#hollow whispers

[hollowwhisperings]

VLD Retrospective: My POV as a Queer Biracial Asian Aspie

I don't generally enjoy listing my demographics in public spaces but for a Voltron Retrospective, I find it Quite Necessary to better convey how much VLD meant to me personally. This is one fan reconciling with a work I enjoyed for years, remain saddened for, and felt betrayed by. lf I'm good for anything, it's my being a Living Statistical Outlier.

VLD gave me explicit representation within its main cast: it gave me Shiro, who I clocked as chronically ill well before it was confirmed (Like Knows Like) & struggled with mental illness too (I'm not a war vet but Shiro's implicit Medical Trauma was Also There). Shiro is also, very obviously, an Asian &, as later revealed, a Queer Asian. There are few Queer Asians in western media who are Actual Characters: Shiro was (& remains) fun to have on board. It was, primarily, his struggles with his physical & mental health that most resonated with me.

Pidge is someone a lot of fans identified with, being a quirky genderbender maligned for her relative youth: I'm an autistic female who is gender "meh" so Pidge was "Representation" but she wasn't New nor Almost Unprecedented like Shiro or, as I'll elaborate further on, Keith. Every AFAB, every youth has felt undermined by their assumed gender & their youth: this is Not New. Pidge is fun but she wasn't Groundbreaking, not to me.

Keith and, to a lesser degree (as in assocoation with him), the "Half-Galra" Misfits were who I most identified with. Even before Keith was having Existential Crises over being Half-Galra, Keith read as someone biracial: his name, "Keith Kogane", makes him a white-passing Asian . I think current consensus is that Keith's Dad was "Mixed Asian*" but Keith's "orphan" (& secret alien) status prevented him from engaging with his heritage.

I am Not Galran (so far as I know) but I am a white-passing Asian & someone of "Two Worlds" (half white, half east asian). Star Trek's Spock established how most subsequent works of the sci-fi genre depicts half-human aliens: all the vibes of being Biracial, existential crises about Passing & feeling Disconnected ("rejected") by either/both halves of one's identity. Keith checks those boxes and Lotor's Halfsie Squad are similarly Coded (to lesser degrees).

Aliens, half-human ones especially, are very easily read as Neurodivergent as in "has ADHD &/or ASD": Keith continued this tradition & it further isolated him from his peers, especially because (like many of us on The Spectrum) he grew up "Undiagnosed". Keith knew he was Different but no one had the correct Context for his "Difference": this lead him to feeling Wrong, Rejected and Alien. This is an experience Familiar to anyone belatedly recognised as having ASD and also to Literally Any Queer Person.

To summarize the above: Shiro meant A Lot to me because he struggled with his health in silence (& was Asian); Keith meant a lot because his Human Demographics & Coding match almost entirely with my own. Shiro became "more" Important to me through his being Keith's Most Important Person (KH fans: you see where this is going): I was already Attached to Shiro, Keith made me invested in him.

KH fans knew from my invoking of "Taihetsu no Hito" [JP for "Most Important Person"] that, through being Invested in Keith & thus Shiro, I quickly Recognised that Keith? Desperately in love with Shiro. I did not, however, consider Shiro likely to Act on any Reciprocating of such feelings (which he did show signs of developing, as early on as that Stranded From Everyone Else and "when I die, you be Black Paladin" episode) due to the implied age gap between them. I knew Shiro was Younger Than Assumed (very early 20's at oldest, I figured from Contextual Clues), that Lance & Hunk were about 17 & that Keith was Older than Lance (so, 18). The age gap between Shiro & Keith was never that much of an issue: it was their difference in Rank & the ages they were at their First Meeting that were the "real" obstscles, to my mind. Season 6 or 7 did a Flashback that made Keith 14 when he first met Shiro: that very much explains why Shiro was reluctant to acknowledge attraction to Keith & unlikely to act on it. Keith did, however, read as Crushing On Shiro pretty much from their first encounter (Keith stealing Shiro's car was a very obvious effort to gain Shiro's attention & respect: something Keith was unlikely to recognise as Crush Evidence but Shiro definitely did).

And then Shiro lost 3 years to Time Dilation while Keith gained 2: their Reunion post-Space Whale was very telling. For the first time, Sheith actually seemed genuinely plausible to me. Keith had had a Glow Up that allowed Shiro to stop thinking of Keith as the kid he'd been when they first met & actually admit that his excuses to not act on any attraction had stopped holding weight. I remain completely convinced that "Kuron" had fallen, equally & just as desperately, in love with Keith over the series and that the Aggression Kuron exhibited toward Keith was as much caused by That (Gay Pining he refused to act on, even as Keith ran around in his Infamous Blades Uniform) as it was by Haggar (& Kuron's growing suspicions on his "true" nature).

Then there was the "You're my brother... I love you!" scene. Initially, given The Current Events of the time, I was irritated by the Abrupt Brother-Zoning from the Very Obviously Pining Keith to Shiro.

Then I noticed the order of these sentences: first, "you're my brother" (neither Shiro nor Keith have any siblings: in asia, there's MLM equivalent to "they were Roommates" in "they're sword/sworn brothers") and THEN, more desperately and while at the cusp of death... "I love you".

VERY ON BRAND, KEITH. It's also the "I love you" that gets through Kuron's programming enough for Keith to save them both. From my observations of VLD, the sole remaining obstacles to Sheith sailing were "will Shiro retain Kuron's memories and, if so, will he accept Kuron as being another Him" and "will the writers be able to get the execs to sign off on TWO queer paladins being queer with EACH OTHER"?

and then... the love confession was never addressed & Shiro stopped interacting with any of the Paladins beyond a professional setting.

By then, a lot of the show was looking Off and I actually looked at the online Voltron fandom to see if other people were Connecting Dots: some Meddling had happened, Shiro was being OOC as all heck, Allura and Keith seemed pretty miserable, Romelle was Sus as Heck, why was Allurance happening, where the heck is Lotor (etc)....

I was, like everyone else, greatly upset by Allura's needlessly being Killed Off and by Shiro's Stock Photo husband. I was also Not Impressed by the alleged "happiness" found by any of the Paladins: Shiro retiring his greatest dream, of flying and exploring the galaxy when he had just found out he Wasn't Going To Die from his Chronic Illness? Jim Kirk, another charismatic spaceship captain who loved to explore the universe, had a similar "retirement" ending for its Heroic Captain.

The first Star Trek film, set post-series, conveyed exactly how Shiro's "happy" ending played out for a character Shiro was almost certainly inspred by: Captain James "Jim" Tiberius Kirk.

Captain Kirk's "happy ending" was introduced in TMP as being: a promotion/retirement, marriage, & settling on Earth. Sound familiar, Shiro? TMP then shows how that "happy ending" plays out for someone like Jim (or Shiro): barely a handful of years later, Jim is miserable in his "retirement" (he was Promoted to a desk job); his Very Sudden marriage to a Previously Unknown Character is crumbling (& is even implied as being arranged by Starfleet's Brass to keep their Poster Boy on earth!); he clearly misses his Team (his Found Family) & at his first "valid" opportunity to get his Team together to fly into space again? That's exactly what Jim does.

Star Trek: TMP also, incidentally, features Jim living out some kind of Space Divorce Drama with his Right-Hand Man, the Half-Human Alien Spock. The two had apparently spent all those years apart and Spocks's "logical response" to [everything post-TOS] was... becoming a Vulcan Monk in order to Purge All His Emotions. (Krolia, please tell me that the Galra do not have an Equivalent to Vulcan's kolinahr & that, if it DOES, you Forbade Keith From Doing It).

Jim & Kirk saved each other, often very impossibly, in every other episode of TOS. They were also so widely shipped by fans that the "founding" of modern fandom cukture is often attributed to those first K/S shippers.

The easy Parallels between Spock/Kirk to Keith/Shiro were something that seemed to increase as VLD continued, likely as its creative team started recognising how naturally Keith & Shiro played out that epic space romance. The relationship between the Black Paladins was consistently emphasized within the series (until it abruptly Wasn't) and their bond was considered the strongest shared by any two paladins. A Sheith required very little effort from VLD's creative team and, given the Time Dilation plot point, that effort WAS made: Keith shows up Older & Blade-ier, Shiro Visibly Reacts and seems perfectly set up to Reevaluate his relationship with Keith, both of them visibly Adult and already established as "Equals".

Reading the research done by Team Purple Lion helped me understand the many degrees of unpleasantness caused by the Forced Removal of Lotor from VLD's endgame: the series' overall plot, key themes and multiple character arcs were contingent to the ugly consequences of Voltron's [murdering] him, the emotional effects Lotor had on Allura, the ways Lotor was integral to the show's themes of Redemption & Recovery & Love (of all forms). Just about every main character (and the imexplicable presence of several other characters) had their Arc underminded by Lotor's staying [murdered]: Lotor (obvs), Allura (VLD's Actual Main Character), Lance (who suddenly became Every Creepy "Nice" Guy), Pidge, Axca, Romelle, Merla, Yzor & her girlfriend, Honnerva...

I was invested in the plot, characters and themes of VLD: its ending wasn't just upsetting, it was contradictory to its own story. Though I am not invested in any VLD ships other than Sheith (for the way the characters are individually Important to me, the ways Shiro is important to Keith, the ways their relationship parallels K/S down to the syllables), the series had set certain ships up through its Themes and within its plot: Allura/Lotor, a reclamation of Allura's agency & a thematic resolution to the major conflicts of the series; Shiro/Keith, a love story the series spent 7 seasons telling; the tentative beginnings of Lance/Pidge, a Chekhov's Gun that would round their individual character development through better understanding each other; Hunk & Recognition of his Ingenuity, Bravery, Compassion (which would, incidentally, feature Hunk/Shay and Hunk's central role in the intergalactic Recovery proces). All of these ships serve a Purpose within VLD's plot, aid individual character development, reinforce the series' overarching themes, and have a solid basis within the text of VLD (as well as outside of it, in interviews and statements from the creative team).

I was able to "recover" from the betrayal of how VLD ended, largely through the detective work of fans like Team Purple Lion and reading many "fix-fic" wherein Allura Lives and Shiro is not OOC as all heck. VLD was one of many series, at the time, whose Betrayal of its themes & characters made Waves all over Fandom. It was, however, one of the Betrayals that hurt me more "personally". It was also a fantastic example of Creatives having horrid working conditions, Corporate Interests actively Hurting their consumers, of Fans being forced to Play Detective due to the modern Media Landscape: the culture of creatives being under strict NDAs, of their being without Unions, of how abruptly Projects can be undermined by the Whims of singular entities (creating additional work on an already overworked labour force, often in ways that betray their own work).

So, uh, surprise: this was a Retrospective inspired by the current Writers Strike & growing awareness (that we have known & ignored for years) of how unethical the working standards of animators are. There are Actual Americans and Actual Artists who can speak on these issues more specifically, as well as the best ways to help the affected: this was a more individual Take, from One Fan, and the ways that media has affected That Fan emotionally (though, being an Aspie, i'm pretty distanced from articulating any Specifics beyond "upset" because "this is narratively inconsistent"). The purpose of writing this was personal catharsis, a means of discovering how I feel about VLD all these years later, and perhaps as an act of microcosm within a greater fandom macrosm RE: engagement with media & correctly identifying how the faults of its business structure sabotage excellent works of fiction from staying "excellent" or becoming "magnificent".

*"Korean-Japanese" seems to ne the current consensus but as Sourced outside the text of the series. It is not his "exact amounts of Asian" that Keith is "relevant" to me but his being both Mixed & disconnected from his asian Heritage.

#hollow whispers #vld meta #sheith meta #asian representation #queer asian representation #aspie things #half-human aliens #spirk meta #vld retrospective #go check out the purple lion project #i have not the spoons to do hyperlinks today #fandom things

[maskofnova]

They're waiting for Tangle to get back from the Mickey D's run.

#surge the tenrec #whisper the wolf #whispurge #the background is free stock footage #surge is backseating her hollow knight run and whisper is thinking really hard about how long to give her before she pushes her off the bed #sonic the hedgehog fanart #idw sonic #mogs art

[notllorstel]

Hollow Mind AU where everyone ends up in Belos’ mind

#toh #the owl house #toh darius #toh hunter #raine whispers #toh eberwolf #toh luz #spoilers #fanart #llorsdood #I imagine the trio had some kind concealment spell to protect thier identity when they went into his mind #would it worked? maybe #I wanted more hang out time with em #with these hands I CAN #eberwolf always ready to bite belos’ ankles #would Daruis be tempted to enter the painting and see what happened to his mentor in his last moments? >:} #10k #hollow mind au

[spaghettiwench]

since @thedonutdeliverygirl and @jesslockwood were asking artists to do some lockwood and co tattoo designs I thought I'd finally draw the trios rapiers! Its an idea that's been knocking around my head forever so:

lets break it down!

First up is Lucy's rapier! I wanted the design to reflect a traditional fencing rapier. Very utilitarian and heavy hitting since she's the type of fighter who banks more on brute strength then technique.

Second is Georges rapier! I wanted this sword to reflect more historical references of rapiers (I did the smallest google search so if it's inaccurate my bad) because he's definitely the type of guy to commission something historically accurate.

Last but definitely not least is Lockwoods rapier! He's absolutely the kind of guy to have a very intricate and elegant weapon. The cage around the hilt being use to trap an opponent's blade and disarm them, he very much relies of technique rather then brute force.

Might do more of these little tattoo designs later if i'm feeling it ;) who knows!!

#i believe in weapons reflecting their weilder #extension of themselves and all #screw zodiac signs what does your sword look like #lockwood and co #lockwood & co #save lockwood and co #lucy carlyle #anthony lockwood #george casper karim #george cubbins #the whispering skull #the empty grave #the hollow boy #the creeping shadow #the screaming staircase #lockwood and co fanart #swmakes

[bubbl3zdaseaotter37]

I just finished The Empty Grave and — Help me :’D

anyways, here’s my first offering to the fandom. Skull!

#lockwood and co #save lockwood and co #renew lockwood and co #george cubbins #george karim #anthony lockwood #lucy carlyle #lockwood and co netflix #the screaming staircase #the whispering skull #the hollow boy #the creeping shadow #the empty grave

[biscuitrule]

No because I’m sorry but Lockwood and Co should be Percy Jackson level popular

#one of the best mg series out there #lockwood and co #locklyle #lockwood and co netflix #lockwood and co show #l&co #lucy carlyle #anthony lockwood #george karim #george cubbins #l&co. netflix #lockwood & co #lockwood #lockwood netflix #jonathan stroud #the screaming staircase #the whispering skull #the hollow boy #the creeping shadow #the empty grave #iron trio #lock nation #my post

[ghost-touch-kills]

This picture is the sole reason I got back into Lockwood and Co

(I didn’t make this: https://pin.it/zcLprjAlX)

#lockwood and co #the screaming staircase #the whispering skull #the hollow boy #the creeping shadow #the empty grave #anthony lockwood #jessica lockwood #lockwood art ghost found

[desos-records]

I had always gotten vague Sherlock Holmes vibes from Lockwood & Co. I thought this was just associations with London and mystery stories, but then I looked up where Marylebone is in London. It's the very same neighborhood as Baker Street. It's where the Sherlock Holmes Museum is. That cannot be a coincidence, can it?

Which is making me lose my mind because the books are almost written in a Watsonian way. Lucy is the narrator and arguably the protagonist, but she also tells Lockwood's story. It's his name on the cover.

Like Sherlock, he's a bit posh and keeps to himself and altogether a good person even though he's got a bit of an arrogant streak. Ultimately, despite appearances, he's motivated by his overwhelming concern for others. He always seems to have the right connections at the right time (look me in the eye and tell me Flo Bones doesn't serve the same narrative function as an Irregular). It's not a one-to-one comparison by any means, but the influence is there.

One especially important difference is that Lucy is the one with the exceptional ability, able to sense things no one else does, which is a break with Watsonian storytelling because the general rule is that the Watsonian narrator never outpaces the subject of his story (this way of framing a story was very popular in the late 19th/early 20th century and served mystery stories well by having an audience stand-in, Poirot stories also use this approach).

Lucy doesn't do that at all though. Partly because she's an unreliable narrator. Mostly because she very much is the protagonist, but her and Lockwood are partners in much the same way that Sherlock and Watson are. And by that I mean they understand each other and they work better together than they do with anyone else. Lucy starts on rather unequal footing with Lockwood, but as the books go on, they develop into a true partnership. They protect each other above anything else.

Jonathan Stroud, please I need to know if I'm imagining things here.

#did ANY of that make sense #lockwood & co #lockwood and co #anthony lockwood #lucy carlyle #george karim #george cubbins #locklyle #lucy and lockwood #lucy x lockwood #the screaming staircase #the whispering skull #the hollow boy #the creeping shadow #the empty grave #sherlock holmes #john watson

[strawberrycowgirly]

part 15 of my lockwood and co series!! i love you and i hope you have a great day today! you’re amazing

#anthony lockwood #lockwood and co #lucy carlyle #george karim #i love lockwood and co #save lockwood and co #bring back lockwood and co #locklyle #lockwood & co #lockwood netflix #incorrect lockwood quotes #lockwood and co incorrect quotes #incorrect lockwood and co quotes #lockwood incorrect quotes #incorrect quotes #the screaming staircase #the whispering skull #the hollow boy #the creeping shadow

[elcarimercanto]

Everyone crying from "Thanks to Them" and "For the Future":

Me still not recovered from Hollow Mind:

#the owl house season 3 #hollow mind #thanks to them #for the future #owl house meme #the owl house spoilers #owl house spoilers #the owl house hunter #the owl house #owl house #luz noceda #amity blight #golden gaurd #willow owl house #huntlow #lumity #eda the owl house #eda the owl lady #raine whispers #reada

[hollowwhisperings]

sometimes a person is alone with nought but their thoughts to accompany them for so long that

they completely forget not only the bounds of propriety

but forget, also, the basics of human courtesy.

their understanding of human conversation shrinks to the stuff of fictional monologues and impassioned internet commentary.

their ability to adapt their tone from person to person, setting to setting, becomes confused: here, concise critiques are lingua franca; there, softness and emotionalism; and, always, without the nuances of verbal clues to denote their speech.

it is harder, in text, to differentiate affectionate teasing from blunt recitation: in comment sections, everyone is a stranger and everyone is overfamiliar.

the parasocial ties of shared fandoms, shared viewing, skews perceptions of "when" it is okay to say something (and "how" it can be said).

by some point, the ambiguity of tone and perception becomes too much: the isolated withdraw further, disengage from even these abstractions of "real" socialization, and commit themselves to silence.

it's the only way, their paranoia claims, to ensure they cannot be misunderstood.

(and so, as lonely islands, they resign themselves to never making themselves understood at all)

none of this is apparent nor visible, to the perplexed bystander on the "other side" of their screen: to them, the shut-in is one more unwanted instance of entertainment, novelty and harassment (and even one can be one too many).

ultimately, of course, some people are just Jerks.

#hollow whispers

[cozones-hellhole]

GO GO GO

Oh yeah btw this is for the @nonbiney-swag-competition woo

#the owl house #hollow knight #rain world #the knight hk #raine whispers #slugcat #rainesweep #knightsweep #ghostsweep #??? #idk #slugcatsweep #< manifesting these #nonbiney swag competition

[calla-starkflowerstew11]

During the creeping shadow

Lockwood: what's the easiest way to steal to steal a man's wallet?

Lucy: knife to the throat?

George: gun to the back?

Holly: poison in his cup?

Kipps: you're all horrible

#lockwood and co #anthony lockwood #lucy carlyle #george karim #george cubbins #holly munro #quill kipps #the creeping shadow #the screaming staircase #the whispering skull #the hollow boy #the empty grave #six of crows

[spaghettiwench]

Norrie and Lucy both had friendship bracelets they made each other while they had free time on jobs (you know the ones you make at summer camp with all the knots that takes FOREVER to make) Lucy's bracelet has two shades of blue (one light one dark) and purple. Norries is yellow white and green.

They both tied the bracelets onto the others wrist once they were finished. A promise to each other that they were going to last, tight enough that the only way to get it off is to cut it.

Norrie still has hers, fairly beat up in her ghost locked state but still holding on strong.

Lucy on the other hand lost hers on a job one night during her first week in London.

When she realized it was gone she was in the shower after a job. She had locked herself in her room for the next few days, refusing to see anyone, refusing to eat any of the trays Lockwood tried to bring up and the boys had no idea why. No idea until one day months later after the bone glass Lucy walks up to them one morning without a word and ties a poorly knotted bracelet around each of their wrists. George's is orange, red and pink and Lockwoods is teal, grey, and purple. They didn't understand it at first, Lockwood moaned that it clashed with his outfits; and jewelry had always bugged George, he said that it got in the way.

It wasn't until Lockwood caught her making her own in the garden one sunny morning spending hours tying tedious knots one color after the other that he understood. He looked at the bracelet on his right wrist and realized that this scrap of embroidery thread represented a promise. One of persistence, one of patience, one of a future where all that time and love that was put into it was paid back tenfold.

Lockwood never complained about his again after what he saw, and while George still complained about his he resolutely refuses to cut his off.

Lucy wears a new bracelet on her wrist now, four to be exact. They get caught on all the wrong things and take forever to dry after a shower but she refuses to take them off until they break.

one is two shades of blue and purple

one is yellow, green, and white

one is orange, red and pink

and the last is teal grey and purple

#sorry guys the voices won with this one #this came to me in a dream #its 5am #maybe i'll expand on this #idk #lockwood and co #lockwood & co #lucy carlyle #anthony lockwood #george karim #george cubbins #lockwood and co netflix #lockwood and lucy #locklye #the empty grave #the hollow boy #the creeping shadow #the screaming staircase #the whispering skull

[citricacidprince]

In honor of the newest episode dropping take this doodle that’s been plaguing my brain for the past week

#citricacidart #toh #the owl house #toh s2 spoilers #toh spoilers #toh fanart #toh hollow mind #the owl house fanart #raine whispers #toh raine #toh darius #toh eberwolf #art #fanart #digital art #procreate art #prince's gold star posts

[biscuitrule]

Sadly part of me feels like Lockwood and Co would have been a more popular book series and by extension a more popular show if the books were from Lockwood’s perspective instead of Lucy’s.

It’s unfortunate but girls are much more willing to read a book with a male protagonist than boys are to read about a female protagonist. And in the case of a series like Lockwood and Co it’s not marketed specifically towards boys or girls so it has nothing to do with boys seeing it as “girly” or whatever. And it’s not that they start it and then dislike it because they can’t relate to Lucy, in my experience working with kids and recommending this series to them, once they start it they love it, but the boys are usually skeptical to even pick it up and try it out once they find out the main character is a girl named Lucy.

They end up loving it of course, but there isn’t that same hesitation when recommending something like Percy Jackson or Artemis Fowl. And I think that’s really sad because Lockwood and Co is a series about friendship that everyone can relate to, but society’s inherent need to classify things as “for boys” or “for girls”really hinders the reach of this series.

And to be clear I’m not saying they should have been from Lockwood’s perspective I think this was a story that deserved to and needed to be told from Lucy’s pov. It’s a problem with society, not the books and this is just a trend I’ve noticed.

I truly believe this series has some of the best themes for a wide age range of kids and young adults. It’s one of those rare stories where the themes are deep but still accessible to kids, and I just wish more people knew about it and that it got the recognition it deserved.

#lockwood and co #lockwood and co netflix #lockwood and co show #l&co #lucy carlyle #anthony lockwood #george karim #george cubbins #l&co. netflix #lockwood & co #lockwood #lockwood netflix #lock nation #locklyle #jonathan stroud #the screaming staircase #the whispering skull #the hollow boy #the creeping shadow #the empty grave #my post #commentary