#(since S7 is considered a reboot)

[dealmxkerofgold]

@bluebellestorybrooke ( come cry with me over this beautiful, beautiful couple 🥹🥲😭 )

Rumbelle’s happy ending | 6x22

[buckevantommy]

Hey! It's the first time Buck Begins anon from before!! First of all do not feel bad for rambling - that is exactly what that ask was for! I loved hearing your thoughts!

And to answer your question about how I started watching -- 911 was a show always a show on my 'to watch' radar but I didn't give it much thought? I did watch s1 of lone star tho. until then I saw bi Buck on my dash for the first time after Tommy kisses him and i just went oh??!??! 👀👀 I binge watched season 1 and 2, and then I gave up and ended up watching s7 part 2 live while also watching s3 for the first time 🤣 there were some gaps I had to fill using fanon knowledge but I think it worked? And now I'm furiously trying to watch s4 around my busy work schedule before s8 airs 😅🤣

Hasn't stopped my from reading bucktommy fic or posting gifsets tho. Tommy has bewitched me, I love him. Every time I watch a scene where Buck talks about his love life a part of me is just- don't worry, your man is coming

oh! same here! i'd known about it for years but i'd just avoided it thinking it was just a different take on the same old tired procedural cop shows, or maybe something too dramatised like grey's anatomy. i'm not sure i even realised it was about firefighters until i heard people referring to it as 'the gay firefighter show' and even then i didn't really connect the dots.. 🔥👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨🚒

one of my fave spn blogs (bc i was a destiel girlie before the gay firefighter show consumed my life) was a 911 fan so i learned about bi!buck through her blogging (shoutout to @sunglassesmish: kay, you have changed my life for the better 😚🫶). i mean, i came from spn - where bi!dean is widely considered unacknowledged canon and it's a show now several years past its finale but with a dedicated fanbase still hoping for some kind of reboot or movie or something to fix the shit they did in the finale - to a show with a canon bi character, moreover a character in his 30s who had been presumed (by some)/written as (sorta) straight for 6 whole seasons. and evan buckley.. he's so much like dean wincester: the all american heroic ladies man with a traumatic upbringing and a megawatt smile and babygirl features and a heart of gold who just wants to be loved.. honestly i could write essays about these two.. ✍️

i love that we're on the same page! i started with season 7 (i watched 7x05 and onwards live) and got through seasons 1-3 while s7 was airing week to week, and so my buck knowledge was growing as i excitedly waited for the next ep to air with the rest of fandom (there's just something about that weeklong anticipation, i've missed it so much - the theorising, the time for fanworks, etc). 📺

i was also the same, trying to learn what i could through dash osmosis of the seasons i hadn't watched yet (i knew vaguely about the lightning strike and tried not to spoil myself too much about the family secret but reading fic and meta blew those doors wide open 😅). and even in season 1 i was like: i'm so glad he'll grow to be that person in season 7 one day, that he'll get to be vulnerable and open and earnest and loved and also get kissed by a handsome guy. 🥰

OMG WE ARE BOTH ON SEASON 4!! 🥳 i mean, i knew that, but it's still so exciting to know there are folks out there in the same boat! ⛵ i don't think i've liveblogged any other ep besides Buck Begins, but i think i'll probably do a lightning strike/coma liveblog when i get to it.

omg the amount of bucktommy fics i've consumed since april.. i remember in those early days i was consuming every single fic that got posted on ao3 - about a dozen 1k fics a day - until eventually there was 60+ fics a day and i couldn't keep up, but i'm still reading about 2-5 fics (mostly short ones) a day. this fandom is hella talented. 📚

our love for tommy kinard knows no bounds. 🤝💖🤝 and YES- omg- the way he is just craving love and a partner on the same page as him, someone he can be himself with.. lightning boy will meet him flying into a hurricane and i just think that's neat. ⛈️😘

[pokedash55]

Ninjobservation #2

Analyzing the Elemental Alliance as a group and uncovering the real reason the Time twins (Twims for short) were "traitors"

So I have rewatched Hands of Time for the 3rd time this past year and Me and my sister Purplefern (She has a ton of good Twims fics on Ao3 ^^) have learned a lot about the old elemental alliance (EA).

THE CLAIM

The EA were a strong clique that did not appreciate the Twim's general attitudes and personalities. Chen saw the growing discourse and manipulated both sides into turning on each other.

[[They be judgin' (””art”” by me) ]]

To start let’s look at all the Leaders of this Alliance

Wu

Wu back before his eventual growth with the ninja was a strict teacher. Morro ran away due to his inability to understand his problems (problems he may have caused with his teachings). He is generally harsh towards the Ninja in season 1, forcing them to train all day because they simply talked during his lesson ("Never trust a snake").

Due to being the son of the FSM he put pressure on himself to always be virtuous and leaderlike (believes he has to uphold order) and he takes this believed expectation of authority to heart. He is no nonsense, yelling at Libber (the Master of Lightning) for simply talking slightly off topic before an important battle. He has a strong sense of right and wrong, according to his own moral standards and does not waver on what he believes is in/appropriate.

Garmadon

Although less righteous than Wu, joining the alliance after the war began, he has also been seen as a strict and serious teacher. Because of the growing venom in his blood I'd argue he was even more strict, less in attitude but more in general rules of law and order. We see in Rebooted that Garmadon set strict rules for himself like "no weapons" to keep his destructive side in check and we know that Young Garmadon is so sensitive to rules as he claims that even reading another's mail is a crime. He joined as a leader and most likely upheld rules not just for the alliance but for his own sake.

Ray and Maya

We see little of them but they are both good friends- and Ray appears to be the right hand man-- of Wu They are such good friends that Ray is the one trusted with the Map to the Golden Weapons. From his tone and diction he seems very dogmatic and if he's anything like Kai, he's quick to assumptions and to attack people who he perceives as bad according to his own strict principles. He just feels like a stuffy guy. I don't have much on Maya but she's a good people person so she gets along with the others really well. Also she married Ray, so that has to say something. They both went along with the Time Blade plan.

Other Elemental observations

 Except for Libber (Lighting), all the Masters are older than the Time twins. (Krux can fight in S7 so he's not older than 70. They are most likely mid to late twenty's during the war)

 The EA is a pre-established group (Garmadon refers to them like they are a pre-existing entity in ToE flashbacks). They were two confident and arrogent twenty year olds strolling into a pre-established clique of old honorable fighters during a war. Not the best time for bonding.

 Ice feels very much like Wu and Garmadon, considering he gave his powers to an analytical robot like Zane is saying a lot about him. He most likely does not tolerate "shenanigans", especially during a war.

They battle in a tight group

Krux and Acronix

These two act like they don't belong in the group. During the party celebrating the end of the war they are seen standing away from the rest and are genuinely happy to be recognized by Wu for their efforts. Although retcon, the two are not seen battling with the rest of the group. They instead most likely are so powerful (and impulsive and difficult to work with) that they are sent on duo missions to protect villages (They are also not the best followers).

It's also a nice parallel to our ninja in ToE. They stuck together like a family and were disliked and excluded from the rest of the EM's. The same could be said for The Twims since they always fought together and were similarly excluded.

Krux

Krux is a planner and a sassy dude. He’s stubborn and will tell people they are wrong to their face. The 16 personalities that matches him best is INTJ (the Architect). This analytical type hates people who are who they consider idiotic, do not participate in formalities, and are aggravated by heavy rules and restrictions made by someone else, especially someone they do not respect (which is most people).

Although we do not see him much as a young man we know that he is prone to grudges and will resort to less kind methods in sake for the means to an end. Definitely not someone Wu and Garmadon would like since they are trying to uphold order and keep a chain of command. But Krux believes in his own plans and his own chain of command. He is not good at small talk and would mostly stick with his brother during group events like meetings and parties, so in general his terrible social skills probably made him pretty unliked.

Acronix

Acronix is quick witted and heavily proud of himself. He won’t admit he is wrong and is very loud in general. This may be a side tangent but Acronix may have ADHD, which would not be understood back in the day and people would regard him as annoying or rude.

EVIDENCE FOR ADHD

-He is shown to stand in a position that suggests hand fidgeting (A LOT)

-Quick to anger over minuscule details

-yeah he's distractible but he's also quick to move through ideas/activities

-impulsive

- During their important battle back in time his attention is on the pretty fusion dragon flying around instead of listening to Kruxs plan of attack.

-His attention shifts to the destiny's bounty and he toys with the ninja despite saying right before he couldn't stay and fight Wu cause he had to meet up with Krux.

- in general he is constantly shifting from idea to idea, oftentimes leaving his original plans completely un-finished

He could have trouble paying attention to meetings and with his bond with Krux and tendency to quick action he would choose his brother's plan and strike independently rather than following whatever Wu is doing. This leads them to fight beside each other alone instead of with the main group, making the elemental alliance think they believe to be better than them. 

In terms of Personality types he’s a hardcore ESTP (Entrepreneur). Like his brother, they are free analytical thinkers who do not respect higher authority simply because they claim to be the leaders and hate rules and regulations getting in the way of their progress. He says what's on his minds regardless of feelings and will defend his opinions despite others sensitivities. He is perceptive enough to pick up on small changes and habits but he is quick to share that knowledge (usually in a snarky remark). I doubt the alliance appreciates what he has to say when he’s blabbering about everything in such a rude tone.

MOE

Now this all may start to look like a silly “Hands of time did nothing wrong” theory. But there is a key factor in this that not many people talk about. The previous Master of Earth (or Moe for short).

We know that Chen manipulated Moe into turning against the alliance so it was not technically his fault. Chen could’ve said that because the serpentine rose from the earth he was entitled to fight for them. Heck he could’ve been 100% hypnotized by Clouse’s dark magic (His eyes were not swirly so it was not hypnobrai like is suggested in WOTD). He is most likely some lovable dummy who was easily swayed and a kind person to apologize once the truth about Chen is revealed (considering that he’s Cole’s grandfather). Moe as a person is fine. What is sketchy is Moe being easily forgiven and allowed into the alliance despite turning on all of HUMANITY. What he did could’ve hurt way more people. He fought with the snakes and attacked innocent people and powerless soldiers (like the rice farmers) and was off scott free! The Twims only fought the elemental alliance and Wu and Garmadon at the monastery. Not nearly as destructive.

They figured out that Chen made the alliance turn on each other after the war and forgave Moe for that, but isn't it strange that they never gave the Time Twins that same benefit of the doubt? We know from “Way of the departed” and general logic that Chen and Clouse helped tip them over the edge. Whether you believe this to be canon or not is irrelevant because if the EA knew that Chen was involved once why would they not assume he was with the time twins too? Seems like they already disliked the two and were just ready for a reason to punish them. All flashbacks we get are told from unreliable sources like Wu and Ray (who both were enthusiastically the ones planning to strip them of their powers.) Speaking of, let’s analyze this example of their “betrayal” shall we?

THE BATTLE IN QUESTION

This is the flashback we get of them fighting against the alliance. The first time you watch it all you really know is that they are fighting against the EA, when Wu is describing their arrogance and the danger of their powers. How evil right? To attack their companions like that? But there is a lot wrong with how Wu phrases the fight and how it actually goes down.

They have Bamboo staffs.

A weapon that is primarily defensive and not a good weapon of choice for a planned ambush or assault. They are non lethal weapons. And Acronix is said on LEGO.com to be quick to learn any weapon so someone as adaptable as he is would not intentionally bring something so weak to a fight unless he had been forced to improvise.

Always on the defensive.

Someone as tactical as Krux and skilled as Acronix would never let themselves be on the defensive like this if they had the first blow. We see that Ray has the first attack in the flashback. Although Acronix is known to jump in without thinking he has his brother who would not just go into a fight just to lose. And even if they did end up on the defensive after having the first strike Acronix has his powers. He would’ve brought both of them out of a situation if things got too hard (which he is known to do in battles HE starts). But they clearly did not start this battle.

They are surrounded.

These two guys with nothing but staffs are encircled? Krux as a planner and Acronix as a quick witted warrior would never let themsleves get into that position if it had been a battle that they had started and had been planning to win. This framing makes it feel like they are being ganged up on.

In a remote location.

The battle takes place on a gravel road no where near a major city. If they wanted to take over wouldn’t they strike somewhere more populated? And if they were attacking the EA...they would have attacked the EA directly. They were probably just walking and talking and got ambushed.

Chen?

Very possible that Chen sent an “anonymous” note to the EA telling them of the Twims plans to attack. They are arrogant, have openly hated Wu’s leadership, and don’t gel with the group so of course they would take a tip like that and attack someone they don’t like. It’s possible they had ideas of taking over the EA but the world seems a bit out of their morality range until provoked.

Now that they have been attacked the two form a real plan to overthrow these fools who don’t like them and have unfairly attacked them (just like Chen had been telling them they were likely to do). They bring real weapons (swords) to an important location (the Monastery) to fight the specific people they do not like (Wu and Garmadon).

The Punishment

Ok so these powerful elemental masters are going to attack the EA. They were once allies and they are too powerful to defeat with their powers. If only there was a way to temporarily suspend their powers so they could talk this out and have an understanding of each other and perhaps uncover Master Chen's involvement-- since the Hands of Time were semi-sensible war heroes who were the sons of a previous master of time who presumably responsibly used the element without issue (and was most likely a samurai since Krux says their helmets are samurai helmets)... sigh too bad there is not such a material… oh wait.

WHAT ABOUT VENGESTONE???

These fools really decided that destroying an important element forever, and violently ripping it out of its users was the only option? There were generations of time elementals before them that had the element. They could throw vengestone nets at them or fight until they get knocked out and then vengestone cage them. But they don’t want to know why they betrayed the alliance. It was not because the element was too dangerous. It was not because they had to strip them of their powers (cause there are less lethal ways of doing so). They just did not give these two any mercy.

CONCLUSION

The Time twins are hard to work with and stuck together no matter what. The alliance is very strict and dogmatic which both Krux and Acronix would hate being trapped in their day to day alliance meetings and group mentality. Chen used their egos and their exclusion to his benefit to keep the fight going after he was banished and sent a letter to start up conflict with the EA. The EA did not like the Twims so they were ruthless and did not give them the same mercy they did for Moe (They also are not Elements of Creation. Wu would do anything to protect the main 4 but he’ll punish these punks). 

[impala-in-gotham]

Since literally NONE of us are even close to being at peace with the finale STILL, I think we can all agree here.

Make it make sense.

The entire show is literally about saving people and hunting things, solving cases and fighting big bads. There is nothing more out of character, out of plot, out of the central theme than the entire finale episode. Based off of ALL the canon SPN lore, none of it makes sense.

Supposedly it’s been 5 months since 15x19, and we’re all supposed to believe neither of them have been trying to get Cas back???? (They were literally offering to kill each other to get Cas back via Chuck but didn’t even mention it to new God aka their collective kid?)

A-they know how to summon someone from the Empty (via s14 Lucifer), B-they have some of Cas’ blood to use for it, C-Jack knows the spell, D- Jack IS God. E- Jack brings Cas back anyway and we’re supposed to believe Cas doesn’t go to the bunker ASAP?!? Cas? Bleed for the Winchesters since s4 Cas? That guy. Just noped for 5 months?? Lies. Blasphemy.

Next we have Dean’s stupid death (which sends the worst possible message to mentally ill fans btdubs but anyway…)

A-if Cas is alive and well, you want us to believe he wouldn’t have swooshed right to the dying love of his life?!? B- this is not the first time we’ve been in this situation this is basically the 15th time and they legit raised God almighty but we’re supposed to think Sam wouldn’t call out to Jack or ANY angel?? Sam. Sam Winchester. No. C- Dean suddenly believes in fate and “supposed to be” now? After not at all, strongly against, for 15 years?? Really??

Legit all of Sam’s life looked empty, hollow, and overall sad. He lost everyone he loved most and has to live decades alone. Sam may have gotten the worst ending of all. (Second to Kevin)

Canonically ALL of Heaven looked fake. Like I’ve said it before but so much of what they used mirrors the djinn dream and the beautiful room from s4. So much of it from the saturation to the brand of beer. But the writer’s and cast are swearing up, right, down and sideways that this is the real heaven & ending. Why set it up like that then??? Firm believer that the real heaven that Cas helped build would be closer to Rocky’s than *that*.

Dean’s reactions in Heaven also zero sense. A-seeing og Bobby for the first time since s7 and they don’t even hug each other?? That’s his dad. How were they not more excited to see each other?? B- “Cas helped” and you want us to fully believe Dean isn’t shocked by that? Not a tad miffed? 5 months and he’s def been mourning most of that time and I’m betting some praying occurred. Zero follow up questions? There’s NO way. A *wing flap*and a “hello, Dean” is ALL we needed. C- heaven time goes differently but he was just with Sam, why would he want to see him first over every one else that’s already IN heaven. (Yes there are ways around covid that they could have pulled it off, ✨technology) D- this man spent his ENTIRE life inside the Impala. Yes, he loves Baby. Yes, she would be in his heaven. But that man wanted to go to the beach! He wanted his own place. His own bar. We’re supposed to believe he wanted to go for a drive first and foremost? No. And just leave Bobby after a 2min convo?! No.

There’s probably more but I just can’t wrap my head around any of the finale at all. I don’t understand how any one considered it good. The acting was good. It was emotional. But we simply did not watch the same show the same way if they’re not enraged by how much it got horribly wrong. If one day in the future they come out with whatever reboot and they’re like L-O-L the finale wasn’t “real” and it was bad on purpose THEN it’ll make sense. But i think that’s genuinely why none of us can move on. Cause WTF WAS THAT?!?

[floralovebot]

The girls look promising ngl. Hope we see the boys in good aesthetics and with a real background and personality. I honestly don't care if they "ruin" some characters which I mean if a character does something we don't think they would do before this soft reboot, I would still accept them. Because it's been yearssszzz some characters still don't have personality. The kids ain't stupid, some lore for winx would be always welcoming. I just hope they don't ruin the history of Magix.

Yeah, I do think since it's a reboot they could go further into some of the side character's backgrounds more without sacrificing screen time for the girls. And honestly, if the specialists are still there (which they likely will be) they really should develop them more considering it's been 10+ years and we still don't have canon backstories for most of them (even Sky and Brandon are underdeveloped).

I kind of agree with the ruining characters thing to a point. Like I said, I don't specifically mind Tecna being more girly but that's because she did "girly" things even in the first three seasons. It definitely wasn't as much as the others but it was still there. So for things like that, it's not a big deal since it doesn't specifically contradict the character (Tecna never expresses that she doesn't want to be traditionally girly and she can still be nerdy when she is yknow?). But on the other hand, if they change a character to a point where they don't even feel like themselves? Or it's something that plainly contradicts the character? At the point I'd rather they not ruin some characters for the sake of others yknow? (for Example, if tecna was suddenly Not the smart one and was interested in like. idk makeup. that would be. horrible.)

And I agree! I really hope they don't get rid of or dumb down the lore. Like,,, there's no point in that? It's a reboot so they're bound to change some things (plus we have no news on how much of the original plot they're keeping in) but I really hope it's not like. S7 levels of silliness. I really hope they keep in mind that children Can watch and understand "deeper" things and still enjoy it just as much as dumber kid's shows. Part of the original charm of Winx (and a lot of other kid's shows from that time) was that really dark plot. They did a good job of showing how serious it is without it being too depressing or not safe for kids yknow? I really hope they can achieve that again.

[guymaito]

For the ask thing :3:

Top 5 animals? Top 5 fav/comfort movies? Top 5 fav cartoons/shows?

I’m honestly glad to know theres other people including you who actually like Pakku and his character :3 Yes he was a completely asshole at the start but he did change, it’s just that it was so subtle that not everyone saw it

Also random song associations with characters:

Fighter by Jack Stauber reminds me very well of Piandao, Pakku, and Jeong Jeong as their younger selves during the war.

Why do I associate Grace by Lewis Capaldi with Bumi? (the music video tho would give more context to why it might make sense)

Oh Klahoma by Jack Stauber reminds me of Piandao and his overall anxieties for his partners.

Consider some of these songs as sorta song recs? Idk but still :3

1. Giraffes!! the reason why their tongues look like That is cause of extra melanin and to prevent sunburn!!

2. Seals!! there are 33 different kinds of pinnipeds and there over 50 extinct pinnipeds

3. Dogs!! they can only see in shades of blue and yellow, so bright red roses look yellowish brown and lively green grass look dehydrated and dead

4. Crows!! a group of them are called a murder

5. Cows!! they’re actually colorblind, they can’t see red specifically, so male cows, bulls aren’t getting mad at the color, they’re getting angry at the movement

1. The Losers movie from 2010, it’s a action mystery movie about Clay and his team that are a part of an elite US Special Forces Unit and are approached by a mysterious woman to exact revenge on their handler, Max, who betrayed them and just,,,the characters, CHRIS EVANS, jake jensen and all of his kinda weird glory, THE ELEVATOR SCENE, also cougar!!

2. Captain America and The Winter Soldier movie, it’s a action movie, which makes me realize that a lot of my faves are prolly gonna be action something, but anyways, it’s about Steve Rogers, who now lives in the nation's capital as he tries to adjust to modern times. An attack on a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague throws Rogers into a web of intrigue that places the whole world at risk. Joining forces with the Black Widow, Natasha Romanov, and a new ally, Sam Wilson, Steve struggles to expose an ever-widening conspiracy, but he and his team soon come up against an unexpected enemy. oh my god,,,just,,,the fight scenes, the running scene at the beginning of the movie, steve meeting sam that way, just everything!! this was also my introduction to marvel so in my mind no other marvel movie can live up to this (other than spiderman away from home)

3. Spiderman Far from Home, again, it’s a action movie, i’m not gonna explain this cause the post is getting long, but!! mj and peter!! just,,,all of their scenes!! also jake gyllenhaal!! the fight scenes!! the soundtrack!! everything about it is amazing!!

4. Thunderforce, again, i’m not gonna explain, it’s an action adventure and comedy movie (ofc it is look at the other 3 🙄 /s), the relationship between lydia and emily!! the relationship between lydia and emily’s daughter!! the humor!! the fight scenes!! the soundtrack!!,,,,just everything about is good despite the bad ratings

that’s more like a top 4 than a top 5 but that’s like,,,,all the movies i genuinely like and will rewatch if given the chance and for that where’s a honorable mention: Hamilton (the movie version on disney+ that came out i think nearly a year ago), the soundtrack is amazing, the characters are better, got some funny moments and is mostly historically accurate, like yeah angelica did forget her name cause at the time of her meeting alex ham, she was married to a man named john church (or something church idk) so her last name was church but she introduced herself to alexander as angelica schuyler, not angelica church, so in satisfied she was telling the truth about forgetting her own name, but in the same song she said that her father had no sons even though the real angelica had 3 brothers.

1. Avatar the last Airbender, ofc or else i would have a blog (mostly) centered around it and it’s sequel /s but fr though?? it’s such a good show!! zuko’s redemption arc, iroh’s redemption arc (even though his more subtle than zuko’s) , aang!! love him and his character so much, especially when he gets to be a sassy little shit, sokka and his shit humor and brains, katara, toph, hakoda and HIS shit humor, the fight scene with hakoda (he fights kinda like a waterbender, using his opponent’s momentum against them), bato and his lovely, lovely voice, piandao, aang going ‘how about he get on YOUR back and you can fly us to the south pole’ or something like that to sokka after he complained about appa not flying higher, the boiling rock episodes, hakoda apparently being a good dad but a shitty prison riot starter (love that for him), just!! atla is such a good ass show, im not changing my mind. also!! i like the way they introduced ozai, not showing his face but still presenting him as not only a shit dad, but a shit person as well, like up until book three, we only saw him like, the neck down and in like, a flashback or two (i don’t really remember how many flashbacks ozai was in actually cause it’s nearly been a full year since i last watched it) and that’s it, so it made seeing his face for the first time all the more better cause you was already like ‘what the hell does this shitbag look like’ and then you see him and now ur like ‘oh!! THATS what he looks like!!’

2. The Legend of Korra, again, ofc or else i wouldn’t have a blog (mostly) centered around it and it’s prequel, just,,,,korra’s arc from being hot headed to calm is fantastic but also sad considering the way she went from that to this, korra’s book 1 character!! for whatever reason i really like b1 korra, just,,her design, her hair style (even though she had it for nearly the entire series) just!!! book 1 korra <3, also the entirety of book 1!! just amon posing as a anti bender nonbender despite being a waterbender himself, the scene where tenzin and his kids nearly lost their bending, which would’ve meant that, if tenzin did lose his bending but his kids didn’t, that would’ve meant the strongest airbender would’ve been his 11 year old daughter, the gruesome way to end the season finale episode by doing a murder suicide which was dark as fuck for what?? a kids show??, also the villains in this show!! their good as hell!! the backstory of the red lotus and how and why they were created?? amon and his anti bending?? kuvira and her plan to basically rule the earth kingdom (idk i haven’t finished book 4), unalaq and his spiritual stuff and wanting to become a dark avatar and fusing with vaatu?? also!! the other disturbing scene of korra basically getting tortured near the end of book 3, i mean?? it deadass left her hella traumatized and unable to walk, again hella dark for a fucking kids show

3. The Walking Dead, even though i haven’t finished it or watched in like, 4-5 months, i just,,,the way the presented negan!! practically foreshadowing him the entirety of season 6!! him appearing at the very end of the season 6 finale and pretty much having an entire episode dedicated to him in the very beginning of season 7 (which is why some fans argue he was introduced in s7 not s6 cause of the fact that he didn’t show up until the very end of the s6 finale but had an entire episode with him in it in s7, while others say vice versa cause the very the first time we see him was in s6 not s7), the fact that the walking dead logo was getting progressively more and more decayed as the series go on?? the fact that the WALKERS (the zombies) are getting more and more decayed as the series go on?? dale’s death scene?? shane’s death scene?? negan’s relationship with rick’s daughter?? the fact that this show also has what?? 11, 12 seasons?? which reminds me that i’m still on season 9 of twd

4. Sabrina the Teenage Witch, just,,,salem and his sarcasm?? sabrina’s aunts?? sabrina herself?? just!! everyone is just so fucking funny in this show it’s unreal, specially salem!! a lot of my favorite scenes have salem in them, the ‘are you on a women’s chat room again?’ (or something like that) and salem saying ‘i like the attention’ in response, that one harvey and salem scene that i don’t know how to describe without turning this into a giant paragraph like the ones before this one

5. blue’s clues, it was my favorite childhood show and i love the reboot of it so much!! especially p for pride moment in that song i don’t remember the name of, blue themself!! steve leaving which was sad but getting an equally amazing host in the process?? amazing!! the scene where salt and pepper introduced their baby, paprika?? just,,,it’s such good show and i loved it when i was younger and i still love it now!!

[alexiablackbriar13]

A Collection of Season 7 Oliver/Felicity Pregnancy Fics

Hey guys! So many of you enjoyed the S1-S6 canon-divergent pregnancy fic list that I decided to make a S7 pregnancy fics list as well - this time, the list contains canon missing/alternate scene fics, post-7x22 fics (pre-Crisis or completely canon divergent) and canon divergent fics.

Also... Yeah, I put it into alphabetical order (well... tried). It was a pain. I hate singing the alphabet song in my head because I’m an idiot who can’t remember the alphabet. ENJOY! If you have any other recs to add to the list, please let me know xx

A Moment of Grace - 4.2k - by juliesioux // Very short one shot of the hours that I think followed Felicity telling Oliver that she is pregnant. It is tender, sweet, sexy and told exclusively from Felicity's POV.I wonder just how nervous she must have been telling Oliver about it but this is all about how they communicate when words aren't necessary and when they are, how they are shared. [Post-7x15]

a once-in-a-lifetime love - 1.8k - by inlovewithimpossibility // Felicity squeals a little as he lifts her into his lap with the utmost care, nuzzling her neck before planting a few kisses there. “Oliver?” “I ordered you fries and a chocolate shake.” He tells her and Felicity grins, pulling back to grasp his face in her hands. [Extended 7x18 scene]

< read more recs down below the cut! >

a time of wonder - 4.1k - by ivorykeys09 // Their schedules unfortunately don’t allow for a long trip, and bad weather and doctor’s orders keep them closer than tropical beaches, but they still make it to a city they haven’t been to together before. (Or, one last trip before their daughter arrives.) [Late S7]

an evening walk - 1.3k - by CheerUpLovely // On a peaceful, summer evening walk, Felicity and Oliver take stock on the most important thing to consider when living with ex-agents and soldiers. Have our neighbors tried to kill us? [Post-7x22]

Caffeine Chronicles (Or Lack Thereof) - 8k WIP - by drmrs // No one loves coffee quite like Felicity but with a baby on the way, she's had to make some changes. (or the one where Felicity struggles to consume less coffee throughout her pregnancy) [Late S7]

Chain Reaction - 1.5k - by Bri206 // Oliver gets out of prison and Felicity is 6 months pregnant. Oliver wants to help and make up for lost time, but things don't go to plan and they both question if time really had changed them. [S7 AU]

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Come Morning Light - 3k - by andachippedcup // After getting acclimated to the cabin, Oliver surprises Felicity with a visit from Donna, who has yet to be informed about Felicity's pregnancy. [Post-7x22]

Dear Mia (Love Mom) - 1.4k WIP - by AustenJane // When Felicity finds herself pregnant, it drudges up a lot of memories about her not-so-functional relationship with her own mother (and absentee father) growing up. And it gets her thinking about the future. She decides to write her unborn baby letters for her to read when she gets older, as a way to clear up any misunderstandings she may have about her relationship with her and Oliver. [S7]

Emerald Archer Martial Arts - 32.4k - by @alexiablackbriar13 // In May 2019, a tired Oliver Queen and four months pregnant Felicity Smoak retire from their vigilante duties and move to the redwood forest town of Bloomfield with their son William, to raise their family in peace. Along the journey, they build their own successful companies, increase the size of the Smoak-Queen clan by a couple more, train their kids in self-defense, and live out a blissful existence. This is the story of 7 years of their happiness and family antics, after 7 years of crime-fighting and hardship to save their city. [Post-7x22 AU]

For Heirs to Come, Be Brave - 2.5k - by andachippedcup // Before the events leading to their interrogation by the SCPD, Felicity and Oliver get some news about the baby. [Pre-7x20]

give all my secrets away - 1.5k - by LiteraLi // Before returning to the Waverider, Sara shares a drink with Oliver and Felicity as they reminisce about old times and some secrets are revealed, old and new... [7x18 spec]

Happiest man alive - 0.7k - by HopeShannon3000 // A short story that takes place after Felicity tells Oliver shes pregnant. [Post-7x14]

here, is home - 3.6k - by ivorykeys09 // In another life, they take baby classes and register for cribs and the Diggles throw them a shower.In this life, it's different. [7x22 AU]

Hope Is Something You Give Yourself - 1.6k - by Juvinadelgreko // Felicity tells Oliver who was on the phone, and they discuss what it means for their future. [Post-7x13]

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED how the light gets in - COLLECTION - 28.2k - by @dust2dust34 // "There is a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in." Bre’s ficlet collection for Season Seven. Includes speculation fics, wish fics, canon fics, elaboration fics, pretty-much-everything-related-to-Season-Seven fics. Including fics such as:

Afterglow - 2.5k - "Good morning to orgasms and buffalo wings only." [Post-7x18]

forever i’m yours (forever i do) - 6.1k - Oliver hid Felicity’s chocolates and she is not happy about it. [Late S7]

The Right Tools - 1.7k Set during the Happy Months. Oliver and Felicity move her desk into her new office at the cabin. [Post-7x22]

We Can Do This - 0.9k - Felicity tells Oliver she's pregnant. [Post-7x13] 

i’ll take care of you - 2.8k - by undercoversmoak // Oliver finds out his pregnant wife braved not one, but two death-defying explosions while working with the canaries. He doesn’t handle it super well. [Post-7x18]

it’s only a matter of time - 2.5k - by inlovewithimpossibility // The mornings of Felicity's thirtieth and thirty-fifth birthdays are vastly different. The former is spent with her husband, anticipating the arrival of their baby girl and the latter is a far more lonely affair but a certain blonde-haired little girl seeks to change that for her mama. [Post-7x22]

late talks - 2.5k - by drmrs // Oliver speaking to fetus Mia and spending some alone time with Felicity for the first time since finding out they're having a girl. [Late S7]

Learning How To Win - 4.3k WIP - by Juvinadelgreko // Oliver and Felicity retire from the vigilante life only to be interrupted by the Monitor and Crisis on Infinite Earths.They deserved better. Here’s my take on what better looks like. Begins shortly after Oliver and Felicity moved into their new home. [Post-7x22 AU]

Little Star... Wonder What You Are - 2.5k - by OhhMyyDarla // Did someone say Gender reveal party? Yes the Queen's are having one! 

Love Your Curves (And All Your Edges) - 3k - by andachippedcup // While pregnant with Mia, Felicity is having back pain and Oliver tries to help her with it. But his prenatal yoga suggestion backfires when he realizes this means he must look but not touch as his very beautiful, very pregnant wife strikes a number of very tempting poses. [Post-7x22]

Mint Chip Queen - 2.4k - by andachippedcup // Oliver is obsessively worrying over details of Felicity giving birth to Mia. But Felicity's only concern seems to be in determining what their code word should be to indicate that it's 'go time'. [Post-7x22]

Missing Pieces - 3k WIP - by aStormyHaze // After setting down in their new cabin in Bloomfield, Oliver realises Felicity woke up different that morning. Will she let him in? [Post-7x22]

No Regrets - 2.3k - by ghostfox11 // An episode insert for the end of 7x18, Lost Canary. Oliver finds a bruise on Felicity's hip forcing her to tell him that she went into the field. 

One Final Goodbye - 1k - by Bri206 // How I imagine the ending to season 7 will play out. [7x22 spec]

Our Legacy - 4.6k - by @dmichellewrites // Oliver and Felicity focus on building their future starting with Smoak Tech and baby Mia. New beginnings help Oliver let go of his past. [S7]

Peppermint Lies - 0.5k - by @felicityollies // Felicity seeks revenge on Oliver for buying the wrong ice cream. [Post-7x22]

Precious Cargo - 2.8k - by OliversMuse // Felicity is pregnant and Oliver is a sappy, loving husband. [Late S7]

Pregnancy - 3.3k - by hope-for-olicity (Jacq) // Post 7x13 story dealing with Felicity’s thoughts about the unplanned pregnancy.

Reboot and Rebuild - 1.6k - by griever11 // Another way Diggle could have found out about baby Queen. Felicity has a request that might have long-lasting effect on the Diggle - Queen families. [Post-7x14 AU]

Run Away With Me - 131.8k - by @dmichellewrites​ // Join Oliver, Felicity, their friends, and family as they navigate their lives together post-Slabside. They really can have it all. Watch them balance being heroes, parents, and still manage to hold down day to day jobs. Enjoy their slice of maximum domesticity, and take a peek into their home life together with their four children. [Post-7x07 AU]

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED runaway mother-to-be - 2.6k - by inlovewithimpossibility // Star Labs gets a visit from their favourite computer genius/hacker but she's not there simply to say hello. The main issue however is that she may have hidden the news that she was leaving Star City from her husband who has gotten a little overbearing ever since he found out their good news. (A small crossover set in the very near future where Felicity runs off to CC to get away from Oliver's overprotectiveness and Iris and Barry get caught up in their friends' small disagreement) [Late S7 AU]

safe in my arms - 1.4k - by inlovewithimpossibility // Oliver loses track of time working late in the bunker and it seems his wife has to. Worried about her, he heads over to her new office space to find that, tired from work and their small little miracle growing inside her, she's fallen asleep at her desk. [Set around 7x17]

season 7 pregnant felicity fics - SERIES - 12 fics, in total 39.9k - by @alexiablackbriar13  // Contains various fics set between 7x13 to after 7x22. Includes fics such as:

as darkness falls (a spark resides) - 3.5k - It's been two weeks since Felicity found out she's pregnant, and she hasn't told Oliver yet. Plagued by nightmares about being attacked and the baby being hurt, Felicity struggles to sleep. After Oliver witnesses one of her post-nightmare panic attacks, she finally tells him about the baby. [Post-7x13 AU]

hungry like a (pregnant woman) wolf - 3.1k - 7 cravings felicity has during her pregnancy and the 7 people who help her with them (even though most of them don't know she's pregnant in the first place) [Late S7]

strange behaviours - 3.3k - the 5 times john diggle noticed oliver queen and felicity smoak's latest weird behaviors and the 1 time he figured out what was causing it (spoiler alert: it's fetus mia smoak-queen) [Late S7, Post-7x14 AU]

whenever you’re ready - 7.5k - Mia and William from 2040 travel back in time to 2019 to access an uncorrupted version of Archer. Oliver and Felicity investigate a break-in at the bunker only to find their children from the future bickering. Emotional confrontations and conversations ensue. [Late S7]

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED The Microchip Chronicles - 46.8k - by CSM // Post 7x13. Follows the next nine months of Felicity’s pregnancy. [S7 AU] 

The Path You Choose - 2.9k - by @dmichellewrites // A retelling of Arrow season 7, episode 21 "Living Proof" This is everything I hoped to see on screen, but did not. Felicity feels their baby kick for the first time after Emiko attacks. Oliver has a not so surprising visit from his dead best friend, who helps him confession a very important piece of information to his family. [7x21 AU]

Tummy Troubles - 2.8k - by Mellowyellowdiamonds // Oliver feeds his infamous spicy chili to Felicity which leads to a surprise discovery about their already fraught relationship. [Post-7x08 AU]

Unsure of what the balance held (I touched my belly overwhelmed) - 3.7k - by nyclove3 // Her hand flies to her stomach again, the same way it has every time she’s caught herself replaying the moment Dr Schwartz told her the news and changed her life forever. [Post-7x13]

We’re Pregnant - 1.4k - by originalhybridlover // Oliver reacts to Felicity telling him she's pregnant. [Expanded 7x14 scene]

you can ebb and i can flow - 3.4k - by inlovewithimpossibility // “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to push you.” She says softly, reaching for his free hand which she grasps with her own and laces their fingers together. Oliver smiles at her, shaking his head. There are few times he’s ever been able to hold anything against his wife, especially when she employs as adorable of a pout as the one she’s wearing right now. [Pre-7x20]

you collect me with your steady hand - 2.2k - by inlovewithimpossibility // "Baby is starting to make their presence known. How long until she makes the connection? Or worse, someone we really can’t trust makes it?” Felicity pretty much collapses as she speaks. Her shoulders slump, her face falls and it’s all Oliver can do not to break at the expression on her face. [Post-7x19]

[safflowerseason]

I think that, for the show that veep became, the finale was pretty good. I didn’t really love it because it wasn’t like veep season 1-4, but for the show it had become it actually worked pretty well, IMO.

I largely agree, Anon. If we’re grading on a curve, the Veep finale was one of the stronger episodes of the season for me, in terms of how it held together as a 30-minute episode of television. It’s still plagued by the defining problems of S7, but it’s more tightly constructed, at least for the first twenty minutes. And the episode had a somewhat decent balance of genuine pathos and humor, and the way the action unfurled was logical…even if the action itself was actually grotesque and upside down (like, as much as I loved Veep’s foray into international law in 7x06…none of the action in that episode makes a lick of sense). It worked as a culmination of the “nauseous-exhilarated house burning down” sensibility that characterized S7 for me.

In terms of plotting and narrative momentum, Mandel episodes tend to work better when he’s forced to adhere to a strict timeline, which framing the finale around the convention required him to do (for the first twenty-five minutes, anyway). When he doesn’t have to mark time, the episodes feel weirdly suspended—they could either span two days, two weeks, or two months, and there’s no way for the audience to tell, which doesn’t exactly work for a show about politics. Of course, a tighter episode doesn’t necessarily make for a good episode of television. 7x02 is an example of a relatively well plotted episode where the writing is so bad it undercuts everything else. But in terms of how the political action unfolds…at least it’s more logical than an episode like 7x04. 

The last five or so minutes of the finale are where things dissolved a bit, for me. I think I’ve come around the opinion where they should have stuck with the original plan and had Selina lose—not because I didn’t like what happened to the rest of the ensemble, but because having Selina win at the cost of her “humanity” or whatever, and watching her briefly reckon with the permanent consequence of her actions, simply doesn’t land. Truly, I’ve never seen a show where the showrunner self-sabotaged his own narrative so dramatically. 

Plus, having Selina win the election just made the plot even more overstuffed. I can obviously see the appeal of ending with a flash forward, but the more I think about it, the place to have a time-jump would have been at the beginning of the season. Considering they basically rebooted the whole show, a time-jump would have enabled Mandel to get rid of the storylines he didn't want to deal with anymore (Amy’s pregnancy, mostly). It wouldn’t have been graceful, but he would have escaped having to try and rewrite the entire show in three episodes, which obviously backfired.

S7’s issues with time really make it clear that they had planned for eight seasons, originally,—a season for the primaries, and a season for the general election. (I’m not saying they shouldn’t have shortened it…it’s clear that the paramount concern for everyone was Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s health, as it should have been!) But one final, shortened season, on top of changing the ending to have Selina win, meant that they had to cram so much into a shorter season. Even a more masterful showrunner with a better understanding of American politics would have had a hard time making sure all the elements fit together correctly. 

For one thing, primary season is long, much longer than the general election. Why not jump ahead to the actual beginning of the primaries in January 2020, and skip all the silly pre-campaigning, where it’s hard for any plot development to really have a payoff? There’s still plenty of time—basically a whole year—for Selina to chase Amy away (either with no kid or as the mother of a baby Dan’s having a low-grade mental crisis about), plenty of time to explore why Dan and Amy won’t end up together, plenty of time for Richard to ascend, plenty of time for Jonah to be on his warpath of destruction. It would have provided a much clearer, but still flexible timeline along which to organize the plot. And we wouldn’t have had to endure the teeth-grinding timeline of 7.03 and 7.04, which is so mind-bogglingly stupid I actually find it insulting. And none of the political action in 7.01-7.03 couldn’t have happened at a later period—there’s still plenty of state fairs and rich donors to court even the election is a few weeks away, not a year. 

I’m getting distracted from the actual finale itself. 

Oh yeah, for the final flash-forward, I guess I get why they did it, but it certainly didn’t tell us anything new about Selina. Great—everyone still has ambivalent-to-bitter feelings about her! Because she’s dead, we don't actually see her wrestle with that. In general, I don’t understand why Mandel was so obsessed with ending the series on Selina’s death. I feel like seeing her obscurity and irrelevance at the end of her life would have made the flash-forward much more powerful—it might have been a better way to explore what he was trying to get at in the final West Wing scene. Plus, does anyone really believe Gary was released from jail and unpopular ex-president Selina didn’t try to hire him again? Please. She’d want to pretend like it never happened. 

Plus…24 years is a long-ass time. You’re telling me that Dan hasn’t spoken to Amy since 2019 and yet he’s calling her by his pet nickname and gossiping with her like old times? And Amy’s her usual arch self around him, instead of being all “Dan who?” after what he did to her? NO. NOT A THING. 

Whew. The fact that I’m able to rant like this about one episode of S7 Veep that I actually vaguely enjoyed just goes to show how deeply messed up the final season was. 

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Got yet another early finish today, so because it’s just a special I decided to squeeze in a viewing of Day of the Departed, exactly six months ahead of the holiday it’s a special for. Ah well. 

So, it was fine. There is one very big issue, but there is a bit of context for why unlike a lot of issues in the show so far; with the Ninjago Movie coming up, apparently this and season 7 were thrown into utter chaos and you can tell. I’ll get into in the notes.

-MVP of the special is pretty obvious. Cole gets the focus here and he does not squander the opportunity. Not only does he get to be on his top form in terms of more comedic personality, he gets pathos to his ghost form (finally) and a good show of his empathetic side. Plus he gets a new power to play with, one that makes a very good toy gimmick (and will be keen to the writers too considering how often it comes up).  -The other ninja don’t so much get that sort of treatment, just little opportunities to show off a bit of themselves at that point. Lloyd and Jay have the best of this, having opportunities to reflect on their arcs in Tournament of Elements/Possession and Skybound respectively with the theme of death and appreciating those still living, Zane’s is kind of weak but gets the basics in, and Kai and Nya were basically just setting up for season 7.  -The villains are fun, if obviously just there for fanservice. I think I’ve heard that one of people’s big hang-ups with the special is how it didn’t treat them seriously and...to be honest, the selection it had were not villains I took seriously in the first place. Samukai, Kozu and Cryptor were from seasons (or pilot) that didn’t take themselves that seriously outside of, like, the Overlord, Chen is the one post-S3 villain that was supposed to be silly and fun up to this point, Morro was actually treated seriously and kept his development from the end of Possession, and Pythor’s just a bitch. What limits them is that they don’t get to do more because there’s so much being thrown around.  -Yang’s alright, a step down from the last two villains. I mean, he spends a lot of it just being the stereotypical villain looking to just stop the ninja, but at least it tries to throw him a bone at the end (and makes more sense of his motives considering his previous status). The conversion to good is pretty breakneck though.  -The side characters get some nice moments, specifically Misako twisting Pythor’s words in Lloyd’s favour, Ed and Edna just being super supportive and Dareth showing surprising competence in the wake of Kozu’s attack (despite his sleazy comment at the start). Also Lou is back! He got kinda shortchanged when he wanted to start efforts to rebuild the city first in S2 only for S3 to basically force in Cyrus rebuilding due to the whole technology slant. I like the little moment he got at the start, but I wish it showed more closure with the family thing. I mean, when you think about it Lou’s had his whole world shaken since S1, he would want to have some family time for once. I swear, the one thing that will get me to riot about S13 is if Lou doesn’t get anything, give the man a break! And finally, Dr Saunders is a bit of a scene stealer despite just being there to set up...this plot. Boogily boogily. -Time to address the elephant in the room though; the pacing of the special is so fast. If the thing about this being a season first then shortened down to a special is true, you can definitely tell because it tries to include all those potential threads, and a Cole focus, and S7 foreshadowing all in one go. They wisely make the Cole material the strongest and the least rushed stuff (although as I said with Yang, it’s not completely immune), but it doesn’t take a breather, ever. I can see why this could be overwhelming.  -Also the fighting choreography here is a bit naff. Again, probably because it’s rushed. -But hey, the tone feels like S1-S2 light-hearted again, and I’ve missed that. It’s a breather between the heavier stuff of the seasons gone...and the seasons coming up.

Overall, I can see why people regard this as one the worst Ninjago things, but I can’t say I find it any worse than something like Rebooted. it’s a shame things panned out the way they did, because with more time this could have been an absolute riot. At least the insight into the more grounded side of Ninjago culture is given the spotlight (pardon the pun), and Cole gets a pretty nice sendoff to his ghost state.

With the special out of the way, it’s back onto regular seasons when the next Ninjago viewing will be Hands of Time. I sure hope we get more of Dr Saunders now that we’ve introduced him, it sure would be a waste to have the eccentric museum owner only around for one special.

...Oh who am I kidding, I’m on Faky’s LCA server, nobody would believe I don’t know how that turns out with the prevalence of his candy-crushing, Lance Richmond-voiced relative on there.

[leakinghate]

Legendarily Defensive: Editing the Gay Away in VLD

Disclaimer: This meta is a collaboration of the entirety of #TeamPurpleLion.  We understand while we do touch on narrative romance, we are intentionally trying to be as ship-neutral as possible, and provide that which we only have evidence for.  We encourage the experts in their respective ship-fandoms to meta as they do best on these topics, and we hope this can be a factual basis to springboard from.

In the most recent AfterBuzz interview March 4, 2019, Executive Producers Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim dos Santos revealed in no uncertain terms who, precisely, is responsible for the editing fiasco that resulted in the version of Season 8 presented to the fandom, including explaining to their viewers when the changes were called for, and a heretofore unknown why: the removal of a mlm relationship between two of the male Paladins.

Let’s break it down.

The interview itself is a little very difficult to stomach, especially the latter half.  But, the first portion is an unusually open and honest discussion of what went down behind the scenes, and what it meant to the producers.  It’s also the place where we’ll be lifting direct quotes from.  The hosts of AfterBuzz allow the Executive Producers to have the floor and speak with quite a bit of leeway, and some very curious facts come to light.  For anyone interested in the source, the interview can be found on Youtube.(3)

Voltron is a unique case.  While much of the fan base may not have been around for prior incarnations of this franchise, it has existed for quite a while.

It originally came from a Japanese show Beast King GoLion.  From this show, the robot we recognize from Voltron: Defender of the Universe, was created in 1984. There exists an interview with the Executive Producer of Defender of the Universe, Peter Keefe, as well as other cast and crew on the production of how BeastKing became Voltron.(4)

After Voltron: Defender of the Universe, several other iterations bloomed forth - some in the form of comics, some as sequels, some as reboots. The first series to follow Defender of the Universe was Voltron: The Third Dimension, a CGI-based sequel released in 1998.

While not nearly was popular as its predecessor, it managed to stir up some legal conflict:

“Worse, the Japanese creators of Beast King GoLion — Toei Animation — began saber-rattling. Toei believed World Events had overstepped the boundaries of their 1984 agreement and made the CGI series without buying those explicit rights.

To quash this dispute once and for all, Koplar and crew purchased GoLion outright in 2000. Now they had the freedom to adapt at will. But nothing was in the works.”(7)

As of 2000, Koplar and World Events Productions (WEP) owned all the rights to Voltron. Talk of a live action movie has been in the works since 2005, but with little traction. In 2010, WEP licensed rights for the Voltron franchise to Classic Media (now DreamWorks Classics) (7).   By 2011, the animated series Voltron Force was released.

In 2014 Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos approached DreamWorks Animation with the idea of producing a new Voltron show, with the license DreamWorks had recently come to own through their acquisition of Classics Media. In 2016, Voltron: Legendary Defender launched.

It’s worth noting World Events Productions licensed rights to produce Voltron content to DreamWorks Studios.  They did not hand over the entire franchise to do with as they saw fit.  DreamWorks only purchased the ability to play with the characters and the story in whatever capacity WEP believed would remain on-brand.

Amidst the protests and visceral reaction to the final season of Legendary Defender, many have felt confusion about where to direct their frustrations.

In another post, @crystal-rebellion theorized the symbolism in Season 7’s Episode 4 ‘The Feud’ was actually a very blatant representation of what was going on behind the scenes, and why. (2)

Since the most recent interview, statements from the Executive Producers as well as the host have confirmed this to be an accurate assessment of the situation.

Joaquim Dos Santos says it himself:

"This is not a vilifying of DreamWorks. Any exec we ever interacted with was like, 'Hey, we understand why you want to tell the story, we understand where you're coming from. It's a little bit bigger than that. There's other sort of controlling parties with Voltron, which makes it unique.’ It's not just a DreamWorks owned property, and I think it got logistically really really weird." (3)

Seven times, he specifically mentions the pushback didn’t come from DreamWorks, but from ‘other controlling parties.’  He alludes to some logistical weirdness, the implication being a difference in creative direction, or some dissention from higher up. In fact, the hosts and EPs discuss a controlling IP owner eight times in the course of one interview.

He also says, in regard to the issue of LGBTQ+ representation and Adam specifically:

“Here's where we arrived on this. And we were pointing to things like Overwatch. We were pointing to Steven Universe. They're different scenarios, we were in a slightly different position. We didn't have that position of being the creators of this IP. And we also weren't a video game that was marketed to teens and above. We for all intents and purposes were started as a show for boys like 6 to 11 to sell as many toys as possible. And that's just like a fact and that's business, and it is what it is.” (3)

DreamWorks is not a platform that markets ‘toys for boys’ (a talking point brought up no fewer than five times) - but World Events is. President Robert Koplar himself states his target demographic is boys and their dads in Episode 12 from the Let’s Voltron podcast not once, but twice. (5)

The EPs confirm as much with their recent statement in the March 4th ABTV Voltron interview(3) that the possibility of a male paladin’s replacement was greenlit until the IP holder learned the male paladin was to be replaced with Acxa, a woman. This kind of sexist hypocrisy goes as far back as 1984 with Allura being spanked in front of her own team in one episode(11) and tied to a chair by them to prevent her escape in another(11). The 2003 Devil’s Due comic shows Lotor, who looks to be no more than five, witness his mother’s murder via strangulation by his father (complete with an expression of horror on her dead face)(12). Lotor then suffers the same type of non-lethal strangulation in a scene where his father interrupts what the comic refers to as “recreation” with a scantily clad blonde resembling both Lotor’s mother and Allura in a different series(13). All of this takes place in a franchise whose target demographic has consistently been six to eleven year old boys and their fathers. Koplar’s company has made their hypocritical moral stance abundantly clear in Legendary Defender, even going so far as to order the destruction of the entire final season. According to Dos Santos:

“Specifically with Season 7 and 8 we basically held onto Season 7 so Season 8 was like done by the time S7 was dropping. We had like a month left when reaction for Season 7 started coming in, and that was day of the drop. We were in a weird position. To DreamWorks's credit, the tide started changing internally. They came back to us and said, okay we're open to explore this relationship between Adam and Shiro so we were in this weird position where we had all the animation done, we had $0.00 left in the budget in terms of like what we could do and it was like, all right, we know Adam's fate is what it is, do we do this and sort of like take this step knowing that we're going to take some flack? And we decided to do it so we revised the dialogue. You can probably see it in the animation. If you really pay attention it's like, it's literally our editor cutting out mouths and like puppeting different dialogue. The dialogue is pretty vague, it's sort of the best we could do, and that was a process of discussing what we could actually have them say.”(3)

Hold the phone. Taken in context, Dos Santos is explaining the process of DreamWorks giving the showrunners the green light to change the epilogue of Season 8 to give Shiro the unambiguously gay orientation they had written out of Season 7. The problem is, there is no dialogue in the epilogue. Even if we consider the epilogue to consist of everything from “one year later” onward, there is no dialogue for Shiro and another male character that would have to be reworked.

Here is what we think happened: Season 8 was finished in June. The IP owner hated it and ordered it changed at the beginning of July. Those changes included cutting a male/male romance. August came and the fandom melted down over Adam dying. Hoping to avoid a repeat of the Adam debacle, in mid-August DreamWorks came around and offered to let the showrunners put something into Season 8 for more gay representation. By this point the edits to Season 8 were almost complete, the budget was gone, and time was short, so they opted to give Shiro a wedding during the ending, in the epilogue. In an effort to brush off the clear edits to Season 8, Dos Santos mentions the lip movements during the interview but is confusing the making of the epilogue with the rest of the edits.

Indeed, it seems those edits resulted not only in the deaths of the series’ heroine and a childhood abuse victim, but also in the demolition of not just one but possibly two completed romantic arcs. When discussing Allura and Lance’s romance, Dos Santos and Emma Fyffe have this to say:

JDS: I could see the argument where it’s like, it's basic. It's what we've kindof come to expect from okay the guy sort of turned around and-- but I think Lance's arc aside from being with Allura was bigger than the Allura love story.

EF: And Lance's overall story arc I really enjoyed. But again, I think it's this whole idea that we were dealing with this IP that was like "okay, monster of the week, it was like dudes being in love with one hot girl and just macho men with fighting robots and whatever was happening with Pidge".

JDS: Right, yes, yes. (3)

The showrunner himself not only agrees Lance’s milquetoast romantic arc was due to pushback from the IP holder, in discussing the controversy surrounding the main characters’ sexual orientation, Dos Santos inadvertently reveals a major romance between two male paladins was cut.

EF: ...it is important to know that, again, you have this character who is very much your sort of quintessential, like, alpha male.

JDS: That-that was the trope that we were trying to, like, sort of step on was that, you know. I grew up with characters like Duke. To a much lesser degree, he’s a big, giant robot Optimus Prime. The idea of Optimus Prime being with another Optimus Prime was off the table. Like it was a no-go. (3)

If Allura and Lance’s IP-owner-influenced romantic arc is any indication, clearly two main paladins being together was fine. Dos Santos is referring to the inability to pair two male mains.

We don't know for sure, and won't until the original S8 is released. But, we have reasonable cause to believe Keith was intended to be gay and part of the romance that got tanked. When speaking about Keith’s sexuality Dos Santos says:

JDS: Because, I think we didn’t, we didn’t pair him with anybody, you know what I mean. I think we didn’t designate sort of where he stood. We don’t know. It’s-- It’s--

KC: We don’t know

JDS: Yeah, it-- It doesn’t really matter to be honest with you. I mean it would be great to confirm just to make people happy, but, like at the end of the day he is who he is, and leaving it open to interpretation. (3)

Do you hear that? “It would be great to confirm”. Not that it would be great if they could have done it, but if they could have confirmed it. It seems that JDS conceptualizes Keith as having an attraction to men, but he was forbidden from making that fact plain. Again, we have no concrete evidence of who Keith was slated to be with, just that the writers couldn't have two gay male paladins.

The wording of his statements is just clear enough to avoid dishonesty and just vague enough so as not to break contract. Even beyond NDAs, it’s not as if the Executive Producers can speak more directly to these points. We already have evidence of the IP owner’s character in the form of the Voltron Store’s Twitter presence outright lying about WEP and the store being separate entities:

(8) When only a few weeks earlier they had liked a tweet explicitly identifying them as one and the same, while confirming they have the final say over what can be done with the characters:

(1)

Before the fandom realized that WEP was behind the edits to S8 of VLD, the information that they owned the license was accepted fact. This excerpt from the Lets Voltron Podcast, Episode 134, is just one example:

(talking about a Voltron reference in Ready Player One)

Host 1: For those of you not in the know, if you think DreamWorks is the all in all for Voltron. Well, World Events Productions is the company that owns --

Host 2: The Voltron intellectual property.

Host 1: Many of you have heard of DreamWorks obviously. They make the show. Well, World Events Productions owns the property and has helped make this new show and all previous shows possible.

LV Podcast EP 134, 5:00-5:30 (6)

Now? Many official avenues are hastily attempting to downplay WEP’s involvement. When reached for comment in February 2019 the LV Podcast claimed that DreamWorks owned the licence.

The official phone number listed on WEP’s website no longer offers an option to connect a person to WEP, instead it offers three options: to directly input an extension, the accounting department, and The Voltron Store. (9)

In an effort to prevent fans from contacting them with complaints, WEP have inadvertently made their association with The Voltron Store explicit. Regardless of what the twitter account may claim, they are one and the same company. If these incidents weren’t damning enough, the store has further attempted to engage in a subtle smear campaign by liking tweets from users apologizing for harassment and death threats the store had received over Season 8, when all groups bringing the problems with its forced edits to WEP’s attention have specifically advocated for civil and nonviolent communication. (8)

As the story unfolds, one point is clear: Each new interview brings more information forth, repeatedly shining the spotlight on one little office in St. Louis.

WEP LLC is a private company. It has no shareholders, investors, or boards to answer to. It is the sole IP holder of the Voltron brand, and its President is the only person in the entire world who has final say over what can and cannot be done with the characters. When someone says “the IP holder” they are really talking about one man: Bob Koplar.

#TeamPurpleLion is a collective of analysts ( @crystal-rebellion, @dragonofyang​, @felixazrael, @leakinghate​, and @voltronisruiningmylife​ )intent on tracking down the who, what, where, how, and why of the destruction of VLDS8. We present sourced & cited commentary, relying on evidence so the VLD community can see what happened behind the scenes.

[headspacedad]

(Tiger anon again.) The only thing that would bring me back into watching canon (and purchasing merch like, say, the comics and ALL the Shiro-BP and Allura gear) is retconning s7-s8 by reestablishing Shiro as BP, the OG Lions Lineup, and Allura NOT Being Freaking DEAD (but very much alive and well and badass. And the Lion Goddess/coleader again.) ...Jiro still being alive/getting Twinganes (or at least mourned!) is prolly too much to hope for. Until then? Fixit with Twinganes, Cloneganes, & Sven

I just read it somewhere (I think it was an ask to @ptw30) and I don’t think its much of an exaggeration at all to say that making Shiro Black Paladin in seasons seven and eight would have fixed almost everything.  Not completely everything because we still need a good resolve for Lotor as well as the clone and Allura needs to Not Die but signs in the story point to those having been in the cards as well until the EPs decided to break the story in order to sideline Shiro and going for ‘dark and edgy’ (in a way that was certainly dark but not the least bit edgy). 

I’m not going to lie.  At this point, @dreamworksanimation is in the negatives when it comes to my trust as a viewer.  Which is - bad.  Most shows start off in the neutral and then earn their way with a viewer’s trust or else fail too and the viewer simply changes the channel to something they like better.  Starting in the negative means that I have no reason to even check out anything they do in the first place, much less tune into it long enough to let it earn positive karma with me.  They can tell me they’re going to do better the next time but if I don’t even show up to see the proof than it still does neither one of us any good.  At this point, I’m not even sure @voltron knows what it did wrong with the story (hint, it wasn’t shipping related).  The internet gives me access to a huge ocean of entertainment options.  There is no reason at this point for me to bother wait around for Dreamworks to perhaps figure their shit out with Voltron when I’ve got other companies that already have their shit figured out and are, currently, right now, in this instant, willing to show me their product and take my attention and my money.  The Voltron name brand wasn’t enough to keep me watching Voltron Force when it came out and its not enough to get me watching anything now.  In fact, the brand name of Voltron has actually managed to go from something that I would be curious about thanks to past associations and turned into something I would actively avoid due to past associations.  Dreamworks gets to ride in that same cart since they’re the ones that signed off on the EPs and let them steer the story the way they did, whether through ignorance or carelessness. 

I can’t say I would never come back.  If nothing else Voltron: Legendary Defender has left a rather large hole when it went down in flames and a part of me would really very much like some kind of closure.  But the problem with that is - I don’t want a reboot.  I don’t want to see someone else’s ‘new’ take on the Shiro I knew, or the Allura I grew so fond of, or several of the rest of the team I want closure and actual arcs for.  I want this Shiro to get the story he deserved.  I want this Allura to get her triumph and find a family with this team.  I want this team to come together and find they’re each others found family.  I want these lions to claim their original line up paladins and love them the way they did in the first two seasons.  Giving it to me in a retelling with new characters isn’t satisfying (and frankly, why would I invest in brand new characters a second time with the same company that showed me just how little they value their characters or their fans.  Fool me once - shame on you.  Fool me twice - shame on me.).  I don’t want a retelling.  I don’t want a ‘new’ Shiro.

But how would they fix VLD in such a way that would draw out the rot considering how deeply its worked its way down into the very story itself by this point?  Would it be enough to erase the distrust and justifiably leery feeling I have about going on that ride a second time?  The first time I went on it, it started out fun and worth my time too but look at how it ended.  Why would I risk that a second time?  I’m not even sure Dreamworks realizes how badly off the rails the story went or how vile the treatment of the characters was and how utterly rotten the messages the story sent were.  In an entire ocean of other entertainment, what would be enough to make me give that all a second chance? 

The answer, if you’re paying attention @dreamworksanimation and @voltron is the characters.  I do love a lot of VLD’s characters. In its early seasons, VLD gave us some wonderful characters, some honestly deep and intriguing characters that I grew to care deeply about very quickly, characters that invested me in the story, the universe and the show itself, characters I was eager to watch grow and develop and triumph at the end.  Hell, I stayed through the trash fire that was the last two seasons just in the hopes of seeing something good for those characters.  Now, how do you parlay my love of the characters into something that will draw me back and get me, knowing I’m already distrustful of your ability to even tell a basic story properly, re-invested in the product, brandname and story?

I don’t know @dreamworksanimation and @voltron.  That’s your job to figure out.  I’ve spent enough time already filling in your shitty plot holes with meta just so your basic story will make sense.  You do the work for a change.

[asravine]

If in a few years they redid voltron with the original creators, I would watch, because they wanted to do klance (and I even like allurance, but not in the way they did it) and develop the characters correctly. Or, at least, better then what they did 😂😂😂😂 But would you watch?

hey anon!! im gonna cut this answer into two parts bc i have Many Thoughts on the matter but as of now:

short answer: i definitely wouldnt watch a voltron remake by the original creators (in this case im assuming u mean lm and jds, who are the executive producers) and i would be wary to consume any content they produce in the future. even if the vld re-reboot were to be made by another person, i would be cautious to approach it and would probably see the reviews first before watching any of it.

long answer: i was wondering what you meant by the original creators wanting to do klance and where you heard that from!! from what i know lm and jds didnt even think of adding klance as a pairing and it was instead tim hedrick (and a few other storyboarders like chartron) who suggested the possibility of klance (he was the one who included the bonding moment!!)

jds was bouncing around the idea of pairing off allura w someone (and even suggested keith and allura at one point) but ended up going for allurance in s7 on a whim even thou it didnt make narrative sense and regressed both lance’s and allura’s character development, which was also why allurance was done so horribly in canon. funnily enough, i was okay w allurance after s2!! it seemed like the most ‘likely’ pairing to happen and i was neutral about it as long as they had taken the time to develop the relationship in the rest of the seasons. but after how they botched it up by leaving little to no development from s3-6 and then adding a sudden and rushed resurgence in s7, my feelings for allurance soured by quite abit. i dont have any problems w fanon allurance but tbh i dont see how anyone (even allurance shippers) could have been happy w how canon allurance turned out.

the issue i have with lm and jds and the reason i wouldnt watch a vld re-reboot created by them (as well as be wary of any content they create) is due to their work ethic and the pride (or lack thereof) they have in the content they produce. lm and jds have admitted to wanting to kill off the entire main vld cast (and were even given the green light to kill hunk and replace him w acxa!!) in order to create a gritty and dark tale bc of personal tastes. the way they treat their minority characters is appalling (the best example being that they killed off their only female lead of colour, allura), the fact that they dont plan ahead for character arcs is frightening to think about, and the barebones plot they have stitched together that they call a storyline does not have any inherent moral substance or values that could be imparted onto audiences.

as a viewer, i am left unsatisfied and disappointed by the progression (and for the most case, regression) of the characters and as a content creator, i am disgusted by the clear lack of planning the vld team had. lm and jds do not respect the story they are trying to tell. in the case of vld, there IS no story to tell, apart from flashy fight scenes and the cropping up of bigger and bigger villains the team has to defeat. there is no talk about the importance of teamwork or the impact of found family or even the cheesy power of friendship. as such, i fear this would be the trend for any other content they produce which is why im hesitant to look at other shows they might work on in the future (and im esp worried for spiderverse since it is confirmed they’ll be working on the sequels)

i think theres a general consensus that most of the people who still actively engage in the fandom are only staying for the characters. lance, keith, shiro, allura, hunk etc have grown on all on us in these past three years and there was alot of wasted potential that could have been written into the show but wasnt. i think for this fact i would be open to consider a reboot of voltron, if solely only for the characters who never got the arcs they deserved (though i would be hesitant to watch it right off the bat)

i think ive spoken quite abit about my views on a voltron reboot (and my distaste for lm and jds in general haha) but thanks for this ask anon! i really do hope for all of our sakes that if there is a remake that they’ll do better and give these characters and the story justice

[sol1056]

a bunch more asks waiting their turns so politely

These are all various asks about the likelihood of a remake, a rewritten season, or a spinoff. 

1 could we get an alternate version 2 is a rewrite for S8 a viable option 3 would they change the ending for a spin-off 4 are single-episode edits possible for S8 5 will S7 reactions affect S8 6 how will DW get us to watch S8

Behind the cut.

With the shitstorm that vld became, would dreamworks ever take pity on us and remake some seasons of voltron that turned out like crap, or not even air, just release them as alternate versions on dvd? Im questioning the possibilities, not the probabilities, bc Im really not optimistic about that, I just wanna know if a show can do that and what would it take for the company to snap their fingers and be like "lets do it" (besides having money)

It’s not like frequent reboots don’t have precedent in other franchises; hell, comics do it on the regular. It’s also much cheaper to do a series of graphic novels or full novelizations geared towards an older audience. The problem there is that Dreamworks isn’t a comic book company or a publishing house; that part of the franchise would have to be farmed out to someone else. 

My guess --- if another remake is ever a possible option --- it’d be several years down the road. The first version would be set aside as, say, the Y-7 version for kids and family, and then you’d find a new angle for the next version. 

If DW got the impression there was a massive older crowd (say, 25-45) who would’ve eaten up a more mature, somewhat darker, version? Sure, why not try to grab that audience? I mean, look at the Castlevania series: it’s not pulling any punches on making clear it’s for adults. That would also require a different business model, since what adults like to buy for themselves is very different than what kids want. Skip the cake toppers, for starters. 

do you think given the reaction to VLD S7, is a rewrite for S8 a viable option? I feel the fandom is divided about the general reaction to S7. If JDS and M can just [focus on the fanbase segment] that liked it, why [bother trying to fix it for those] that didn't?

Given what I’ve been seeing in terms of data from the season... I think they aimed to please everyone and ended up pleasing no one. 

Pretty sure I’ve said something to this extent before: when you can’t please everyone, the answer isn’t to split the difference and piss everyone off. The answer is to pick your audience and give them the best damn story you can. The rest will sort itself out.

Let me put it this way: there are enough people who didn’t like S7 for the crummy animation, the OOC dialogue and actions, and the nonsensical storyline overloaded with a host of new characters that stole time from the actual protagonists. And there are also enough people who didn’t like S7 for queerbaiting the audience, killing off three out of four queer characters, and sidelining the one remaining queer character. There may be some overlap between those two sets, but taken together, those two sets are pretty much the dominant majority of the fan base. 

I don’t know if that makes a rewrite a viable option, but it should be making a few execs think twice about letting the EPs/staff carry on in the same direction. I mean, you want a series to end on a high note, not an ‘omg that had such potential but boy did it self-destruct in the last two seasons’ note.  

So if DW wants to do a Voltron spin-off, would they consider changing the ending to VLD to give Shiro the things he earned so this spin-off wouldn't be dead out of the water?

That would depend entirely on whether they’ve gotten the message that Shiro’s current status isn’t good enough for a significant part of the fanbase. If all they’re hearing (or all they choose to hear) is that it’s great to sideline one of their protagonists with no in-story explanation whatsoever, what’s to tell them there’s anything that needs addressing?  

Additionally, if the entirety of the issue is Shiro --- and everyone else is just fine, thanks --- I’m not sure that’d rate as enough to warrant changing so much. More likely any spin-off would start some X length of time between, and we’d get an implied intermediary backstory (or even a mild retcon), and go from there. 

Truth is, whomever gets the spin-off will (I really hope) be a better writer and not have to deal with intrusive newbie EPs. Even then, they’d be kinda limited on what they could do, given the spin-off does need to make sense placed against the first series. Then again, VLD hasn’t respected its own premise or continuity for the past few seasons, anyway. 

So I guess there’s always the option to start with an episode that retells VLD’s ending... Kinda awkward, but not unheard of, to basically retcon a previous series out of existence.  

I have no doubt DW is looking into what went wrong with this season. I know it might be a little to late to fix all of Season 8, but do you think they would have at least maybe the last few episodes changed to give a better ending to the show - or at least more respect to Shiro as a character?

Normally I’d say no. I mean, episode 1 should have characters making choices that in turn impact episode 2, and those choices prompt the events in episode 3... but that’s a logic VLD threw out the window somewhere between S3 and S4, and it’s only gotten worse since then. 

In which case, oh sure, why not? It wouldn’t make any less sense than what they’ve already got planned, if S7 is any indication. 

Could the reaction to season 7 cause any change the execs minds going into season 8? 

One problem: this is a Dreamworks production, but it’s not a DW-owned story. It’s a franchise: there are other players involved. There are the two guys who first butchered GoLion into Voltron, Toei whose story got that embutcherment, Netflix as the distributor, along with Playmates and Lion Forge and other contracted partners. There’s a lot more people at the table than just DW. 

It’s one thing for the EPs to say they messed up, and apologize. It’s quite another for Dreamworks to admit publicly their lousy (or nonexistent) oversight allowed the situation to happen. 

Legal would have apoplexy, for starters. What wins you a franchise is often showing you have the confidence (if not sheer chutzpah) that you can do this job justice like no other. And then you hit S7 and must admit you hired people who made a complete hash of it? 

If there’s anything that will cost the EPs any future roles of a similar position, it’s that they’ve put DW in a very uncomfortable position. Caught between a furious fanbase and overly-interested co-owners, someone --- or several someones --- are treading very lightly right now. They’re not going to forget the EPs are the ones who precipitated the whole mess. 

I think we are in a unique situation where the fact that the EPs were vocal about [changing] VLD ... could be a blessing for us & DW. [But we know it] was changed, & DW's part seems to be more negligence than direct fault like the EPs. So DW can drop it or fix it, and a rewrite would be worth us sticking around, while restoring DW's name.

Again, that depends on whether DW is in a position that they can do so. I assure you they’d throw the EPs under the bus at the first opportunity, because that’s how the corporate world works. So their failure to do so is either because they don’t see the EPs’ actions as untenable (as far as we know), or because doing so would expose DW corporate to greater retaliation from elsewhere. (It could also be part of the agreement that these particular EPs are in place for the duration of the series’ production, too. Sometimes that happens.) 

I still can’t get over the fact that the EPs were so blunt about having already had a script fully written when they asked to revise. From the Studio Mir leaks, we can guess at least some of the animation was already in production at least a year ago, or earlier. That’s a lot to redo. 

Here’s something that only just occurred to me, when I listed the co-partners in this franchise: the Koplar brothers. These are the geniuses who figured they didn’t need to know Japanese to make GoLion into an american production; turns out they were geniuses on some level ‘cause it was a hit, anyway. They went on to produce Voltron: Fleet of Doom (1986), Voltron: the Third Dimension (1998), and Voltron Force (2011). If there is anyone at the table who’d be likely to have nostalgia goggles, it’d be the Koplars. This has been their ongoing story in one way or another for over 30 years. 

Originally, the EPs said they weren’t tied to nostalgia; they weren’t going to redo the story as it was, but the story as they remembered. (I’d argue this actually indicates a stronger set of nostalgia goggles, but eh.) Their determination to get rid of Shiro has always felt like nostalgia goggles to me. Perhaps the Koplars were the greatest supporters of Keith as BP --- since that would respect the pattern they’ve followed, over and over, in all the iterations. 

Considering the Koplar’s somewhat litigious background over Voltron ownership, they may’ve had the ability to overrule. So... if you want to bench Shiro, you pitch your work with the execs who are most likely to agree with you. And if you can do that in the window between the previous VP of TV retiring and a brand-new external hire coming on as VP... welp, you got permission, and the new VP may’ve signed off, not realizing the impact. 

Which would put DW over a barrel, in some ways. If DW could’ve overruled their partners, the EPs never would’ve been able to make that end-run in the first place. 

How do u think DW will try to get us to watch s8? They & the EPs have shattered our trust and the show is so messy its almost unsalvageable. 

Stay to see X point's resolution? Yeah, we stayed many seasons for nothing, next. 

We have more rep? Ex. blonde girl is autistic... So we should be scared for her too??? 

There's more queer rep? Yeah, we heard that one already. 

Unless everyone responsible is fired and a new crew runs the next seasons?

I don’t know. I would hope the answer is ‘by giving us a story that makes sense, and creates closure for all the protagonists, and not just by making two of them emotional rewards for two other characters.’ 

At this point, there is only one thing that’s going to make Dreamworks change course: if the fallout from VLD impacts its other projects. If the majority of the VLD fanbase up and announced it would be boycotting She-Ra or Fast & Furious or Trollhunters on the grounds that DW screwed up so badly with VLD that it cannot be trusted... Then you’d see movement. If the PR got so bad from so many upset and angry VLD fans that major news outlets paid attention and started writing articles about the situation, that would also put a black mark beside Dreamworks’ name -- and then you’d see movement. 

With the VLD toys a failure (for whatever mismanaged reasons) and a financial model set entirely on toys, fixing VLD now would be throwing good money after bad. Unless, of course, there’s an impact beyond just this single series. 

Until Dreamworks can see the impact in some concrete sense, they have far more to lose from their partners than they have to gain from their fanbase. It’s just how it is, with corporations in late capitalism. 

You want to make an impact? You tell Dreamworks ahead of time, and then you follow through: pick a week and go silent. Nothing about VLD, here or on twitter or anywhere else. No reblogs on She-Ra updates. Ignore the podcasts. Don’t click on the articles. That stuff’ll be there when the week is over, after all. Show DW what it’s like when a fanbase checks out, by doing it. It’s a short-term boycott, but the reason groups do boycotts is because they work. 

[killian-whump]

Um last time I checked Jen did carry the show. She was the heart of the show for 6 years, the creators said as such. She was the audiences eyes into this world. She portrayed The Savior she was the titular character of this show and the episode after she left the ratings sunk to a 0.5 and never recovered when Lana was the star. Jen isn't spitting anything but facts, sorry you don't like being told the truth but S7 bombed hence why there was no S8.

I don’t know how many times people need to be told this, but the ratings were already TANKING over the course of S5 and S6 - and the low ratings at the tail end of S6 were directly responsible for S7 being what it was. The show was going to be CANCELLED unless the showrunners came up with a way to reboot it, keeping the things that were working, dropping the things that weren’t, and coming up with a “fresh start” that would allow new viewers to jump aboard, because the current viewership was NOT enough to keep the show afloat. THAT was what S7 was designed to do.

And yes, S7 did NOT bring in new viewers, so there was no S8. But had they not completely rebooted the show, cut costs and cast, there would’ve been no S7 in the first place. And then Jen fans would have to accept reality - that the show was failing already with Jen in it.

The show didn’t fail because Jen left. She jumped ship because it was already failing and she wasn’t willing to take a back seat in the reboot that ABC demanded.

As for the recent comments of Jen’s...

Once had what’s called an “ensemble cast” - so despite there being a couple “main” characters, there is an entire CAST of characters who are ALL given time and backstories and screen time in the forefront. An ensemble cast is one that relies on each and every member of that ensemble to pull their weight and create compelling characters and relationships that audiences WANT to watch.

For perspective, let’s consider the show Seinfeld. The main character was obviously Jerry. The name of the show was even the man’s NAME. Yet, it was a show with an ensemble cast that focused on FOUR characters... and if Jerry Seinfeld ever said he “carried” that show, I’d think he was a fucking prick for doing so. The show succeeded because of the writing, the directing, and (most importantly) the interplay and relationships between each and every member of its amazing ensemble cast. And even if Jerry Seinfeld has more right than anyone TO claim he “carried” the show (since he was the creator, part of the writing team, and undeniably the main character at the center of the show), it would be amazingly rude of him to fucking SAY SO and publicly dismiss the work of everyone else involved in making that show the absolute classic it was.

I said I was reserving judgement until I see what was actually said for myself... but I’m already disappointed to see that Jen’s rabid fanbase is already using her words as ammunition to attack others with. Further Asks in this vein will be summarily tossed in the bin like the trash they are.

[mateushonrado]

Voltron: Legendary Defender S7 (aka S5) thoughts [part 3]

Status Post #6283

"The Last Stand, Part 2"

Continuing where the last episode left off.

I knew it was Sendak's Fire of Purificatio are the ones who invaded Earth.

Sendak's moral event horizon - Sending his troops to fire on the cities.

I'm still siding with Sam and I'm beginning to suspect that Sanda isn't what I think she is.

Beta 5.

Shiro's ex Adam is among the ones fighting against the Galra forces.

Sam's "you've just doomed those men and women" to Sanda.

This is not going to end well.

Come on, Adam. Take them down.

RIP Adam.

Sendak is DEAD serious that he'll plan to destroy Earth.

Earth is indeed under attack.

The Atlas ships prepare to take down the Galra forces.

Top Gun in space.

Sam showing his inner Riker with "Fire!".

The Galra forces fly to another location.

Western Europe, Russia, China and India have been attacked by the forces.

Sam's Patrick Stewart speech with his inner Jack O'Neil.

Sam saying quiznak.

WWIII happened in this universe.

Man, that brainy brunette handler introduces herself as Veronica, which means that Lance's sister has finally appeared in the show. The Sam Carter of the team.

Veronica is such a badass.

Sensing some Robotech influences on this.

Is Veronica dead? It seems like it.

Sendak's phase 2 of his plan - Terminate the communication satellite.

"Time will conquer them for us."

The Voltron theme tune on Sam's smartphone.

It turns out that Veronica survived and was rescued by an underground resistance network.

One last message to Voltron.

Sendak was tricked.

Sam delivering an important message to the Garrison.

Voltron goes to the Milky Way.

"Know Your Enemy"

Pidge receives a message from her father, who tells her not to go inside Earth yet as Sendak has invaded the planet.

Pidge has an idea by taking an abandoned Galra ship and hides the Lions in a hidden planet.

Hunk mentioning about that moment in the series premiere.

They've finally reached Earth but shocked that the cities are now in ruins.

Avoid those orbs, team.

Lance is a sharpshooter.

Team Voltron are saved by Team Atlas.

The two teams enter inside the Garrison.

Heartwarming hug between Pidge and her parents.

Heartwarming hug between Lance and his family.

Hunk reminscing about his siblings and is told by Sam that his family were captured by Galra forces.

Iverson apologises to Shiro for his actions in the series premiere.

Shiro introduces Iverson to Allura, Romelle and Coran.

Shiro shocked to discover that Adam perished.

Team Voltron are donning the Garrison outfits.

Sam shows the Garrison battleship to the team.

Allura calls out Sanda and so on.

Allura is a genius.

"No Balmeras around here."

Allura discovering bionic arms and legs.

Hunk's flashback with his father on repairing a car.

Keith interacts with Hunk.

Poor Hunk.

I know how you feel, Hunk.

Keith considers Hunk the one he's most impressed by. Aww.

James and Veronica offers to help Keith and Hunk.

Sam, Allura, Pidge and Colleen talking to Sendak's hologram.

Altea is the one planet that refused to give up.

Oh, Allura.

Another Hunk flashback with his culinary skills.

Allura shows Shiro his new bionic arm.

I feel sorry for Hunk.

"Heart of the Lion"

Shiro now has a new bionic arm.

Allura removes her tiara and detaches the jewel from it in order to reboot the arm.

For the first time since the comics, Allura appears without her tiara.

Sendak built six massive structures on Earth.

The two teams are split: The ground unit comprising of Keith, Pidge, Allura and Griffin and the sniper support comprising of Hunk, Kinkade, Lance and Veronica. No Romelle, Leifsdottir and Rizavi?

I think these two are going to get along.

Keith, Pidge and Cosmo prepare to find some details and such.

Lance saves Allura's life.

Keith and Pidge enters inside the core of a building, which turns out to be a Zaiforge cannon.

Cover blown.

The Galra sentries' visions are scrambled.

The same Zaiforge cannon that almost destroyed Naxzela.

Only five lions.

Shiro tells his teammates to trust their Lions.

Shiro's got a good idea.

Allura is blushing at Lance and tells him to stay safe out there.

Team Voltron take the Atlas jets with Team Atlas: Keith and Griffin, Hunk and Leifsdottir, Allura and Kinkade, Pidge and Rizavi and Lance and Veronica.

The Paladins reconnect their bonding with their Lions except Lance as the car driven by Veronica is under attack.

The Lions manage to arrive on Earth.

Oh, no. This isn't ending well for Lance and Veronica.

Lance discovers a seriously injured Veronica and prepares to take down the Galra sentries.

The Red Lion comes to save Lance and Veronica.

The Galra forces have taken down the Lions.

Sendak prepares to activate the Zaiforge cannon.

Sanda has betrayed the Garrison by siding with Sendak. I told you she was shady.

Converge and form Voltron.

It's not looking good as the Zaiforge cannons dismantle Voltron.

[fandomshipping]

In defense of VLD S7

While I don’t usually engage in discourse, here’s a few of my own thoughts on some of the most significant objections since it wouldn’t hurt to add some dissenting voices amidst all the salt:

Acxa. Okay, so I get that Ezor and Zethrid have teased that Acxa might have feelings for Keith, and /that/ scene might have hinted that there /was/ something there. But personally? While I do believe that there is some kind of connection between the two (implied ever since Keith saved her in the Weblum), I don’t think it’s romantic. They have parallels, yes, but not all parallelism could be taken in a romantic context. Maybe Ezor or Zethrid might have mistaken it as such, as fixation can be sometimes, but just because someone’s fixated on another person doesn’t mean they’re in love with them. And because she’s been gone for a while after that ep, I doubt they’ll be sowing the seeds of that romance anytime soon. But that said, I am super excited to know what that connection is. One thing I liked about the season was that they finally began to address it, and to be honest I never expected that to happen.

LGBT rep as a marketing tactic. I’ve seen other people address this more succinctly, but since it’s such a significant objection I feel like I should include this. I may not be an expert on what goes into producing a show, but I’m pretty sure that for the most part, the showrunners aren’t as into the marketing aspect as one might think. After all, they’re quite busy... well, running the show. Keeping deadlines, overseeing how the story is told, making sure everything’s good with the higher-ups—that is a /lot/ of work to be done, so while they might be approving marketing collaterals and the like, I don’t think they’re the ones handling what goes into them. So yes, while we might have instances of marketing tagging #k//lance on Youtube videos or collaterals overemphasizing the LGBT aspect, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s entirely in line with what the show has to offer. And this is!! Something!! That happens often!! So please, let’s not blame the showrunners for something they might not even have control over. Which brings me to my next point:

Queerbaiting. That said, does this mean there won’t be LGBT rep? Of course not. I believe LM and JDS when they said they’d fight for it, although I do think we won’t get it in the way people think. I know everyone thinks they might have everyone be straight because of the Acxa and Allurance scenes. But really? It’s still up in the air. So far, Allurance seems to be the only confirmed [almost] relationship among the paladins, and /maybe/ a little Hunay (since Hunk did say he just admired her, not necessarily romantically), but other than that? There’s no indication that any of the other characters /aren’t/ LGBT. I mean... bitch??? Have u forgotten about Korrasami?? I mean, the first few seasons some of us literally DID NOT KNOW we were actually going to get it (especially since the odds were heavily tilted towards Mak//orra back then) for real. And in the finale, we had them hold hands and go on a gay Spirit World adventure. It was only when the comics came out that we had them fricking kiss, plus Kya being confirmed LGBT. So sure, while Voltron might have more liberty than Legend of Korra ever could, but it’s also a property owned by Dreamworks, so it’s important to consider how these factors will play in their portrayal. Don’t lose hope, guys. Speaking of Allurance, however:

Forced Allurance. I can’t even recall how many times I’ve seen people claiming that the Allurance this season was forced and that Allura never liked him in the first place. But, my dudes, it’s been hinted at for so long now. Almost blatantly in some scenes. And  It’s apparent that they were gonna do something with them in the long run, but man, I feel like the defense has been repeated so many times that I instead encourage you to read other people’s thoughts on it, such as this, and this. (Just a warning though—one of the posts isn’t exactly kind to K//lance shippers. Personally, I'm okay with K//lance, and some of the shippers are quite lovely, so feel free to skip if it makes you uncomfortable.)

Adam’s death. Hoo boy, this is a big one. So I get the disappointment and anger over this. I really do. And everyone who’s angry at this happening has a right to be. But I also understand why it had to end this way. For one, Adam was introduced so late in the game—near the end of the series, even —so any further development between him and Shiro might be a little weird considering the series is already on its last legs. For another, it makes sense through a thematic perspective, as plot device-y as it may be. The Hypable interview with LM and JDS makes a fair point regarding it so you can read up on that. But really? I’m just glad that we got Adam and Shiro at all, as well as Shiro’s LGBT confirmation. It’s very bare-bones, yes, but if there’s a good thing to come out from it, it’s that with this confirmation we know that Shiro’s storyline /can/ head towards mlm without having to just chalk it up to the imagination. And hopefully, this can lead to more daring storylines in the future.

Bad writing. Finally, the mother of all complaints and the one that saddens me the most. Because this season was very inventive and touched on dark topics in ways I never expected it to. Sure the Family Feud episode could be off-putting with its treatment of Lance, but I loved how it also added a surreal creep factor not found in other episodes (the flickering screen, the fridge horror of Lance’s possible fate, that dissonance of scene between Pidge attacking Bob and the game cutting to them back in their stations). Not to mention the Druid episode. And The Journey Within, my God—the setup, the relationship drama, the sanity slippage? I loved it. Season 7, while flawed, finds its strength in engaging with hard topics such as death, war, and the greyness that comes with it—think of Admiral Sanda, or even Shiro while trying to get the Atlas off the planet. And we even got some shining points of characterization: Hunk and his family, Keith trusting in his team more, Lance getting more of a say in missions, James Griffin’s + Iverson’s redemption?? And of course, Shiro. My god, Shiro.

So yes, I understand that there are a lot of things the fandom is salty about currently. But as someone who’s been through a lot of fandoms (hence the name) and a bunch of dumpster fires (if you think S7 was terrible writing, ohh boy, be glad you weren’t part of the Shingeki no Bahamut fandom during the second season. I still feel a literal pain in my chest when I think of how it wrapped up. And as for plot devices... *cries over Jackie Lynn Thomas*), I feel like the fandom needs to be reminded of the merits the show has and continues to have in the midst of this wave of negativity.

The Voltron reboot, while at times can be cheesy and clunky at some parts, is still nonetheless a show that’s been well-thought of and lovingly made, by every aspect of the production—heck, the fandom wouldn’t have become as large as it was or garnered so much discussion otherwise. We’re lucky to even have a show like this, with showrunners, VAs, animators, and everyone in between willing to accommodate and give us fans content and answers. And it’s disheartening to see it when people are so quick to thrash all that work because of perceived flaws.

Guys, we’re not kids anymore. And even if some of you are, we should be better than this. This kind of attitude is something you’ll try to block out of your mind 10 years from now because of how embarrassing it is. Might as well save yourself the cringe now.