#i love coming up with sharpshooter stuff its like their special weapon to me. thing that shoots projectiles and guy that has 100 of them

[volatilemask]

new years

#id in alt #ultrakill #mysterious druid knight #(and owl) #v1 #v1mdk #vm's art #i love coming up with sharpshooter stuff its like their special weapon to me. thing that shoots projectiles and guy that has 100 of them

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Dying @ the Borderlands AU post to be honest. (At work. 8') ) GIVE US THE BORDERLANDS ACE ATTORNEY CONTENT WE DESERVE. (Did you ever actually post that fic with the train push-off though??) ... I should look into playing that game. (Those games? Heck if I know. I like the artstyle though.)

I posted the first chapter of the fic, though at some point as I massaged out details, I did start trying to rewrite that chapter. So plot-location-wise, that’s a bit of a mess, but the general vibe of it is the same.

I think I had some other completed excerpts I never posted, and so if I get to writing up a huge big summary of the thing, which I want to do now, I can intersperse it with a few written bits. There was a thing with Ema, and then later with Kay.

(Those games, yeah, there’s three shooters and then one….idk how to describe Tales from, I own it and haven’t played it. But yeah, there’s Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and Borderlands the Pre-Sequel for the shoot-em-up main entries of the series that I’ve played. I love all of them, but I love the Pre-Sequel a little less because low-grav combat made me want to die.)

To summarize the AU, or the start of it, for everyone who doesn’t remember/wasn’t here, the main cast, and what their class names would tentatively be in-game, include:

APOLLO, the Sharpshooter, a sniper with an eyepatch who never misses a shot

(The eye patch is significant, I’ll come back to Apollo’s powers in another post.) He lived on Elpis for most of his life – Elpis is the moon of Pandora, which is the planet that most of the games take place on – and until the start of the story, works for the corporation Hyperion with his best friend Clay, an engineer. They’ve both come to be pretty important in Hyperion’s ranks, pretty quick – Apollo for his sniping skills is the personal bodyguard/assistant to Hyperion’s CEO, Kristoph, while Clay is one of the top engineers and most valuable people except for periodically when they’re forced to pay out the ass to run some antivirus/debug software on his brain, because Clay has a USB port in his head and sometimes he tries to download every cat video ever and gets a virus. Kristoph puts up with this, barely. (It is not the worst financial crime being committed in Hyperion’s ranks. Klavier is embezzling millions into pointless endeavors and Kristoph can’t lock him out of the system no matter what he tries. But that is, again, something to come back to later.)

Apollo and Clay start to suspect that there is a lot amiss about Hyperion and the kinds of experiments they do and what they want from Pandora, and together they start investigating into what, exactly, Kristoph is doing. In the midst of this, Clay is (apparently) killed, and Apollo not allowed to investigate anything about his death. This is the final straw, so Apollo takes what he knows, destroys what he can on the way out, and flees the Hyperion moonbase and Elpis, stowing away on a freighter shipment down to Pandora, intending to disappear into the wilds of Pandora. 

CLAY, however, isn’t dead – just in a coma, with his brain wired into Hyperion’s mainframe. He hacks the ECHOnet to get into Apollo’s communicator and serves as a “voice from above” font of “advice” and “wisdom”. (He’s taking the role of, to quickly spoiler-free summarize from the games, the Guardian AI called Angel, who throughout Borderlands and 2 offers advice and points you in the direction you need to go on your quest. Clay is an infinitely shittier at his job version.) Because of some limitations hacked into his brain, he can’t tell Apollo that he’s Clay, that he’s alive, and that he’s sort of being forced into trying to manipulate Apollo and friends into doing Hyperion’s bidding, but he can be very inefficient at it and sabotage from within as best he can. Also, sometimes he accidentally sabotages, like when he’s like “I’ve made the calculations and your vehicle can definitely make this jump” and they try it and crash because he was using the gravitational constant of Elpis, which has much less gravity than Pandora. 

On landing on Pandora, Apollo is waiting for one of the Hyperion trains that still runs to take him west and get as far away from this landing site as he can. There, he meets three other travelers and apparent fugitives:

ATHENA, the Berserker, who takes on robots with her fists and a sword and maybe sometimes she’ll use a shotgun;

KLAVIER, the Doppelganger, the spitting image of Hyperion’s CEO;

and TRUCY, the Siren, one of six women throughout the galaxy marked with strong magical powers and glowing tattoos that make her a target for everyone who knows the legend.

Hyperion robots stop the train and begin a search for the fugitive Apollo – the four of them take down the robots and jump off the train, and that’s where their adventures really begin.

ATHENA and TRUCY have a mind to go to the city of Sanctuary, the only free city on Pandora that isn’t corporate-owned or a bandit shithole. Trucy’s father and all her friends live in Sanctuary; Athena, too, lived there for a few years. Before that, they both lived in the city of New Haven, which was razed by Hyperion in their search for the man who screwed Kristoph out of getting his hands on a piece of the Vault Key and a Siren.

-inhales- quick more Borderlands plot context. Vaults are ancient alien caches of powerful weapons, treasure, or monsters scattered throughout the galaxy. These can only be opened by special keys, which are ancient artifacts that tend to be broken and scattered in pieces. In Borderlands, a corporation called Atlas and their military arm, the Crimson Lance, are trying to acquire all the pieces of the key scattered across Pandora to open a Vault to get the loot inside of it. You play as a Vault Hunter, who are not-quite-bandits who for whatever reason are interested in the lore of the Vault, or just kinda ended up on Pandora and fell into it accidentally. In Borderlands 2, about five years later, Hyperion is going after a different Vault, also on Pandora, also with the key in pieces, but the opening of the first Vault in the first game has done some funky stuff to the planet in the form of a mineral called Eridium. Both times, you are trying to stop the corporations from getting to the Vault, with help from some allies, such as the AI Angel and an independent resistance group, based first in New Haven, then in Sanctuary and called the Crimson Raiders, headed up by some of the player characters from the first game. In 2, the Vault Key can only be used naturally once every 100 years; otherwise, it has to be artificially charged with an Eridium-powered Siren. Thus, Hyperion needs a Siren. 

phew okay back to the AU, context thus set for Trucy.

TRUCY has spent a few years traveling Pandora on her own, trying to learn more about Eridium and its connection to her Siren-powers. At this point, however, she’s had enough being on her own, and wants to go back home to Sanctuary. She knows she’s a Hyperion target, and that’s partially why she’s been out on her own. She wanted to protect her friends and family. But she’s been reasonably undetected thus far, so she thinks she’s safe. Safe enough as anyone can be on Pandora. She wasn’t born on Pandora, actually, though her mother was from here. She spent the first years of her life living with the Troupe Gramarye, a gang of notorious con-artists who traveled the galaxy scamming people and looking for Vaults. How’d she fall in with Phoenix? Maybe that’s for next time.

ATHENA was not actually born on Pandora, either. She was born with strange, non-Siren powers, probably from her mother’s exposure to weird alien elements; Metis tried to keep this secret and devise ways to help Athena, but eventually people found out, wanted to turn Athena into a lab rat, and so Metis fled to Pandora, knowing its reputation for lawlessness because one of her former coworkers, a woman named Aura, fled there after she vaporized three people for stealing and copyrighting her own personal work. Aura’s brother followed her, after stabbing the people who showed up on his door looking for Aura. Metis knows she can rely on them, and so she takes Athena and goes.

Athena just acclimated really, really well to Pandora. In the course of fighting against Hyperion, however, some time after the attack on New Haven, Metis is murdered by an unknown infiltrator. Simon and Aura agree that they can’t raise and protect Athena the way she deserves, not when they are both dead-set on avenging Metis, and so Simon takes Athena off-world and settles her down somewhere safe. She has a normal teenager-hood in a normal part of the galaxy, goes to college, gets a degree in psychology – all the while chafing at the normalcy of it all. When she’s confronted with her massive amount of college debt, she says her final “fuck it” and abandons her responsibilities to run home to Pandora and find Simon again.

She hilariously has zero secrets that she’s keeping from the others. 

And KLAVIER was born and lived most of his life on Elpis – not that he says it, or much of anything, about himself to the others. He has obvious affiliation with Hyperion, but since Hyperion’s ‘bots are out to kill him as much as they are Athena and Trucy, they both accept that he’s on their side. Apollo isn’t quite so sure, because Apollo knew Kristoph and knows that Klavier looks just like him, thus knowing that Klavier was probably someone very important in Hyperion. 

Except Apollo can’t say that, because Kristoph (unlike Handsome Jack, Hyperion’s egomaniacal CEO in the games) doesn’t plaster his face everywhere and make himself well-known, so the fact that Apollo recognizes Klavier’s face to be shocked at him means that Apollo was also someone important in Hyperion to know Kristoph and so Apollo and Klavier are just the Spider-Man Pointing meme at each other over their Hyperion involvement. Except Hyperion has bounties on both their heads, so they’re like, okay, okay, cool, I guess I will tolerate you.

After some horrible misadventures involving Pandoran wildlife, which Klavier and Apollo are not prepared for even though Elpis also has horrible wildlife, they reach Sanctuary. Sanctuary is home to the resistance against Hyperion, called the Crimson Raiders, made up of random people and some of the remains of Atlas Corporation’s Crimson Lance who were hunting the Vault years earlier. There in Sanctuary, they catch up with former colonel EDGEWORTH formerly of the Lance, and former commandant VON KARMA also formerly of the Lance. They were once sent to Pandora to acquire the key and quash the Vault Hunters who were chasing it; however, a certain persistent Vault Hunter and his Vault-researcher friends won them over to his side, and so they turned on Atlas and the Lance. The two of them run Sanctuary and the Raiders, Von Karma handling a little more of the military matters, and Edgeworth with the mayoral matters, but mostly, they’re an apparently seamless team. 

Aaaand….I think that’s enough for one post. I could probably do, like, four more posts? One for the rest of the people of Sanctuary, one for Apollo and Klavier’s various fucked-up backstory secrets, one for Gramarye Bullshit, and one mapping out the very loose plot points moving forward.

But I’ve spent like all day writing this, so I guess I’ll do this in installments if I’m reminded. 

#Anonymous #<- 'anonymous' it auto-tags like i don't always know it's bucket #aa borderlands au #ace attorney bullshit tag

[memoriashell]

emulations

Characters: Axel/Lea & Xion focus with some Roxas throughout.

crossposted on ao3

Notes: The main chunk of this is 358/2 based, but the later part deals with kh3 spoilers / post kh3 content so this is your spoiler warning. Otherwise, just some solid Axel & Xion content, because I love their friendship, and Roxas because you can’t have the trio separate. Also a little bit of Isa near the end.

The basis of this basically came from me noticing Xion will throw her keyblade like a boomerang during the fight in kh3. While she's probably supposed to be mimicking Saix and throwing isn't exactly a unique fighting style, my mind immediately thought about Axel/Lea's chakrams. Alternatively, I just wanted to write something short and cute.

Summary: She mimics, because that is what she is meant to do. There is something to be won and lost in that uniqueness.

( like a shadow, but all you can do is echo )

“What are you two doing?” When he realizes his presence has gone unnoticed by the others, Axel has to raise his voice a little to cut in through Roxas and Xion’s chattering; conversation abruptly ending as two heads swivel in his direction, beaming up at him.

“We wanted to try out some stuff with our keyblades.” Roxas explains, Xion swinging her keyblade around behind him in a somewhat exaggerated fashion as if to support what he was saying, further elaborating upon the look the elder gives him. “Well, we were thinking—”

“Were you? That sounds dangerous.” Axel cuts in to quip, earning two pouts in his direction and a swift, “At least we can!” from Xion. Who she has been picking up on that kind of mannerism from, he can only begin to wonder.

“As I was saying,” Roxas begins again. “Everyone in the Organization fights differently, right? We don’t really know where we got our technique from, it just... felt natural? So were wondering if there’s something we were missing out on— anything we could learn from that. Like if we could be able to use the keyblade to fight differently.”

“But we don’t really remember the members that are gone now.” Xion remarks, almost sagely. “So we started making up styles we thought they might fight with instead. Try to figure out how we’d fight against something we didn’t know”

“Despite that, it’s been going good! Xion’s better at mimicking people’s fighting styles better than I am, though.” Roxas seems rather proud of that fact, patting the other on the shoulder— a protest emerges from the girl at his comment, however. The pair is lost in their own argument, bickering over who was doing better; both insistent on the other being more talented, much to his... amusement? Something vaguely akin to that has long since became familiar again, particularly when it came to them.  

Of course, he thinks, no one but these two would take an interest in something like that, a fond— no, not quite fond, Axel is not so ready to admit feeling that kind of emotion yet ( they cannot feel a thing, nobodies like them )— a shake of his head as he glances at them. “Is that so?” He will go along with it, entertain their thoughts for a bit; nothing bad should come of that, even if he doesn’t quite understand them and the thoughts that go through their heads. “Well, I suppose I don’t mind telling you a little bit about the others in that case, although I don’t think you’ll get much out of it.”

“How come?” Roxas asks, Xion nodding her head as if to echo the sentiment.

“For one, you two have keyblades, unlike most people. That already makes the way you two fight special.” Secondly, he’s pretty sure Xion’s ‘deftness’ with this silly thing the two have started is due to the nature of her being ( but it’s not cheating if they don’t know about it, and he is not keen on changing that ). “Also, everyone’s different for a reason. It might be hard for you two to understand that without being able to remember much outside of the Organization, but people generally like being different. Unique, you know? The Organization is no different. We all have different weapons, strengths— different magic, even. It’s not quite going to work out as neatly as you two might think. For example, you wouldn’t remember Zexion, but he used to fight with... a book, and his specialty in magic. Think of Luxord and his cards. It’s not the kind of strategy you two could easily adapt to your fighting style.”

( Well, Xion might. Unintentionally at best though, at worst— he can only imagine what a messy situation that would be ).

They don’t seem to follow his logic; twin looks of confusion in their expressions, so he attempts to explain in terms and an example that is more familiar to them. “Alright, Xigbar then. How do you two think you would replicate his sharpshooting skills? Magic?” He doesn’t wait for any answer, really; Axel has the feeling they wouldn’t know how to answer, since they seemed to have jumped into this on a whim and devolved it into something different than they’d originally thought about. “That might work, to some extent, but even with magic, you wouldn’t be capable of mimicking Demyx’s water clones completely— although he’s the last person the two of you should be taking example from.” His lips briefly twitch upwards in amusement at the thought. “Think about Luxord, how would you two manage to copy his time magic? Do you two get what I’m saying now? You can try all you want, go ahead, but it might be better to stop before you disappoint yourselves. You’re better off being unique, anyways.”

The pair seem genuinely disappointed to hear that— Axel’s not really surprised at the ‘emotion’ that they ‘express’ at this point— a sigh as he tries to think of something that might get his point across better. Cheer them up. Something like that.

( He is not getting soft, he just... doesn’t like the miserable look on their faces. Knowing that he was the reason for it. He was not being weak, he wasn’t )

“I’m not...” He pauses, scowling to himself before he resumes speaking. “I won’t stop you two from trying out some new things if that’s really what you two want to do, although I’m sure Saïx would tell you two that you’re wasting time that could be dedicated to your missions.” And begrudgingly, Axel thinks his... friend might probably have a point, but that doesn’t matter. They’ve never seen eye to eye when it came to these two, anyways. “As long as you two can do your jobs, there’s no reason why you can’t fight however you like.”

They react as expected, as if he had spoken some words of absolute truth, perks right back up; seeming to cling onto every word he says like he is the only one they can trust to tell the truth. They are so naïve, and Axel hates it— hates that he feels like he needs to protect them ( where did such a feeling ever come from? ); shield them from the true harshness of their world, as nobodies.

One day, that illusion will break and he knows it; they will realize the lies that lay in honeyed truths. Yet, is it so wrong for him to continue, even knowing that? It’s selfish indeed, but so what? There’s nothing wrong with that. He has always been a little selfish.

( If it gets the job done, then it is justifiable. Isn’t it?  )

He’s snapped out of his thoughts by Xion tugging on his arm and dragging him over to where she had been standing with Roxas, gazing up at him eagerly. “Watch this!” Enthusiastically, she raises her arm up as she speaks, moving once he indicates that he is paying attention to her.

He watches, arms crossed over his chest as girl lunges towards the target they had been using to practice; observes as her arm moves forward to throw her weapon— keyblade leaves a scorching flame in its wake as it hits the target, and returns to her hand like—

Oh. So that’s the reason they were so enthusiastic to show him. Figures. Those two have always been weirdly sentimental like that, something human-like that he can’t quite grasp anymore. Axel is pretty sure they are rubbing off on him; that is the only logical explanation for the tightness in his chest, the flare of warmth, non-existent heart that he has ( perhaps it is not logical— he has never been a not-person of logic, anyways ), slow smirk spreading across his lips.

Xion looks to him expectantly when she is finished, trotting back over to them like a child— the pair of them are like puppies, honestly, as Roxas joins her in watching him, waiting for him to say something. Those two were going to probably be the end of him, one day. They should consider themselves lucky that he is too entertained by their stunts to consider scolding them; that’s not his style of doing things, anyways.

“Not bad.” He acknowledges, a gentle hand on her shoulder as he turns her to face back towards the target. “Watch,” Axel  says as he summons his chakrams, takes aim and throws to the target with practiced ease. “Do you know what the difference is between the way you and I did that?”

“Besides the keyblade?” She snarks, but pauses to look thoughtful for several moments while she considers his question, before shaking her head. He glances towards Roxas, who he knew had been watching them for his own self-reference, and receives another head shake. He sighs good naturedly, repeating his motions once more before explaining himself.

“Your motions are too stiff. It looks all jerky and forced when you throw it.” Like a puppet on strings, his mind ( unhelpfully ) adds— he ignores that, taking her arm and carefully guiding through a few more motions. “More like that. Just remember to keep your body loose. You’re going to throw something out if you keep trying to attack like that.” Does Xion even have the capacity to hurt to the same extent they did? Could a simple cure potion or elixir help her in a situation like that? He presumes so, given how human-like the replicas are; if his experiences with the Riku Replica are to be any indication ( he will, begrudgingly admit that he is worried her safety ). “And stop showing off with your magic. You’re just going to tire yourself out that way.”

“Uh-huh.” It is rather noncommittal sounding, but sure enough, her next attempt is much less flashy, with his advice in mind— clean, effortlessly, the motions are made and she has a moment where she doesn’t seem like she can believe what she’s done, before smiling at him, radiating happiness.  “Thank you, Axel.”

He averts his gaze and covers his embarrassment by reaching down to ruffle her hair. “Nah, that was all you. You want a go, Roxas?” He looks back over to where the blond has been watching, a moment of silence before he seems to think better of it.

“I’d rather not get shown up. Next time.” Axel can’t complain with that, he’s tired enough with their daily mission that he doesn’t know why these two wanted to get in extra sparing in the first place.

“Come on, then. I think you to have done enough practicing for today.” An easygoing smile spreads across his lips. “I’ll treat you two today, for your extra work.” He hardly has to say the word treat before they’re racing off towards the clocktower, so simple they are ( he is bittersweet, he wishes he could have that mentality still ).

If only it could always be that simple, with them.

Lea feels a sense of déjà vu, almost—

This is nothing new, he has been feeling this since— Roxas left and he found Sora again, and maybe perhaps before then, too. Some kind of longing has permeated his existence, and while she is around, he cannot help but feel like something’s different. Like he knows Kairi, but not her; that’s complicated, the déjà vu, so he does what he always does and ignores it.

The hooded figure with the keyblade is too lithe to be Roxas, that is one less worry he has; but something stops Lea from feeling like he can raise his weapon against them, so he doesn’t. Won’t. Something like that. There are more worrisome troubles on his hands, he will focus on his old friend instead.

( But a flying keyblade comes through his field of view, and he almost expects to hear a soft voice and an apology follow )

“Axel!” Lea hears his name being called, an enthusiastically waving hand beckoning him over. He drags himself over to where Xion and Roxas are with an exaggerated groan—can’t seem too enthusiastic, after all. Not that he can really pretend like he doesn’t care, given how emotional he’s been to be with them again.

“And what are you two punks up to today?” Though, by observing the two of them, he can kind of have a guess at what they want him for.

“We’re sparing! We want to see whose improved the most.” He’s pretty sure that Roxas having an extra keyblade might give him some kind of ( unfair ) advantage; but then he remembers the base of Xion’s being and the stunts she’s been pulling lately. He’s not really going to be surprised if she has a few other secrets up her sleeve.

“Uh-huh. Okay. And what do you need me for?” Seriously,  this doesn’t strike him as something that needs his involvement, but he guesses they’re on a completely different page than he is.

“He refuses to get involved.” Roxas gestures to where Isa has been the entire time, apparently. “Just call the winner of the match.”

“That’s easy enough.” He waves them off before walking over to join his friend, gaze focused on the two spar while Lea sits next to him. “You okay?” He speaks lowly, just enough to be heard by the other.

“I would rather not watch them fight.” He winces, he can’t really blame him for that, after all he’s been through; settles to try and be a comforting presence while trying to keep up with what the duo is doing.

They’re pretty evenly matched, though that is not really a surprise. Xion had been meant to match Roxas in her original conception, after all; why would that not hold true, even now. He watches her cycle through different abilities in the same vein that Roxas might chose to swap keyblades— the playing field stays fair for them, regardless.

A brief moment where Lunatic forms in her hands and Xion flinches when Ethereal Blades is summoned in her panic to change; not-Oblivion replaces it quickly as she swings it forward— tosses it at Roxas to force him backwards, for good measure. Lea can tell there’s something off, though; they are clearly trying to do something other than just fight, he knows them and their stunts well enough by now.

What exactly they are up to, however, he could not tell. He stays quiet and just watches since they don’t look they’re going to be done sparing anytime soon ( he’s pretty sure Isa has fallen asleep on his arm, actually; and if he wasn’t supposed to be watching the kids, he would be tempted to do the same ).

It’s brief and he almost misses it,  the flickering formation of a second keyblade in her hand. Imperfect, still weak, barely capable of staying stable for a few minutes before it shatters, but it exists— Lea can tell this is what they had been waiting for without a doubt, because the two of them cease fighting and look excitedly in his direction. He shoots a double thumbs up at them because he can’t do much else without jostling Isa and also because he’s speechless and doesn’t know how else to react, honestly. He doesn’t know how that works but that’s the normal for them, really; they’re not simple at all, but complicated.

Complicated, but happy.

#kh axel #lea #xion #roxas #sea salt trio #technically speaking anyways #kh #kh3 spoilers #kh spoilers #* mine #* zhi writes

[wanderingstoryteller]

New Elite Specs: My Thoughts

Another weekend, another demo! There’s no new lore to overanalyze, unfortunately, but we did get access to the new Elite Specializations. And I, naturally, spent the whole weekend fooling around with them. 

Now, as someone who traditionally sucks at PvP... this was a tough time for me. I spent the past three days being repeatedly punched, stabbed, shot, burned, kicked, and... whatever it is Mirages do. But I suffered bravely through all of it, for you, my dear followers. So that I might bring you my firsthand thoughts on the new specs. 

I’m not exactly an expert on these things (I’m more of a lore guy), but I did throw a lot of time into the demo, and spent at least a couple hours on every class. If you were indisposed this weekend, you might find these hot takes useful. Without further ado... 

Do you enjoy being delightfully confused? Wondrously confounded? Kicking someone’s ass without having any idea how you pulled it off? Then good news, friend -- The Weaver is the class for you!

With the attunement system, Elementalists like myself have always had a ridiculous number of skills. Now, with the addition of a sword and the ability to mix and match different elements, Arenanet’s added about two dozen more. Want a crazy amount of damage? Use Fire and Air skills at the same time! Want to be a nigh-unkillable tank instead? Mix Earth and Water, baby! This is the Elementalist on steroids, with even more versatility than the base class.

I only played for a few hours, and didn’t even scratch the surface of what the Weaver can do. I leaned hard into the “nigh-unkillable tank” option, and the end result is a class that just Will. Not. Die. And I’m not even playing it properly -- I’m just throwing out random spells and hoping I don’t get crushed. In the hands of someone that actually knows how to play PvP, this thing will be a holy terror. 

Of all the new specs, this is the one I’m most excited to play in the open world. The possibilities are endless, and I really, really love my new sword. 

The Deadeye, it turns out, wasn’t nearly as OP as everyone said it would be. While the idea of a Thief getting a long-range sniper rifle might be pretty scary on paper, remember that it’s only effective when it’s used at long range. The rifle’s best abilities require you to be immobile. Once the enemy closes the ground and you’re forced to move, you sacrifice all that raw damage and become just another glass-cannon Thief.

That doesn’t mean the Deadeye’s not dangerous, though -- not if you’re thinking a few steps ahead. After experimenting a bit, I realized that the Deadeye excels at hit and run tactics. Seek out a 1v1 between evenly-matched players and shoot the enemy in the back. Capture an unguarded point and lay in wait for the first unsuspecting victim that tries to reclaim it. Bring someone down with the burst damage and run like hell... leaving a Needle Trap behind for your victim’s overeager teammates.

All the mobility of a Thief, now with an absurdly long-range weapon. Deadeyes aren’t invincible (especially once you start to plan around them), but it’s a lethal combination once you figure out some clever ways to exploit these advantages. More importantly, though, it’s fun. Of all the Specs they released, this one might just be my favorite. 

So... if the Deadeye isn’t the most OP thing since sliced bread, the question remains: “What is?” To answer that query, please put your hands together for the bane of my existence this past weekend... The Holosmith.

The Holosmith is, to put it simply, a living can of Red Bull that’s been chugging twelve-packs of Sunny D. Fight one head-on, and you’ll be locked into a neverending chain of pulls and knockbacks, being kicked helplessly from one end of the arena to another while receiving absurb amounts of damage. Now, this is supposed to have drawbacks -- if a Holosmith goes on like this for too long, they’ll get overloaded and eventually start doing damage to themselves. But trust me, you’ll be dead long before that becomes a problem for them.

It takes a while to figure out this class, because like all things Engineer, it’s pretty complicated. But once you do, you’ll be nigh unstoppable. Most encounters will be over quickly thanks to the front-loaded burst damage, but if the battle drags on, Holosmiths bring plenty of survivability to the table. Utility skills like Spectrum Shield and Hardlight Arena make Holosmiths hard to take out in an even fight. 

Enjoy it while you can, guys, because as awesome as the Holosmith is, it’ll be nerfed into the ground within a matter of weeks. 

The Scourge was... I’m honestly not sure what I think, actually. Necromancers got a lot of cool toys to play with this expansion -- not just a torch, but an entirely new set of skills that replaces the old Life Force bar. Now you channel Life Force to summon Shades, stationary ghosts that damage enemies and shield allies.

On one hand, their ability to support and sustain their team allows the Scourge to dominate a teamfight. A good Scourge can give their allies the survivability they need to turn the tide in the team’s favor. Problem is, they’re pretty useless outside that one specific niche. 

Scourges can be pretty intimidating, sure. Nobody wants to enter the Scourge’s AoE Funhouse of Doom... until they realize that Scourges still rely mainly on conditions to deal damage, and the new batch of Specs is filled with condition cleansing. Then you start getting dunked on by an entire team of Spellbreakers. Worst part? Because you can’t use your Life Force as a secondary health bar, those Spellbreakers will tear through you like paper. 

I feel like Scourge is something I’d have more fun toying with in PvE. Like the Druid before it, the Scourge is designed to fit into a support role, and those don’t have much of a place in structured PvP. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Quick: what’s the coolest thing you can do with a shortbow? If your answer was “Fire a hail of burning arrows through tiny portals that strike your foes at various angles”, you are not only correct, but also a fan of The Renegade. 

The new Revenant Spec is very exciting for lore nerds such as myself. Channeling of the spirit of Kalla Scorchrazor, legendary charr war hero, you gain Kalla’s incredible sharpshooting abilities... and the ability to summon members of her warband when you’re in a jam. Unsurprisingly, it’s pretty difficult to master, and I certainly didn’t come anywhere close while I was playing. But I did run into some decent Renegades during the demo, and they were able to deal a lot of damage, very quickly. 

This is another one of those Specs I can’t wait to try out in PvE. I couldn’t do much with it in the arena, but in a less stressful environment, I feel like it’ll be incredible. 

I hope you brought a good book, because The Firebrand is about to get literate on your asses. Remember that Tome mechanic the Guardians had way back at launch? Well, it’s back, and just as awesome as you remembered. Massive AoE heals and conditions can be pumped out in the blink of an eye. 

Like the Scourge, Firebrands are excellent in teamfights, putting pressure on the entire enemy team while supporting their own. But unlike the Scourge, the Firebrand still retains the tools that have served it well in PvP before -- namely, its uncanny ability to tank anything you throw at it. Even when they’re caught in a bad situation, a well-built Firebrand can survive, and that’ll make them a common sight in this game mode. 

Personally, I can’t wait to use the Firebrand in World vs World. In the midst of a massive zerg, it can probably do some absurd things.

For reasons I’ve never really understood, some Ranger players really, really want a Spec that lets them play without a pet. While I don’t get the logic -- aren’t pets the main draw of the Ranger? -- Arenanet, apparently, does, and they’ve listened to your feedback. Now, with the addition of The Soubeast,  Rangers don’t just play without their pets -- you merge with them, Voltron-style.

Indeed, Arenanet has taken animal cruelty to the next level, as you eat your beloved sidekick to absorb their power. This’ll definitely be a welcome addition in PvP, where pets are constantly running headfirst into massive AoE attacks and getting knocked quickly out of the fight. 

Like the Weaver, I didn’t really know what I’m doing while I was playing the Soubeast, so I can’t really say anything about its place in the meta or stuff like that. But I do know that my enemies kept breaking under my dagger-waving onslaught, so I figure I must be doing something right. 

The Mirage is the Mesmer in its purest form. They don’t do fair fights -- they overcome their obstacles by tricking, confounding and generally irritating the hell out of them until they give up and leave. Mirages are masters of this. Their new powers help them blend in with their clones, hiding in plain sight while they beat on their enemies. Do you want to bring her down with burst damage? Choose wisely, then, because there’s a one-in-four chance that you’ll unload your best abilities on the wrong target altogether. 

Even though Mesmer is the class I’m least familiar with, I had a surprising amount of success with the Mirage. I think it has to do with me taking the clone gimmick as far as I possibly could. I didn’t just summon clones -- I tried to mimic their behavior, too. AIs in this game are pretty simplistic, and it’s pretty easy to figure out which Mirage is the real one when only three of them are following the simplistic movement and attack patterns. To really blend in, you’ve got to commit to the role and act as much like a clone as possible. Otherwise, you’ll be identified almost immediately, and Mirages don’t survive for very long under direct fire. 

Even so, the sheer amount of AoE can make things very difficult for you. With all the Firebrands and Holosmiths running around, clones will die almost as fast as you can summon them... which, as you might imagine, makes blending in with them pretty difficult. Once it gets buffed a little, though, I think PvPers will appreciate its unique fighting style.

It’s no secret that in the past couple seasons of PvP, condition damage has ruled the meta. But now, ladies and gentlemen, burst damage has returned, and it is through The Spellbreaker that it has reclaimed its rightful throne. 

Spellbreakers, on paper, are simple: they hate magic. All magic. And they’re all about purging magic from allies and enemies -- buffs and debuffs alike. The days of stacking a bunch of Might on yourself and running roughshod over your enemies are over. Under the watchful eye of the Spellbreaker, they’ll make sure both sides are fighting with nothing but their raw stats, as nature intended. 

This Spec is an odd little duckling, because on its own, it’s not really overpowered in and of itself. It is, however, uncannily good at countering builds that are. Spellbreakers are the only class I saw regularly standing up to Holosmiths, stunning them to take away their momentum or stripping away boons they rely on to survive in a prolonged fight. And as for the aforementioned condition builds? Shut down before they could even get rolling. 

However the meta might develop in Path of Fire, I’m dead certain Spellbreakers will be a key component. They’re set to be the superpredators of the meta ecosystem, keeping all the traditionally overpowered builds in check to maintain a level of balance. If you’re a big PvPer, you may want to invest in this guy. 

So... those are my thoughts. What did you guys think about the new batch of Elite Specs? I’m interesting in hearing from the rest of you guys, especially if, unlike me, you actually know something about this buildcraft stuff. As usual, feel free to send me asks or reblog with your own opinions. 

Whatever you think, I hope you enjoyed the demo as much as I did. <3

#the most important thing i learned this weekend? #i'm not very good at pvp =P #guild wars 2 #path of fire #elite specializations #pof demo

[kendrixtermina]

Baby Reacts to “Voltron Season 3″

SPOILERS

Episode 1

So That's Zarkon without his helmet

It seems that a timeskip has taken place and that everyone has been taking up Shiro's absence with a stiff upper lip

Alluras 1000 yard state

Note how when everyone mentions how important meeting Shiro was to them, Keith again doesn't explain about their earlier meeting

So the BoM guys just jump out. Yep, yep, I can see Keith being related to some of them.

Seems like the Paladins and the BoM are fully allies now, they interact with Kolivan rather casually here

So hunks claw thing can attack defensively, too!

Interesting how we get to see this whole bunch of Galra & their range of features, something of their society

act merciful then reassign him to space siberia. That's one establishing character moment right there.

But one interesting thing here is that while he's sneaky and manipulative he IS a fighter.

Keith is not the world's most diplomatic person but what he's saying IS the truth

Episode 2

I guess a theme of this episode seems to be that the characters are all capable of more than their straightfoward designated 1D roles. 

It's not just lance they were all sorta identified with their niches.

Hunk loving Yellow so much is so adorabs tho

Reminds me of this thing in guilty crown where a once wimpy character was inspired to „become“ a more confident one

Quirky miniboss squad has varied designs.Lotor has such a punchable face

Episode 3

So they go in when they can barely fly... They were fairly ragtag when Shiro took over tho – It wasn't TOOO bad thinking from Keith, he thought of placing the tracer

So Lotor's a genius pilot, too. They even THINK similarly „Don't waste the enemy's time of weakness.“

Again the formation gag

Allura is REALLY not good at this

So there is a „Voltron Feeling“, intersting

I feel ya so much Keith. I can't into group activities either.

Thing is he is actually a good planner he can even bark out orders well but he's used to risking & utilizing only himself with no further consquences.

I just hope the discourse squad isn't gonna hate on him too much, like, he said he wasn't cut out for it he's improvising as best as he can

There's a little Zethrid in all of us

Lance has this complex of not having a special role, but, he's kinda the ~Versatile~ guy, stepping into whatever roles are needed (just like water flows & changes shape)

& right here he's trying hard to be the glue

It's sort of a reversion because usually it's the charismatic guy who's the leader and the prioritize-the-mission guy who is number two (See Kirk & Spock)

Still I would like to stress that what Keith's doing here is his consistent trait of prioritizing the objective

I did not expect Allura to get this deep character moment but it makes sense

I wonder what we can infer from this about lance; Blue remains mysterious

They're all getting into it~

Oh Transformation sequence, how I missed thee

„I'm a leg“ Yeah now we know we've seen Allura without her mask

I must admit I got a mild case of the feels at this point

Opportunity, heh? He's got a plan. Probably capturing it for himself

Ep 4

Well this one cuts to the chase right away. Not much downtime this season.

Again I didn't expect Allura to get the focus this season.

Not having Shiro as a co-leader is srly fraying her nerves & making her feel the burden of her task. From the beginning she was always characterized as somewhere being an ordinary girl put portraying strenght because of the burden of her father's legacy – When you think about it, she is so, so stranded & this possibility is gonna compromise her bigtime

It's kinda like the plot of  „The Doctor's Wife“

There comes another favorite, the negative space wedgie

I like it when the technobabble includes references to how they are actually determining things („Gravity isn't being diverted“ etc. )

Its like a magic Event horizon!

Poor Coran what has he done to deserve this

Aaand the creepy abandoned ship trope! Delightfully Star Trek Esque

Aaand the apocalyptic log trope

Aaand the Paralel Universe! They're sampling all of TOS here

That's it I'm officially christening this episove Vol Trek

Yep, it's the Mirror Universe! Please tell me Mirror Keith has a beard

Im glad I know enough to catch the „Sven“ reference

I did not expect Alternate Realities to actually show up

I wonder, was there some historical crossroads where Alfor makes the deal with the Devil rather than Zarkon? Are we gonna meet Good!Lotor as this 'verses Allura?

And lool the alternate Sentries

Im SO LOVING THIS EPISODE I CANT EVEN

It's not Alfor, it's ALLURA who's alternate Zarkon? That's gonna screw with her head

Her whole Arc in season 2 was growing out of the black & white Mindset that Zarkon's betrayal left her in (ie, realizing the BoM and Keith are good, finding out the evil Haggar is Altean) but this takes „For Want Of A Nail“ even further

Didn't we see that blue haired altean techie in the background in one of the black lion's flashbacks?

Aaaand we're getting more detail on what Voltron even is

A VOIDSHIP now we're doing Doctor who, too?

Are they not evil or is Allura just not getting it? Poor girl she's in for a schock especially since the Galra homeworld was supposedly destroyed – Did Zarkon act out of revenge, too?

Aww Slav has faith in them... kind of.

UGH They are WORSE than Zarkon because they have more advanced technology

OOHHHH THIS IS GOOD THIS IS GOOD THIS IS SO GOOD

Also Mindfuckey

Do they have their own BoM counterpart, too?

I did not expect this how did they do so much in so little time

Aww the Space Mice hugging each other :(

Ah and now Sven is gonna die for a continuity joke

Any moment now, they're gonna say „He was rather like our Mister Spock.“

Iwho knew Slav could be cool?

It's also worth mentioning that Keith kickied lots of butt in this ep

Lotor's plan kind of allmost got his whole universe invaded by brainwashing dimension hoppers tho

So it WAS a trap

Damn Lotor's manipulative. He knew this would get Allura.

Ep 5

A tank? Are we now going Pokemon? Or possibly Evangelion?

This started slow but now it keeps sucker-punching us

SHIRO and he's got Hermit Hair.

OOOH Not AgAIN This must be so retraumatitzing for him

We've gone F.E.A.R. As it would seem.

No, It's fucking LAIN

Ohh I do love symbolic mindfuck sequences

He's supposed to look all ragged but he's so hot with this hair lenght

Everything about the cinematography here is just perfect

So there's Haggar-

Kuwagamon is that you?

Interesting perspective with Lotor's faction & the rest

I just noticed that Lotor does, just slightly, have fangs.

Ohh I see Shiro's PoV is happening in parallel.. they were so close!

Shiro is badass as usual

Ohh Lotor, do I sense daddy issues? Or maybe just a drive to prove himself.

Haggar's right tho, with all his ideas & somewhat obsessive/ singleminded tendencies he's actually a lot more like his father than his demeanor suggests.

Again Paralellism to Allura & Keith trying to fill the shoes of Alfor and Shiro respectively

So in the end Shiro found THEM before they found HIM

Still, a bit anticlimatic; I'd expected more of a finale than just „The lion senses him“ & no explanation for what happened, or will that be filled in later?

Alien Ramen.

So... that didn't contain what I think it would & contained lots of stuff I didn't see coming. In a way it was a huge break from the format, really nonstop plot instead of the previous slower pacing & focus on character interactions.

I would have expected the revelations from season 2 to play more of a role (Keith's origin, Allura's newfound magical capabilities, who or what is Haggar)

I mean it makes sense because it's an exceptional situation with Shiro being gone & Lotor hot on their tails. I wonder what season 4 is gonna be like, thankfully it might be there soon.

It's been a bit since we had a Hunk or Pidge episode & I was looking forward to less utilized interactions such as Shiro with Lance & Hunk or a episode where Pidge & Keith go on a mission together

IDK there's so many dangling plot threads and now there's MORE but even so most of this was  good writing when seen for itself.

There wasn't a lot of Pidge content which isn't that bad given that she got to be showstealingly hypercompetent in the last two seasons but they better give us a Hunk episode in October.

Ep 6

Ahh, Sharpshooter

Let us appreciate Keith's casual massacre skills. He tough

Cool thinking Lance!

So Allura's weapon is a flowy gymnastic ribbons thingy... kinda like a shinier version of that whip Zarkon's so fond of tho

I'm glad we got to see her kick butt with it before handing the Blue Lion back to lance

This fight scene well utilizes the bunch

AH now there's explanations, or at least an aknowledgement of a need for one. And again we see that Keith & Shiro sort of have a special confidence between them. Shiro allows himself to sound audibly distraught here. He looks to weird in such casual clothes, too. We never saw his pajamas in ep 2 so I guess now we know.

At which point during these last few eps did Keith acquire those bags under his eyes? Is it me or does he seem a lot more in control? Or perhaps its just the familiarity.

That moment at the end tho, aww. No one minds saving you, Shiro, because they all LOVE YOU TO BITS, especially Keith.

Ahhh I wanted him to keep the hair. But I guess he is the proper sort/ feel a bit less like a plant when he's clean-shaven. Yes bby tell them how proud you are.

Pidge and Hunk talk engineering why Lance makes a face in the background <3 All the nerd conversations plz

No. No. NOOO LANCE WHAT ARE YOU SAYING

It shows how much both have matured but, NO. I did not see that coming ouch nor did that conondrum occur to me. Hence I see why Shiro coming back was not the final climax

That moment when Shiro & Keith talk at the same time out of habit tho.

What's going on THERE? Sabotage by Haggar?

I didn't think they could wrap much up but it's going fast.

...Keith has always been quick to just pack up & withdraw hasn't he? I guess that quote about Alfor becomes relevant again here.  Aaand another plot twist why do I even bother with the pause button. How's this even gonna continue, is Shiro just gonna do mission control from now on? I'm gonna miss Keith doing Keith stunts if he's gonna be tied up as the boss man.

Even so, the teleport question is still no answered.

Was Shiro Ayanami'd somehow? (replaced by a clone or something)

I was beginning to think they couldn't wrap up THAT much in just 2 episodes but they seem to have taken this as a challenge. T'is a rolacoaster.

Hey isn't that the guy from the first episode? In any case you almost have to sympathize with that random Galra comander.  Poor bastard. Two invading parties. +Is there gonna be a confrontation now? Keith Kogane and the Halfblood Prince. Ohh this buildup of epic music cant be good

the four way battle with the generals was interesting/ pretty cool like theres one for each of them to smash. Are they setting up miss scaultrite thief for a high heel face turne? I hope not that would kind of be trite.Some are saying she might be part of his long-lot family, but wasn’t Keith’s mom supposed to have been with Marmorites instead of the Empire? 

Keith PLUS mission control Shiro would seem to be its wholly new desaster to adjust to. Keith did not ask for nor deserve this you can tell he hates every minute of it.

Ep 7

At this point its srly weird how the opening is still the same, especially after they set up all those elemental associations for everyone's original lions.

So lotors mom WAS altean but it wasn't Haggar herself as far as I can tell.

I'm smelling a gendo ikari type backstory here but i hope theyll be creative about whatever they do. And ooh, allura's parents in the backround her mom looks just like her.

There goes my headcanon that the original green paladin was olkari. But also ooh backstory.

But hey I think Pidge's predecessor was also a girl? And Lance's is... also very obvious. Alchemy!

Oh wait it is Haggar, and that WAS, indeed, the Galra homeworld. Classic „overdid the black magic“ backstory & went bonkers backstory Though Zarkon seemed to be lowkey authoritarian & obsessed with destructive potential well before he went bananas. I suppose the series has stuck to classic tropes.

Interesting choice to top it off with the backstory & let that be the twist/ finale with the character arcs themselves being left dangling – Last we saw of Keith, it seemed like whatever sense he had that he was getting the hang of it had just kinda crumbled away again and he seems so miserable, like, glancing away even at the end of the conversaton with little resembling a resolution.

And we still don't know what actually happened to Shiro. Did we even see how Zarkon got his scar? 

Also, did our Evil Overlord Couple make Lotor before or after they turned into zombies? 

#voltron #voltron legendary defender #keith #shiro #hunk #lance #pidge #zarkon #haggar #voltron spoilers

[horselesbian]

Analysis of the Roles of Voltron's Paladins

So, I haven’t seen anyone do this yet, so I’m going to. Let’s start from the bottom and work our way up, in a physical sense. Essentially, the legs, Hunk and Lance. They’re the support, literally. When it comes to emotional support, Hunk is there for you. You feeling down, Hunk already has consolatory cookies baked and ready to go, he’ll help you through your problems and make you feel better while doing so. Lance is moral support. Even when everything seems its worst, Lance is somehow cheery, making you feel something other than despair. He’s got you, even if he doesn’t really mean to. And in battle, too, they’re support. Hunk is the heavy fire, taking care of the bulk of things, like a tank player in a MMO. Lance said it himself, he’s a sharpshooter, to keep with the MMO comparison, he’s the sniper player. Then the arms, Keith and Pidge, they’re the ones who get things done. Keith is always doing something, and it’s generally throwing the punches, so to speak. He gets the physical part of things done. Pidge is the smaller of the two, getting the little things done, running about and making sure all the details are right while Keith is out there throwing the punches. Again, their battle roles also follow this. Keith has a sword, it’s not like a dagger, but it’s not a gun, either. It’s up close, but still hard hitting and not super up close. With Pidge, they’ve got their little taser thing, they’ve got to be within arm’s reach, and since they’re like four feet tall, that’s not that far off. But, at the same time, it’s a grappling hook, somehow. It helps them with running around and getting the details done. And finally, there’s Shiro, the head. His role is a little bit more and less clear cut. He’s the head, yeah, but there’s also the fact that I don’t know anything about how he interacts with his bayard to add details to my analysis. In all likelihood, he’s the leader, he makes sure things are getting done and they’re getting done where, when, and how they need to get done. He’s essential, and needs to keep a level head and be quick to make decisions in a pinch, because the rest of Voltron is going to follow his orders. His weapon is his space hand, which I honestly think doesn’t really suit his role as I’ve analyzed it? It puts him too close to everything, he may have the skill to be there, but it’s not where he’s meant to be, as the literal head of Voltron. From what we’ve seen of the black paladin’s bayard, though, it seems like the form it takes is generally swords, though that may just be how Zarkon is as the head of Voltron? Or maybe he never truly filled the role properly, or his current self can’t fill the role properly, since he was rejected by the black lion in preference for Shiro. Anyway, Shiro is a bit harder, because we haven’t really seen him interact with his bayard as a weapon yet, but his role is more clear cut since there is only one head of Voltron, and we all know Shiro is a distinct leader character. EDIT: To further emphasize the Shiro part and how his hand doesn't fit with his role, there's the fact that it's a foreign object to his body, put there against his will by his enemies while unrightfully detained and forced to fight in a gross arena. He didn't decide to take up his own hand as a weapon, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't really know how it works. It's there, and he's using it, but who knows if he's doing it properly, or even if there's consequences to using it nobody knows yet.

#voltron #takashi shirogane #shiro #keith kogane #lance mcclain #pidge gunderson #hunk garrett #the boys

[velkynkarma]

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

[multi-muse-transect]

A Father’s Sacrifice

AU: There is still light in her.....Ezra knows it. Even Rey. As always, Mira Wren Bridger belongs to @meldy-arts

Mira Wren Bridger or now at least, Mira Ren, watches the window as star-destroyers and other ships fly past her. The ship she is in is the Chimaera, Thrawn’s flagship. Its been a month since her and Rey’s fight back at the base, she has recovered but her mother’s death haunts her. She didn’t save her mother...She wished that she held her temper in and just simply let go. The door behind her opens to reveal Grand Admiral/Director Thrawn himself. Mira looks at Thrawn underneath her mask as he enters the room causing her to take it off and turn to him.

“Sir.” Mira nodded. She still considers herself a soldier not a high ranking officer or commander. Something that Snoke doesn’t seem to like much but she obeys regardless.

“Interesting that you still call me sir despite your rank being obviously higher than mine.” Thrawn commented intrigued by Mira’s still soldier-like attitude.

“I’m still a soldier not a sith lord. Sir.” Mira replied.

“Aren’t we all soldiers to the First Order?” The Chiss countered.

“Well I guess soldiers come in different forms whether they be command or infantry. What brings you here to my room?”  Mira asks him.

“The supreme leader told me to tell you that we are mounting an assault on Coruscant. Even after the destruction of Starkiller base. Its a setback but the Resistance has only scratched the surface of the First Order. Now that their fleet has been destroyed, it its time to strike back.” Thrawn informed.

“Their victory will become their undoing then. Any news.....On the girl?” Mira asks him.

“Not known but she may have reached Skywalker alongside Solo.... But the Resistance is unpredictable to a degree and we must pay attention to them after what they’ve done.” He suggested.

“Leave them to me.” Mira added.

“No, no. The rest of the First Order can handle them. You shall be with the Knights of Ren in the assault of Corusant.” Thrawn said as Mira nods. He leaves the room with Mira following him. Mira activates her hologram disk which activates with Mira kneeling in front of it.

“Supreme leader.....” Mira greeted.

“I see you’ve heard news of our assault on Corusant, you and the Knights of Ren shall spearhead the attack on the capitol. Talon Ren will be the leader.” Snoke informed.

“Yes sir. By your teachings we shall succeed.....But what about the Resistance?” She asks.

“Our fleet led by general Hux and the super commandos shall seal their fate. The girl and Ben Solo has fled with Skywalker too...” Snoke replied.

“Then Resistance is truly dead. Your will shall be done sir.”  Mira assured.

“Your training hasn’t begun but you can apply skills to this mission. You shall bring an end to the senate truly.” The alien disappears before Mira rises. 

The city of Corusant is on panic mode right now. Hosnian Prime was destroyed by the First Order, a threat they only saw as a small band of fanatics who still believed in the empire. Politicians have either suggested to surrender to them or fight them but it remains divided. It makes sleeping uneasy, especially how night is open for anything. Watching over the planet is another republic fleet. They pick up something on radar much to their fear.

“Sir, we’ve picked up a large mass of contacts breaching the Corusant alert zone!” He notified his superior causing him to notice it.

“Go to condition one emergency! Alert the fleet!” The superior replied. Another soldier turns to him.

“Sir, First Order ships emerging from hyper-space! Its an invasion!” Soon a swarm of TIE fighters fly towards them as they start firing at the fleet decreasing their shields at a dramatic rate. 

“Sir, what do we do?!” The soldier asks as he looks at the incoming star destroyer in a humiliated face.

“.....Organa was right.” He is blasted away by an incoming fire. Flying towards the planet is an imperial shuttle drop-ship and flies among the TIE fighters. The citizens in the market are in panic as soldiers head out of their posts to open fire on them before the city suddenly goes dark. The lead soldier breathes in fear and looks around for a moment.....

Suddenly, they hear the shuttle land but they can’t see the lights. The crowd goes silent.....Suddenly, an orange lightsaber ignites and lights up the scene illuminating the place like a car with a mad driver behind it. Standing in front of them is Mira in her black cloak with mask resembling Rook Kast’s and visors glowing yellow in the dark. The soldier’s eyes widen in fear alongside his team.

“OPEN FIRE!” He ordered before Mira blocks the shots with the Knights of Ren following her. Mira uses the force to lift a soldier as the sharpshooter shoots him midair. She continues to block the shots and impales a soldier in the chest right before using the force take away their guns. A soldier aims a pistol at Mira’s head causing her to swing her saber at his stomach which slices him in half. Another fires his pistol at her but she uses the force to stop it then fires it back at him then force chokes one and slams him against a barrel of spices. A soldier continues firing at her but she simply decapitates him. 

Mira breathes heavily as the crowd mutters in the dark before she raises her lightsaber to reveal their scared look on there faces. The Knights of Ren continue their way into the city as stormtroopers round up civilians with Mira passing by. A young boy smacks a stormtrooper’s gun off his hand causing the trooper to pull out his sidearm as Mira quickly notices causing her to slice his weapon in half.

“You won’t be killing civilians around me soldier. Stand down.” Mira ordered as the stormtrooper looks at her before holstering his weapon. She helps the boy and gives him a pat on the shoulder before walking away. They overlook the now the occupied city of Corusant as Mira breathes it in then takes off her helmet to take it all in.

Ezra watches the TV in horror alongside Rey, Ben and Luke. Corusant has fallen into First Order hands.....Luckily, the Resistance has moved to Lothal after what happened. The First Order is expecting an empty base. But that won’t save them for long. Rey looks in sadness at the screen at what her girlfriend had become....But can feel her pain and sadness. Luke can sense it so can Ezra too.....

“She’s still there. Deep down inside her. There is still hope.”Luke said to Ezra as he turns to him. He remembers Sabine....She tried her best to talk to Mira. But he knew it was an accident. He can sense the guilt within his daughter, how she blames herself for falling into a trap.. 

“I can talk to her.” Rey suggested causing Ezra and Luke to turn around. 

“We were together once and I can talk to her.” She continued. Luke places his hands on Rey’s shoulders.

“Rey, I know how much you love her but she needs her father to talk to her. She believes she doesn’t deserve to be forgiven.This is her family’s matter.” Luke implored before Rey lets go and walks up to Ezra. 

“Mr. Bridger please!” Rey pleaded. Ezra hangs his eyes and looks at Rey for a moment....He sighs.

“Fine, but stick with me though. Mira is dangerous as of now and she’ll probably anticipate our plan.” 

Mira walks in the streets of the city and looks at the stores at night. People avoid her out of fear which is fine by her, she deserves to be alone after what she did. She can’t find forgiveness in herself. She doesn’t deserve it. Mira’s stomach grumbles causing her to turn to Dex’s diner. The Knights of Ren rookie feels a tap from behind her causing her to turn around to look down on a little boy, he appears to be homeless because of his rags. He reaches his hand out to her if she has anything.

She looks at him underneath her helmet so she checks her pocket and pulls out nine-hundred credits causing the boy to gasp in shock with Mira smiling. The boy takes it and runs off before Mira enters the diner. The patrons all turn to her in silence including Dex. Mira sighs then sits on a table and waits. A waitress droid arrives then hands her the menu.

“Thank you.” Mira thanked in her altered voice. She takes off her helmet revealing her face so she can read it clearly. Dex saw what she did outside so she gives the girl some slack. Unlike the other First Order members, she seems very human and not like a pompous jerk like the rest of them. Dex walks towards her.

“So what brings you here? First Order food ain’t good enough?” Dex asks.

“No, I was just hungry so I decided to find the nearest restaurant after a long day of patrolling for any criminals or insurrection against the supreme leader.” Mira explained.

“So you consider yourself a cop?” Dex replied.

“Funny, I was basically a cop before I ended up joining the Knights of Ren. First Order Rescue and Intelligence.” Mira explained with pride in her voice. Dex’s eyes widen.

“I heard about them. Specialize in hostage rescue, liberating places and even high risk missions. Best of the First Order.” 

“And I was.” She added with a small smile.

“So what made you join the Knights of Ren? By the looks of things, you’re force sensitive cause of the lightsaber you’re carrying.” He asks again.

“......A long story that I don’t want to go into.” Mira said. A disheveled-looking man enters the diner as Mira reads his mind....He’s a drug dealer. He’s making a deal with a Rodian in a booth in front of her. Mira leans to Dex.

“The man in the booth in front of me is making a deal with the Rodian.” Mira whispered. Dex glares at them.

“You don’t say....” Dex growled and walks towards the two. The man looks at Dex.

“Yeah we’d like the-”

“My Knights of Ren friend over there told me you’re selling the good stuff. Look punk, this isn’t some backwater bar. Get out of here before I call the troopers.” Dex warned. 

“Knights of Ren-Oh shit....” The Rodian cursed and looks at Mira. He looks back at Dex then her and back at Dex......The alien pulls out a blaster alongside his friend as he grabs Dex in a choke hold. Mira puts on her helmet then whips out her lightsaber. People in the diner panic as Mira gets up with the two scared.

“Sir, there are kids in the diner. Please don’t make me do this.” Mira warned. The man aims his DH-17 blaster pistol at Mira.....Before turning his attention to a child sitting in the counter. He then switches his aim to him but Mira uses the force to sway his arm and hit the menu board. The Rodian aims his blaster at Dex’s head. The two step out of the diner as Mira continues stand guard with her lightsaber in hand. She heads out with them.

“Back off! We’re not scared to off his sorry ass!” The Rodian warned. Mira looks back at the diner as the parents in there are covering their children’s eyes. She looks back at them as the people in the sidewalk watch in fear. Mira force pulls the Rodian’s accomplice’s gun which flies off as she walks up to him and punches him in the stomach. Dex elbows the Rodian’s stomach causing him to let go of him as he fires at Dex who avoids the shots with Mira pulling out her lightsaber again. He fires three shots at Mira, all of whom miss since she deflected most of them right before avoiding another shot to headbutt the Rodian in the face and tripping him. She aims her lightsaber at his neck as stormtroopers arrive at the scene. Mira deactivates her lightsaber and holsters it.

“MAMMA!” Mira quickly turns to see that the Rodian hit a mother who was defending her child. Rage pents up within her as the memories come back....Her mother on the ground dead by her own hands as an accident. How she fell to the dark side so easily..... 

“.....HOLD HIM.” She ordered before the troopers force the Rodian up. Mira reactivates her lightsaber then kills him with a swift slice to the chest. Little does she know, Ezra and Rey are watching cloaked among the crowd of people.

Mira walks in the slums continuing her patrol once more after another nap. Most of the degenerates there are behaving well so that means good news. Unlike the other Knights of Ren who focus on meditation and all sorts of things like worshiping Vader or any dark side user. Last time she attended one of those rituals, she swore she met Darth Revan and Bane in a vision. She calls in a speeder taxi which arrives then enters it. The driver is beyond scared right now but she doesn’t care, she just wants to go home. 

“Residential.” Mira explained before the driver flies off. The speeder rises and reveals the skylines of the city. Its like down there is hell and up here is heaven. Mira looks to the window to see the skywatch park where couples come there to see the view. She imagines herself with Rey, how their life could have been.....How it would have been so easy for her to join her. The speeder soon stops at the apartments with Mira getting out. It flies away with Mira still looking at the city. Her vision shifts to a clearer city as she can tell that someone is contacting her through the force. 

“Its beautiful isn’t it?” Sabine asks her as she joins with Mira watching the city. Mira continues to watch.

“Yeah....It is.” Mira replied.

“That is all going to change when the First Order arrives.” She said as Mira looks down for a moment.

“I don’t want things to change....” The Mandolorian muttered.

“They already have Mira....You have made me so proud.” Sabine replied causing Mira to turn around in confusion since Sabine is proud of her.

“But I killed you....I killed Mira Wren Bridger also. How can you be proud of a person like me?” Mira asks her.

“Because I know deep down inside that you’re the girl Ezra and I raised despite us not being there. Like I said before, Rey told us about you. How you were different from the others. How you show compassion and care for the people of Nima outpost. How you save people when you were an agent. You’re still my little girl.” Sabine smiled. Mira’s eyes widen underneath her helmet then turn to understanding.

“I need you to forgive yourself, can you do that for me?” She asks with her face turning serious.

“I....I think I can....” Mira answered feeling the light within her. Sabine smiles again with her arms crossed.

“Remember Mira, without hope.....we have nothing.” Sabine places her hand on Mira’s face plate of her helmet and smiles before vanishing. Mira finds herself standing in front of the entrance.....A cloaked figure stands in front of her. The figure removes her cloak revealing herself to be Rey herself. She is wearing a short sleeved shirt and also pants.

“Rey....” Mira greeted. 

“Mira....” The scavenger replied. Silence falls on the two.....

“You shouldn’t have come here.” Mira spoke as the two circle each other preparing for a fight. 

“But I came....” Rey countered.

“They’ve sent you to kill me didn’t they?” The Mandolorian asks in an unsurprising.

“No....Your father and I came here to bring you back to the light.” Rey explained which surprised Mira for a moment. She is caught off guard now...Mira knows how Snoke works. He goes for the ones you love.

“Where is he?” Mira asks her.

“Here.” Ezra’s voice called causing her to turn to see Ezra walking out of the apartment. She is surrounded now....If she joins the light then Snoke will end up targeting her father and Rey at the same time. She wants to protect them. Mira sighs.....

“Then you both shouldn’t have come here.” Mira spoke before pulling out her lightsaber. Ezra and Rey respond by doing the same.

“Mira don’t make me us fight you! We all want to help!” Ezra pleaded.

“No, you all want me to be something I’m not!” Mira lied. She runs towards Ezra then swings her saber like an axe but Ezra blocks it. Mira swings her saber left and right before raising it as Ezra defends himself. Rey runs towards Mira who turns to her with her lightsaber raised and blocks her strike. The recoil pulls Rey as Mira swings her saber against Rey’s to push her back. Mira throws a punch at Rey who ducks as Mira swings her lightsaber too. Rey then blocks another strike from her as Mira raises her saber again then slams it causing Rey to drop her it.

Mira breathes heavily in exhaustion as she looks down on Rey. Little does she know, a man and his wife spot the fight in their speeder. He has an incendiary grenade as he was a former rebel during the war. He drives the speeder towards Rey, Ezra, and Mira.

“Honey don’t-”

“EAT THIS IMPERIAL SCUM!” The man throws the grenade at Mira which sets her on fire causing her to scream in horror. The fire burns MIra’s cloak off....revealing her armor underneath it. It resembles Rook Kast’s armor except black and also a little samurai-like. Mira gets up as the man’s eyes widen knowing he made a huge mistake. 

“GET OUT OF THE SPEEDER AND ON THE GROUND NOW!” Mira roared before pulling out some handcuffs but Rey tackles her causing her to drop her saber. Mira force pulls her lightsaber towards her which she catches then runs towards Rey who reclaims hers as well. Ezra comes in between the two as he interrupts Mira which catches her off guard. She blocks everything Ezra throws at her but his swings are too fast for her to catch up. Ezra throws one last swing which knocks away her lightsaber. Mira runs towards where it landed so she can grab it but Ezra uses the force to take it away from her. She turns around towards Ezra.

“Mira stop this! I know you didn’t mean to kill your mother, you didn’t mean any of this to happen to anyone.” Ezra pleaded and walks towards her. Mira removes her helmet.

“I said its too late for me! I’m far too gone to the dark side!” Mira countered as she is close to pulling out her blaster on Ezra.

“No, you’re not. You’re being something you are not. We saw what you did.....and that is not what a dark sider nor a sith does. Sure you killed him but you saved lives....Wasn’t that your job once? Saving people?” Ezra asks her causing Mira to fall silent.....

“You care about the well being of others. If you were far too gone in the dark side then you wouldn’t have cared for them. My daughter is not dead, she’s far from dead.” He continued.

“We miss you Mira....I know you don’t know us well but we all are waiting for you. Everyone is.” Mira looks at Ezra for a moment....

“What do you mean everyone?”

“Your real family.” Ezra replied. Mira looks at her lightsaber for a moment then back at Ezra. He can sense the conflict within her.....She’s giving in to the light. Ezra places his grip on the lightsaber so he can take it. The Jedi holsters the weapon on his belt as Rey sighs in relief that Mira has come back to her. Mira takes off her helmet and smiles before Rey grabs her cheeks and kisses her then lets go. Ezra smiles at his daughter and future daughter in law, Sabine would be proud. He activates his coms.

“Spectre-1, this is spectre-5, we’ve got the package over.” Little does he know, the Knights of Ren sniper saw the whole thing from afar. Rage builds up in him as he saw Kylo Ren like a brother and now she betrays the Knights who trusted her for months?! He aims his rifle at Mira who is distracted with Rey. Ezra senses the sniper causing him to run towards Mira.

“Mira look out!” He pushes her out of the way as the sniper hits him in the shoulder then the chest. Mira gets up and looks in shock.

“NO!” Mira cried as she runs towards her father. She lifts him up as Ezra gasps for air and breathes heavily. He coughs in pain.

“No....Not you.....Dad please stay with me!” She pleaded knowing she lost her mother and she can’t loose her father.

“Mira....I’m so proud of you....” Ezra painfully muttered. He places his hand on hers.

“We.....Sabine....And I....Made a good kid....Phasma raised you well......” He smiled.

“Dad......” Mira tearfully spoke with her voice quaking. 

“.....I am one with the force.....The force....Is with me....” Ezra closes his eyes and smiles before Mira could feel the life drain out of him. The ghost decloaks as the hatch opens to reveal Kanan and Zeb who’s eyes widen and runs towards Ezra’s lifeless body. Mira picks up her dead father and runs with Rey into the ghost before it cloaks again then flies.

Kanan felt it. He felt Ezra die. Ezra Bridger, his student and basically is son....Gone. First was Sabine and now him. Luckily his death wasn’t in vain at all. None of it was. With a sad smile, Kanan takes off his mask and places Ezra’s old lightsaber on his hand.

“.....You did good kid.” Kanan sadly complemented. What he doesn’t know is that Mira is watching him before heading off to the cockpit to sit with Zeb. 

“It wasn’t your fault kid.” He sadly assured.

The Resistance gather around the pyre for Ezra Bridger. His ashes is to be with Sabine in Lothal where they would be beside each other in Ezra’s old home. Hera hasn’t spoken nor Kanan as the two watch in silence. Leia also and Han who was best friends with Ezra. Luke remembers the arguments they had when he signed in on his order and wonders if that’s the reason why it failed, how Ezra left his order because he wanted to fight and help people...

Watching beside them is Mira, Rey, and Ben. The two sense the pain within Mira since she has just lost her parents. Ben places his hand on Mira’s shoulder pad. Tears stream from Mira’s eyes as she grits her teeth before kneeling on the ground hanging her head in remorse in sadness.

Mira sits on her bed looking at her helmet while rest of her armor is on a mannequin. This was her former self....There was no difference though. Her past and former self had no differences, they were basically just different names. Mira Ren, agent Mira, FN-5678, or just Mira....but she knows what she is. She is Mira Wren Bridger, clan Wren and house Bridger. The door slides open to reveal Rey with some kind of chip. 

“Hard to believe that you’re back to the light side now huh?” Rey spoke. 

“Yeah....” Mira replied.

“Your father wanted to give this to you. I think its something important.I know its been a month but I think he would want you to have it.” She presents the chip as Mira takes it then installs it onto the computer. A holographic image pops up revealing a picture of Sabine taking a self Ezra smiles at the camera while holding a baby Mira. Rey smiles at the picture as Mira is silence.

“Happy Birthday Mira Wren Bridger.”

#star wars rebels #mira wren bridger #knights of ren mira #mira au #BE PREPARED #I DON'T CARE IF YOU WEREN'T READY #LET IT HAPPEN #sabine wren #ezra bridger #kanan jarrus #hera syndulla #garazeb orrelios #ben solo #rey

[moltensunlight]

Okay fresh-off the boat of watching s8 thoughts, I’m going to do general stuff first and then get into shipping later, and heads up cause this is LONG:

There were a lot of things I liked about this season, namely the slower pace of the first half of the season and the time dedicated to getting the audience familiar with the characters. The animation was fucking stunning and this is the best any of the characters have looked since s1. I liked that we actually got to see into their everyday lives for that Day 47 episode, and I just want to point out that more character development and the development of the relationships between the characters happened in that single episode than in the entirety of the series. I liked that Allura got to see her dad again, and that the other Paladins got to meet their og counterparts. I liked the emphasis and capabilities they FINALLY placed on the Paladin bonds. I liked that there was some kind of abilities happening with the Paladins (okay so it was only Pidge on Olkarion but still) outside of their lions and I would’ve loved to see more. I loved Hunk’s character SO much this season!! God I loved EVERYONE’S characters because we actually got to KNOW them!!!!! I loved the Alteans!! I loved that Lance got Altean marks (FINALLY HOLY CHRIST I HAD TO WAIT TILL LITERALLY THE LAST FUCKING EPISODE FOR THAT????? FUCK ME I GUESS)!!

But there were also a lot of things I didn’t like. 

Namely: they never resolved the rift creature plot. Literally. Allura has that whole stint with absorbing one and never had an individual moment with it where she used her powers from Oriande to basically deliver a proof of concept and turn it into a life-giving entity before she went all the way with Honerva and all the rift creatures in her? Like they set up the rift creatures as THE thing at the end of this whole journey, the ultimate bad, because it was the source of Honerva’s corruption, so the big bad shouldn’t be Honerva unless she was THE avatar of the rift creatures, which she was NOT after she regained her memories. I like that Allura took on the rift creature herself in an echo of what happened to Honerva, but she should’ve been able to have a moment where her difference in using the rift creature really shined, where she came to an understanding of it and what it was and used the knowledge she gained in Oriande to make a difference from what happened to Honerva all those years ago. Plus we never actually saw what the rift creature showed Honerva to drive her to seek power and quintessence in the first place - Allura saw images of her lovers past and present telling her it was the only way to save the universe, but the universe wasn’t in danger when the rift creatures talked to Honerva. Why. Was. She. Bad. In. The. First. Place.

SECONDLY: I will stand by this till the day I die but I don’t believe that this whole thing ever had to lead to Allura sacrificing herself for the universe. She already lost everything, why the fuck should she be expected to give MORE???? That’s not satisfying!!!! Couldn’t she regain something or build something new??? Create a new life for herself leading her people and spreading peace throughout the universe??? Why wasn’t she the one rebuilding Altea at the end, with Coran by her side???

THIRDLY: I’m beyond bitter at how Lance’s entire character arc was played out. I just... like literally where did his insecurities ever get really played out and addressed directly??? Where was his darkest moment and subsequent rise from that moment more wise and stronger in himself??? The closest we ever got was Keith talking about Lance knowing who he is - but WHEN did Lance EVER get to figure that out??? And then when the OG Paladins were talking about the new Paladins’ strengths and what made them unique and special and important - Lance’s was just that he loved Allura?? That’s it?? I can’t even - my heart literally hurts too much about this to elaborate on it right now. I love Allura with all my heart but she was already great, everyone saw it from the start, and even she felt comfortable in that position of greatness. Blaytz’s whole character is literally designed and made (like literally this is a character design thing I’m looking at) to be Lance’s parallel counterpart, not Allura’s, and I’m sorry but a lot of that speech should have been for Lance. And Lance should have had an ACTUAL FUCKING ARC to prove that greatness within him too. As it stands, Blue choosing him? Him being a paladin of Voltron?? Why even bother?? Shiro and Hunk and Pidge and Keith and Allura ALL had qualities that made them unique and important to the group dynamic and to Voltron, but Lance... he might as well be an extra. He’s the sharpshooter - okay cool, and Allura’s a fucking master with her whip and Keith is a master swordsman - everybody is good with their respective weapon. There’s nothing that makes Lance stand out, nothing that makes him special, he doesn’t have a thing. Oh wait he does - it’s loving Allura. You know, like everyone else loves her too. Guess all of Lance’s fears about being the odd Paladin out and the seventh wheel and not having a thing were all proven true, huh? And I just. This one hurts, guys. This one is personal. I’ll make a different post about it at some point, but out of all the characters I connect to Lance the most, especially because of his insecurities. Long story short, I thought I was actually going to get to see a character like me be a hero and be important and learn where his strengths were. Maybe it was naive of me to think a tv show could actually show me where my own strengths lie after being so lost about it for so long, but I really did hope and believe in this character that was like me. And instead, Lance’s entire story shifted to revolve around Allura. Which god listen I wouldn’t mind it so much if they hadn’t sacrificed Lance’s entire character and arc and development to it. I just feel lacking from his whole arc in canon. He deserved more. Allura deserved more. Fuck.

Finally: this whole season??? Should have been the entire show. I’m serious. Maybe one or two other season where we get to Zarkon’s defeat, but the rest?? Stretch this last season into all other 6 seasons and weave in the most important elements from the other seasons. There was so much... superfluous things that ended up not holding the weight they should have by the finale - the blade of marmora is actually the first one that comes to mind. They were just kind of... around, in season 8, after having so much focus put on them for so long, having them wiped out without real good reason in s7 and then basically having Krolia and Kolivan just - standing around basically in the climax of the entire series????? That’s ridiculous. This season held so much important information that we should have gotten interspersed throughout other seasons, namely the discovery and understanding of oriande (Alfor’s legacy) and the rift creatures. Like quintessence and the rift creatures fueled this entire show but we got almost nothing from the Voltron team looking into it until this season, it was always Zarkon or Lotor, whereas BOTH of those plots should have had periodic discoveries and investigation into quintessence BY THE VOLTRON TEAM instead of other people just handing all the information to them on a silver platter when the plot called for it, and THEN both of those enemies should have yielded to the larger Honerva + rift creatures plot halfway through the series.

(Hey also?? Also??????? Hot fucking take here but Lotor shouldn’t have died. I’m not talking past iterations of the character and what he’s done there, I’m talking about how they set his character up here in vld. Because we saw from Honerva’s memories that he was a victim of his circumstance, and he was honest to god a good person. If anyone he should have gotten a character redemption arc specifically because he was born into such terrible circumstance and was the victim to it all.)

The entire pacing of the first half of this seasons should have been the ENTIRE. SERIES. Interspersed with a couple of episodes MAX with huge awesome robot fight sequences. As it stands???? I felt like I barely knew the characters and their connections to each other until THIS. SEASON. And I literally never felt the stakes. How the fuck did Voltron always get knocked back down, was always weaker than its opponents, but always got back up just from a couple of inspirational words??? Like okay the power of friendship and stuff, but that only works if you use the height of that power in the ultimate climax of your series - as it stands they literally used it almost every season and it got noticeably old. Like especially on the heels of s7, the inspirational speech delivered by Keith sounded nearly IDENTICAL!!! And it just??? Works???????? I just have so much trouble feeling like anything is at stake because team Voltron is always one “inspiring speech” away from winning, no matter what. What happens when that doesn’t work?? What happens when they really LOSE??? And inspirational words CANT pick them back up again??? And no that’s not the series climax, that’s a mid-season finale that they work their way back from and grow stronger from. And god the fights are too. Long. You could’ve condensed the action of the last what like four/five episodes??? Down to two - MAX. And not only would I have been more invested but I would’ve been with you all the way, instead of literally getting tired halfway through. --EDIT: Okay I went back and found out that the final fight sequence was in fact, only two episodes, but with the high-intensity of the episodes that preceded it, by the time we got to the fights themselves i was already teetering on being burnt out on that high-intensity. So just....better pacing. A c t u a l  p a c i n g.

I know this sounds like a LOT more bad than good, but there’s so much emotional weight to the characters and their interactions that I FINALLY got from this season that ends up balancing the scales more for me. Not entirely, there’s a lot I can’t ever forgive vld for, but it helps.

And finally. On to shipping. I just. My heart is honestly crushed. I was literallly hoping until the v e r y end of the last episode that we’d get some hint of Keith and Lance together. Literally!!! The episode ended and I went “oh... that’s it? Like it really didn’t...? Really??” They had so much potential, and their scenes together in this season, though seldom, were fucking poignant as fuck. Keith is the only one to ever address Lance’s insecurities, KNOWING that he has those insecurities. Allura told him he had greatness in him and that everyone sees it when he unlocked the Altean long sword, but she didn’t know he was feeling left behind, or unworthy, or like an extra in the main cast, and the conversation VERY quickly diverted to Shiro. Was that.... was that supposed to fix all of Lance’s problems?? Seriously?? And then the second klance scene together, god I think I knew on some level that it was the last scene they were going to get together, because I literally started crying when Keith actually talked to Lance about his worries about Honerva and Allura and everything. Keith has always been there for Lance and his real, deeper feelings in a way that the canon vld never built with him and Allura. Lance got to see Allura’s vulnerable side, but Allura never got to see his. Keith and Lance have both seen each other at their lowest points, and helped each other back up from those. (And the fucking callback to their bonding moment scene with their clasped hands?? Literally fucking wrecked me.)

With Lance and Allura, it’s only ever been one-sided. Like the one person that really was on the same page as her and connected with her heart and love of Altea and it’s people and it’s magic and wanting to preserve that and work together with the people of the universe rather than through domination and shared in an incredibly unique experience with her in which they both were vulnerable with each other (I’m talking about Lotor and I’m talking about Oriande) - that person had to die off and not come back and get a redemption arc for Allura and Lance to get together at all huh. And this is not a slam against Lance and Allura as a couple, this is a slam against vld’s character and relationship building and development because if they really wanted it to be endgame?? They could’ve done a whole HELL of a lot better than what they did. As it stands with canon vld, Lance and Allura are not equals, and they never will be. Allura ends up being Lance’s “prize” and Lance can never understand and empathize with Allura and her experience like she needs and deserves. Sorry Lance I love you but Allura needs someone she can actually connect to better, and she deserves more than being you “getting the girl” without making an effort to really learn more about her culture and strife. Like fuck, they talk all about loving each other but where? Is it?? Again, where are they sharing cultures and interests and passions and wanting to learn more about the other’s?? Where are they ever talking about their worst fears and insecurities and learning and growing from it together?? What is their common, shared goal??? Because damn Allura’s is pretty fucking big - “save the universe and restore the Altean people” - for Lance’s goal by the end of the canon show to just be “I want to go home”. Yes he wants to save the universe too, but Allura’s long-term goals were never going to be his, and his long-term goals were never going to be enough for her. Allura’s home was always going to be Altea. Lance’s home was always going to be Earth. They’re on completely different pages for vld to effectively sell their romance to me.

Lance and Keith though? They’re on the same page in vld canon. They actually fucking talk to each other about deeper feelings, in. Canon. Until literally the fucking epilogue of the last episode of the entire series?? Lance and Keith had similar, if not the same goals. Keith talked about saving and protecting Earth a lot these past few seasons, and which fucking planet has Lance been pining over and desperate to save and protect throughout the series?? Yeah you guessed it - Earth. Keith didn’t really feel connected to Earth until he established bonds with the other Paladins and then his mom, but after he got back from his time with the blade?? He wants to go back to Earth too. Both Lance and Keith consider Earth to be home. THIS IS IN. CANON. They have access to each other, emotionally, and can connect with and support each other in really important emotional ways. And I’m getting tired and losing steam at this point, but you get what I’m trying to say?? They had so much development and build up, they had a deep emotional connection, and to quote the two of them themselves on this, they “do make a good team.” WHY wasn’t that team canon? They’ll always be soulmates in my heart, and I won’t ever stop loving them and all the content that the fandom has developed for them, but I’ll always be heartbroken over what they could’ve been in canon.

Oh yeah what ever happened to Lance being bi y’all?? Guess that didn’t pan out either huh. Well fuck us I guess.

Extra thoughts: 

Also hey whatever happened to Veronica and Axca developing a romance?? That storyline got stopped cold turkey out of fucking nowhere. That would’ve been AWESOME to see play out for both of their characters even if it didn’t end in an actual romance. Also could we have gotten more of Zethrid and Ezor for context of like, that one whole episode please??

Hey also guess what vld I’m not satisfied with Shiro’s ending. That should’ve been Adam with him. Adam should’ve been on the Atlas with Shiro from the moment they fucking returned to Earth. ALSO HOLY CHRIST WHY COULDNT HE HAVE PILOTED THE BLACK LION AGAIN WHEN THEY NEEDED VOLTRON BUT ALLURA WAS OUT OF COMMISION?????? I WAS WAITING FOR THEM TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT IT BUT IT WASNT EVEN M E N T I O N E D??????????? WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO SHIRO’S BOND TO BLACK THAT WAS ESTABLISHED BACK IN THE EARLY SEASONS????????????????

God what else. Well you know I fucking LOVE Ryan Kinkade so jot that down, that episode dedicated to him was so fucking blessed. Hunk had such good fucking lines and emotional beats this season too?? Why couldn’t that have been there tHE WHOLE TIME. Romelle was fucking amazing as usual and I love that she got to learn some original Altean customs from Coran!! OH SHIT Y’ALL THE ALTEANS ARE CHAMELEONS THING ACTUALLY BEING FUCKING UTILIZED IN THAT ONE VOLCANO EPISODE BY ALLURA I FUCKING SCREAMED FUCK Y E A H FINALLY!!!!!!!!! Also just like???? All the Alteans????? Were so fucking good???????? Also also Coran IS confirmed to be magical because I mean uh first off - the Balmera and Altean customs with the Balmera??? Requires??? Magic??? Secondly he operates the Oriande pyramid like Allura and Honerva did. Like fuck that bit about him not being magical.

Hey also on that note, I really wish that Altean magic was better explained in the show??? Like to give us rules for this shit because there’s just so many things that work (or don’t work) because they’re convenient to plot at that time, also hey guess what Allura should’ve have a bigger plot thread of learning magic/training in magic from the staaaaaaaart!!!

I fucking loved the art and the music this season y’all jesus /fuck/ I can’t wait for screencaps of this season because it’s honestly the most beautiful thing I’ve seen. I loved all the stuff with bonds and with the stuff in Honerva’s mind and I wish they had explored some of those ideas way earlier, ESPECIALLY CAUSE THEY HAD MINDMELD HEADBANDS IN S1 WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! Plus like,,,,,,,,,,,,, the bonds between Paladins and lions should’ve been,,,,,,, so much more prominent and explored throughout the series.

Anyway, I’m tired. I wanted to get most of my thoughts out here before I checked tumblr and Twitter. If you managed to actually get through all of this i fucking love you??????? That was dense as FUCK when I didn’t mean for it to be laksjdflkajsFLKJALKFSJD feel free to come chat with me about this season too!!

#voltron #voltron legendary defender #vld #s8 spoilers #heads up y'all this is pro-klance #haven speaks #and not exactly anti allurance but more of a commentary on vld's ability to develop characters and their relationships #if they had properly developed allurance i wouldn't have a single problem with it #because they definitely are cute as fuck #but the way canon vld set them up???? #did them BOTH dirty