When the fic so good you accidentally start analyzing it.
Ahem, so that happened with me and asterism... this has bever happened before, so thank you, @pendragonsgallery!
Here are a few observations i made. Right now, im on chapter 24, so there is where i'll stop. My main one that I can think of at the moment is the sentences/narration. It's much drier than before---at first I thought it was the author losing passion. But also, she's been at this for 4 years. So instead, i decided to look at it from an analogy point of view. And i realized that it protrays lance's mental state. The narration is so devoid of the emotion there was before, because *he's* devoid of that emotion. And then you pair that up with the short, quick sentences. That is once again a sign of his mental state, he's trying to not think. Because thinking means Charlii, it means hagger, it means the arena.
Now away from the sentence structure, and to the foreshadowing that has happened. At the very beginning---when lance is captured---he thinks "what would Shiro do?" That foreshadowed his eventual role in the rebellion, and also the question he asks himself when he's unsure. There's other instances that I remember realizing, but that was the only one that stuck with me.
And now the parallels. Especially between the Earth team and the paladins. They're *both* mourning lance. But one has some hope he's still alive, whilst the other thinks he's dead and no miracle will bring him back. Now there's the parallels of Keith's grief to Lance's. Lance pushes himself, doesnt let himself think about Charlli, doesnt stop long enough---because they dont have the *time* for it. But Keith, he didnt know the grieved so he made time to get to know him through Hunk. He let himself think about him, talk about him---and he's *healing* because of it.
And then of course, the way you can see little things of one of the paladins in one of the many friends of Lance. Most obvious (and an observation made by Lance) is Damien---you can see Hunk in his personality. But of course, he's also his own... person. He's caring like Hunk, but battle hardened way worse than Hunk. He's gentle like Hunk, but unafraid to kill. Another would be Iepei---she reminds me a bit of Keith. Someone who doesnt know how to express emotions until it blows up in their face. Another is that they both hide beind their anger, because they don't know how else to express things---but they're deeply caring about the ones they love. She honestly doesn't have all that much in common with him, but she vaguely reminds me of him---but who knows, i may just be reading too much into this.
Maybe I'm reading into this entire thing too much. But here are my lowly thoughts lol....
(Sorry if someone's already done this😅)