#vld gen

[hailqiqi]

What Makes a Good Leader?

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One of the pieces I wrote in 2018 for the long-abandoned Oasis Zine!

@uragirinoteme is the fabulously talented artist who created the adorable Allura art.

[headspacedad]

amazing artwork here by @janestrider​ who you can thank for lighting a fire under my proverbial writer’s butt

part 1     part 2   part 3    part 4    

The world goes to hell and Shiro crouches next to his inexplicable twin and watches it.  There's something terrible about the sheer size and amount of metal falling past their small sanctuary and more than once they flinch against each other as something jars into the outside of the small overhang, threatening to bring it all down before slowly dragging and falling away.  And its all the worse for the sheer silence of it all.  No sound, not the scream of metal, not the heavy thud of the weights that shake the very mountain they're hiding in - in the thin atmosphere he can’t even hear the ragged breathing of the man pressed next to him even if he can feel it, almost matching time to his own.   That should bother him.  Unnerve him.  There's another one of him.  And somehow the fact its alive and next to him is worse than knowing the tubes falling past have dead or sleeping versions of himself in them.   Except - the world's gone mad and Shiro doesn't even remember how and - somehow having another living body next to him, twitching with each falling tube that careens past - somehow it makes it bearable.  Because Shiro's not sure how someone's supposed to stay sane through watching himself, by the hundreds if all the tubes are full, fall past to their death at the bottom of the world.  The same thought comes to both of them at the same time and even as he edges out Shiro feels the man next to him do the same.

They still haven't let go of each other's wrists.

Shiro's not sure he could bring himself to even if he wanted to.

He most definitely doesn't want to.

Its dangerous, even the quick darting peek out he takes. The speed the pieces of..... space station? are falling at - even a small one could take off his head. But - there's got to be some way to do something.   There has to be a way. There are so many - so many falling bodies.....

The fact that they're falling bodies of him doesn't mean they're not still lives in freefall.  That they're not all still doomed if their canisters reach the bottom.  He wouldn't wish that anyone, not his worst enemy, and he can't tell if its the fact they're shadows of him makes him more or less determined about it.

He can't think of how to save them.  Not all of them.  But not even the single ones that go spinning past where he is, faster than hoverbikes down a canyon wall.  They're moving too fast to grab with his hands - they'd take them right off on the way past and not even slow down a hair.  If they had rope or netting or cables or - anything.  But they don't.  Just four pairs of human hands..... and he tastes the bile in his throat as he watches them fall, fall, fall past him in the silence.

He's jerked back, yells and can't hear it, surprise and fruitless adrenaline running through his system too strong for anything but overreactions.   Metal - a strut perhaps - fills the space he was in a second ago, bounces off the stone, takes a chunk of the lip of their overhang with it as it continues its fall down the mountain to the planet's surface below.   All in eerie silence.  The shudder shakes him hard and there's a hand on his shoulder.  Awkward because they're still locked at the wrist so the positioning is awkward but - he needs it.  Grits his teeth, somewhere between a snarl and a lock to hold back helpless tears and he sees his own eyes looking back at him.  Complete understanding.

"We have to do something," the atmosphere is too thin to carry sound.  He's surprised they're even able to breathe this far up, but he needs to say it.  The other him nods.  Mouths 'I know'.  And then shakes his head and looks back out from under the overhang they're sheltering under again.  They have to do something - but there's nothing they can do.  He hates it.  Hates the feeling of inevitability, the hopelessness of it. Like being told you're dying - when all you want to do is fight it.

He finally lets go of his twin's wrist - because he has to clench his fists together. 

"Something," he mutters it.  "There has to be something."

But already the metal falling past is in smaller pieces, is starting to lighten in frequency.  Another tube goes past and Shiro realizes it could be the last one. The last chance to save someone - anyone.  His muscles tense.  He could make that leap, he knows he could.  Could grab that canister holding a living being and fall with it and - and what?  The chances of him finding another safe spot on the way down, another hand to grab him - even if he could, somehow, get the body out of the tube - The hand that's never left his shoulder squeezes and his eyes flinch a little at the pain.  Its not bruising pain, not as hard as it could be - but its hard enough to hurt enough to get his attention and he turns to his own matching face, sees the hard negation on it and offers a broken smile of apology.  His twin says something, lifting his face to the ceiling of their overhang but Shiro shakes his head.

"I can't hear you," he's talking to talk, not because he expects a response.  The same way he thinks the other man was probably talking just to do something.   It’s like nodding your head in response to an audio call.  You do it automatically, even if it doesn’t make sense.  "We'll have to wait until the air isn't so thin." Except the other man looks at him, twitches his brows down, and, thanks to years of space walks, Shiro can read his lips as he mouths:

"You can't hear me?"

For the second - third, fifth, twentieth? - time, Shiro suddenly feels sick to his stomach.  His mind shuts down in denial.

"You can?"

He's already dreading, and expecting, the nod when he comes.  The worried look across the other face is expected too.  Shiro lifts his hand, touches one of his ears.  Its cold to the touch but no more than any other extremity is.  He can feel his fingers on it.  Rubs it and gets - nothing.  No interior sound of friction, no hollow shell echo.  Nothing at all.

Just silence.

Torn metal streams past and he realizes its been screaming all along.

He just can't hear it.

[yellowmechanicalcat]

Day 29: Rec a fic with an ambiguous or open ending

Falling by headspacedad (tumblr, gen)

In which Shiro’s ship is crashing and he needs to find a way to escape. This short fic is haunting and was exactly the right thing after S6. The twist completely took me by surprise, and I had to re-read it a few times to let it all to sink in. A second part’s been added since I first read it, just as good as the first, and still leaves the ending open.

Excerpt:

The glass doesn’t budge and he’s still falling, stomach lurching end over end, and now he can smell something electric burning. His survival instinct kicks him hard in the gut because he’s going to die here and he can’t.  He can’t die.   He’s not done.

The glass jars under the strikes from his fists but holds firm.  How far left does he have before impact?  How much longer until the ground hits?  If there’s gravity, there’s a down.  And if there’s a down, there’s something to hit, hard, at the bottom of it.  He’s out of time - and yet his hands go scrabbling desperately for a latch or a seal or a lever, something, anything to get him out of the cockpit and into freefall.  Something screams past his ship, heavy and falling faster and he feels the impact as it goes past, as it clips his own ship - how small is his ship? - and sends it stomach lurching, careening.  Desperate, he slams his fists against the glass again, feels the skin of them split with the force -

[sonderquill]

If it's not been asked about already, I'm curious about Beneath from the wip list?

(Ask me about my fics!)

Thanks for the ask, Jay!!

As a long-time, die-hard fan of Shiro & Keith friendship, one of my top favorite episodes is S2E1, Across the Universe. Since 21 minutes simply wasn’t long enough for the whump and friendship of my top BroTP, I decided to write an extended/alternate ending for it!

Here’s a snippet of how the fic deviates from canon:

Keith’s hand dropped from the nose of the Black Lion.

“Don’t you get it?” Keith yelled, furious. “Shiro is going to die. Your paladin is going to die. He risked his life to save you! Don’t you even care?”

His voice echoed off the crater walls, so loud it hurt his ears.

The Head of Voltron didn’t even flinch.

~

It involves a whole new adventure that puts Keith and Shiro through the wringer as they realize the planet they crashed on is actually the opposite of deserted, and those giant alien lizards that almost killed Shiro are, unfortunately, the least of their problems.

[isabeau25]

WIP Meme

Got tagged by @eastofthemoon

The Rules:

Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you, or interests you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!!

Blood Moon

Clone Babies

Clone Babies Chess

Coffee Shop

Deaged Keith

merbaby

Mysterious Ticking Plot

Vampire

If you’ve already done this (or you just don’t want to) feel free to ignore it. @bosstoaster, @banditywrites, @ladydouji, @butteredonions

[oldmythos]

ALL TOO FAMILIAR

Summary:

5 times Shiro couldn't sleep and the 1 time he could. Dedicated to @butteredonions with special thanks to @paladinpuppypile, @crazy-indigo-child, and @melonbugg.

Excerpt:

He fell face first into the mattress, expecting his head to hit the pillow and to immediately pass out like he had in the garrison. He expected to melt into the soft materials, to moan in relief as the tension left his body. That’s what always happened before. He remembered that. There was so little he solidly remembered, and the feeling of getting home after a long day, of taking off his shoes and wiggling his toes under the blanket was one of those things. It felt like a betrayal.

The bedding didn’t cocoon him; it suffocated. On the first inhale, he felt the fabric stifle the air on its way to his lungs. He immediately flipped over onto his back, pulling in a long breath and staring at the ceiling, so close, too close, lit only by the fading glow of these automatic Altean lights. The pillow perfectly supported his neck, holding him in place. His spine didn’t understand it; he couldn’t figure out what was wrong but it just was .

It was too much. Too much contact, too much something. He should move. He really should move. The bed made his skin itch.

He refused to move.

He was normal.

He had to be normal. He was a normal person who was comfortable in a soft bed, shoes off, wiggling his toes.

Read on Ao3

[headspacedad]

Are still hoping that we will see Shiro's bayard form? Or do you think the EP's are going to skip it by saying "We did see it when Kuron used it." (which doesn't count and they know it). I agree when people say that they're getting tired of Shiro getting shafted in favour of nostalgia but please let Shiro use the bayard! That's the only reason why Shiro fans are sticking around.

Got to tell you, nonnie.  The lack of Shiro having used the bayard yet is one of the ONLY things that’s giving me hope about the whole ‘Shiro’s not the Black Paladin’ at this point but its such a strong hope line for me.  That bayard is one of the most dramatic and pivotal points of the whole ‘will Shiro be back in Black or not’? ‘tease’(crap, is there any way to write that word as dryly, disdainfully sarcastic and spit between my fingers as I need to?) to me because it is SUCH a strong, dramatic story beat. There is no reason, if its not going to be a plot point or Big Reveal that the writers wouldn’t have included it already.  Or they would have - and given the Big Reveal to Keith when he had it.  But we don’t even see the reveal when Keith has the black bayard.  He’s just running around with the same sword as always in his hand but now its black.  They even gave us a moment and focused on Lance’s weapons upgrade when we first say him using the red bayard.  But nope, Keith’s got the same sword, just now color coded.  Over and over we’ve seen the black bayard used to do pretty amazing things, both in Lotor’s hands and Zarkon’s and yet the clone Shiro didn’t use it.  Not once.  I mean, he threw it (and it went all jaggedy ‘evil shape’ on him when he did) but nope.  Not even the clone, that flew Black, was shown using it and if what shape it took for Shiro didn’t matter or they weren’t purposely holding back its true nature, there’s no reason, writing-wise, to not show it, either with the clone or with Keith (and Keith used it to cut off the clone’s arm in the last season so its not as if its mutated for him since his growth.  It’s still the same sword for him and one he puts secondary to his Blade sword).  And yet - here we are, coming up on the End Game and the Black Bayard is still a mystery.  Its one of those low note but consistent story beats we’ve all been aware of all the way through this whole story.  And because of that - I expect the Black Bayard to answer to Shiro the way Black’s wings unlocked for him, possibly in the season finale, maybe at the mid-point of the season. But I expect it will be one of those music swell, bringing in the Voltron/Shiro base theme song in the background, hit those bass bum bumbumBUM notes, tension build, triumphant reveals.  And I also expect it to be something really worth waiting for and very Shiro specific.  And that is one of the main reasons I’m still in this boat and why I’m still holding on to Shiro One True Black Paladin and expecting his pulling it through and triumphing against the odds again.  Because no matter what the EPs say, the story has been consistent with Shiro’s return to the Black Lion and his place there again and again and holding back on the Black Bayard reveal is a huge part of the story’s beats.  I may question the way the writers handle some of their story notes - but there is no doubt at all that they know how to bring in an emotional, powerful reveal in just the most impactful and satisfying way.  We’ll get our Black Bayard scene and it’ll be with Shiro.  And it will be worth the wait.

[yellowmechanicalcat]

Day 14: Rec a fic featuring an original character, planet, or alien race that you enjoyed

Rose Gold Memory by Glyphhunter (AO3, gen)

Not sure why, but I’ve always thought wolves were kind of cool. Maybe it was because when I was a kid, everyone was talking about how incredible it was to have gray wolves coming back to Europe. (We even had one of those WWF vans come to our school so we could get a feel for their preferred habitats, which was pretty neat.) I also read Julie of the Wolves, like, a lot.

Anyway, finding a story featuring wolf-like aliens was riiiight up my alley. In this fic, Shiro escapes from the Galra, is stranded on an icy planet, fights off terrifying monsters, and gets adopted by alien wolves. It’s a twist on ‘The Journey’ that has some absolutely gorgeous descriptions and a truly satisfying ending for both Shiro and his clone. The alien wolves’ pilgrimage and the explanation behind their third eye is very, very nicely done.

Excerpt:

He looks over his shoulder, struggling to catch his breath. It doesn’t help when the owner of those three eyes is closer than he expects. They're wide and ice blue except for the odd gold one situated in the middle. There's no malice as it looms above him, long pointed nose sniffing towards him and triangle ears attentive. Thick white fur covers it entirely and it doesn’t take long for Shiro to connect the dots.

“Oh my god,” he gasps, just as a smaller form wiggles out from between its legs. Shiro stares at it, glancing up at the large one for comparison. He turns and sags against the wall, not even moving when the small one starts sniffing around his legs.

“You’re not a dog,” he tells it. It sits abruptly at his feet and barks at him. Its eyes are blue too, but it doesn’t have the third eye like the large one.

It’s strange, but it could be an age thing, for all he knows.

He tenses again when the large one shifts. It stands, rising to its full height near the ceiling of the cave and comes closer with measured steps. It’s a narrow space comparatively and it doesn’t have far to go before it’s nudging at Shiro’s side. It noses at his leg, which he lifts instinctively, and pushes against Shiro’s shoulder until he moves before he’s knocked over. The nose doesn’t leave until he’s standing and even then, it’s only to poke at his back to get him walking.