a little bit. The world stilled and he looked down for the black haired boy in a red coat. Far bellow he spotted him. He thought about how much time he had before the spell wore off and he would be forced to float back to the top. He could cast the spell again and again, but he could feel it already starting to wear him down. He took a deep breath, hoping beyond hope that those stupid swim lessons would be useful. He let go of Veronica, letting her float to the top. God she would be so angry when she woke up. Lance still has forgotten to mention the whole wizard thing to her.

He started to swim towards Keith, kicking his legs as hard as he could. He swam past Pidge, who looked at him with confusion, but didn’t stop. She was here to win, Lance knew this. He was too, but he couldn’t leave Keith down there. What if something bad happened.

After what felt like hours but only was probably twenty minutes, Lance reached Keith. He was franticly kicking his legs, but Lance could tell he was losing energy. He had a death grip on his “treasure” and tears seemed to be pooling at his eyes. He was blue and looked on the verge of passing Lance cursed, pulling his wand back out and swimming up to Keith, grabbing his hands. Bubbles escaped from Keith’s mouth as he looked at him with surprise. Lance takes a deep breath, trying to stay calm even through Keith’s panic. He had to, or else something terrible might happened.

He remembered the charm, saying it in his head and pointing the wand up between them. A bubble swelled up between them, spreading wider and wider until it encompassed both of their heads, the bubble full of fresh air. Keith gasped, drinking up the air, his skin turning back to its normal color.

“You good?” Lance says, touching Keith’s shoulder. Keith gulps and nods, not able to form words. Lance smiled warmly, releasing the hold of the previous spell, causing them to rise up. Thankfully, whatever was causing Keith to stay stationary seemed to disappear as Lance’s potion took over him.

They surface both of them gasping as they swim to shore. Lance sees Pidge wrapped in a towel, standing next to her brother and shivering. He also saw Veronica, standing next to them, looking bewildered, but also relieved to see Lance.

Lance helps Keith stand. Keith seems to be a little weak from almost drowning. Behind them, the guy that Keith was saving, called out.

“Keith!” He runs up to him, hugging him tight. Lance smiles, walking over to his sister. She proceeded to look at him, soaking wet in his blue swim trunks. And then, miraculously, she starts to laugh.

“What?” Lance says, blushing.

“All this time I knew you were hiding a secret from us and all along its because you were going to some elite school because your a nerd.” Lance stumbles over his words, but Veronica just smiles, enveloping him in a hug. Lance smiles, glad to see his sister.

He looks back at Keith, who’s staring at him, his expression a mix of awe and confusion. Lance just laughs.

After the tournament, the three champions are ushered into a room, still dripping wet for interviews. It was obvious that they were excited to get the latest scoop, considering everyone saw Veronica surface without Lance and Lance later surface with Keith and Shiro. Everyone knew that it would add to the tale of Keith Kogane and Lance Mcclain, Friends or Lovers?

Before they started prepping them for interviews, the three discussed the events of the tournament quietly amongst themselves.

“That task wasn’t that hard…” Pidge says, obviously taking pride in the fact that she came in first place. Lance pursed his lips, nodding in agreement but also looking at Keith out of the corner of his eye, who had his blanket wrapped around him tightly. Keith didn’t say a word, frowning.

“Congrats on getting first, Pidge?” Lance says with a warm smile.

“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Pidge finally bursts. Keith and Lance incline their heads towards her.

“Lance… I saw you ahead of me. You could’ve won this and got in first place instead of making us all tied. So why didn’t you win?” Lance bites his lip. Keith looks at him too, a curious expression on his face.

“Well I… I saw that Keith was struggling…” Keith looks away blushing. He swore he saw Pidge smirk.

“So you decided to sacrifice your win to save the damsel in distress?”

“Well… yeah.” Pidge just smiles, looking like she knows something.

“I see.” They call for Lance for his interview. He grins and walks into the room, obviously enjoying the attention. Pidge turns to Keith.

“You like him.” Keith turns bright red, mumbling incoherent nothings.

“That’s ridiculous,” he says finally. Pidge raises an eyebrow.

“He’s from Beauxbatons.” Pidge’s eyebrow arches further.

“We’re rivals.” Pidge bursts out laughing.

“WHAT!” Keith says defensively. She snorts.

“Some rivals you are.” Keith plays with the sleeves of his jacket.

“I mean I guess we’re friends, but we’re competing against each other. Plus, Lance couldn’t like me back.”

“So you admit you like him.” Keith squeaks, his face as red as a tomato.

“What? No I-I was– I meant– I–” Pidge puts her hand over his mouth. He gives her a panicked expression.

“Look. I know Lance.”

“You do?”

“Yes he’s Hunk’s friend god have you been paying attention?”

“Oh yes that answered all my questions. Thank you,” Keith says sarcastically. Pidge laughs.

“Oh I like you.”

“What’s your point, Pidge?”

“I know Lance. I also know that he flirts with literally any girl he sees comma but the ones he really likes he gets all flustered and does a weird thing with his hands.”

“ I don’t understand what this has to do with anythi–”

“When he likes someone he tries to spend every waking hour with them and will do anything for them.”

“So?”. Pidge huffs.

“So I’m saying that he’s the same with you!” Keith scoffs.

“No he’s not. He’s just being Lance.” Pidge groans.

“Wow you’re about as thick as he is.”

“HEY! Lance is really smart, I’ll have you know,” Keith says defensively, maybe a small part of his tone is dreamy. Pidge rubs her brow.

“I’m too ace for this.” Lance walks back out into the waiting room, a nervous smile on his face. Keith feels his heartbeat quicken and he scratches his neck in an attempt to hide his blush. He didn’t know if it worked as Lance walked up to him.

“How did it go?” Keith asks. Lance purses his lips, fidgeting with his hand a little. Pidge gives Keith a look.

“It went good! They asked some personal stuff about… nevermind.” Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Keith swore he saw Lance blush the slightest bit. But the moment was gone.

“Kogane!” The lady called. Keith takes a deep breath, walking into the room.

The room is just a normal classroom, set up for an interview. Two chairs sit across from each other, one occupied by a lady with curly hair and glasses. Keith gulped, sitting down across from her.

“Hello Mr. Kogane,” she says, smiling warmly.

“H-hi,” Keith says, pulling at the sleeves of his jacket.

“So. This challenge was a lot harder for you, wasn’t it.” Keith gulped and nodded.

“Yes.”

“Do you care to explain what happened?” Keith dug his nails into his palm.

“I don’t know. I made my potion wrong and I couldn’t get to the surface so Lance saved me.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Do you know why he did that? Rumor has it he would’ve won if he hadn’t gone back for you.” Keith curled and uncurled his fists.

“I don’t know. It was probably payback for the first challenge.” She hummed.

“That’s not how Lance tells it.”

“How does Lance tell it?” Keith growls. The reporter flips to a new piece of paper.

“Next question. How did you feel when you saw Lance come back for you.” Keith didn’t know what this had to do anything.

“I don’t know. I was happy that I could breathe.”

“In the metaphorical sense?” Keith raised an eyebrow.

“No? He spelled a bubble around us so we could breath.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Did you say anything to him in this… bubble?”

“I couldn’t breathe?” Keith doesn’t know where she’s going with this.

“Next question. How do you feel about Lance Mcclain? Do you think your relationship has evolved?”

“Well… yeah.” The lady leans forward slightly. Keith coughs, his cheeks reddening. “Well I mean–” Keith coughs. “We’re closer friends now and stuff. And he’s really smart and helps me with my potions…”

“Is she trying to make a move on him?” Lance says, face pressed up against the glass of the classroom door. Pidge groans, playing Zelda on a DS.

“She’s not, Lance. And if she was then that would be creepy and wrong.” Lance frowns.

“She’s too close.” Pidge huffs, stepping on the tips of her toes to look in with Lance. She rolls her eyes.

“They’re literally a meter away from each other.” Lance huffs.

“He’s blushing.” Pidge groans, slinking against the floor.

“Keith’s always blushing.”

“Yeah but…”

“Lance.”

“I mean….”

“Lance.”

“What if…”

“LANCE!” Lance turns to the Pidge. She pushes up her round glasses.

“Keith is fine he’s just nervous.” Lance sighs, sinking to the ground.

“I know I just….”

“What?” Pidge sits next to him. Lance frowns, seeming conflicted.

“I just know how shaken up I was after the first challenge and how answering their questions made it worse and… you didn’t see him down there, Pidge.” Pidge sighs.

“Keith will be fine. If he’s not I’m sure he’ll deck her.” Lance laughs a little.

“Yeah.” Lance looks down into his lap, his features soft.

“Hunk was right, you got it bad.”

“What?!” Lance says, jumping. “I swear if Hunk told you–” Pidge rolled her eyes.

“It’s obvious Lance. He didn’t need to tell me anything.” Lance threads his fingers through his hair, sighing.

“It is?”

“The only person that doesn’t seem to know is Keith.” Lance huffs, resting his chin on his hand.

“What should I do, Pidge?” Pidge coughs.

“Are you seriously asking me for relationship advice?” Lance glares.

“Just ask him to the Yule Ball or something. That’s coming up soon.” Lance chews his lip.

“Maybe….” The door behind them opens, causing both of them to yelp, scrambling up. Keith frowned at them.

“Why were you sitting by the door?”

“It was Lance’s idea,” Pidge says with a shrug, heading into the room, closing the door tightly behind her. Lance starts to fidget with his jacket and Keith scratches his neck.

“So….” Keith says, coughing. Lance bites the inside of his cheek.

“Want to go find something to eat?” Keith grins.

“Sure.”

“Who’s Keith talking to?” Lance says, leaning into Hunk, a frown on his face. Hunk follows his line of sight.

“Acxa. Why?” Lance raises an eyebrow.

“Who’s she?”

“A Gryffindor girl. She’s friends with Allura’s ex. But don’t worry, she’s cool.” Lance chews his lip, glimpsing back at them. He knew what flirting looked like.

“Do you think she’ll ask him to the Yule Ball?” Hunk shrugs, taking a bite of his food.

“Pidge has heard rumors about it. They might be true.” Lance looks back at them. Keith has a frustratingly cute expression on his face as his brows draw with confusion, tilting his head curiously. Sometimes Lance swore he was like a puppy mixed with a cat and it made Lance’s stomach flip. He sighs, resting his chin on his hand.

“Wow. Pidge was right.” Lance squeaks, jumping and turning away from Keith.

“Right about what?” Lance says nervously.

“That that Durmstrang boy is going to be the death of you.”

“N-no he’s not!”

“Lance you’re looking at him again.” Lance sighs dreamily.

“He’s so pretty.” Hunk rolls his eyes.

“Tell me again why you haven’t asked him to the Yule Ball yet?” Lance huffs.

“Because Hunk.” Hunk raises an eyebrow.

“”Because… I don’t know. It would be weird, wouldn’t it?”

“No?”

“But it’s Keith, Hunk.” Hunk just laughs, shaking his head. Above them they hear a chirping sound. Everyone in the room cranes their heads up at the noise as dozens of birds flood the room, all of them with letters tied around their ankles. They swooped down, landing at tables where students recognized a family owl and took the letter, reading it to themselves with smiles and frowns. Another round of owls came in, dropping in the daily newspapers. Lance picks one up, casually flipping to the article on the Triwizard Tournament.

There’s a picture of the three of them, all drenched from head to toe. Pidge was grinning wildly, her eyes dancing with excitement. Meanwhile, Keith was shivering, wrapping himself tighter in blankets. Lance was beside him, looking slightly concerned for his friend as he offered Keith his blanket. Lance skipped over the picture to the article.

“Yesterday the three Champions of this year’s Triwizard Tournament completed their second challenge. Katie “Pidge” Holt from the Slytherin house at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry came in first place, saving her brother, Matt from the bottom of the lake. Next to come up was a bewildered muggle by the name of Veronica who is our second champion’s sister. However, Lance could not be seen, causing anxiety to build up within the stands of the arena, wondering what could possibly have happened to the Beauxbatons boy. There was still no sign of the Durmstrang boy or his treasure.

“Just as the officiators began to organize a team to look for the two boys, they shot out of the water, arm and arm, both of them holding tightly onto Takashi Shirogane, Keith Kogane’s adopted brother. The audience cheered, rising up in the stands as Keith and Lance tied for second place, causing a three way tie between the three champions. They were all–” Hunk kept poking Lance’s shoulder and it was really starting to dampen his reading ability. He huffs, getting slightly annoyed, and turns to Hunk.

“What?!” Hunk chews his lip.

“Uh dude…” Hunk points to a picture later on in the article. It was of before the match where Lance was helping Keith with his hair. They were facing each other, both of them blushing, looking soulfully into each other’s eyes. Lance gulps as he reads the headline.

“Rivals… or Star-Crossed Lovers?” Lance looks over at Hunk, a nervous expression on his face. He quickly turns back to the article, pratically inhaling the words on the page with a frantic energy.

“One cannot deny that since the first trial in the tournament there has been a spark between the two boys of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. As some may recall, Keith Kogane came to Lance Mcclain’s aid when he couldn’t muster the courage to face his greatest fear. Since then, the two boys have been almost inseparable. Sources say that it was because Mcclain felt indebted to Kogane after he saved him and was bent on helping the Durmstrang in any way he could.

“But one cannot deny the energy these boys give off. Hidden deep within there is a passion that most anyone can see, and it has only been strengthened since the second trial. The two boys have become a popular… so to say… ship amongst fanatics of the Triwizard Tournament. And they no doubt are gobbling up this exclusive interview with Lance Mcclain:”

“Whatcha reading?” Keith says from over Lance’s shoulder, scaring Lance senseless. Without hesitation, Lance takes the article and shoves it in his glass of milk, looking up at Keith.

“Just enjoying my breakfast!” He says, laughing nervously. Keith squints at him, sitting down beside him. He reaches for the pitches of orange juice, his hand brushing Lance’s in the process. Lance goes bright red.

“Okay but seriously, what were you reading?” Keith says, staring at him from over his orange juice.

“Nothing.” Keith frowns. Lance can feel everyone looking at him now. They no doubt read the article, read about all the embarising ways Lance gushed about Keith during his interview in ways he didn’t mean to. If he could do anything to change that moment, he would in a heartbeat.

“What did Acxa talk to you about?” Hunk asks, bless him. Keith shrugs, stabbing his egg and frowning.

“She asked me to go to the Yule Ball with her.” Oh no oh no my life is over I failed bury me now–

“What did you say?” Hunk says, looking at Lance nervously. He could tell that Lance seemed on the verge of a breakdown. He made a mental note of the best escape route for his friend.

Keith continues to frown, stabbing his eggs, looking at Lance through his lashes.

“I said no,” Keith mumbles. Lance gasps, standing up.

“You what?” Keith seems to shrink in on himself a little, thrown off by Lance’s outbreak. Lance immediately feels horrible as he sits back down.

“Sorry, sorry I… what do you mean you said no?” He says in a much gentler voice, leaning slightly towards Keith. Keith shrugs, holding his gaze.

“I just… said no?”

“But she’s so your type!” Keith almost snorts. In fact he does… a little.

“I just…” Keith pushes his bangs out of his eyes, not meeting Lance’s gaze.

“I was just hoping someone else would ask me,” He says, a bright blush spreading across his cheeks. Lance gapes at him.

“Who is it?” he says, a little too quickly. Keith chews his lip.

“C’mon you can tell me.” Lance says, smiling and bumping his shoulder with Lance’s. Keith blushes, smiling a little.

“You’re going to have to wait, loverboy.” Lance’s heart pounds in his chest and in that moment, he wants to do nothing more than kiss Keith and tell him how he feels. But, the mullet boy’s heart is taken by another.

“You coming with me to Charms?” Keith says, gathering his stuff to get going. Lance smirks.

“How else can I beat you into a pulp with my fancy spellwork.” Keith laughs a snorty kind of laughter that makes Lance’s heart flutter.

It was a day before the Yule Ball and Lance still hasn’t asked Keith to go with him.

At this point Lance wasn’t sure why he was worried. Everyone Keith hung out with seemed to have a date, so it wasn’t like one of them could be Keith’s-mysterious-crush-that-he-was-hoping-would-ask-him. But Lance still couldn’t help but feel a lump in his throat every time he tried to ask Keith to go with him.

In the end, he said it the night before the actual dance and made a complete and entire fool of himself.

They were up in Keith’s dorm, lying next to each other on his bed with books propped open, their eyelids drooping.

“Why did your professor assign you a test on the day of the dance anyway?” Lance says with a yawn. Keith sighs, face planting into a textbook.

“Because my potions teacher enjoys watching me suffer.” Lance sighs, pulling the textbook away from Keith, who pulled his head up in surprise, turning to Lance. Only when Lance put away the textbooks did Lance realize their noses were almost touching.

“What are you doing?” Keith says, looking confused. Lance huffs.

“You’re way too tired for this and we have the Yule Ball tomorrow you need to get some sleep.” Keith groans, rubbing his eyes and sitting up. Lance does the same.

“Do you have a date to the ball yet?” he asks curiously. Lance feels his heart pound in his chest, wondering if this was the moment. He takes a deep breath, telling himself to chill out. He leans back, relaxed.

“No. All the girls are too shy to ask this guy,” he says cheesily, pointing finger guns at Keith. It was a lie, a bunch of girls asked him, but he said he had his heart set on someone else. And he did, if he would just work up the courage to ask the boy in front of him. He just needed to say those eight words. Will you go to the dance with me?

“What about you? That lucky lady ask you yet?” Keith frowns, playing with a loose string on the bed.

“No.” Lance tapped his fingers against his leg.

“Great. So neither of us have dates.”

“I guess…” Lance laughs.

“God that’s going to be so embarrassing.” Keith furrows his brow, confused.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’re the champions and we don’t have dates.” Keith doesn’t look at him as he continues to mess with the blanket.

“So?” Lance chews his bottom lip, his face heating. God, how is he supposed to say this? Its a good think Keith is distracted.

“So I mean… It will be kind of embarrassing… won’t it? Being the center of attention without a date?” Keith shrugs. Lance knows that Keith probably doesn’t care, but he needs an excuse, something to hide under if Keith lashes out at him.

“What are you saying, Lance?” Keith says, looking tired. Man, he should really go to sleep. Lance threads and unthreads his fingers together.

“Well you know… maybe we can both go together? Since we don’t have dates…” Keith was suddenly wide awake now. His eyes fly open as he turns to Lance, who’s trying to hide his blush. Did he just…. was he playing a trick on him? Keith drew his brows together. Lance started to panic.

“Is this some sort of joke?” Keith murmured, not looking into Lance’s eyes. Lance scrambled up, his heart pounding.

“Sorry I’m sorry Keith I….” he starts to grab his bags, running his fingers through his hair, getting that look in his eye. It was the same look he had in the arena when facing the bogart. Keith wanted to reach out but he was too frozen. His heart was pounding, Lance’s words ringing in his ears.

“I shouldn’t have…” Lance was rambling like he did when he was upset. It was funny how much they’ve gotten to know each other within the span of this competition and Keith wanted nothing more than to go to that dance with Lance Mcclain.

But by the time he finally opened his mouth to tell him yes, yes I want to go to the dance with you, Lance was rushing out the door, rubbing tears from his eyes. Keith stood up to chase after him, opening the door and running down the stairs into his common room. He emerged into the hall, but by that point, Lance was gone and all of Keith’s opportunities went down the drain.

“HaveyouseenLance?” Keith said the next morning to Hunk and Pidge, completely ignoring the other three girls sitting at the table. They seemed startled by his appearance, but Keith didn’t care. He didn’t sleep at all the night before and every time he laid down he tossed and turned. Eventually he snuck out to try and find Lance, but he ended up getting caught and sent back to his dorm.

“Wow Keith so polite of you to say hi to our friends Allura, Shay, and Romelle,” Pidge says sarcastically. Keith glares.

“Where’s Lance?” Hunk raises an eyebrow.

“He’s not with you?”

“Why would he be with me!” Keith runs his hands through his hair, sitting down.

“You guys were studying together last night where did he go after that?” Keith whimpers.

“I don’t know. He stormed off and–”

“Wait. He stormed off?” one of the girls, Allura, pitches in. Keith nods worriedly.

“Dude what did you do?” Pidge says. Keith buries his head in his arms.

“He asked me to the Yule Ball.” Everyone at the table gasps.

“Keith I swear if you said no–”

“I didn’t say anything but he started freaking out and I just…” Everyone is leaning close to him.

“Did you tell him?” Pidge asks. Keith shakes his head.

“I thought it was a joke! I didn’t think he would actually ask me!” Pidge shakes her head sadly.

“Do you ever read the Daily Prophet?” Romelle says. Keith looks up at her, an angry look on his face. Pidge shoves a paper in his face. He looks down at the article.

There’s a big picture of him and Lance, standing close together just before the second challenge. The headline read, “Rivals… or Star-Crossed Lovers?” Keith raised an eyebrow.

“What’s this?”

“Lance’s interview. You haven’t seen it?” Keith shakes his head, starting to read intently.

“R: So Mcclain, would you care to explain to us what happened in this round of competition?

L: Well, this part of the competition was always meant to help repay Kogane for helping me in… the first challenge. I felt bad and I wanted to help him as much as I could so we worked together to create our potions to help us. We started swimming up together, but I noticed that Keith was no longer next to me.

R: So you gave up a win to help him?

L: Yes.

R: Why?

L: I… well I don’t know. It only seemed fair considering he lost a significant amount of points for helping me.

R: You still could’ve swam for the surface and got him help. You didn’t have to be his knight in shinning armor. So why did you save him yourself?

L: I didn’t think of that….

R: No, you didn’t.

R: Would you have done it differently?

L: No. I would’ve risked everything to save him– I mean, I don’t want to see a fellow competitor get hurt. He would’ve drowned.

R: I see… and what are your opinions of Keith? You two have gotten extremely close during this competition.

L: We have. Keith has been amazing, the kind of friend I never knew I needed. He’s a bit temperamental, but once you get through his shell he has so many admirable traits and he’s so handsome….

R: Would you ever see Kogane as more than a friend?

L: Ye–NO! NO not at all that’s not what this is. We’re just friends, sometimes rivals. We would never– he would never– we don’t like each other in that way

R: Maybe he doesn’t, but how about you, Mcclain?

L: *no comment*”

“This isn’t real this had to have been forged. Lance would never say this.”

“He saw the article and tried to burn every copy of the Daily Prophet so you wouldn’t see it.” Keith frowns.

“Because it makes him look bad.” Pidge rolls her eyes.

“You need to go talk to Lance.”

“I don’t know where he is.” Pidge huffs.

“C’mon.”

Keith knocked tentatively on the door Pidge said was Lance’s. They had a little house set up with rooms for each of the students and Keith was sure he was going to get lost, but Pidge managed to find their way.

“Yes?” A voice called, cracking towards the end of the word. Keith felt his heart splinter. He was aware of some people around him whispering about his appearance saying things like “the Durmstrang boy” and “Lance” and “Klance.” He ignored them.

“It’s Keith,” Keith says. Keith hears sniffles from inside.

“Can I come in?” There’s no answer. Keith takes a deep breath, opening the door.

The room was actually really neat. So neat that it made Keith felt bad about the times he brought Lance into his dorm which was utter chaos. But everything seemed to have a place, down to the pencils on the desk.

“Wow your room is so neat…” Lance rubs his eyes. They’re red and puffy.

“I organize when I’m upset…” Keith walks over to Lance’s bed, sitting next to him. Lance pulls his knees to his chest. Keith bites his lip, trying to figure out what to say.

“You look tired,” Lance says, frowning. Keith yawns.

“Maybe I didn’t sleep.” Lance looks appalled.

“Keith! You need to take care of yourself! You have a test today that’s it your skipping first and second block.” Keith smiled a little.

“What about you, Lance?” he says softly. Lance seems a bit surprised.

“What about me?” Keith frowns.

“Look Lance about last night–” Lance presses a finger to Keith’s lips. Keith looks at him with surprise.

“Keith look. I shouldn’t have asked it just made things awkward I’m sorry.”

“Lance listen to me–”

“Keith you don’t need to apologize. I understand you don’t feel the same way.” Keith grabs Lance’s hands, twining his fingers through Lance’s, his face red.

“Look I… I’m glad you asked.” Lance searches Keith’s face, looking confused. Keith shies away from him, seeming super flustered,

“Keith what–” Keith looks up at him.

“I said no to Acxa because I was waiting for you to ask me.” Lance gapes at him.

“No.. Keith just… Please don’t do this to make me feel better that’s so much worse–”

“Lance I’m not–”

“Keith really its okay if you don’t like me–” Keith has never been good with words. He knew that there was no way to tell Lance the way he felt. So he fists his hands in Lance’s shirt, pulling him close. He hesitates for a moment, their lips centimeters apart. Then, Keith kisses him.

Lance pulls away, a surprised look on his face. Keith looks at him with those eyes, those purple eyes with unreadable emotions that Lance finally understands. He kisses Keith again, his heart pounding, not sure if this was real and not caring.

When they break they look at each other for a long moment… then burst out into giggles, laying down on the bed, Keith’s legs hanging off the end and Lance’s propped against the wall. Lance looks back at Keith and Keith looks back at Lance, both of them smiling.

“So…” Keith says, grinning dorkily. Lance loved that grin. “Wanna go to the Yule Ball with me?”

Allura helped Lance get ready for the dance because, well, he was a bi disaster.

“Do you think he’ll like it?” Lance says, frowning down at his suit. Allura rolls her eyes.

“You know blue looks good on you Lance. It matches your eyes.” Lance huffs.

“I know I just… I want to make a good impression. This is our first… I guess date?” Allura just smiles.

“That boy is over the moon for you. I’m sure you could wear a trash bag and he would think your the hottest guy in the room.”

“Do I look good, Lura?” Lance says for the last time with a sigh. She smiles.

“Yes Lance, you look great.”

“Shiro where’s my tieeeeee.” Keith groans, running his hands through his hair. His outfit was almost complete, he just needed find his freaking tie.

Shiro decided that it would be a good idea to help Keith get ready for the Yule Ball for unknown reasons. He kept going on and on about how him and his boyfriend, Adam, met at a school event similar to this one. He was such a romantic it made Keith gag, although he wasn’t any better. He kept stressing, trying to make everything perfect.

“Keith. You’re wearing your tie,” Shiro says with a bored expression. Keith looks down.

“Oh.”

“You okay?” Keith bites his lip.

“What if he decides he doesn’t like me?”

“He’s not going to do that Keith.”

“What if he backs out? What if I get stood up?”

“Keith calm down.”

“What if–” Shiro grabs his shoulders.

“Lance fell in love with you, he wants to go to this dance with you.” Keith huffs.

“Alright…” Shrio smiles.

“Just be yourself. He loves that.” Keith sighs and nods.

“Do I look okay?”

“You look perfect.

As instructed, Lance, Keith, and Pidge arrived early to go over the procedures for how they were to handle the Yule Ball. They arrived at their given time, much to to the headmasters surprise. He frowned when he saw them.

“No one got dates?” Lance coughs.

“Uh we’re together….” He takes Keith’s hand. The headmaster smiles a bit.

“My brother said he’ll dance with me.”

“Okay then. I trust you all know how this works?” Pidge nods, Keith and Lance shake their heads. He takes a deep breath.

“It is tradition that the Champions walk out once everyone has settled and do the first dance.” Keith stiffens.

“Something wrong?” Lance whispers, his brows drawn in concern.

“I can’t dance,” Keith says nervously. Lance laughs.

“No one can.” Keith pouts. They go over a few more things. People start to trickle in, mingling amongst themselves.

“You know… you look amazing tonight,” Lance says, playing with Keith’s ponytail as they wait for their cue. Keith blushes brightly.

“S-so do you!” he says defensively. Lance laughs.

“Thank you.” Keith wraps his arm around Lance, snuggling close to him. Lance felt his heart thud in his chest.

“I bet I can dance better than you,” Keith mumbles. Lance snorts.

“You’re on Kogane.”

Lance felt like he was flying. Everything about the night was perfect, and it didn’t matter that he was about to face the third trial soon. All that matters was he was sitting here, in the warm and inviting dorm of Keith Kogane, explaining what a cell phone was and how Keith needed to get one immediately. Keith seemed confused.

“Where do the messages go?” Lance laughs.

“They come to me, silly.” Keith gets that adorable, quizzical expression on his face.

“But how do they get there?”

“You’re questioning actual muggle technology proven with science but not the entirety of magic.” Keith shrugs.

“I’ve always lived around magic. I guess I never thought about it.” Lance sighs, leaning against Keith.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For just… being the most amazing person I ever met.” Keith turns to Lance, a flustered smile on his face.

“It’s only fair. You’re the most extraordinary person I ever met.” Lance blushes, burying his face in Keith’s shoulder.

“Keiiithhhhh who taught you how to flirt?” Keith laughs.

“If I recall, you did. When trying to help me get the guy I was holding out on to take me to the dance. Which was you.”

“I do recall that…”

“Remember that time I made you blush so hard you had to physically walk out of the room?”

“IN MY DEFENSE– I was not prepared for you to be that good.” Keith laughs softly.

“I just can’t believe you didn’t figure out that I liked you.” Lance huffs.

“To be fair, you didn’t figure it out either even when it was all in a nice interview tied with a bow.”

“You got me there.”

THE END

#klance #keith kogane #lance mcclain #voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender #keith x lance #lance x keith #laith #candy writes #klancemonth2018 #hogwarts au #klance hogwarts au

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