Here Come The Drums

Persona 5 Royal (2019) - Akechi’s Reworked Confidant

Hello, world! Welcome to Art Over Flowers. We’ve been working conventions for a few years now, but we’re slow so we are only just now going about making our Tumblr page. Bear with us as we get some of our existing merchandise and art uploaded and ready to go – there will be plenty to see here shortly! 

SO HEY VOLTRON FANDOM here’s a thing! There’s that new Voltron VR game coming out real soon, and it looks like a lot of fun! But many of us don’t have the cash cash money to drop on a VR headset just for one episodic game - and I checked, you also need the controllers to go with it.

So here’s MY thing - I like to do Let’s Plays, particularly of games my friends want to see but can’t play, or of old games no-one else has, or just ones that look fun. I really want to do an LP of the Voltron VR game and put it up on YouTube so we can all yell at Lance being the protagonist and saving Shiro and Keith??? oh my god. BUT I don’t have a VR set up. This is where I’m going to appeal for help, because VR set ups are super expensive.

That’s why I’m going to try and start running some streams on my Twitch and set it up so people can donate. To fund a Voltron VR LP. Yep. Voltron is such a big fandom, if enough people throw like, a couple of dollars each at me, I should be able to get at least a PS4 VR set up - I already have the PS4 ready and waiting.

Of course, the PS4 version of the game doesn’t release until… December? Developers please.

On the other hand, the Steam version unlocks at the end of September - but my computer is too old to handle it, and I’d still need a compatible VR headset and controllers. Uh. Yikes?

So basically, how soon I can put up an LP for everyone depends on how much I can raise streaming. And that depends on how much all of you feel comfortable donating - please, only give me money if you think this is a good idea, and if you like my style of LPing. Check out my YouTube Channel first! … It’s mainly me yelling at Batman games.

For the streaming, head to my Twitch channel here. It’s pretty bare right now but I’m planning to get started this weekend.

Voltron in Final Fantasy XIV

why on earth are everyone’s weapons so big, guys make me stop playing this game

bonus: The Definitely Finished version

Another comic for the wonderful crack ship of Lance/Matt (Latte) or otherwise known as Pidge’s worst nightmare come to life. As much as I love Klance to death, I would happily support Latte if only to see Pidge’s reactions on the show.  xD

“maybe we can knit him a little sweater!”

At this point, we’ve gotten significant character development for Shiro, Pidge, and Keith. Their reasons for being a part of Voltron and fighting the Galra are established, or at least heavily implied– Shiro was a personal victim of the Galra and wants his memories back, Pidge wants her family back, and Keith, at least in terms of season one, just wanted to be around Shiro since he seemed to be Keith’s only current emotional support, and as of the end of season 2 wants answers about his heritage (congrats Keith you’re a fucking Galra. Whoop.)

…And Hunk and Lance are just. There. So far, we’ve been given nothing on their backgrounds in comparison to the others, and if anything they’d be the most interesting ones to look into at this point, specifically because they have no  given reason for hanging around… other than that they’re really good, selfless people. And like. That’s fine but it’s not even acknowledged. They’re constantly written off as the idiots and dead weight of the team.

And here’s the thing… If they were a couple dumb white boys in any other show, that’d be annoying, but…. livable. But they’re not. Hunk and Lance are incredibly groundbreaking characters– They’re both visibly POC (we know Lance is Cuban and Hunk clearly isn’t white), and of the whole team, the most comfortable breaking gender stereotypes. Lance is distinctly feminine (to the point where there’s plenty of room to make genderqueer headcanons for him?), and Hunk shows interests and skills in things like cooking, sewing, and knitting, traditionally feminine activities. 

And yet, they’re the constant secondary characters of the team, comedy relief and filler space. The things about them that break the norm in writing male characters– Hunk’s love of food, Lance’s feminine behavior, are treated as jokes. Especially this season, when they both felt annoyingly dumbed down. Hunk is a canonically established mechanical genius, and Lance was second in his class at an incredibly competitive military school and shows an obvious aptitude for strategical analysis and planning. They. Are. Not. Unintelligent. 

Lance and Hunk are part of the main cast. They are not there for the “oh look he’s heavy-set and likes food!” and “he’s flirtatious and feminine!” jokes. They’re people as much as Pidge, Keith, Shiro, and Allura are, and they deserve to be treated like it.

I’m not saying they can’t ever be funny or make a joke– It’s clearly shown humor is how they cope with stress. It just needs to be clear in that distinction between humor as a coping mechanism and humor because they don’t understand what’s going on. The former is good writing, the latter is not.

And yes, I know the staff wrote season 2 before being open to the brunt of fan commentary and criticism, but they shouldn’t need criticism to realize that writing characters that represent minorities (and also hold representation for gender-nonconforming people), and relegating their only character traits to being “flirt” and “foodie” is Wrong. It’s shitty, shitty writing and I’ve known fan writers who knew better at 13 or 14, myself included.

Stop fixating on your forced heterosexual romances and Keith “I’m apparently half Galra and half fucking White boy” Kogane (Cogain? God his Dad’s white what is their last name going to be??) and give me good, proper development for these groundbreaking, amazing, POC, gender-defying paladins. 

Please, don’t hurt Lance much

…but I really want to see insecure Lance in ss3!!!!

when ur dragons ur wingman B) 

no one asked for it but heres lance and keiths second official kiss in the au blue is sick of them 

Keith, you can’t just touch his hair like that

Kind of inspired by this post, thanks to this fine observation !

To be continued… (Roundabout playing in the background)