never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece
Thanks! <3
Van Helsing (2004)
never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece
DEEPLY formative cinematic experience for young Calamity. If I could find my notebooks from 2004 I'd show you how much awful fanart of this film's Dracula I drew with my terrible little child hands. And Anna Valerious? With that hair and that corset? Oof!
Galaxy Quest
never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece
Not seen this one, sorry, but I'd be up for it!
Secondhand Lions
never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece
Oh gosh. I'm not sure, because I have seen this, but not for... well, probably not since around the time it came out. But I remember that when I was a kid, I liked it enough to watch it several times? "Want to see" because I'm curious how it'd hold up for me now.
“snapdragonroar replied to your post “So after Voltron season 5:...”
I thought you’d be all over ‘character is trapped inside their own mind, screaming, as they watch themselves used against their own.’
Oh, I super, SUPER AM. It’s just that with regards to Shiro, there just isn’t a lot of proof there yet beyond conjecture based on past genre tropes?
The case for mind control at this point is 1) assumes this is Shiro and Shiro’s body, and it has been the whole time 2) that he fell into Haggar’s custody at the end of season 2 and was released again in order to 3) presumably sabotage Voltron from within until some critical moment where he could see them destroyed or otherwise manipulated but which 3) was eventually turned instead to supporting Lotor which couldn’t have been pre-planned because Haggar didn’t yet know Lotor was her son.
The sense I’m getting from mind control, whether it’s Shiro or Kuron, is that it’s at odds with stealth. So far, Shiro’s “off” moments that lead to sabotage could just be chalked up to bad luck or stress. Normal Shiro has snapped at team members before, or insisted they follow his orders, or required pain and sacrifice from the team, or isolated himself, but before those had a more positive slant and he was quick to apologize if he sensed he’d hurt someone. He actively looked out for team members and sought them out to support them, something we really haven’t seen Shiro/Kuron do since the end of Season 2. Right now he feels like a parody of Shiro at his worst.
(I also can’t help but notice that he avoided interaction with Sam Holt, someone who would have known Shiro on the Kerberos mission very well as a colleague and might have smelled something fishy, whether it was cloning or mind control.)
But the more Haggar turns up the heat on Kuron/Shiro’s loyalty programming, the more at odds he behaves with Shiro’s true personality. Shiro, or a clone that thinks it’s Shiro, has a loyalty first to Voltron and his loved ones. You can almost pinpoint moments where the programming flexes its muscle and forces him to go against that loyalty in favor of Lotor or the Galra Empire.
The thing is, I think Haggar did a little too much, a little too fast, because now Shiro (or Kuron-who-thinks-he’s-Shiro) is now questioning his own behavior. I think, ideally, such mind control is designed for use only in a sleeper agent situation, where the agent would not be influenced too much in order to keep their normal personality intact and unquestioned so they can do subtle sabotage, or be used in a pivotal moment where victory for Haggar’s side is assured and where being stealthy and hiding the programming is no longer required compared to a quick and easy major victory (like flying Voltron into the side of a shield that will certainly kill them all?).
To go back to “screaming on the inside”, which I am SO IN FAVOR OF as a genre trope, I really think we’ve only got about 2 pieces of proof (though forgive me if I miss something, I haven’t seen the season enough times to have encyclopedic knowledge yet):
1) Shiro’s confession to Lance that he doesn’t “feel like himself.” (A line which felt eerily like an admission that he knows he’s a clone in its literal wording, to be fair) Which, like I said is because I think the loyalty program got pushed too hard so now he’s questioning, because Haggar acted clumsily. However, as far as we know this is the first time he’s questioned his own actions verbally and consciously, like because of being bumped up to Stage 4 Loyalty behavior. So if he’s screaming on the inside, it hasn’t been showing on his face or in his words until now.
2) Lance and Shiro’s “conversation” on the Astral Plain. The thing is, we have no idea how that worked. We know Paladin telepathic communication is disrupted by distance, Zarkon needed a ton of quintessence to track the Black Lion the way he did across space. So this could mean that
A) Shiro is physically far away (perhaps still imprisoned or unconscious somewhere else entirely??),
B) Shiro is on the Astral Plain physically and isn’t yet adept at communicating unless he’s reached out to first or
C) he is inside his own head, as discussed, screaming.
BUT he says he blacked out at that point. Which implies that there’s two personalities in his head and one gains consciousness when the other loses it? Certainly a genre possibility, but we simply lack proof.
I think we really are just at a point where lots of possibilities are still on the table, but the Voltron show itself hasn’t given us enough information to solve the mystery on our own, because it involves magic/technology that hasn’t been explicitly shown to us yet. We just don’t have the tools.
That said, if Shiro IS screaming on the inside trying to warn the others about his behavior, or in a slightly less dramatic example if he’s been subtly nudged to commit sabotage and is only just beginning to behave oddly enough that he notices the strange behavior in himself, hot DAMN is he going to be messed up when he comes out of it. He was already enslaved by the Galra Empire once, this would make for a SECOND TIME and this time with much higher stakes. He’s not just looking out for himself and Matt anymore, his actions could have put the entire GALAXY at risk.
snapdragonroar replied to your post “Welp, that’s one film where I had to read the Wikipedia synopsis...”
Many serious men in serious suits and I’m sure something happened but bless me if I know what
So very serious, giving one another such SIGNIFICANT LOOKS OF UNDERSTANDING and all I wanted was to beg them to explain to me what the hell they were having an understanding ABOUT
@snapdragonroar — here is what I have at this point:
Strange: Gryffindor. There's a case to be made for Ravenclaw, seeing as Johnny boy’s magical style is all about creativity and innovation, but I feel like that’s basically an extension of his beautiful bold impulsive Gryffindor recklessness. Also, CHIVALRY: “A magician might, but a ~GENTLEMAN~ never could.”
Norrell: Slytherin. The bookishness would seem to imply Ravenclaw; the emphasis on hard work might even say Hufflepuff; but Gilbert is a goddamn Slytherin, let’s be real.
Childermass: I’ve seen some say Gryffindor, and, I mean. I can dig it. Dude throws himself in front of bullets and charges down fairy roads and all that. But his whole modus operandi is KNOWING things. Knowing what’s going on, what everybody’s thinking, what Norrell should do. This means he’s not only clever, witty, intelligent, & individualistic, but wise — i.e., a total Ravenclaw in the end.
Segundus: The Hufflepuffiest. Very soft, very good, but Will Fight You, and given his admiration of Strange & long frustration with Norrell’s restrictions, I am firmly convinced Starecross School would’ve 100% had an “I’ll teach the lot!” policy regarding what social class / gender / etc. students it would accept.
Lascelles: do I even have to ... snake. This dude is a snake. So is Drawlight. They go hiss hiss.
I’m trying to figure out Arabella, Emma, Stephen, and The Gentleman, but they’re all giving me a bit of trouble. Especially The Gentleman. His color scheme & general selfishness all scream Slytherin, but I feel like that’s too simplistic, and anyway, it’s hard to impose character / value judgments on someone who can’t even comprehend human morality.
Awesome lists! Haha I hear you on the touching-a-fish thing but YIKES a dead deer?! The horror! And I have to ask…why the large jar of peanut butter?
@snapdragonroar replied:
How did you learn horseback riding? (Also: I second the peanut butter question)
The peanut butter is for snacking! I recently brought apple slices to work. Sorry, that’s a pretty anticlimactic answer, huh.
As for horseback — I learned the same way people learn a lot of sports, I suppose: I took lessons. Started dressage and hunter/jumper classes when I was a wee lass and kept at them weekly till I moved away for college. Since then, unfortunately, I haven’t had the time or resources to get back into it ... but. Someday. :(
You’re my: emotional support reviewer
How I met you: Gosh, this might be LOTR. Or Downton? We've been following each other for forever.
Why I follow you: At this point I have no idea, and frankly I don't care.
Your blog is: A bit quiet lately, but usually incredibly funny.
Your URL is: Clever as hell. I love snapdragons.
Your icon is: A leaf! Easy to recognize - simple and effective.
A random fact I know about you: You have a twin who is *also* on tumblr.
General opinion: Literally what would I do without you.
A random thought I have: Hey, when are you coming to visit me for that train trip the pandemic made us cancel?
@snapdragonroar replied to your post “Now that Harlots is renewed I’m just so relieved...”
I like hearing about the terrified beardy men and that woman who seems to be the only one who knows what’s going on. Also the fashionable Batman villains
I’m absolutely crying with laughter at this description, thank you for distilling my interests so eloquently
snapdragonroar replied to your post “So after Voltron season 5: Shiro, cloned or mind controlled?”
I’m not sure, but I HOPE it’s mind control, because otherwise the story will have to inevitably deal with multiple Shiros running around, and I have Concerns that the answer will be “the original Shiro is the Real Shiro and the other(s) must die/banish themselves forever,” the way many stories do. Because the Shiro we’ve seen (for a long time now!) may be a bit weird, but he’s definitely a person (#CloneRights). Mind control has its own issues, but is less likely to lead to death/exile.
We’ve already had one duplicate Shiro (Sven) die, but I’m not sure if that counts as a precedent or a nixing of that option.
(Speculation below the cut)
My concerns with Cloned, Not Mind Controlled Shiro is that it means Shiro hasn’t had ANY character development since he went missing, making him a static character. If he’s not mind controlled, he’s presumably just going to show up at some point in the future still being the same person as when he went missing while everyone else has grown and changed. Which could make for some interesting drama but it just doesn’t feel right. IMO if we do get a full Clone/Kuron Shiro reveal, we’re going to need to see where Real Shiro has actually been all this time, and that episode threatens to be redundant after the (Clone?) Shiro prison escape episode.
And, speaking as a fanfic writer, another problem with “Clone, Not Mind Controlled” is that it raises the question of whether “our” Shiro is a clone or not. If he was cloned so well that he thinks he’s Shiro, so well that the Black Lion thinks he’s Shiro, then we may never have even met the Shiro who went on the mission with Matt and Sam Holt. There could be multiple Shiro’s already, as perhaps hinted at by Haggar doing the funhouse mirror sequence with Shiro back in season 1. And I’m not sure that’s a mindfuck that a kid’s show can handle.
Then again, they may have just had his DNA from when he was Champion but decided not to clone him until they learned he’d become the Black Paladin and therefore a useful subject for cloning and sabotage of the Voltron team.
(Side note, if cloning is that sophisticated, can we be sure that Zarkon is dead?? It actually would make a LOT of sense for Team Zarkon/Haggar to have been working on clones specifically designed to trick the Black Lion.)
Mind Controlled, Not Cloned Shiro means then that the strange art direction for him since he came back was meant to telegraph that he’s been changed against his will, rather than that this is a different person. It raises other questions though. Like who was the other Shiro that Shiro/Kuron saw in the lab? Was that an out-of-body experience? How could his hair have grown so long in such a short time, or was that just visual short hand for the fact he’s been a prisoner?
On the upside, for me, it means the prison escape episode we saw with long-hair Shiro really IS Shiro, and I find that heartening because I actually really liked that episode and was disappointed at the prospect that it wasn’t really him.
But it also means there’s something we don’t know about how the mind control plays with Shiro’s head. Is there a chip in his brain, or in his hand? He’s visually transmitting information to Haggar, is there something in his eye? If he’s a clone, it’s easier to believe that he’s been networked throughout with espionage features, perhaps surgically.
Also, what about the glimpse we saw of the real Shiro crying out to Lance in the astral plain? Does that mean that Shiro is in there somewhere, screaming? Having moments of lucidity? Or does that mean his real mind and soul are still stuck on the astral plain, and this is just his body sent back?
I think what we’re really stuck at is that we don’t have enough information, and we won’t until June. But we at least have confirmation that something is UP and this is NOT normal Shiro.
So I guess my theory comes down to:
1) The Shiro we’ve been seeing is a clone, and we’ll get an extensive episode showing what Real Shiro has been up to on the Astral Plain all this time. Clone Shiro will turn evil or otherwise need to confront that he’s not who HE thinks he is, in a very Black Mirror fashion, and likely die or be exiled to prevent confusion, which goes to your point and would be very sad for him.
2) Shiro is mind controlled, we see more of how that happened, how he was altered to send info back to Haggar. We learn more about his internal state and why the Black Lion hesitated with him, what his orders are. Most likely those orders are currently to support Lotor, but to otherwise lay low and do low-grade sabotage that is indistinguishable from bad luck. We’re going to learn how he’s been screaming or otherwise fighting on the inside to break out of the control, BUT at least he’s been developing as a character since and that development has been on-screen.
