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[spazzed]

PLAYER

NAME: Tsu
AGE: 33
PREFERRED CONTACT: scathe / problematic#7999 on discord
OTHER CHARACTERS: None

CHARACTER

NAME: Lance McClain
AGE: 18
CANON & CANON POINT: Voltron: Legendary Defender / Season 7, Episode 1
RESERVATION LINK: HERE.
HISTORY: VLD on Wikipedia / Lance's personal page on the Voltron Wiki.

PERSONALITY: Generally speaking, when you take a first look at Lance you might think to yourself what you see is what you get — and you'd be right, at least on a few superficial levels, because at first gLance he's. Loud. Cocky. Sure of himself and his abilities to a point that it seems a little questionable. ( Maybe … a lot questionable, but we're trying to give him the benefit of the doubt here, and that's taking into consideration how we're introduced to him in the first place; a simulation with both Pidge and Hunk, on a rescue mission to retrieve the lost members of the Kerberos mission, and he. Well. Goes above and beyond to toot his own horn only to ultimately find himself failing the whole thing. ) And he continues to project himself that way until you dig a little deeper, get beneath those barriers he's put up around himself in order to keep up with his fellow paladins.

But first. A little bit of expansion on those aforementioned superficial levels, because it's generally what we see the most unless there are dire circumstances, which usually involve extreme situational duress. Or if he thinks he might be dying or something. Situational duress.

Lance spends a rather sizable chunk of his time engaging the rest of the team with his antics, generally spazzing out over every little thing that could possibly fall within his field of perception ( anyone remember the way he wigged out when Pidge admitted that she was a girl, and the rest of the group took it with a grain of salt? this face right here? ); he tends to only be, uh, calm and cool and collected when he hones in on a pretty little thing in need of some flirtation, and even then he's pretty damned extra when it comes to garnering the sort of attention that he's convinced he wants.

And ends up not getting. Because there have been very few instances in which his flirting has seen him getting anywhere that isn't tied to a tree. ( And he totally deserved that, whether he thinks he did or not. )

He's pretty much the first to use humor as a coping mechanism, to make light of any situation that might otherwise be too heavy for him to handle — that's right, for him to handle, not necessarily anyone else, because the other members of the group might just be a little more mature than he is, and understand what it means to take things seriously. That isn't to say that he isn't capable of it when it really counts, but there might just be a reason behind Pidge declaring that he's the goofball of their little ensemble. And by there just might be I mean of course that's why, because it honestly never fails that he ends up being the comedy relief in any given situation, sometimes whether he wants to be or not.

( Case in point on that front: it might not be intentional, but he ends up being the reason the whole team gets shrunk in season 7, episode 1; it's almost slapstick comedy, the unfortunate series of events that sees Lance spooking the creature that ultimately sprays them all with the gunk that shrinks them, but that's. Just his lot in life, honestly. When he means to be funny, it rarely works, and when he doesn't, it ends up in instances like this. )

That opens up a perfect sort of segue into those deeper levels. The ones that aren't so superficial and have a tendency to be revealed only when Lance is by himself, or he thinks no one is paying attention ( or when he tries to blame space dust for his sudden tearing up when it comes to thinking about the family he'd left on earth ); he cares deeply for the other members of his team, his friends even despite engaging Keith in a constant sort of rivalry that has them both effectively at one another's throats in their earliest moments. He has a tendency to get attached to people very quickly and when he cares, he cares deeply. Will do just about anything in his power to make them smile, to cheer them up if they're feeling down and when it comes to potentially disappointing them? Letting them down? It devastates him. ( Does anyone remember his reaction to finding out that Shiro tried to speak to him from the Black Lion's consciousness? And he didn't get it? The guilt on that boy's face is heartbreaking, like he can't possibly think about forgiving himself for making that mistake. Even if it could be argued that it wasn't his fault, but that's neither here nor there. )

He might pretend not to remember specific bonding moments where he's cradled in someone's arms, but his friends are incredibly important to him, and actually count more as extended family, found family than anything else.

What little faith he has in himself ( despite all of that hemming and hawing about being the best sharpshooter ever ) is mirrored by that which he places with the others and their abilities, their smarts and their technical prowess; he would never admit to the others to feeling like he doesn't contribute enough to the team — because he knows he doesn't have the brain for engineering like Pidge and Hunk, doesn't have the sort of patience needed to be a leader like Shiro or the penchant for diplomacy like Allura — and when he actually gets around to putting a voice to those fears at all? It's essentially just a conversation with himself during the mission to retrieve Slav, where he mistakes a pet yupper for their actual target and gets all of his insecurities twisted around in his head when all of his questions about his worth to the team are met with yup.

( Another example of … the fact that he's not the sharpest tool in the shed all the time, but a prime example of how much he wants to pull his own weight, contribute everything he can to the team because he wants to be useful, wants to be a valuable asset, wants to be needed. )

He'll never be the kind of book-smart that could find him labeled a genius, or be possessed of the sort of common sense ( or … maybe just situational awareness ) to, say, keep him from being tied to a tree but he makes up for it in other ways.

And not just with his impulsiveness. He tends to have a wandering mind and finds himself easily distracted but he does listen when it counts, and even ( every so often! it's been known to happen! ) chimes in with his own one-and-a-half cents when he has a thought that might actually do the team some good. It's rare, but it has been known to happen before. Best to just leave the higher thinking to the ones with the brains made for it, or something.

Because when he doesn't have anything of value to add to any given situation, the sarcasm and snarkity-snark-snark comes out and that's never helpful, and he ends up. Making more of an ass of himself than he would prefer, which comes right back around to if you can't say anything nice, yadda yadda yadda.

( A pretty decent example of this is when the team is on their way to finally look in on the Blade of Marmora, and he gives Shiro all kinds of garbage for opting to bring Keith with him instead of him; Keith's a hothead, will shoot first and ask questions later and there won't be anyone left to answer questions because they'll all be dead! is how that whole thing plays out, not quite verbatim, but it ends up being that the red lion is pretty much the only thing that can get through all the hidden obstacles to reach the base in the first place.

Sometimes, Lance, it's just best to keep your mouth shut, isn't it? He'll learn that eventually. )

In … not quite as short as it probably should be, Lance is like an onion. In that he has layers — and it might take a while to peel the outer ones away in order to get to the real meat of him, and those outer layers might not exactly be the most enjoyable. Or even tolerable. He cares deeply and he loves fiercely and he more than believes in the power of the paladins coming together as a whole in order to protect the universe, and if that means the power of friendship or something like that … well. There you have it. He doesn't think he's the strongest or the fastest or the smartest — but it's that level of self-awareness that has allowed him to mature as he has, taking the smallest of baby steps in the direction of the kind of person he would like to be, and hopefully the sort he'll grow into once he's become more confident in himself outside the bravado he wears like a mask.

ABILITIES/SKILLS: ✔ sharpshootin' pro! all things considered, he might be a bit of a doof in other areas, but you give him a rifle and a target he's on it like a fat kid on cake
✔ he's a decent enough pilot, though he isn't anywhere near on Keith's level — but it might just go without saying that piloting a lion has done a bit of good for this particular skill, and he'll only get better with time
✔ does sarcasm count as an ability, because this boy has it in spades
✔ quick wit, when it counts, and when it can be considered less-than-dull but not-quite-sharp
✔ extraordinarily adaptive
✔ he maintains this uncanny ability to annoy anyone within audible / visible range; that's a skill you can't fake, baby

INVENTORY/COMPANIONS: ✔ Paladin armor
✔ Bayard — Lance's can switch between an energy assault rifle, a sniper rifle and an Altean broadsword
✔ Kaltenecker the cow, the most important bovine in the universe
✔ One ( 1 ) Altean equivalent of a sheet mask
✔ One ( 1 ) pair of lion slippers

FACTION CHOICE: Court of Stars

TATTOO: Pisces on the right side of his ribcage.

SAMPLES

NETWORK: → ic inbox thread with shiro

LOG: note: all linked threads are from hadriel unless stated.
→ cinema sins event top-level + subthreads
→ in which he protects iris amicitia, or tries
→ silent hill is a bad place, or every single bad decision ever is being made here
→ truth or dare, for something ridiculous

NOTES, QUESTIONS, COMMENTS: nada!