VioletBrock

Reblog if you are:

1) Super excited for yet another installment of this wonderful show

2) Planning to move/adjust/completely sacrifice your sleep schedule so you can binge-watch it within 24 hours of its release 

3) Moving at least one event in your schedule to accommodate said binge-watching :D

4) Re-watching all of Season 1 and 2 before-hand to refresh the story-lines in your mind 

and

5) Really, really hoping every Paladin makes it through this season alive.

*runs by*

*throws @materassassino‘s lovely shallura work at you all*

Shallura Week day 6) Black/White

Between the seven of them, the Voltron team was incredibly busy.  There was always training to be done, the castle to fix and clean, information to absorb, machines to build, fights to prepare for- easily two dozen people’s worth of effort split between less than ten.

However, once in a blue moon, certain conditions struck.

Projects were on pause until proper supplies could be found.  Repairs were holding for the moment.  There were no local distress signals, no messages from their allies.  No immediate battles to fight, nothing they knew to prepare for.

There was always something to be done, but those tasks weren’t always the most pressing.

Or interesting.

“This whole room?” Lance asked in dismay.  He held the handle of his paint roller in one hand, the other sulkily pushed into the pocket of his jacket.

It was hard to argue the room didn’t need a good layer of paint.  The previous coat was cracked and faded, giving the whole area a shabby feel.  While nearly all of the castle was bare-walled, relying instead on the inlayed lights for decorations, this seemed to be some sort of fancy meeting hall.

It was the sort of place that hadn’t need to be touched up when they were only fighting for their lives.  As they gained allies and prestige and took part in more political battles, well..

The room was needed, now.

But it was big.  And all of it needed painting.

(Read More Below)

•buy toys/dolls/crayons •play with Legos •play old videogames/dress up games •weave friendship bracelets •watch cartoons •use stickers •draw pics of your favorite characters

If it makes you feel nice, do it. Don’t even worry about what other people think, because it doesn’t matter–if it brings you happiness, it’s not “ridiculous”, or “immature”.

“Growing up doesn’t mean you can’t have Zebra Cakes. Growing up simply means that, if you want to have Zebra Cakes, you buy them for yourself.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Bear?” Well, let me explain. For those of you who live outside of the US, this is a Zebra Cake:

It’s a little pre-packaged snack cake that is horribly cheap and junky and really not that great, but it is like manna from heaven to me. I fucking love these things. When I was a little kid growing up, my mom bought Zebra Cakes but once in a blue moon. They were intended to be put in mine and my siblings’ school lunches, but my brother and I would eat them whenever we wanted, so Mom just didn’t see the point. (They also used to be kind of expensive, at least for our family’s budget.) Needless to say, the coveted Zebra Cakes were a luxury for me, and were one of the tastes of my childhood.

Fast forward to my college years. I was living in an apartment with three other people, doing my own shopping and cooking. I was in the grocery store, picking up some stuff, and I happened to walk past a display of snack cakes. Among them were several boxes of Zebra Cakes.

I paused at this, chuckling to myself. Oh man. Zebra Cakes. I haven’t had those in years. I loved those when I was a kid. I reminisced happily and thought about how much I missed the taste of Zebra Cakes, then started to walk away.

And then I stopped dead.

Because I had realized that there was literally nothing stopping me from buying a box of Zebra Cakes. There was nothing stopping me from buying ten boxes of Zebra Cakes. If I wanted Zebra Cakes, I could have goddamn Zebra Cakes, because it was my money and my decision to make.

I put two boxes in my cart (they were 2 for $5) and never looked back.

Here’s the secret I learned that day: The idea of something being “just for kids” is, by and large, bullshit. What you do on your own adult free time with your own adult money is, by its very nature, adult stuff. It’s like comedian Eddie Izzard (who frequently performed his routines in drag) once said when someone asked about him wearing ‘women’s clothes’: “They’re not women’s clothes. They’re my clothes. I bought them.”

I am 25 years old, and yesterday I bought myself a shark lunchbox. Look at it. Look at how awesome my lunchbox is.

Was this lunchbox intended to by bought for and used by a child? Yes. The tag said it was for ages 3 and up. But it was bought by and will be used by an adult, and anyone who thinks that’s wrong is probably just jealous that they don’t have the self-confidence to rock a shark lunchbox at 25.

So, a lot of you know that I really like to keep this blog as upbeat and focused on the positive as possible - and also, that sometimes I make videos to give updates on what I’ve been doing and what’s been going on in my life. 

The last video I posted, I mentioned that I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, and that I am seeing a therapist - and while having this diagnosis has not been, shall we say, fun - it is illuminating, and it is good to find ways to work through this time in my life (therapy, medication, etc).

However, as might be expected, things tend to get difficult before they get better.

In trying to work through various issues in therapy, I stumbled upon a very ugly realization. Basically, I came to realize that I had - put simply - repressed memories of a very evil act done to me by a man whose name and face I do not know.

To sum up without going into graphic detail: I was younger than seven years old and at a neighbor’s house when I was sexually attacked by a grown man. It was done in secret, and to this day, I still can’t fully recall all the details. 

What has come back to me has been really ugly, which is to be expected. I was treated as thing, not as a person, and even though it was not my fault, nothing can change the past, or take away the effects - which include feelings of worthlessness, fear, anger, and sadness. It’s a tangled mess, and although it’s good to name what this is, it’s still ugly and painful. 

Thankfully, I have good friends and a wonderful husband who I trust implicitly, and we’re going to get through this just fine. It’s going to take some time, but eventually, I think I’ll feel more like my old self again.

However, when I told my parents about this realization - and asked them straight out if they believed me - they did not say ‘yes, we believe you’. In essence, they said they were ‘shocked’ and that they ‘had questions’. When I asked them again if they believed me, they did not reply.

Which…really doesn’t leave me much hope for them actually believing me. 

To a great degree, a lot of what I’m feeling like these days is this:

I want to run away from all these realizations, and what they mean. I will admit that I have cried (a lot), and there are many times when bad memories come surging out of the shadows, and I feel physically sick and on edge until the worst of it passes. 

But no matter how bad it gets, I want to promise you that it’s never going to beat me. As my good friends will tell you, I am really fucking stubborn. 

I absolutely refuse to let what one jackass did to me change who I am, and more importantly, who I choose to be.

One of the reasons I try to focus on the positive on this blog is because the world can be a very scary place, and sometimes, it seems like the dark is just too much. 

But it isn’t.

Because there is good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.

So thank you, very much, for being people I can talk to. It means a lot, and I am very thankful for each and every one of you. <3

On a side note, I think the freeze frames are conspiring against me, lol. :-)

A/N: This chapter does contain some slightly T+/M/nsfw-ish stuff, which will become more prominent in following chapters. If that’s not your thing, you are under no obligation to keep reading, and thank you for enjoying the story thus far. If it is… ;) says it all.

either way, i hope you guys enjoy reading this chapter as much as i enjoyed writing it!

ao3 & ffn

CHAPTER EIGHT: The Brink

In the next few minutes, the only thing that kept Allura from spiralling was the knowledge, that above all else, Shiro needed her. He needed her to keep her cool and figure things out, just like how she would depend on him if the situations were switched. She only hoped that as she, Hunk and Pidge raced towards the Sinking Sands, that Lance and Keith were working fast enough, clawing away at enough sand to leave some kind of dent, some kind of lifeline, for her to anchor herself to for them to find Shiro before it was too late.

“Princess,” Keith cried over the link, “the sand is moving too fast―”

“Then move faster,” she barked, desperation bordering on something heavy and tight that she didn’t want to think about. If they didn’t get to him in time―if she lost him…

Suddenly it felt like she was the one drowning instead.