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technobladetimestamps · 3 years

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Nov 15 Stream Timestamps

Timestamps from Technoblade’s “THE EVE OF REVOLUTION (dream SMP)”

Link to my youtube comment with all of the timestamps x

Timestamps with hyperlinks below

01:46 tagging everyone in the channel member discord / level 231 03:43 agenda book / revolution tomorrow / slept through stream time / sleeps twice a day for 4 hours 05:21 “I did not write 100 pages. Or did I. Maybe I have a traitor manifesto on the other 99 pages” / no steering wheel / coronablade jokes are very funny / went to the doctor and figured out his cough / “Stomach acid is useful for at least one thing” 08:47 can’t believe no one told him these things about post 1.8 / splash potions, regen, thorns / thorns aren’t intuitive and no one told him / youtube ads 12:50 “At least I didn’t insult the Ethans, the Ethans are everywhere” 16:02 “I was gonna talk about something on the way but I forgot. And now it’s gone forever” / “They found your base” “Well I have livestreamed it” 17:04 wants to buy a gong to be the ultimate sellout timer / “I would get kicked out of my parents house so quickly, but for the day it takes them to do that I would get so many subscribers” 20:31 thorns stacking 25:21 “There’s actually some pretty affordable gongs out there” 27:32 vc with BBH and Tommy / confusing Tommy and Tubbo / “Don’t you hate it when people just consider streamers an extension of their famous friends Tommy” / “I’m just the child from Technoblade’s videos 29:08 “Let's be allies. Can I have your helmet and boots?” / saying he’s rude for hijacking the call but forgetting to leave call / double sellout 33:55 “Me and Techno the leaders of Pogtopia” / “That is a fair assumption” / “I can’t believe Badboyhalo hates his fans” 34:57 BBH offering Tommy a bow / “Tommy you are so broke” / “Average sized man” / no one believes Tommy is 6’3” / Techno is taller in game 36:34 just wearing a face mask / “I do not support any of the views being espoused by this particular individual” / Tommy trying to imply covid but BBH asks if he’s talking about bigfoot 37:39 Techno hunting down BBH / Midair stabbing / “I’M SO GOOD AT MINECRAFT” / Tommy desperately trying to be included 40:41 “Oh Badboy halo~” / “It just doesn’t work when your name is 4 syllables” / detective work to find BBH 42:52 “So you want Tommy to be successful?” / “I wouldn’t go that far. I want my enemies to be unsuccessful” 43:58 battle ender chest plan / “I’m going to deafen. I don’t know why I’m explaining to you my pvp tactics” 46:15 “I would be absolutely furious if Tommy stole my 4th fastest horse. Tommy and I go way back” / being excited to see Tommy / Tommy could have sworn at BBH as an attack 47:34 “I guess I could spare a little bit of iron” / “I think that was a sarcastic joke that I didn’t understand” / Techno picked youtube over girls many years ago / Subpoena pet war 50:37 recruiting Techno to fight Sapnap / place where Tommy ran over Dream 55:22 vc with Tommy and Sapnap 56:51 “Sapnap I hate men so much. If I see a man in the street I grab a knife and plunge it into his neck” / “Wow surprise attack” / thought it’d be a real fight 59:09 needs Sapnap to come geared / “audience retention” / “I saw Sapnap fighting Punz earlier and they had potions and full netherite an it was fun” Tommy tries to suggest Techno sit the fight out / “You asked for me to be here” / “Tommy I’m stabbing someone with armour and it might just be you” 1:00:29 arranging a fight with BBH / “Not now sellout timer I haven’t earned it” / 161k / “New phone who this” (to Tommy) / 2v1 with BBH and Antfrost 1:04:38 hasn’t done a lot of fully geared 1.16 fights / trying not to make fun of Antfrost’s fire prot helmet 1:06:30 Sapnap and Tommy have worked out their differences and don’t need Techno 1:07:34 “I love my fans, I forgot to plug my cha nnel and they’re all reminding me” / “Only 1v2” “I could only find 2 guys” 1:09:25 “I’m so unbelievably lost” / “I have to have seen a location to add it to my human gps” / Techno hates the ugly pranks that take forever to fix 1:11:28 server losing connection / guy who Techno told not to drop out is going back to school 1:13:20 “That’s the thing about senior yearbook quotes, its right at the end of the year...the amount of time to beat you up is shockingly low” 1:16:24 offering Tommy assistance / the Dream Team has logged on / “I have to be quiet...My parents are threatening to turn off the wifi” / “You’re getting owned in every world” / Techno taking his sweet time 1:19:11 “We want to kill Sapnap” “agreed” / “Dream alliance pog” / “unless he meant to add a comma” / vc with Dream and George / Techno talking over Tommy 1:21:28 “I feel like Thunder is a werewolf” / Tommy questioning Dream and George / “I have my swag and no one has that” “Well they’d have that if they killed you and picked up your swag” 1:32:22 “You guys all work for me” / everyone killing Tommy / “anti Sapnap expedition” / “ask George ask George” “ask Dream” 1:23:54 stream crashes / and also his whole pc / asking for viewers to come back from Tommy 1:26:39 joining vc / Dream recap / cutting back on calling Tommy lame 1:28:01 photoshoot / “So much clout in this one picture” / Sapnap begging Tommy to kill his pets / “What if [the pets] belong to some god tier pvper” / S-L-A-V 1:30:12 “L-A-M-E” / “Shoutout to the slavs” / giving the fox a grapple 1:31:20 Dream taking off his leggings / fox eating the gapple / “Dream you are a highly unusual individual” / back to 125k 1:34:05 “People can’t yelling me for not roleplaying when Dream is mooning us in the background” / “You can disrespect my family, you can disrespect my religion, but you can’t disrespect minecraft” / “I hate this man” “NO” 1:35:40 Tommy challenging Sapnap a fight / Tommy trying to make Techno kill pets for him / Karl thirsting for the animatic 1:39:34 “If you make it out alive, give this to Sapnap’s cat for me” “If I make it out alive all his pets actually die” / Techno shooting the start arrow / “I’ll do the countdown...because I am an impartial mediator” / “You know how between those fight they have those sexy girl?” (Dream takes off his armor) / very engaging fight 1:42:31 post fight / “My chat’s spa.mming lame. It’s not my fault chat, Tommy doesn’t know how to crit” / “You might as well be naked” “Please don’t say that Dream” 1:44:28 “I wouldn’t say you’re that far from S-Tier” / “What tier am I in Technoblade?” “Who are you?” / “That was not an insult, I don’t know people’s voices” / “This entire server is just people that have killed Tommyinnit” 1:45:40 SMP Earth / “What country did you have” “I owned the world” / “A single country? (Dream) / trying to thorns kill Thunder / “Maybe if you die again the armor will come back” 1:47:12 Techno letting Karl trap him / Quackity tempting fate / snitch Dream / framing George 1:49:44 Dream complaining about trident flight / Techno bailing bc of boredom 1:57:19 Awesamdude leaving a potato trail / vc with Quackity and Sam / lying for content / complaining about getting free stuff 1:59:58 still lying to Quackity / “Quackity my entire chat is spa.mming lame, you’re going to need to pick up the pace” / heading to the jungle base 2:02:18 saturation stew is useful / “especially for content” / “If Carl dies I’d be okay with that, but not Andrew” 2:03:49 “Is Carl the orphan you said you were going to adopt” “Let’s go with that” / “If Carl dies I stop donating 2:04:31 Awesamdude snitching on Quackity / “I would be furious if I came back and Carl wasn’t in the exact block I left him” / lots of threats 2:06:41 “I’m not an orphan” “Not yet” 2:11:03 “It’s not an experiment, I’m just putting my hypothesis through multiple controlled trials where I adjust variables and record the results” / “I care about about the armor much more than the horse” 2:13:01 “Are you betraying anyone?” “No. I would never betray my personal ideals” / “What if the people you’re fighting alongside have different ideals?” “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it” 2:17:28 Quackity’s failed forgery in chat

#technoblade #technoblade timestamps #THE EVE OF REVOLUTION (dream SMP)#dream smp

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kcwcommentary · 5 years

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VLD8x07 – “Day Forty Seven”

8x07 – “Day Forty Seven” (I have no idea why the episode’s title officially does not have a hyphen between Forty and Seven like it should.)

This is another episode that is an absolute waste of time. Again, I’m not fundamentally against episodes of shows that are less directly tied to the main story. Episodes like this can be great for doing more detailed character study. But with the executive producers having complained about how there wasn’t enough time in the show to include vital fallout and character follow-up to plot events, when the episodes of this season’s main story are so complicated and confusing and needed more time to depict and explain what happens, having episodes like “Day Forty Seven” are a waste of time because that time is blatantly needed for other, more important content.

Before this episode, I already didn’t like Rizavi, and I only liked the potential that Kinkade had. But since both of them commit crimes in this episode and also violate the trust and privacy of their fellow officers, I can’t say that my opinion of them has improved.

I do, however, really like Hunk in this episode.

Look, it’s Kinkade. He’s the main character of this episode. It’s another episode that significantly shoves the show’s main characters to the side in order to pretend that the side characters are interesting. Yes, Hunk and Allura each get a bit of focus for a couple of scenes in this episode, but it’s predominantly not about them. Almost the entirety of this episode is focused on side characters, and none of them are interesting.

After I watched season eight for the first time however many months ago that was now, thinking of this episode in context of the whole of season eight made me wish that this episode had been centered not on Kinkade but on Curtis. What if Curtis had been filming personal videos throughout the episode? I know the show did not even slightly plan on having Shiro and Curtis end up together, that the series Shiro-Curtis wedding epilogue was a really, really late-production addition, but I can’t help but think about how, even if they didn’t have much time to set up anything between Shiro and Curtis, how this episode would have been the perfect time to hint at it. Have Curtis with the video camera, have him get a shot of Shiro in the distance, have him linger on Shiro a beat or two too long, have Veronica or someone come up beside him and ask him what he’s filming, have Curtis turn the camera on that person, who’s shown looking at Shiro, realizing that Curtis had been gazing at Shiro, and have that person conclude, “Oh, I see what you were looking at.” If the show absolutely couldn’t include any more, that would have worked to set up the plausibility of a Shiro-Curtis relationship developing. But again, having Shiro and Curtis end up together was a hasty super-late addition. There could be no set-up for it because the executive producers, story editor, and writers weren’t planning on having Shiro end the show with anyone. I can’t help but to think, what if, though.

Kinkade brushes his teeth while Leifsdottir sleeps within arm’s reach. There’s a bathroom sink next to their beds in the barracks? “I know it seems strange, but before Earth was attacked, I didn’t go anywhere without my camera,” Kinkade says. Who would think that it was strange that someone interested in videography would engage in videography but stopped because aliens invaded and occupied Earth for three years? This is supposedly funny: “Back home, people asked me why I like recording things. They also asked me why I didn’t talk that much. To both of those things, I’d always say, ‘Hmm.’” This kind of feels like this line was specifically written in response to criticism that Kinkade didn’t really ever say anything in season seven. Cut to Kinkade doing pull-ups. Granted, I haven’t spent a lot of time in gyms in my life, but the time that I have, I have never heard anyone counting their reps out loud while they were doing them. Romelle is puzzled by Kinkade’s recording, and James comments about how this is something Kinkade’s known for. Okay, we get it, he makes videos. “Being a fighter pilot was actually his back-up plan,” James says of Kinkade. Being a fighter pilot is hard, it’s not realistic that it would be anyone’s back-up plan.

“It’s true: I learned to shoot with a camera before I learned to shoot with a rifle.” Is that supposed to be impressive or something? Honestly, it mostly sounds like the writer thought he was being clever using two meanings of the word “shoot.” “I guess filming is just a small piece of the larger puzzle that makes up the picture of who I am.” How would we have figured this out without his exposition to tell us – in other words, this is the type of thing people are talking about when they say that in writing you should show, not tell. We don’t need Kinkade to tell us this because by fundamental nature of this episode being framed as his videography, we are being shown. And then we get a cliché gun assembling moment.

There’s a sequence of meandering shots of Kinkade walking to his fighter, touching his fighter, shocking himself by touching some electrical part of its system. I guess maybe he accessed the system because he was going to do maintenance? Fighter pilots don’t do the maintenance of their craft, at least from the impression I have about how it works in the U.S. Air Force they don’t. There are maintenance specialists who do that work, not the pilots.

This almost feels like a lampshade of criticism about this episode: Rizavi comes in and says, “Please tell me this is going to be more exciting than that project you did for Mr. Pollard’s biology class about yeast.” This episode isn’t really more exciting than that. Rizavi forces her way into Kinkade’s project.

They interview Pidge. The Atlas is heading somewhere there’s a disabled Robeast. Pidge asks if she “needs to explain that the Robeast was one of the ones used in Honerva’s galactic ritual?” I guess this line is supposed to be about Pidge commenting on the process of successfully constructing a documentary? It feels more like unnecessary exposition because the audience of this show would easily know the context of the referenced Robeast because that was just last episode. Pidge continues with more telling exposition. Rizavi turns to Keith to try to make their recording more exciting by asking Keith about the danger of the mission. Keith’s dialog is more unnecessary exposition.

Save us Hunk from this empty episode. Hunk asks to be in their movie, but then, “Wait, if this is an action movie – is it? – I don’t want to be in it.” At least I got a little laugh out of that. Rizavi complains about Hunk interfering in their filming their documentary. All I can think of is why didn’t Kinkade or Rizavi lock down the location for filming with Pidge and Keith then if they didn’t want to be bothered. They’re literally just sitting in the mess hall.

Hunk has a new recipe of a cake. Kinkade is actually interested and asks Hunk if he can watch Hunk work. Hunk’s cool with the idea. Rizavi, who butted her way into Kinkade’s personal project, complains. Of the four MFE pilots, the only reason I dislike James more than Rizavi is because James is such a blatant, cruel bully. Rizavi is not an interesting, likable character, and I really wouldn’t mind if she hadn’t been in this series.

Thankfully an emergency interrupts this waste of time. The ship is called to battle stations. Somehow, as Kinkade pulls Rizavi out of the mess hall through a door in front of where the camera is pointing, the camera tumbles over backwards away from that door and ends up not still in the mess hall, but in a corridor. The Holt’s dog finds and picks up the camera. He enters an elevator which opens onto the bridge directly behind Shiro. Guess what isn’t supposed to be behind Shiro on the bridge: An elevator. The door behind Shiro on the bridge opens to a corridor, as seen literally last episode when Zethrid came to the bridge. So, this inconsistent animation falls somewhere in with ignored established set design and/or bad storyboarding. Also, how is the dog able to make the elevator function? He doesn’t push any buttons to indicate the bridge as a destination, nor is he able to give a verbal command to the elevator to go to the bridge. This elevator just automatically goes to the bridge.

Of course, the entirety of the dog carrying the camera is contrived to keep going with the videography framing of the episode. The Atlas is being attacked by a giant squid. The MFE ships and Voltron fly around outside the Atlas. There are huge explosions in the clouds outside. None of this action scene means anything because the conflict is not defined, not connected to any character. It’s just meaningless action.

Since they can’t see the squid because of the clouds, so someone, Curtis maybe?, establishes a visual by scanning for the “biometrics” of the squid. The squid then seems to, like way too many large creatures do in this series, shoots a blaster beam at the Atlas. It scares the dog, who drops the camera and runs. The mice briefly look into the camera. Then the camera somehow falls down a corridor. How did it get into a corridor to fall down it? Did the other side of the door behind Shiro suddenly become a corridor again instead of the elevator it was a few seconds ago? The camera tumbles down a hallway and ends up in the room where Sam and Slav work, where Sam finally explains that the gravity has been knocked out. One, the camera hitting the walls of the hallway would have decreased its momentum in a near-zero gravitational situation. Two, despite falling into this room with notable speed, as soon as the camera sights on Sam and Slav it instantly stops moving. But the gravity isn’t on, so it shouldn’t stop hard like it does. I don’t know why I’m trying to analyze this. The camera’s relocation is totally contrived.

Slav complains about something being red, and thus he can’t grab it like Sam says. It’s not important. I don’t know why this piece of a scene even exists. The camera gets hit by a box that floats by and suddenly the camera is out in another hallway to film miscellaneous crew moving through the hallway. There’s a shipwide announcement that the Atlas is going to transform. The dog comes back to pick up the camera in its mouth, the camera conveniently floating right in line of the dog’s mouth as it floats down the hallway. Contrived.

There is ten seconds of blackness and dog breathing because that’s worth spending time on, then we hear Colleen talk to the dog while we get four more seconds of blackness before she pulls the camera out of the dog’s mouth. Shiro’s shipwide communications announces a countdown of the Atlas transforming, and Colleen is all, “Oh no,” like she just realized she’s in an unsafe location. Colleen is floating still in the corridor but then starts moving down the corridor, but there’s no gravity, and she’s not shown to have been close enough to a surface that she could push off of in order to move down the hall. Yeah, I still want accurate depictions of easily known scientific understanding on this show, even though I know I won’t get it.

The camera and/or the hallway shakes as if the camera is sitting on something and the gravity is on despite the fact that the camera is floating in near-zero gravity, so there would be no shaking whatsoever. Somehow a panel in the hall as part of the transformation process does not smash up the camera, but just knocks it, sending it spinning until the camera suddenly stops spinning without anything being there to stop it. Unless something stopped it, it would have kept spinning being in near-zero gravity. Basic laws of inertia.

It conveniently stops to point out a window where giant squid and the MFEs and Voltron still are fighting. And the camera loses power.

Cut to later when Kinkade has somehow reacquired his camera despite the hugeness of the Atlas. The whole action sequence was a waste of time. Kinkade floats down a hallway and runs into someone who I’ve never seen before and don’t know. The guy is going to be leaving the Atlas to take samples of something back to Earth. It’s a moment that’s portrayed, especially with the music, like it’s supposed to be some kind of emotional goodbye, but I have no idea who this guy is. The scene is 35 seconds long, and I have no idea why it exists at all. So, I google and eventually find out that this character is named Seok Jin and was done in memory of an animator and storyboard artist who died during the show’s production. I can understand wanting to memorialize a coworker, but there’s nothing about this scene that conveys that. It just seems like a miscellaneous waste of time within the context of the episode’s story. Without googling to find out, the scene is just confusing.

It still weirds me out that there’s so much floating on the Atlas, but objects (which includes people) do not follow the laws of physics that would govern their floating. Through the window into the mess hall, the dog and Sal are standing and sitting like they’re in gravity, but just on this side of the window where the camera is in the hallway, there is no gravity.

Cut to Kolivan being interviewed. It’s supposed to be funny. He’s boring and Rizavi makes fun of him being boring. This is a waste of screen-time. Rizavi says that they need to get someone more exciting in here. Cut to Coran.

Thank you, Coran, please save us from this absolutely pointless, uninteresting episode!! His antics are funnily delivered. The information of his storytelling does nothing to tell us anything new because it was only a retelling of a few of the events last episode. And then the scene is done. Coran is severely underused this season. Eliminate all the time given to the MFE pilots and to Sam and give it instead to Coran, please. Back to the standard boring that is this episode.

Now, Rizavi is interviewing Sam. There are several shots of a bunch of displays that don’t reveal anything important. Slav complains about Altean writing on the Atlas. The Atlas might be based on Altean technology, but it was built by humans on Earth, so why did they build the Atlas so that the writing used on the Atlas was in Altean? Did the Galaxy Garrison during the three years of the occupation of Earth make everyone learn to read Altean? This is something absolutely illogical but it’s in here because it was supposed to be seen as a joke. It just seems wrong to me.

“Our gravity generator is actually a fluid system, ever changing depending on the specific needs of the location,” Sam says. In other words, the show is lampshading the fact that they didn’t bother to create this episode or the series to actually follow the laws of physics. In other other words, people like me who expect the experience of being in a space ship to have even the most basic respect for and understanding of what the experience would be like can just shut up. The show actively rejects the expectation that it try to be at least somewhat realistic. It’s amazing that the show’s creative team is admitting to being this lazy.

Kinkade condescendingly calls Slav “weird” when Slav freaks out about landing on a crack. Anyone else remember how respectful Shiro was over Slav’s freaking out about cracks in 2x10 “Escape from Beta Traz?”

Cut to Colleen in the plant room. I was going to call it hydroponics, which tends to be a sort of trope in space-based science fiction, but hydroponics is specifically growing without having soil to plant things in. And the first shot is of Altean flowers growing in soil. So, plant room. I haven’t been shy in past episodes about how much I do not like Colleen. She, like her husband, should be in prison for what they did in 7x01 “The Last Stand Part 1.” She gives a tour of the plant room. “So much recycled poop,” she’s happy to point out. Yeah, this episode feels like we’re walking among some recycled poop.

Rizavi grabs the camera and puts together some footage of “extreme space harvesting” and its stylized as overwhelming “extreme” video. It’s supposed to be funny, juxtaposing “extreme” style with this empty talk about plants. I’m a science-loving guy, so I know I could actually find someone passionately talking about plants to be fun. Colleen doesn’t talk passionately about plants. She says the most generic statements possible because to have her genuinely depicted as nerding out over plants would require too much research about plants for the writer to bother with on this show. So, this is a waste of time.

Thank you, Hunk for interrupting. Hunk wants some specific yeast. I actually like that Kinkade, who had earlier been referenced as having done an old school project on fermentation, is interested in what Hunk’s doing. He had earlier been interested in watching Hunk cook too. They’re both small moments, but it’s just enough that it makes me want to see Hunk and Kinkade become friends. Hunk says, “I think I’ve got the topping down, but I’m still trying to figure out the sweetbread.” Did the writer of this show not know that sweetbread isn’t bread? Sweetbread is the thymus or pancreas of a creature. It’s not bread, it’s meat. But Hunk wants yeast, so he’s baking, so he means actual bread.

Cut to Rizavi and Kinkade floating down a hallway. The Atlas has come to some star system. They try to interview Lance about his going down to a planet, and Lance freaks out. I have no idea why Lance is freaking out. It’s played for humor, but it has no foundation. It’s just trying to make fun of someone having anxiety over something they have never been shown to have anxiety over. It’s such a meaningless moment.

Rizavi sneaks, against protocol, the camera into the meeting room. Shiro, Sam, Coran, and Veronica, and I guess Rizavi and Kinkade too, monitor the Paladins on their mission to the planet. They’re checking out one of the fallen Robeasts from last episode. Surprise, the Paladins get attacked by some ship that pops off the Robeast. The Paladins fire on it with their bayards, Shiro orders the Atlas to target and fire on it. It’s such meaningless action.

Somehow, in putting this documentary together, Rizavi and Kinkade get access to helmet cam footage from Pidge. Why her helmet cam recorded everything with a blue filter, I don’t know. The footage that Shiro and crew were watching on screen on the Atlas was normal, not tinted some color. Hunk says he has no sign of a pilot inside the ship. Keith calls out to the other Paladins and Pidge totally unnecessarily says, “Keith’s found something, let’s go.” It’s a waste of dialog because everything her line does was already accomplished by Keith’s line. They’ve found the tube that the Altean Robeast pilots are in when they pilot the Robeasts.

Almost 17 minutes into the episode (my number includes the time needed for the opening title sequence) and we finally have actually gotten to something that matters to the show. They’ve been capturing the Alteans pilots. Kinkade says that this is the sixth Altean pilot they’ve “recovered from the powered-down Robeasts after Honerva escaped Oriande.” Where are they getting six from? I would assume when the white hole went boom that that destroyed any Robeasts there. So, are they just getting them from the planets where they were siphoning quintessence? There were only four such Robeasts for that, not six. Where did the other two come from? Kinkade says that Allura has tried but they won’t talk to her.

Cut to a clear shot of an “authorized personnel only” sign. In other words, it is a violation of the rules for them to be bringing this camera here. Why are so many characters on this show, characters who are supposed to be members of at least a partially military organization, so blatantly violate the law, protocol, and rules? Why did this show so strongly write a message to the kids who were the target audience of this show that there’s nothing wrong with violating rules? It makes the show feel like the people in the creative team who produced this show were all a bunch of really immature people.

Kinkade covers his camera temporarily, but we hear Rizavi give orders to someone that “Commander Shirogane says that you two are needed on the bridge.” So, Rizavi just falsified orders. That, in the U.S. military, would result in a court martial and potential punishment of dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay, and/or five years confinement.

This show has flagrantly displayed an anti-military disdain, particularly in how Sam Holt and Iverson were never punished for their severe insubordination against Admiral Sanda in 7x08 “The Last Stand Part 2.” Here, knowing that Rizavi is not subject to punishment for this, the show continues to demonstrate a disdain for the military. It’s offensive that this show wants the appearance of military action, but similar to how they want the appearance of space science, they don’t want to have to actually do the work to write the characters to behave in the necessary ways to achieve that. Maybe it’s not a disdain for the military (still feels like it though), but maybe the creative team for this show are just lazy and think that things like what Rizavi just did isn’t a big deal even though it’s a huge deal.

Kinkade and Rizavi are revealed to have lied their way into a security center so that they can use the Atlas’s security system to sneak and get secure footage they absolutely are not allowed to have. This would be another crime they’re committing.

Allura and Romelle try talking to Tavo, a Colony Altean who Romelle says she grew up alongside. Romelle looks a lot younger than Tavo does, so how did they grow up together? She asks him to trust her, but he says that his people were told that Romelle was a traitor and says he “can see now that it is true.” Allura says she’s “done with all of them” and gets up and leaves.

Rizavi sneaks the camera to secretly record a private conversation between Allura and Lance. Yeah, I really don’t like Rizavi. I really wish this show didn’t portray her behavior as being acceptable. What she is doing is wrong. She is betraying her fellow officer’s trust. Allura is talking to Lance about official, serious stuff, and Rizavi gets a look on her face like she knows the scene is going to turn romantic. This is the writer severely ahead of what the plot is actually depicting.

Allura talks to Lance, saying, “You have no idea what it’s like to find out […] you’re not the last of your kind, only to be rejected by them.” This moment is more that makes me think Allura is heavily depressed this season, and why, aside from her being a female character of color who’s killed off to fix everyone’s problems, her death at the end of the series is so infuriating. I like how Lance responds to her. He says, “I don’t.” I like that he doesn’t try to diminish what she’s feeling by arguing against or trying to negate her having said, “You have no idea what it’s like […].” He’s actually being very supportive right now. He does say he wishes he could make things better for her. He acknowledges how much he recognizes the suffering in her experiences and says her perseverance is one of the reasons he fell in love with her.

Allura and Lance hug and go in for a kiss, and before they can kiss, Kinkade grabs the camera and says, “No, that’s private.” The whole thing was private. You violated their trust and their privacy the whole time and you only care right before they kiss? Clearly since it’s part of this episode, Kinkade didn’t destroy the footage, so he never recognizes that everything before the kiss was as private as the kiss itself. And of course, Rizavi is annoyed at Kinkade for his having blocked filming the kiss. Again, I just can’t help but to question how the executive producers and writer thought it was okay to send a message with this episode that this behavior is acceptable.

Cut to Romelle being interviewed. The camera is all up in her face/Romelle’s eyeball is nearly on the lense. Kinkade says, “Please don’t touch that.” Romelle doesn’t really move within her posture much, so it’s not like she was leaning forward far, and the camera zooms out, so it seems like she wasn’t actually anywhere near the camera the way it was made to look.

I’m kind of surprised that Romelle would agree to this interview, since the content is about sensitive (not emotionally sensitive, though that too, but sensitive in a security sense) topic. She still feels like the Colony Alteans are good people, despite the fact that they tried to commit genocide. I know the show seemingly had the planetary populations of the four planets the Robeasts destroyed last episode evacuated, but those Alteans went to those planets fully intending to kill everyone on those planets. They were trying to commit genocide. They’re not good people. I guess in the same way that this show wants to excuse Honerva and Zarkon for committing genocide, the show expects us to forgive the Colony Alteans for trying to do so too? If I’m being lenient, I’d say maybe the creative team of this show just did not realize the severity and full implication of the things they wrote in this story. That doesn’t make what the Colony Alteans tried to do not genocide though.

Romelle says, “If only there was just some way to get through to them.” Behold the foreshadowing.

Cut to the mess hall. James is still bothered by the tentacles of the squid that they fought earlier in the episode. Guess what, I don’t care about James.

Cut to Hunk stirring a mixture, just about to add the yeast.

Cut to an interview with Allura. Kinkade thanks her for doing this. I doubt she would do it if they let her know that they committed two crimes in falsifying orders and recording footage of her conversation with Tavo. I doubt she would do it if they told her that they violated her privacy by recording her conversation with Lance.

Allura expresses some of her frustration with the Colony Alteans. She says, “Oriande was destroyed. Lotor is back.” But he’s not really. Maybe this is just another of the executive producers’ and writers’ notorious audience manipulations, but the show is very much making it look like the narrative is stating that Lotor is still a part of this story. I know the EPs would probably just say that this is just what Allura thinks, not that it’s actually true. But if it isn’t true, then who was piloting the Sincline last episode until Honerva used her space magic to stop it? Even Honerva spoke as if Lotor was still piloting the Sincline. That he’s eventually shown to have been a melted corpse definitely makes the idea that the season was heavily re-edited seem plausible.

Allura’s comments suggest that the methods they had used to track Honerva previously are no longer producing results. They’re not detecting any traces of wormhole generation and the like.

Cut to Hunk in the kitchen. He pulls “an authentic Altean dessert” out of the oven that he plans on giving to the Colony Alteans. While there would be something to the Colony Alteans’ culture that could still possibly be traced by skilled anthropologists to the Altean culture of Allura’s 10,000 years ago, that 10,000 years would have caused the Colony Alteans’ culture to significantly change. Coran gave Hunk this recipe, but it’s not realistic that the Colony Alteans would have preserved this recipe through those millennia.

I really do like that Hunk is again able to find a way to apply his interest in food to his tendency toward wanting to engage in diplomacy. This show has made too many fat jokes about Hunk, but moments like this are genuine and nice.

Hunk says that when Coran gave him the recipe, “I think his memory was like a little bit fuzzy, so I did some improvising. No big woop.” In other words, it’s not “an authentic Altean dessert.” Improvising the recipe is not being authentic. This is so wrong.

Cut to Tova and several other Colony Alteans staring at Hunk’s baking. Eventually Tova tastes it and says that it reminds him of home. For him, home was the Colony, not Altea. But the show is treating it as nearly the same for the sake of convenience. None of these Colony Alteans would actually know what Altea was like.

Hunk points out that he made the dessert with help “from someone raised on Altea.” Hunk tells them that Allura and Coran were there at Altea until it was destroyed and would have remained if they hadn’t been sent away. Anyone else think that it was a failure of this show’s storytelling that we never did get to truly see the destruction of Altea, to see how Coran and Allura survived? The closest we got was Alfor violating his daughter by rendering her unconscious so that she couldn’t object to being sent away.

Tova mentions stories he’s been told about some spot on Altea that was supposedly beautiful. I love Hunk’s line, “They never told me about them, but I’m sure they’d love to tell you themselves.” The door opens and Allura and Coran are waiting to talk to the Alteans.

Cut to Kinkade winding up his day’s recording.

The only thing in this episode that was actually important was that ending scene with Hunk and the Colony Alteans. Emotionally, it was a nice scene if I set aside my issues with the realism of an “improvis[ed]” recipe being presented and effectually functioning as “authentic.”

I really did not like how otherwise the episode is a giant waste of time. I really did not like how Rizavi and Kinkade’s behavior is treated as okay when some of it is criminal and some of it is a violation of others’ privacy. I really don’t like how the show is glossing over that these Alteans tried to commit genocide. The story can still have Allura needing to talk to them while acknowledging the severity of what the Alteans were doing.

There really were only two things that was worth watching in this episode. One, the short scene of Coran’s antics when he retells the story of last episode. Two, Hunk’s small storyline, especially when he actually gives the dessert to the Alteans.

#voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld #voltron criticism #vld criticism #voltron critical #vld critical #vld season 8 #vld 8x07 #commentary

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diarrheaworldstarhiphop · 6 years

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That's fucking nuts your Granddad was a Nazi. I mean, how did he get through so much of the world hate boner for him? Did he have the tendency of keeping it to himself or did he admit to it and example his story to anyone that wish to listen. Was he just drafted into the cause or was he a true believer? Did he know about what was happen in Auschwitz? Was he a denier of the Holocaust? God, so many question I wanna ask, please give was any info you can share (or wish to share)

Not a nazi. It wasn’t like a voluntary thing. A funny thing happens to you if you are a young man in a manpower starved fascist nation in a state of total war..

Theres a reason why most of his brothers died and what was left of that all moved to canada shortly after the war: unlike the USA, no draft. They didn’t want to raise kids to be sent to war again.

However, he was in Europe for at least 4 years after the war, because he (along with other german POWs) was put to labour removing rubble and rebuilding the cities in europe.

i think he kept alot of it to himself (he said nothing of how he FELT during the war, but i can assume he went along with the propaganda of the nazis like most other germans either under threat of punishment or just not being immune to propaganda), but he did end up destroying his uniform afterward. I think, likely once it dawned on him the depth of what the germans did. A depth you don’t see in war time germany, where information is tightly controlled and regulated. shit that you dont necessarily see when you are on the front line in France where the Germans fought the French as equals and like, not as like how they fought the slavs where they were treated like subhumans. The western front was more “gentlemanly.” He was captured in France and sent to a POW camp in the Southern USA, picking cotton for the American war effort. He spent the remainder of the war in the USA, altho he did plot with some dudes in the camp and they stole a boat to escape down the Mississippi after a year or two in the camp to try and get to mexico… they got to the gulf of mexico before being stopped by the american coast guard who were like “you know, the war is over right? i mean, you can keep going to mexico if you want but lmao” so they surrendered.. only to be shipped back to europe for reconstruction labour.

But i don’t know. Especially since he was captured by the Americans not too long after Normandy. i do know that before he got married, he and my oma were required to go through a genealogy analysis to determine jewish heritage. So, consider that, denialists.

i have photos from then. here’s my opa on the coast of france during a break from war service early in the war

He was a machinist in peace time, meaning that he got naked and crawled into these machines lmfao

otherwise he was like every other dweeb in the prewar german state

He was originally a part of a german halftrack squad, but that got blown up with the whole crew besides him dead and he was moved to an anti-tank squad in rural france where they just sat about sniping sherman tanks

^him washing his clothes duh

^him with my baby uncle who was over a decade older than my dad cus of the war

him with the squad i guess

i find my oma’s story also interesting because she was in hungary during the end of the war, when the ost front was being overwhelmed by the Soviets. She was a nurse (funny thing, that total war thing) working in a field hospital in Budapest. Once it became apparent that the soviets were about to win, she decided to fucking WALK and HITCH rides back to germany/the west.. behind enemy lines. At that point, she as well as all the german women at the end of the war, were very well aware of the method to which the soviets enacted revenge (see: returning the favour) and utilized her knowledge of the hungarian language to that effect to avoid being ID’d as austrian. She would also like, walk west on the roads until she saw a soviet patrol come, then she would turn around and start walking east until they passed.

Sneak skill level 100

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borisbubbles · 6 years

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16. SERBIA

Balkanika - “Nova Deca” 19th place

youtube

Out of all the positive morphs I experienced this year, Serbia was the one that I suspected the least. I never hated them the way others did, but eh, I didn’t think highly of them either. Especially when the backstage clips showed them enterting the stage dressed up like members of some inauspicious fertility cult. “Oh.” I thought. “Another Genealogy. Except it won’t make the final. Whatever, NEXT”

How wrong I was though, because it did qualify and caused me to re-evaluate all I knew about life and come to the fucking conclusion that... this is really fucking good??? HOW is an exaggerated mess that has accurately been described as “Balkan Megamix Volume 3″ this great?

I actually don’t have a clear answer for this as i’m writing this down (we haven’t reached the songs I would spam the replay button on yet), but the core of it is that Balkanika tried REALLY hard to condense 900+ years worth of Balkanic musical tradition in a mere three minutes and fucking pulled it off by... striking battle poses like some Ethno-Power Rangers

GO GO BALKAN RANGERS!!!

The choreography as a whole is just so extra and beautifully overacted. The entire way through, the members of Balkanika strike poses as if in Madonna’s “Vogue”, guided on by the beguiling tunes conjured by Ljubomir’s magic whistle-wand [ed.: here’s the best gif i could make of Old Rasflutin’s background flailing, but it’s way funnier if you pay attention to his presence as you watch “Nova Deca” unfold, so SCROLL UP AND REWATCH RIGHT NAO!!!]:

Such a beautiful presence we’re not worthy of, y’all. All while the rest of Balkanika are either serving some epic 90 Percussion realness:

or chanelling some Project: Waters of Life sillyness

This could have so easily turned into a San Marinese goopy mess (which I don’t think too highly of, as you know), and briefly it looked like this would be the case; Instead, we found something better.

The plain answer however, lies in that Balkanika didn’t try to be funny and that makes a massive difference. Every piece of overacting, from Mladen’s creepy stares to Ra-Ra-Rasflutin (Serbia’s greatest love machine) prodding the action on from the background, is the product of intense belief and dedication, which... makes it hysterical, but in an endearing sort of way. Balkanika really just can’t help themselves. <3

However, as I have to take things into account other than just act, I can’t really drag Balkanika much higher than this. Their song, while cool in concept, is kinda a bit too overloaded with quirks, which are largely lost to me because you know, show-stopping staging. (lol I just realized this is such a reverse “O jardim”, how neat they will now be forever ranked next to one another in this ranking). “Nova Deca” also suffers from the fact that I already had a large slew of other faves before I started to love them. As a whole, I think they have the least to offer of those left in the ranking. Oh well, at least we’ll forever have this:

RANKING SO FAR:

16. Serbia (Balkanika - “Nova Deca”)

17. Portugal (Cláudia Pascoal - “O jardim”)

18. The Netherlands (Waylon - “Outlaw in ‘em”)

19. Ukraine (MÉLOVIN - “Under the ladder”)

20. Macedonia (Eye Cue - “Lost and Found”)

21. San Marino (Jessika ft. Jenifer Brening - “Who We Are”)

22. Sweden (Benjamin Ingrosso - “Dance You Off”)

23. Austria (Cesár Sampson - “Nobody but you”)

24. Latvia (Laura Rizzotto - “Funny girl”)

25. Azerbaijan (AISEL - “X my heart”)

26. Israel (Netta - “Toy”)

27. Norway (Alexander Rybak - “That’s how you write a song”)

28. Montenegro (Vanja Radovanovic - “Inje”)

29. Armenia (Sevak Khanagyan - “Qami”)

30. Poland (Gromee ft. Lukas Meijer - “Light me up”)

31. Greece (Yianna Terzi - “Oniro mou”)

32. Georgia (Iriao - “For you”)

33. Belgium (Sennek - “A matter of time”)

34. Italy (Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro - “Non mi avete fatto niente)

35. Romania (The Humans - “Goodbye”)

36. Ireland (Ryan O'Shaughnessy - “Together”)

37. Croatia (Franka - “Crazy”)

38. Belarus (ALEKSEEV - “Forever”)

39. Russia (Julia Samoylova - “I Won’t Break”)

40. Spain (Amaia & Alfred - “Tu canción”)

41. Iceland (Ari Ólafsson - “Our choice”)

42. Australia (Jessica Mauboy - “We Got Love”)

43. Czech Republic (Mikolas Josef - “Lie to me”)

FOOTNOTES (optional)

1) I decided not to credit Sanja Ilic simply because he wasn’t on the stage and I feel it’s kinda unfair to credit him just based on his merit as a composer, while Isaura composed AND performed second fiddle to Cláudia, without a letter of on-screen credit.

2) Re: Intentional vs Unintentional humour: The reason why intentional humour rarely works for me is that it comes with the built-in pressure to laugh, which... makes me less inclined to find something funny because it kinda takes away the choice element of it. Like, I think I have a fairly okay sense of humour, I can decide for myself what I find funny, you know? This is why intentional humour rarely works for me, while unintentional humour nearly always does. For reference, dial back to where I ranked Israel and Norway and Czechia and San Marino (or “Yodel it” and “Space” from last year), all acts that piggybacked on scripted humour

3) DoReDos are one of the few instances this year where intentional humour totally worked for me, although I also realize they’ve largely been hit-or-miss. But we won’t be discussing that soon.

4) Me being a history nerd, I also think the idea of “weaving a song out of literally every Serbian musical quirk ever” is a really cool song concept. It really comes close to an earnest, Balkanic version of “Swedish Smörgåsbord” <3 5) “Nova Deca” is a way more accurate representation of what actual balkan music sounds like (as opposed to the tiresome, tedious, boring Balkan Ballad). The Folk music channels in Bulgaria, for instance play “Nova Deca”-esque songs all day. 6) A funny argument between my mom and I occured during this song. My mom, who is Bulgarian, argued that Balkanika plagiarized their song from Bulgarian Polyphonic Singing. When I pointed out the song was based on the Byzantine musical traditions, she claimed that the Byzantines stole them from the Bulgarians, which is historically implausible (see note 8). This is one of many reasons I think little of ethnocentrism and nationalism, especially from the Slavs and Greeks. Everyone accuses one another of cultural appropriation (see again: Macedoniagate), when in fact, their geographical proximity exposed them to similar cultural ideas and their geopolitics (warmongering) turned it into a mutually unintelligible wash.

7) Besides, the entire point of the Balkans is that they support each other due to their cultural similarities in spite of wishing horrific, painful deaths on one another. <3

8) HISTORY LESSONS WITH BORIS #1: Polyphonic Singing. Polyphonic singing evolved as a Byzantine response to Roman Catholic liturgical chanting (instituted by Charlemagne, who as Holy Roman Emperor, took measures in making the religion more accessible to the common folk. How do we make the Bible popular? By teaching rich people how to read! What a genius. <3 ). Thus, polyphony spread as Byzantine Christianity spread, which would later become Eastern Orthodoxy after the East-West Schism in the 11th century AD. (hence why polyphony is such a big cultural benchmark all Eastern Orthodox nations, including Russia and Georgia, but not Armenia until their annexation by the Russian Empire in the 19th Century AD (since Armenian Christianity is a cadet branch of Oriental Orthodoxy, which split from Catholicism in the 4th century AD). Anyway, Bulgaria historically played a massive role in spreading Christianity and its liturgical chanting to their pagan Balkan neighbours, after the Bulgarian Knyaz (a fancy way of saying “Khan”) Boris I converted under the pressure of Byzantine Emperor Michael III. Boris (whom, as you might have guessed, I was named after) used Christianity to pacify the squabbling lords of his realm (which included both pagans and Catholics) and oversaw the creation of the Glagolitic (liturgical) and Cyrrilic scripts to speed up the spread, paving the way for Bulgaria’s Golden Age under his son Simeon. During that Golden Age, btw, much of what is now Serbia came under Bulgarian control, including Belgrade. So while the Serbs probably did learn polyphony from the Bulgarians, the Bulgarians absolutely, totally, learned it from the Byzantines, who invented the damn’ thing, in their own spin on Charlemagne’s popular church choirs. Mum, you’re WRONG. O:-)

#Eurovision #Eurovision Song Contest #Eurovision 2018 #Serbia #Balkanika #Sanja Ilic #Nova Deca

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ladyemberswrites · 6 years

Text

Lotura-College-Au requested by @remains-of-stardust

I wanted to add some more, so here ya go.

***

Allura couldn't help the tears bubbling at the corners of her eyes, she sniffled, sob, all the way to her usual coffee shop. Her stomach was growling, yet she only had a 2.75 in her account, and she needed half of it to take the bus home.

She sniffled again, her makeup running down her cheeks, her hair was a mess. She had also been wearing the same outfit for two days straight. She was sure she smelt, however, as the bell rang over her head, she felt that was the least for her issues, as her stomach twists into itself.

The inside was cool and empty, well almost as she noticed a man was sitting, hunched over, probably asleep with his head cradled in his textbook. She emphasized with his plight, she had studying to catch up with, a essay due tomorrow morning. She clutched her bag closer to her, striding towards the front.

“Excuse me." Her voice cracks.

“What!?” she flinches slightly. Drawing into herself, looking down at her scuffed tennis shoes.

"Um-I was wondering what I can get for a dollar?" She found it hard to believe that her voice was her own. She shuffles her feet.

"A cup of water" she feels her tears tearing their head again.Should have known, but still she tries again.

"Oh, Is there anything else I can get"

"A cup of water" he repeats " look kid, if don't have any money I can't help you, that's the rules"

"I know, but-" but, she so hungry.

“Are you trying to get me fired or something"she shakes her head demurely "I'll take the water-

" Excuse me!" It was the man with his head in the textbook. He looked oddly familiar.

"Oh, sorry-I'll let-" she just can't catch a break, can she.

“No, um" he clears his throat "I was wondering if you'd let me pay for you" She blinks at him, as if she didn't hear him quite right. Allura shuffles her feet again-then it hit her, it was the man that she had caused to spill coffee in his lap!

"Oh! I Remember you, your the guy that spilled hot-coffee on your crotch when I asked you for the time!" She snorts, unladylike.

"Ah, yes" he chokes. There's a stubborn blush on his brown cheeks, as he turns away abashed.

“But, seriously are you alright, you didn't get like first degree burns or anything, I don't want to responsible for making you impotent for the rest of your life" her mouth is running a mile a minute. That sounded wrong out loud, she hoped he didn't think her rude? But that did sound a bit rude.

"No. No I'm quite find. No burns" She sighs out a breath of relief, at least he didn't sound offended.

"That's good, I really felt bad about that" she sniffs again.

“In any case, If you don't mind I would like to pay for you"

"I-I couldn't ask you to do that, besides I'm the one that owes you a drink after I made you spill one on yourself"

"It would be my treat"

"I don't know you"

"Lotor Daibaziaal. 24 Senior, currently studying archaeology"

"Um-Allura Altea. 19 , freshman, and I'm not entirely sure what I want to study yet, still trying to find my way and all" she smiles at him shyly

“See now we're not strangers anymore" he grins.

"Oh!" She laughs again " well, aren't you sly"

"But, you wouldn't mind, I don't like to ask, but"

"I offered didn't I-besides I have plenty to spare"

"Really"He nods, reassuring her.

"Thank you."

"You're most welcome, Ms.Altea."

***

She, or well Lotor had bought her a medium-size cappuccino and two donuts.

“Are you sure? Your not going to go broke or something?

It is fine, Ms.Altea trust me, I have plenty of money to spare, please do not fret over it.”

“O-okay, if you say so” she had ended up docking at Lotor’s small table. She sat across from him, sighing as she bit into her soft, donut. She moaned, it’s been two days, since she had anything to eat, starving herself to safe on bus fare.

“Here” she peers up to see a handkerchief handed out to her. She blinked, but she smiled shyly.

“Thank you.” she murmurs, taking it to dry her eyes, and tried in vain to at least clean some of her smeared makeup.

“If I may ask, Ms.Alte-”

“Allura, is fine, we’re both students aren’t we”

“Alright then, Allura. I know it’s a bit forward of me, but if I may, can I ask what has upset you”

“O-oh-it’s alright-its” she stopped. She hardly knew the man, yet perhaps, maybe talking about her problems might make her feel better. Her father did say that somethings are sometimes best confessed to a stranger.

“I-well-my boyfriends and I broke up this week”

“Ah” he said in a way that he understood her dismay. He leans forward listening intently, as if he were prepared for a long, long talk.

“It seems, so silly now-” she huffs “It was bound to happen eventually-you see we haven’t been on the best of terms, after we graduated high school-it seemed that-that-well I don’t know-” she was started feel rather selfish, pouring out her problems to complete stranger. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

“I’m listening, I’m in no particular rush to go anywhere. Talk as much as you like if it will help you feel better. Trust me, I don’t mind” funny enough his words soothed her worries. He certainly had a way with words, she’s surprised that he was studying archeology and not pursuing something in oration, like a senator, or lawyer.

“It’s just that we both wanted two very separate things in life. Lance already have everything planned out, he wanted to be pilot, and afterwards wanted to move back to Cuba where all his family lived-well I was too keen on settling anywhere, I wanted to travel, see more things. Still I didn’t know what I want to do-and things that I was interested in, Lance didn’t seem all that supportive or invested” she sighs “there was also the issue of his eyes wandering all over the place-y’know. I mean in high school he was the school’s playboy-I suppose I thought after we got together he would change-he didn’t. And it’s not like I‘m entirely innocent, should have talked to him about, but just let it be in the hopes that he would just stop, and after I graduated I’ve barely spent anytime with him much, getting caught up in work and extracurricular activities and such. It-it was a mutual break, we both decided it would be for the best. I haven’t really talk to anyone about it we’re both in the same circle of friends and I don’t want to start drama or cause anyone to choose sides in anything. It’s just been hard on top of other things, as well.”

Lotor hummed-he blinked as something in his mind clicked “By Lance, do you mean a Lance Mcclain”

“Yep-” she frowned “why-what did he do” noting the venom in his voice.

“He’s in my chemistry class, unfortunately, we both are collaboration partners, in which he always does his half of the project at the last minute. He also spilled hot coffee on my 30 page thesis paper, and dented my car, and still hasn’t offered to pay for the damages.”

Allura grimaces “Oh, so your Prince charming!” Lotor scowled “He did mention you quite a bit, he often said that you were a spoiled-uptight mama’s boy who took everything way to seriously.”

“Hmm, and you believed him”

“Huh” she shook her head “no, I know Lance, he has a tendency to antagonize people. He does the same thing to Keith”

“The one with the unruly mullet”

“You know him, too”

“Not particularly, again he’s in my chemistry class, though he’s not in my group, but I’ve seen Mcclain patronize him on a daily basis to be familiar with him, plus the hair rather sticks out”

Allura snorts in her palm “It does, doesn’t it” she watches Lotor crack a grin.

“It’s strange that we never crossed each other’s path”

“Well, you did spill coffee in my lap-but, in all honesty, I’ve seen you around”

“Really, where”

“Here, mostly, though I didn’t find out we went to the same school, until I say you stumbling out of Slav’s classroom”

“Oh, you have Prof.Slav too”

“In the past. Fortunately, I didn’t have to take any of his classes this semester”

“I going to go on a limb and guess it was all rainbows and sunshine for you”

“You guess right, my dear. I usually came out of it with a massive migraine and developed a twitch that’s just now starting to go away”

“Funny, Shiro does the same thing, every time anyone mentions multiple realities his left eye twitches. Pidge and Hunk keep saying on purpose, I think it’s rather mean”

“I don’t think anyone has survive that class without developing some sort neurological disorder” he muttered.

She laughs heartily. Perhaps, this day didn’t exactly turn out for the worst, after all.

#lotura #lollura #requests

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mabon-witch · 6 years

Text

I have Galaxy Runes app on my phone and I had a dream recently that I look on the Rune of the Day and there's Sowilo (rune of the sun, solar power) and then I click on it and Svarog is written instead of the rune name.

Svarog is a Slavic god of the sky, zodiacs, sun, fire and blacksmiths. He is believed to have forged the sky and the Earth.

(To put it briefly. Honestly, as I understood already, there are at least four deities which are identified as sun and fire gods. Well, ya know slavs loved fire. They saw it as a life giving force.)

And it was so obviously a freaking sign that the diety is trying to reach out to me.

I didn't have a motivation to study the mythology of my own country (Ukraine) until now and guess who's reading and watching stuff on Slavic religion for a week already and feeling so incredible?

It's such a shame that we have no written myths and traditions of our earliest religion as they all (literally) were destroyed at the time of Christianity. Though, it's so funny how christians couldn't resist pagans after all and they adapted pagan holidays so that they are christian.

Even on Easter we all bake/buy easter cakes and paint eggs which are actually prohibited in church, because they represent pagan symbols of fertility and prosperity (cakes obviously have phallic shape and eggs.. You get what I mean). (For christians those cakes are the body of Jesus, BUT the dough for it should be savorless and ours are hella sweet). And I hate that people are unaware of the initial symbolism.

I also found a community of Ukrainian Rodnovery (Native Faith) on Facebook and other social media, and sadly half of the posts are about seminars and that kind of stuff for which you have to pay a lot of money. And some of the members are Ukrainian fanatic patriots that want to kill everyone except for actual PURE slavic people who speak only Ukrainian which I find weird and totally controversial to the ideas almost any religion is trying to manifest.

Thank for reading in case you managed to read it till the end (and if you read only the first bits, thank you too)!

Happy Summer Solstice!

#witchcraft #witch #witchblr #paganism #polytheism #wicca #witchy #slavic #slavic gods #slavic paganism #slavic polytheism #pantheism

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grumpy-triceratops · 7 years

Note

Yo. Do all of them for the Voltron asks.

Voltron: EEEeeeeek this is a hard one, I know for sure that I wouldn’t pilot the Black or the Green. I think I would probably pilot the Blue one because I want to think that overall I’m most like Lance.Otherwise I’d probably go with Yellow because I’m tough and like to fight.

Shiro: I’ve thought about this a lot, and though there are times where that might seem nice I wouldn’t want to do it because everything that has happened has led me to where I am now, so no I wouldn’t change the past.

Keith: I definitely consider myself to be more of an aggressive person, I don’t like to be passive aggressive and I try not to be because I often find that annoying.

Lance: Unfortunately I’ve never really had the opportunity to find out how flirtatious I am. I know that when I’m fake flirting with my friends though that I can be pretty smooth so yeah I’d like to say I have Lance level flirting.

Hunk: I kind of know how to cook and bake, I don’t do it very often because I’m very lazy. I wouldn’t say I’m good but probably decent at least.

Pidge: I most value my friends and family, I love them all so very much.

Allura: The first thing I’d do would probably be cry and freak out like that would be such a culture shock I’d probably have a full on panic attack. Maybe after I had calmed down I would try and catch up on the latest styles, technology and memes.

Coran: I didn’t really go through many phases that I can recall, though I definitely have some cringe worthy moments that I’ve blacked out from my memory so I’d probably just say most of my elementary and middle school self and early high school.

Zarkon: I think it can be wrong if it goes too far and seriously hurts someone, little petty forms of revenge though might not be too bad.

Haggar: I’m obsessed over so many things, basically just anime, video games, disney, cartoons, etc. The only real life people that I’m /obsessed/ over are my friends, I want them to be the happiest they can be.

Lotor: I would be exiled over being meme pun trash, I’m the absolute worst.

Galra Empire: Who is your favorite Galra character? I love lotor and his entire squad, but my absolute favorite galra would be a tie between Keith, Lotor and Narti (I just love her so much for some reason).

Blade of Marmora: Again its Narti, I love her design so so much.

Matt Holt: Do you more “nerdy” or “sporty”? I dress sporty but I’m definitely more nerdy. I like playing most sports and I’m really competetive but overall I’m lazy and nerdy.

Balmerans: Aahahah no, I’m terrible at reading other peoples emotions. Sometimes I understand it but othertimes I’m as dense as can be, usually I need people to come out and be straight up with me.

Olkari: Do you have a close connection with nature? I don’t know if I have a strong connection with nature or not. I really like nature, especially animals and I feel really comfortable in nature. However, as much as I enjoy camping I always need to come back to civilization, I like having wifi and basic amenities.

Kuron: The only reason I would want a clone of myself would be to get more work done and to get them to do things that I wouldn’t want to do. Otherwise I would never want a clone of myself, that sounds like the worst. Though it would be nice to have someone laugh at all my jokes.

Honerva: I do have pets! Honestly I could not see living without having any pets. Right now I have 2 dogs, 5 cats and a turtle, I love all my babies so much.

Alfor: I have multiple best friends because its hard for me to choose just one. All my friends are so amazing and sweet and total nerds. They’re the best things ever and I’m so lucky to be friends with them.

Weblum: I’m not sure if its my absolute favorite but I really love Space Mall. It is just such a fun episode with so many funny moments and I feel the pacing of it is also amazing, it just is so good to me.

Slav: What are your ships? No discourse allowed. Hahah I have so many ships, guess its time to reveal my shame. Lance and Keith are probably my tops, shiro and keith, shiro lance and keith, hunk and lance, hunk and keith, lance and shiro, ~lance and lotor~, shiro and allura, and I’m warming up to keith and lotor, I almost forgot hunk and shay. I think that’s all of them thus far.

Sven: I would like to think I would sacrifice my life for someone I barely know because I want to help people if I can, but I honestly don’t know what I would do when put into such a dire situation.

Space Mice: Honestly I love all animals, but some of my favorite animals are foxes, deer, wolves and dolphins.

KALTENECKER: THIS IS PROBABLY THE HARDEST QUESTION. I love all the voltron characters so much, my two favorites though would probably be Lance and Allura.

Paladin: I can’t quite remember when I started watching Voltron, but I’m pretty sure I started Legendary Defender since the moment it came out. I can’t remember how I heard about it which is why I can’t quite remember if I started it /right/ away.

#ask #asks #voltron #this was so great but also so long #I loved this #kamuishinki #long post

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afishtrap · 7 years

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I have questions.

These have been bugging me. Maybe I’ll get lucky and someone (koff @caramelcheese koff) has an explanation.

1. Shiro’s in prison for a year. Yet he doesn’t end up with a beard to his chest, and his hair is still neatly cut. The leaked shots from S3 of Matt look like Matt’s hair has grown, though. How could Shiro stay neatly pressed (at least from the shoulders up) while Matt’s the one who can’t find scissors?

2a. Why are none of the paladins ever strapped in? It’s like the animators are thinking the cats are just big cars, and everything’s operating on a linear, horizontal plane. When the five first find the blue lion and it proceeds to scamper in mid-air (including twists), all of them should’ve ended up splattered across the interior. Including Lance. (I’ve been in a van that rolled off the road and over a 30′ drop. Think frog in a mixer and you’re pretty close to the results.)

(okay so yeah I come from the Gundam and Macross worlds for mecha, and I’ve done my time in Yukikaze and Sidonia no Kishi which are more real-world jet-pilot SF influenced than super-mecha, but still, strapping in is pretty much mandatory. If the animators didn’t want belts, they could still have gone with the pilot getting suctioned in, like S2 Gundam 00 or Escaflowne. but really, all five floating out of their seats? and no additional seats/straps for passengers? this isn’t a mini-van, people, it’s a big box that can go in any direction at any time and this bugs the crap out of me)

2b. Clearly none of the animators have actually done anything that requires wearing a helmet. Like, say, riding a motorcycle (or piloting a plane). Shiro’s helmet coming off ‘cause he’s rolling down a hill... that could happen with a bike helmet, but if it happens with a full helmet style like the paladin’s, then something is seriously wrong. I can’t watch that bit w/out wincing. A helmet that style coming off is bad news. Really bad. Like, not possibly not making it out alive and/or brain-crushed bad.

3a. Am I the only one giving the side-eye every time Allura protests (mostly in S1) about how the Alteans were a great and wonderful people, her father was a great man and a great father, etc etc? Zarkon can’t have always been pure evil if Alfor worked with him, which raises the question of whether Alfor was so pristine and perfect, too. Plus, Alfor agreeing that he’d made a mistake (in sending the lions away) squeaks the door open, at least for me, to the chance that Alfor made a few other mistakes, too.

3b. I mean, people just don’t up and go to war for no reason, unless the motivations here are so flat and boring as to be that Zarkon just woke up one morning pure evil. This is fiction: it’s supposed to make sense, so there must be another side to this story we’re not getting told. Something makes me wonder if “the dark history of the Paladins” isn’t just the fact that Zarkon was one of them.

4a. Yes, Zarkon is apparently an imperialist -- expanding his military borders constantly -- and definitely participating in some old-school colonialism (ie the Balmora). But there also seems to be an extended part of his empire that’s going about its business, ie the space mall. If he held supreme power, why go to all the effort to build super-secret galaxy stations that only his military can find? He’d just hand out some reason for that military base, people would shrug, call it the cost of peace, and carry on. The only reason to hide that would be if he has someone to hide it from. Which might just be ‘to make it more difficult for our main characters to find’ plotholey, or it might be a signal of greater powers beyond Zarkon.

4b. Zarkon’s destructive power seems to have escalated exactly as Voltron shows up. From the way Haggar talks, it’s been a long time of R&D and she’s only just achieved robeast technology. The planet-sucking energy thing is also a new development. Granted, the bigger an empire grows (hello, America) the larger its military force must be, to police both its country and its colonies, so the scope of Zarkon’s military force doesn’t surprise me. But it does seem like those forces (other than the few conquering new worlds/colonies) must’ve mostly been in relatively peaceful backwaters, doing little but patrolling.

4c. If Zarkon’s forces are so immensely advanced, why only advance to the edge of Earth’s solar system, to the farthest outside planet, and take three people? Why stop there? From Allura’s comments about Zarkon’s advance across the universe, Earth may be a backwater but there’s nothing indicating a reason Zarkon wouldn’t be as interested in it as he is anywhere else. So why show up only long enough to kidnap three people, and then take off? But I guess that ties into @smolsarcasticraspberry‘s theories about Shiro having Altaen abilities or history, if he’s the real reason the Galra swung through.

5a. That is one seriously massive castle for only three people. No one else ever appears in Allura’s memories. She has no pictures (mental or otherwise) of anyone. She mourns her father, but no one else. No mother or mother-substitute, no friends, no peers, no siblings, no extended family, not even people she must’ve known and seen every day who also lived in the castle. Unless it really was just she, Coran, and her father? Just one big empty castle where three people rattled around in miles of empty halls and rooms. Kinda depressing.

5b. It feels almost like Altea is this vast gap, where no one ever resided. And it makes it really hard for me to sympathize with any loss of Altea, because the only loss Allura mourns is her father, and anything else is kind of abstract. It’s like Altea itself was just a construct, one big empty field with flowers.

5c. Semi-related to that, in S2 Allura says her people were diplomats and travellers, so in hindsight it’s weird that she woke up, learned Altea’s been destroyed, and that’s that. Why assume that all Alteans were on Altea and were killed when the planet was destroyed? She makes no attempt to look for anyone; there’s no mention of Altean communities that might have survived elsewhere. Immigrants tend to cluster together, often for generations, just like you can still find a preponderance of Swedish or Norwegian surnames in parts of the American upper midwest. Yet neither she nor Coran even raise that chance, let alone chase it. Why not?

6a. The Altaen cuisine is unbelievably stupid. Food goo? Raise your hands if you’d eat the equivalent of anything, day in, day out, with no variation, and not find yourself sick of it. (If you do raise your hand, you’re like .01% of the human population because humans do not do well on unchanging diets; it’s why NASA and the military work hard to make a variety of packaged meals.) No matter how much protein a single food substance might provide, it being the only sustenance is just incomprehensible. Cuisine is a huge part of culture, and conveys so much about our history, our people, our beliefs, and our rituals. If in every other significant way the non-human cultures reflect this human value system (even the Balmorans seem to have some variety in their food), how can the Altaens possibly see green food goo (and that single bad-tasting alternate) as adequate?

6b. Okay so maybe the writers were just thinking it’s funny that the only Altaen alcoholic beverage tastes like old athletic socks (or however Lance put it), but it’s that they know it tastes horrible. What kind of people would subject themselves to bland food and foul-tasting drinks when they supposedly have the entire universe at their fingertips? Every diplomatic and military family I’ve known brings back bits and pieces of the cuisines from lands where they’ve been stationed. You sit down at their table, and it’s often an incredible mix of different cultures. So the complete lack of non-Atlean cultural elements in food and drink strikes me as just plain bizarre.

7. At some point, someone’s got to point out to Hunk that it’s time to stop calling everyone else ‘aliens’, right? It’s like being American, travelling to France, and calling every French person a foreigner. Hunk et al are the aliens, now. It just strikes me as a very human-centric view of things, and a rather myopic one, too, given other ways the writers do so well.

8. On that note, once or twice from Lance of flirting with Allura should’ve been enough. And fine, some guys are jerks, unwilling to take a girl’s disinterest for what it is. But not only does he keep doing it, no one else calls him out on it. Kieth, Hunk and Coran seem to ignore it; Shiro reels Lance in once or twice, but that’s not the same as hauling Lance aside and telling him to quit that, full stop. It’s disrespectful, it’s rude, and it’s attention Allura doesn’t like, and treating Lance’s insistent flirtation like a joke is rape culture hallmark, and quietly undermining any of the good done in letting Allura be her own character.

(If you’re thinking to yourself that Lance being pushy is just Lance being Lance, and you’ve found it funny despite Allura’s clearly irritated reactions, that’s 'cause rape culture has taught you that Lance’s behavior is okay. newsflash: it’s not.)

9a. Coming back around to Shiro: rewatching the point where Allura talks about the different lions, and her line about the Black Lion: “a pilot who is in control at all times”. I’ve rewatched a few times now, and every time, that line feels like a kick to the gut. Shiro hears those instructions at a point where he’s only just returned (and is almost immediately whisked away again), and has barely had a chance to process his escape, let alone the entirety of his trauma. And now he’s being told that he must take up a role where the requirement is ‘being in control at all times’?

9b. @i-love-voltron-stuff has a meta about Shiro planning his departure, but my suspicion is that this seemingly throwaway line could be the cause. From Sendak, to Haggar, to the Black Lion, to dealing with Slav, Shiro is cracking at all the seams. If Allura’s words felt like an edict, then it’s possible Shiro is certain that he cannot pilot, nor be the leader, so long as he can’t stay in control, and by the end of S2, he’s got to be aware his headspace is pretty bad. My guess is that while he wasn’t planning on disappearing from the cockpit quite like that, he was probably expecting a short shelf life, mentally. Too many cracks, no more control, and thus no longer fit to be the Black Lion’s pilot.

to be continued (of course)

#voltron meta #voltron legendary defender #analysis is my chocolate cake

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wolfie-dragon-rider · 7 years

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Voltron LD, Season 2 review

I finished watching Voltron season 2 on Friday (Finally!), and I wanted to write down my thoughts on it. What did I like, what did I not like, what worked, what didn't? A sort of review, I guess. Note that I'll go into spoiler territory below the cut, so if you still have to watch it, do that first. Also, I can't be bothered to find tons of pictures for this post, so I apologize for not having the images to represent the scenes I'm talking about.

Also, DISCLAIMER: I am not a shipper for this show. I honestly don't see the Klance or Sheith or whatever. I've got terrible gaydar. I'm not gonna comment on romantic relationships in this review. Ship whatever you wanna ship, I don't care. Just don't bash me for it.

Okay, quick first thought/summary: Overall, I liked it. I liked the first season better, but it was close. But there were some… trends in this season that I didn't like, and I hope those don't get worse in future seasons. I'll now go into a bit more detail on various aspects, and explain what I mean with the previous sentence. It was far from perfect, and this is not going to be some “SQUEE! I Love it so much!!!1!” post. I'm not writing this to bash on anything, but to collect my thoughts for myself, and maybe in some vain hope that the writers will see it and think a bit about it.

Pacing

I am honestly not quite sure why, but the pacing felt off to me. Clearly they tried to create a more overarching plot and narrative, especially in the latter half of the season. But it didn't really work for me. I think one problem I had is that there were several episodes that were clearly linked, but there was very little connection between these 'groups' of episodes.

For example, the first two episodes dealt with the cliffhanger at the end of Season 1, detailing how the Paladins found each other again. But it felt very out of place to me. It felt like they added these episodes just to justify having a cliffhanger in the first place. Pretty much nothing that happened in these episodes actually matters for the rest of the season. No one has any real character growth, nothing is set up, and the only meaningful thing is the “If I don't make it...” line, which, in my opinion, could have been set up in a better part, such as in the Blade of Marmora arc.

Then there are the Blade of Marmora arc and the 'Zarkon is chasing us, shit shit shit shit' arcs, which are pretty much intertwined strangely weirdly. The Blade arc started in Episode 3, with Ulaz' introduction and subsequent death. Then there are some episodes with Zarkon chasing them.

And then there's Space Mall. Oh my gods, what were they thinking with this episode? Look, I loved this episode, I did. It was funny, even if it was ridiculously silly a bit over the top and clearly written for a younger audience than me. But as for pacing? It felt so ridiculously out of place. It was all death and destruction and barely escaping Zarkon, and then along came a goofy episode like this. Now, I perfectly understand you need humor to break up the dark parts. But it did it so… unironically. It might have been nice if the show itself acknowledged how silly this episode was, especially compared to the narrative as a whole. It was like a Big-lipped Alligator Moment, something ridiculously silly, out of place, and then never mentioned again.

Anyway, after Space Mall, we suddenly go back to the Blade of Marmora, who I'd half forgotten about by now, and we get Keith's arc. I'll go into more detail about this in other sections, but I'm just saying I didn't really care about the Blade by now.

Finally we get the whole 'bait Zarkon' arc, which was… badly set up, in my opinion. Several of the episodes, especially the prison break and Slav's character in Escape from Beta Traz, came out of nowhere. I spent all of that episode wondering who the frick Slav was and why they needed him. The plan to trap Zarkon was unclear and explained too hastily. Many of these episodes had the same problem the first two episodes seemed to have: They were very disjoint, and seemed not to really fit in the overall jigsaw puzzle, so to speak. Ill go into this more in the next section.

So overall, to me it felt like the pacing was weird and all over the place, with episodes that didn't seem to have much to do with each other. Season 1 did it much better, with episodes and arcs following each other much more organically. The Balmera arc followed the 'siege' arc, and the episodes following that flowed naturally from the infected crystal. While in this season in went to and fro, with episodes and twists coming out of absolutely nowhere.

Worldbuilding

In this section I'm going to be a bit salty, because worldbuilding and overall plot is something I've had a problem with in the first season as well.

My biggest complaint is just that the world doesn't seem very logical, and not very alive. I've been thinking a lot about this over the past few days, and I realized it is like a videogame, with a very protagonist-centered world. What I mean by that is that it doesn't seem like anything at all happens in the universe, apart from the places where the Castle of Lions happens to be at that moment.

For example, in Greening The Cube (which is my favorite episode, by the way, for reasons I'll get into later) apparently the Olkari have been enslaved for years or longer (given that they have build an entire new civilization in the woods, and the SOS spores travelled halfway across the galaxy before reaching Voltron), but literally the very day Voltron arrives the cube is finished. Also, given how easily the Olkari defeated the Galra when they finally rose up, it makes you wonder why they didn't rise up earlier, or how they lost in the first place.

But the most notable example is that the Galra Empire, this vast, evil, conquering nation that (or at least, so we're told) spreads through the galaxy like a cancer, doesn't really seem to do anything. They don't seem to gather forces or mobilize in preparation for a great war with Voltron. They don't follow Voltron and take back the planets they liberated, such as Arus and the Balmera. Why do they not do this? They have an empire spanning a million stars, why don't they spare a few ships to take back the Balmera the moment Voltron leaves it defenseless?

On this note, the Galra Empire seems to be so… cartoonishly evil. In the first season they were at least logically evil, enslaving the Balmera and harvesting the crystals they need for fuel. But in this season… I'm honestly surprised these Galra commanders don't all have huge moustaches they twirl all the time as they do EVIL acts. It's this stupid evil, the silly corrupt aristocrat who sabotaged the Taujeer ship in The Ark of Taujeer for no real reason other than reminding us of how EVIL the Galra are, or the commander enslaving the Olkari who commands the execution of the king in ridiculously hammy fashion.

I get that it's a cartoon, but instances like this make it very hard for me to take the Galra seriously. Also, maybe a minor note and I'm reading way too much into this, but the Galra empire doesn't seem to be that bad? I say this because in Space Mall, things certainly seem to be safer than when the Alteans were still in charge. Coran remembers seedy bars, black markets, places controlled by mafia and thugs. And now, the mall is clean, safe, and calm. It's not like the population is controlled by fear, either. The girl Coran tries to bribe literally doesn't understand what could be dangerous about this place.

I know it's just a joke, but there are many such instances and jokes, and it gives me the impression that the whole Galra Empire doesn't seem… well thought out. It's evil when Voltron needs something to fight, but for the rest the galaxy seems pretty peaceful and okay.

Also, there are a ton of complaints I have about worldbuilding in general in this universe. It simply feels incomplete, and many episodes just generate more questions. Do the Galra control everything, or are there independent nations? How common is space travel? Why does everybody speak English? How did they get videogames from Earth? Not to mention the cow?! I know they're minor things, but together they make the world feel empty and illogical.

Characters

The characters are… mixed, in my opinion. Some are good, some are great, and some are bad. I'll go over the notable ones. The order is somewhat from bad to best.

Let me start of with the worst: Hunk. What the hell happened to you, man? What did they do to you? They turned you from an adorable smart mechanical genius into a one-dimensional idiot who pretty much only talks about food. I guess about 90% of his lines are food jokes. Another 5% is him being nervous and second guessing everything, and about 3% is him being an utter jerk to Keith. Seriously, that was not cool, man. The rest is him being actually productive. Hunk had no arc, no character development, and what character development he had in the first season (relationship with Shay, determined to defeat Zarkon) seems to have disappeared. I'm sorry, but I can't really say anything positive about Hunk here.

Slav. What the hell. Okay, I will admit this is mostly a personal pet pieve of mine, but I HATE the mad scientist trope. You'd think with a show that got Pidge perfectly right (more on that below), they wouldn't go down that path, but they did. He was funny, and seeing Shiro blow up at him was great, but he just didn't really seem to add anything to the team or plot. They could have replaced him with Ryner, the Olkari chieftess, and used the Beta Traz episode for something more interesting.

Next worse, probably Lance. Okay, I'm gonna say this upfront: I don't like Lance. In general, even in the first season. So keep that in mind as you read this. Don't kill me for it.

He's not as bad as Hunk, if only for the fact that he's pretty much invisible this entire season. He has some weird moments with Keith, but his 'Casanova' behavior just keeps getting him into trouble, like with the mermaids. You'd think he'd learn at some point not to think with his penis all the time. He sort of had a small arc in Beta Traz, but it was… weak, easily resolved, and he managed to become ridiculously smug about it in about five minutes. Sorry I'm so negative, maybe I'd like him more if he stopped being a jerk for five minutes.

Zarkon was a bit of an idiot. I guess they tried to make him obsessed and determined about the Black Lion, but it came across to me like a toddler having a tantrum because he lost his favorite toy. Not much comment on him. Hagar was a LOT more competent than he is, and it makes me wonder how he even managed to rule for 10 thousand years.

Next up: Coran. I get that Coran is the comic relief here. I do. And I'm probably too old for the jokes here, but many of his scenes just fell flat for me this season. He seems to become sillier and stupider over time, with his worst moment when he became sick and refused to accept it. He had some good moments, for example comforting Allura, but overall I felt he was less good than in Season 1.

Allura was mostly the same as Season 1. I don't have much notable to say about her, to be honest. Her arc where she started hating Keith, then accepting him was a bit sudden (especially the accepting part), but overall I liked it, and it was one of the best (if not THE best) overarching subplots this season.

I liked Shiro this season. He's growing into his role as leader, and is clearly grooming Keith to be his successor (whether that's wise or not is… questionable, IMO). His defense of Ulaz was admirable, and his bonding episode was good, even if it went pretty quickly (only need like an hour to bond with your lion?). This season made me feel for Shiro, and I'm very worried about what happened to him.

Keith's character development was good! I didn't like him much in season 1, but I'm more fond of him now. His blade arc was good, though I have to say the whole 'Keith being Galra' thing kind of… it didn't come out of nowhere, but it wasn't resolved very well. His entire arc was about finding answers. But in the end, we didn't get many answers. Who were his parents really? What happened to them? Why did the Blade come to Earth? We never get any explanation about any of that.

Now, I will admit upfront that Pidge is, has been, and probably always will be my absolute favorite character in VLD. I was nervous watching this, because I was scared they were gonna ruin that. But they managed to make her (I will refer to Pidge with female pronouns here. I personally think she's a girl, but if you think she's transgender or nonbinary or whatever, that's perfectly fine. It doesn't matter to me what her gender or sex or whatever is. Please don't kill me) even better.

Holy freaking crap, I LOVED Greening the Cube. It was such an immense relief for me to watch that, because for the first time I've ever seen, they got a nerd right. They didn't bash Pidge for her nerdiness, she was allowed to be smart, praised for it. And that's rare.

I'm gonna go into a bit of a sidetour here and try to explain why Greening the Cube was so good. If you don't care about math or science or philosophy, go ahead and skip this part.

One thing I liked even back in Season 1 was that the writers actually know their science. Remember when they infiltrated the transit hub in episode 12, and Hunk started rambling about something when explaining how the hack worked? He ranted about something that actually exists, and makes sense in that context, and if you know the terms you see what they're getting at. It's not just buzzwords randomly strewn together.

Pidge is a mathematician and computer scientist. And one important thing about those disciplines is that they aren't limited by physics. A central paradigm in computer science is so called Turing Completeness. Basically, the idea is that any computing device, programming language, or other concept, is equally powerful, and effectively the same, as long as they can do some simple operations, because that's all you need to be able to do everything. It's hard to explain here, I might make a separate post about it if people are interested, but the important part is that you can make a computer from almost ANYTHING. You can define computers based on card games, ant colonies, DNA strings, cell biology (I did my bachelor thesis on this, actually, about representing data as molecules which are modified by biological cells), musical notation, anything.

That's what the Olkari were talking about when they said everything is connected and the same. That's why Pidge was able to bend the wood into something else. Because it's all the same computer, just with a different interface. All Pidge had to do was understand how to convert the magic wood computer into a regular Turing machine, and she can use it. That's what the echo cube was about as well, a learning AI that emulates and copies everything it sees. And the writers get this. They understand this concept which can be so hard to understand when you haven't studied computer science. And it isn't ridiculed. Pidge is initially dismissive, saying she prefers the indoors (implying she prefers her regular computer), but she is curious, open to it.

It's no surprise that Pidge said Turing is her favorite scientist (I'm going to be smug here and point out I totally called this in my fanfic The Imitation Game). Because Turing was the guy who figured this out. And Turing wasn't just a mathematician. Turing was ALSO a biologist, a chemist, a philosopher. He was interdisciplinary and versatile, just like Pidge. No matter how much she moans about sunburn and mosquitos (I sympathize with her, though), she's still curious about the Olkari, and eager to learn.

Anyway, the point is, it's so liberating to see a tech junkie math character who isn't ridiculed or made fun off or made one-dimensional. This show gets what it's like to be a math nerd. It gets the philosophical and scientific concepts. And it uses that knowledge to let Pidge grow further.

Pidge was great in the rest of the season as well. She doesn't give up on searching for her brother, but she learned to give saving the universe higher priority. I liked the moment in the prison where she searches the database for him without compromising the mission. She's badass as always, settling into her support role. She doesn't always have to fight to help the team, sometimes helping Coran with repairs or overseeing security systems.

I loved her moment in the first episode where she made copies of the other paladins and mocked them, it was hilarious and not mean-spirited. It shows how she's the 'jester' on the team, keeping them levelheaded and pointing it out when they are acting like idiots. And the way she made that giant antenna by herself was amazing. She didn't sit back and wait to be rescued.

If there's one criticism I have it's that she didn't get another companion. I want to see a new Rover, or another robot she builds herself. She hacked a robot in Beta Traz, but it kind of disappeared without a word. But I'm eager to see where her journey takes her next.

Conclusion

I guess my review comes across as fairly negative, but I did like it. There were pacing problems, and the world seems kind of empty and lifeless at times, but I still like it a lot. Action was great, the enemies were less gimicky and silly than in the previous season (though the suddenly reborn Robeast in Stayin Alive was kind of weird). The team as a whole is doing great, working together more and more, though Hunk and Lance's characters are regressing a bit. I loved loved loved Pidge, and I can't wait for Season 3!

If you want clarification, or discuss something about this review, you can always send me a PM. Have a great day!

#Voltron legendary defender #vld #review #Pidge #season 2 #Pidge was freaking awesome #Thoughts #Please don't kill me for not loving Klance or Sheith or whatever ship you like

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velkynkarma · 7 years

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Okay. So. I’ve had some time to come down off the mind-is-screaming-internally S2 high and think about a lot of stuff that I saw on my first playthrough. I still intend to go through and re-watch more closely for details. And I have NOT hit that level of ‘instantly knowing when and where scenes and tiny minuscule important details happen’ yet like I have for S1, so some thoughts might be jumbled or more explainable on a second pass. But for now, my reactions, my pros, my cons, my thoughts, and whether or not I’ll still be writing for this series.

Buckle up ‘cause like everything else I write this is gonna get long.

So as I mentioned last night, there were things I liked about this season, and there were things I didn’t. Let’s start with those. PROS:

Everyone gets a moment of sheer badassery. Everyone. Both in their Lion and on their own. Shiro’s combat scenes, Keith’s fights, Lance’s sharpshooting, Allura’s staff fight, I mean the list goes on.

One of my favorites was Hunk when mind controlled, though. Because holy crap—did you see how brutal he was when he had no inhibitions holding him back? He went to town and he messed Lance up pretty good. This says quite a lot about his character that I thought was really interesting. Hunk has has a lot of combat ability and potential, but he holds himself back, partly out of anxiety or that he doesn’t really believe he can do it, and partly because he doesn’t prefer the fighting method when there are other options. Hunk can absolutely fuck you up if he really wants to. He chooses not to. That’s big.

In general, just...absolutely gorgeous fight scenes. The choreography and movement of the characters was superb. As someone who studied animation I was blown away. Beautiful work.

All the Lions got an upgrade of some kind, some kind of special weapon. It kind of bothered me in S1 when the Red Lion got its giant super-gun at the last minute because it felt kind of deus ex machina, but I am glad at least that it’s become more established this is a thing all the Lions can do as long as you connect with them enough.

The Black Bayard has been recovered. Hell. Fucking. Yes.

There were just so many great character interactions and bonding moments. I love that we had a variety of different team-ups to see how different characters interacted with each other, especially in cases where they hadn’t previously. Hunk and Keith, Lance and Pidge, Lance and Shiro, Keith and Shiro, Lance and Hunk...just a lot of great interactions

There were so many “what the actual fuck am I watching” moments for me but I was laughing through all of them, so no complaints there. (Space mall. Just. Space. Mall).

Lots of moments when I laughed out loud or grinned wildly

Shiro losing his fucking cool because he’s human, yeah, I like seeing that haha

Slav. I just. As a person with obsessive compulsive disorder I related with this guy on a fundamental level. I’m not quite as bad as Slav is but man do I get what it’s like to have to do really stupid shit to just progress on a day to day level. (Also, he’s funny).

Zarkon and Haggar’s relationship was explored a lot more, which I really found interesting. In S1 they were a well-oiled machine and worked together perfectly. They also clearly trusted each other. S2 changed that up with Zarkon’s Lion obsession and Haggar wanting to focus on the internal spy and finishing off Allura. I’m curious to see where this will go and if it will form a rift.

Also: Haggar can be tricked. Her magic is not infallible. I suspect the Blade of Marmora has a technique or something to resist druid magic, otherwise they’d have been hardcore fucked centuries ago, but I find this intriguing all the same.

Blade of Marmora: “Come unarmed.” Haha but okay unless you literally disarm Shiro you can’t disarm Shiro and they know that so I’m genuinely surprised they didn’t throw more of a hissy fit over this one.

Not gonna lie I actually really liked the design of Zarkon’s armor-mech. Almost more than Voltron. Dem wings, man. Dem wings. Also, on that note, why the heck does he even need Voltron or the black lion when he’s got his own single-person mech that he can control without having to recruit four other people to work with him?

They basically confirmed false memories are entirely possible for Shiro since Hunk gives us a breakdown of how that arm actually works a little better. The Blade of Marmora may have been real but there is still so much fic potential here I’m foaming at the mouth over it.

CONS:

I’ve got a few cons, but well, let’s get the big one out of the way first. Galra Keith. (And since I know this can be a controversial topic and my feelings on this one are complicated, let me first preface this with an assurance that I have zero shade towards anyone who liked the Galra!Keith theory in S1 or likes the canonization of it in S2. This is just my opinion and in no way does it invalidate yours).

Okay, unpopular opinion time: I’ve never really been on board with the Galra!Keith theory (which I guess is no longer a theory, but yeah). I’ve never really made a big deal of it though because frankly it’s not my place to lecture others on what they want to like or not. I mean, hey, it’s fandom. Like what you like, just don’t cram it in my face. I was content to ignore Galra!Keith tags and go about my business. But the reason I was never really fond of the theory is I could never make it work, with the details presented in S1. And lord knows I tried, anyone who knows me at this point knows I love theorizing and analyzing this stuff. But it just felt so circumstantial. Most of the “evidence” people would point out in S1 could have supported a dozen different kinds of theories. The only real unexplained piece was Keith’s inexplicable draw to the Blue Lion at the beginning, but even then, I didn’t consider this an immediate indication of Galra blood per se. The show also has magic in it, after all; he could have also had some kind of sixth sense or other ability. It just wasn’t enough to go on. And above all I simply could not reconcile any kind of Galra presence on Earth when in S1 they were fully presented as devourers and conquerors. There was no way Zarkon could have known about Earth, especially if the Blue Lion was also on his radar, and not shown up to just take what he wanted and blast it out of orbit. Zarkon takes. He doesn’t have patience for stealth and subtlety when he owns half of the known universe, and I couldn’t see him having a single soldier on Earth without immediately taking advantage of it. Whether that was Keith, or some parent/ancestor of his, didn’t really matter. It just didn’t mesh with Zarkon.

S2 drops a few new details that flesh this out a little better. The existence of a stealth-oriented resistance certainly would justify how some Galra individuals could theoretically have been to Earth without immediately summoning a full fleet to blow it out of space. If they knew the Blue Lion was there they might even have a reason to target Earth specifically, if only to keep it hidden for as long as possible. I am mollified by this, at least, since it does provide some possible answers to the big plot hole issue I had with this theory. But I don’t know. Galra!Keith still feels too…contrived. Too convenient. It just doesn’t feel natural to me, in a series and plot that has otherwise put a lot of focus on naturally developing story as it goes. Each episode drops details that lead to the next episode, smoothly and subtly, but something about Galra Keith just feels very ham-handed. I’m having a little trouble coming to grips with it. Maybe they’ll drop more information in season 3 that will smooth this out more, but right now I’m just…really not a fan of this piece. On the plus side, while I am not really a fan of Keith having Galra heritage, I do kinda like that most people on the ship are just like ‘oh okay you’re part alien whatever.’ Like it isn’t drawn out into a huge drama spectacle. When it’s first officially revealed only Shiro is actually present and I half expected Keith to beg Shiro not to tell anyone because he’s scared of their reactions, just because they’d want to play up the reveal drama for a few episodes, but there wasn’t any. Everyone just knew. Learned off screen even, other than for Shiro, because there is no scene when Keith comes forward and says ‘hey so yeah, turns out I’m part Galra?’ to the team. And with the exception of Allura, nobody really reacted. Hell, there wasn’t a “reaction episode” like you would have expected with a theme like this. It almost felt underplayed. Or, treated as not-really-that-weird-a-thing, like in Keith and Hunk’s episode together, in which Hunk continually draws attention to the Galra heritage but not really in a hateful way. And I kind of liked that, because while Galra!Keith feels a little on the cliche side, at least that kind of response shook that up a little. And, not gonna lie, on a completely aesthetic reaction, I am just super fucking glad that Keith didn’t like…hulk out Galra style. I’m not a fan of Galra designs in general, I’m glad Keith didn’t just magically turn purple and all that. (Though this really does beg the question of how much his biology is affected by that Galra heritage. We know it’s affected his sixth sense at least somewhat since he appears able to sense and interact with all the Lions, and we know it lets him interact with Galra tech which is…weirdly convenient…but otherwise he looks perfectly human). Anyway. That’s my thoughts on Galra Keith, which was the biggest con for me. The rest are less controversial. OTHER CONS:

Pidge and Lance didn’t get to use their bayards to create new solo weaponry for Voltron. This makes me sad as I really wanted to see Voltron get a badass sniper rifle or a chain-whip thing like Zarkon had. I did like that everyone got to work together to make the super huge-ass sword, but I would’ve liked seeing some new weaponry too.

Thace. I just wasn’t feeling it with this guy. I know we’re supposed to feel sad when he dies, but honestly? They didn’t give us any chance to bond with this character or establish anything to really connect to him with. We see him resisting the Galra and tricking Haggar which is cool and all, but it just kinda felt like he was there. There was no emotion there, no connection. When he makes his heroic sacrifice I didn’t feel any kind of heartache because it was just like ‘oh...that NPC died. Eh, that sucks.’

We only got 1 Shiro flashback. Granted it was a big one, but like Shiro said, I still have so many fucking questions.

Hunk and Lance kinda got a little flanderized. I get that Hunk likes food, and I get that Lance is kind of the obnoxious-hormonal-teenager trope, but I think it got pushed a little too far in some scenes. They also got less development this season than the others, which wouldn’t really bother me as much if it had been fairly even across the board, except it wasn’t. Half the story was about Keith. Look, writers, I know we asked for more character development for Keith because he needed it pretty bad, but whipping it to the other extreme end of the spectrum wasn’t quite the solution?

The Red Lion’s abrupt change in attitude just seems…strange to me. I’m not sure how I feel about it. This is a Lion that you really have to work to get to like you and it’s ‘very unstable.’ It’s rather abrupt about face to the point when it just randomly keeps rescuing Keith was…well. The first time was awesome, but after a while it kinda felt overused. *flat sarcastic voice* “Oh boy. Keith is in trouble. I wonder how he’ll get out of this one.” On the other hand, I almost wonder if this is in part a reaction to Keith piloting the Black Lion, if only for a short while. I wonder if Red is trying to do the same thing right back—prove itself to its partner? I don’t know. I’m conflicted on this one. But to me it lacked subtlety in the same vein as Keith’s story.

That cliffhanger. Just. That cliffhanger.

RANDOM THOUGHTS, QUESTIONS, AND WISHLIST ITEMS

Okay. The final plan. Cool and all, but like...the fuck didn’t they just wormhole Zarkon’s ship into a sun or black hole? Like. C’mon. Even corrupted-Alfor-thoughts thought of that plan. They didn’t even have to re-imagine it. They had precedence. They were ultimately planning to destroy the ship anyway, and at the time they made their plan they hadn’t even considered trying to recover the black bayard, which were the only things they’d lose. They could have saved so much hassle. (The answer is of course that there wouldn’t be much of a show after that, but still).

As stated I’m not really a huge fan of Galra Keith but man, if I am being asked to accept this as canon, I fucking demand that he gets to dual-wield his Blade of Marmora with the Red Bayard. Because we already know he’s ambidextrous in with his sword. And that would be too fucking cool.

Okay so Matt’s not a prisoner anymore. He got rescued by rebels or something. Cool. Uh. Where’s the love for Sam Holt though? Where the fuck is Pidge’s dad? Please tell me somebody rescued him too? The man just wanted to find existence of life outside Earth he didn’t sign up to be a fucking war prisoner give the guy a break.

Also I kind of laughed when Shiro was all “hey Pidge don’t worry it’s okay Matt’s a survivor like you” because this is literally the same guy who was like “yeah Matt you gonna die unless I fight this guy for you since you have zero combat survival capability and both of us know you’ll be dead in like ten seconds.” And now he’s with rebels. Escaping. In a violent situation. I wonder how that’ll work.

They were really pushing Multiverse theory in this season and I find that very intriguing. I wonder if anything will come of that.

Okay but the presence of a human-themed shop on a random space mall really both intrigues and puzzles me. ‘Cause this means there are regular visitors to Earth, or at least people know about it outside our solar system, when previously it sounded like we were in the space boonies and no one had ever heard of us (which is why it was a great place to hide a Lion). Earth obviously did not have robust inter-planetary trading since the Kerberos mission was all about discovering life outside Earth, and Lance thinks Pidge is crazy for believing in aliens waaaay back in S1Ep1. So. What gives? How?

The insane animation style change happened again for Shiro using his bayard and then everyone screaming. I guess they have a 1-pivotal-moment-per-season rule with that.

So we knew Altean Haggar was coming, that one just seemed kinda obvious. What I actually find more intriguing is that Haggar’s hair is white. Now granted we only have a few Alteans to work off of (Alfor, Allura, Coran, and now Haggar), but Coran has repeatedly implied Allura has extra abilities and has referred to her (or other Alteans who did the Balmera ceremony) as “sacred Alteans.” Presumably, this is something linked to the royal line, and so far every royal Altean we’ve seen has had white hair. I’m wondering if Haggar is a relative. Of course, this is all circumstantial evidence and pure conjecture. It’s also possible that hair color can be shapeshifted, or white hair isn’t associated with the royal line, or a dozen other things. I’m not holding my breath, but I am curious how Haggar fits into the planet destruction.

Overall I did like the theme they were going for this season, which is that your blood does not define you or decide what “side” you’re on. We had some good Galra (or just neutral ones, like the restaurant owner, or ones that just did not fit the ‘cull the weak, be the best warrior’ mentality we were largely led to believe the Galra were in S1). And we have Bad Alteans, although honestly I’m sure everyone saw that coming already.

I feel like there were a LOT of subtle nods to or jabs at the fandom in S2 too. Lots of theories came true of course, but there was also a lot of dialogue that seemed to deliberately poke fun at some theories or fan favorites. Sometimes it was funny and sometimes it felt kind of insulting or trollish. But this is hardly a surprise, I guess, considering how much they played with us right before S2 dropped.

ON WRITING:

So am I still planning on writing for Voltron? Well. I’d like to. I liked the majority of this season, it was fun, my heart was pounding through most of it, and it left my mind a screaming wreck by the end. It was intense. But it was mostly good. I enjoyed it. There are a few problems I need to figure out though.

Galra Keith is probably the biggest wrench in my fic-writing plans at the moment. I’m not…really sure how to process this. Characterization is the most important part to me when I write, and I always try to stay as true to the characters as possible based off the canon material we’re given. To me it is absolutely vital to do that character justice. I feel that is what a responsible writer should do. So even if I write stuff that isn’t centric to his heritage, or even to Keith, it’s now still a core part of his character that needs to be considered when determining his actions, thoughts, goals and motivations, especially considering some of his actions in S2 as a direct result of that. It’s something I need to keep in mind when I write him, but it’s also not really a theme I’m a fan of. I am certainly not petty enough to write it out of existence because I don’t like it—that’s not fair to the character either, and I detest that kind of blatant disregard for a character’s core traits, it’s not responsible writing. It’s leaving me a bit puzzled as to how to proceed. I’ll need some time to think on it. I need to figure out how to get on board with Galra!Keith in a way that still leaves me comfortable writing it.

(Plus, not gonna lie, it totally tanked an idea I had in mind where I was intending to use Keith as the main POV. Okay, I may be a tad bitter about that. I liked this idea. Oh well). That cliffie is another issue. At least we can work with the S1 cliffhanger. What do you do when a character has disappeared? Are we gonna have to establish they got him back every time? Or set it at an indeterminable point somewhere between all the action? Except there wasn’t really any point during which they slowed down. Just. Gonna need to think on that one. And as previously mentioned in this post, I’ve got a nasty case of the obsessive compulsive disorder, mixed with being an insane perfectionist, and it’s driving me bonkers now that some of my fics are canon inaccurate. I’ll get over it but man. It bothers the hell out of me.

ANYWAY. There’s my thoughts. In one long, super post. If you read through all that, congrats.

#voltron #voltron spoilers #voltron season 2 #velkynkarma thoughts

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kcwcommentary · 5 years

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VLD2x10 – “Escape from Beta Traz”

2x10 – “Escape from Beta Traz”

Shiro, Lance, and Pidge are on their mission. Lance and Pidge rant at each other about Lance being “a good shot.” Clearly, he’s going to shoot something, but then he just has the Blue Lion open its mouth and Shiro and Pidge fly out of it toward a Galra base. So, what shooting was Lance doing then? Shiro and Pidge go rocketing toward the base and shoot cables out that attach to the surface of the base and pull themselves in. Why didn’t they just maneuver using their suits’ rockets? They’re using their rockets the entire time, but they act here like they can’t maneuver with them. We’ve seen them do so enough times before that the cables are unnecessary. The suit’s propulsion is sensitive and accurate enough that Shiro in this scene uses his to position himself to grab Pidge’s cable to keep her from floating off into space. But what danger is there in her floating off into space when she’s got the same propulsion system that all the Paladins’ suits have? This entire sequence ignores what even it itself tells us of their capabilities, let alone what the show has firmly established regarding the maneuverability of the suits. This sequence is just hollow, fake drama.

Pidge says that this base is supposedly holding only one prisoner. Shiro identifies the prisoner, the person they’re here to find as Slav. This character’s name was dropped back in 2x03 by Ulaz, who said Slav designed the base/system that enabled the base to be hidden in a pocket of space. To enter the base, Shiro and Pidge maneuver to a door with precision using their suits’ systems, further proving the previous sequence to have been badly written. Pidge messes with the base’s sensors so that Lance can use Blue to do a “sonic scan.” Okay, he’s in space, so how does a sonic scan work? While space might not be an absolute, 100% vacuum, it’s really close to it. There’s no medium for sound to move through, so… “sonic?” Lance then pilots Blue into the base so he can join Shiro and Pidge.

“More! Give me more!” Zarkon shouts like a boring, cartoonish villain. He attacks a Druid because the Druid stops zapping him with his undefined purple lightning. I like interesting antagonists in a story, and occasionally Zarkon can be one, but this isn’t it.

Pidge’s evaluation of the “sonic scan,” says that there are two people, not just the expected one, who are being held in this facility. Lance very quickly and humorously jumps at the idea that the other prisoner might be a “space ninja or maybe someone with magical powers.” Given this show, those could be genuine possibilities. Pidge says that they don’t know what Slav looks like. The Blade of Marmora, who have used Slav’s work before to create the space pocket base, didn’t bother to inform this team what Slav looked like? Of course their not knowing sets up some humor later in the episode, but their not knowing is a total contrivance for that. There’s no reason the Blade would have only told them Slav’s name and his location and left them to figure out the rest.

A Galra is seemingly torturing Slav, though we only see one hand. Somehow the purple lightning that’s zapping the helmet that Slav’s wearing allows the Galra to extract information about weapons and genetic modifications. The entire time he’s screaming as it happens. Can we please learn that torture does not yield quality intelligence? If a person is in severe physical distress, then they’re not going to be capable of clear thought. The scene has some built in handwaving ability because it involves sci-fi technology extracting information from him, but he’s still clearly in severe pain, and that changes how a person’s brain and mind function. I’m just really tired of stories that think torture yields actionable intelligence when it doesn’t.

Pidge uses her suit’s thrusters to maneuver to a command center, where for some reason, despite being a command center, has no one on staff. She accesses the base’s systems and reports to Shiro and Lance about the base’s security measures. While Shiro and Lance move on to the next part of the mission, she also uses the system to search for information about her brother Matt. She’s also hacked into a floating drone like Rover from back in the first half of season one, which she’s using to help the guys get through the base. I like that call back of having these drones make an appearance.

Shiro makes it to Slav, who’s makes his first display of calculation/odds-based OCD. Lance meets with the other potential Slav held here and asks them if they’re Slav; they respond by saying, “Yup.” There is something cute about the “yup.” This being is clearly visually coded as a puppy. Lance only asks questions that can be answered with a yup, so we never hear them say anything else.

Pidge hides due to the base’s commander coming to the command center.

Shiro argues with Slav, who’s resisting coming with him. That the Blue Lion is blue makes him willing, but first he’s got to OCD-make his bed. I think it’s a dangerous line to write someone with OCD humorously, since the humor of any form of mental illness can fall into offensive depictions. I think with Slav they might come a little close to that line of not being funny, but I don’t usually think they go over the line. At least in this first episode he’s in, I’m good with how he’s depicted.

Another Galra reports to the base commander that Laika has escaped. This is who Lance is with, though we don’t explicitly know it yet. Lance and Laika continue making their way through the base, and when they run into a drone, Laika pounces and bites into it. Shiro continues his difficulty with Slav, who raves about percent and chance and other realities. “What about this reality? Did you learn to swim in this one?” Shiro says. The voice acting is nice here. “It’s a tiny puddle!” he screams. Shiro doesn’t ever scream out of exasperation the way he does here. This is a new tonal quality to his voice and I like getting this new side of Shiro.

The base commander, observing Laika’s room, even refers to Laika as “my pet.” Whatever initial doubt there might have been for the viewer over which was really Slav should be fully over now.

Lance gives Laika a breakdown of the team. “Pidge is the hacker of our group. Shiro’s our awesome leader. Hunk’s our mechanic. He’s also a chef and just a pretty cool dude to hang out with. And Keith is always doing things like flying into asteroid fields and black holes and cool junk like that. And I thought I was the team’s sharpshooter, but I guess no one else thinks that. Maybe I don’t have a thing. […] I mean they wouldn’t keep me on the team if I didn’t contribute in some way, would they? […] Maybe I’m just a fifth wheel. Seventh if you count Coran and Allura. That’s a horrible wheel to be.” Wow, there’s a lot to unpack in this scene. We have yet another instance of another character confirming Shiro as leader of the group, so it’s a shame that the show eventually takes that away from him. It’s nice seeing Lance express his appreciation for having Hunk as a friend. He even speaks highly about Keith, which calls to question the supposed rivalry they have. The way he sounds talking about Keith here isn’t Lance just being impressed with Keith’s skill, but it sounds the way someone talks who’s impressed by things their friends can do. And then we get a major expression of Lance’s insecurities. Despite his bravado, he doesn’t trust himself to be skilled and capable because he needs confirming feedback from other people and doesn’t feel he’s gotten much. This is a side of Lance’s character that to this point has not been explored, but it gives him significant new complexity. I just wish the show had resolved this aspect of him well. We all deal with insecurities, though some of us have a tougher time than others with ours. Using Lance as a character to explore a person wrestling with those insecurities and then showing how one can positively handle them and come through all that self-doubt would have been an excellent bit of storytelling. I don’t really feel the show does right by Lance regarding this part of his character. This episode does well with it though, even if the rest of the series doesn’t.

Shiro’s carrying Slav, who’s going on and on about Shiro’s arm until he freaks out over cracks and the possibilities of a broken mother’s back. Shiro is trying desperately to work with Slav. I love that Shiro, though frustrated and somewhat baffled by Slav, doesn’t condemn Slav for his having OCD. Shiro is kind and tries to adjust to accommodate Slav’s worries.

The base commander finds Laika and Lance and orders the prison be put on lockdown. The base’s security systems activate as Lance and Laika run from the commander. While Pidge is trying to handle those systems, her search for her brother turns up results of a video that includes him. Several Galra sentries enter the command center where Pidge is.

Slav suggests turning the base’s gravity off so he and Shiro can float over the cracks. Pidge likes the idea too because it’ll hinder the sentries, but the Paladins will still have their jetpacks to let them maneuver. Shiro and Slav meet up with Lance and Laika. Slav informs Lance that Laika is the warden’s pet yupper. They make it back to the hangar, take out more sentries, and encounter the warden. He uses some system he’s got to inject himself with purple liquid (is this supposed to be quintessence?) and it causes his body to distort and increase in size. Despite their weapons being able to tear through sentries, the warden’s additional robotic arms aren’t damaged by Lance’s or Pidge’s bayards nor by Shiro’s hand.

While they’re all fighting, Slav opens the hangar doors, and everything within starts to blow out into space. This includes the Blue Lion, but we’ve seen the Lions sit unaffected by air pressure differentials equalizing from decompressions like this before, so that’s an inconsistency. It could be that Blue is letting herself be blown out on purpose, but that’s not something the show suggests, let alone confirms. Slav gets grabbed by the warden on the way out, and Lance gets a hero moment, demonstrating he actually is really good with a blaster. Shiro even confirms that Lance is the team sharpshooter. Shiro also tries to reassure Pidge they’ll find Matt. He really is a good team leader.

Zarkon continues to be zapped, even causing a Druid to fall down in exhaustion. Haggar comes in to report to Zarkon that she thinks they have a spy onboard. I find it hard to believe that she hasn’t told him before now. Zarkon expresses that he doesn’t care about that. Zarkon asks about his armor, which Haggar has apparently has been working on. It kind of feels weird that whatever work this is that this is the first time it’s being mentioned. She says several people have been killed through her working on it. Zarkon indicates that this armor project is because of the failure of the Robeasts that have been sent after Voltron. It’s clearly setting up the season finale confrontation.

That first annoying sequence of Shiro and Pidge getting on the base aside, I like this episode. The scenes between Shiro and Slav are great, and I think a lot of the responsibility for that goes to the voice actors. That dialog could have easily fallen flat without them. I also really like the exploration of Lance’s insecurities. I often feel this show doesn’t go deep into the characters, but this gave us an intriguing new aspect of Lance. To me, this shows what makes a story good: the characters. The plot of this episode is nothing new. There are plenty of stories involving breaking out of prison. What makes this one different are the characters. The episode needed Shiro and Slav’s conversations and the expressions of personality that result from that. It needed Lance’s expressing his insecurities. Only then, through character, does the plot matter. We care about the plot because we care about the characters.

#voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld #voltron criticism #vld criticism #voltron critical #vld critical #vld season 2 #vld 2x10 #commentary

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