#Especially @ Ke1th

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

I think a lot of vld's canon problems could have been fixed if they had just let Hunk say, "Are you a fucking idiot?" every time someone was being and idiot or mean

[void-tiger]

please tell me more about the fic where Ke/th doesnt get to be a paladin again, i keep seeing shit like how the team abandoned/failed Ke/ith and should have apologized to him when it was literally the opposite (i am sorry but the team almost DIED because K/ith fucked off to run off with the Blades, werent for Kuron entering Black they would have actually died, i do not understand how anyone can see this and say the team was in the wrong/Ke1th was in the right, and still be considered a team player let alone a team leader is beyond me. Really really sorry about salt in your askbox)

No worries! (Although, disclaimer: I had to set aside my voltron fics for a bit ‘cause I can’t work on them without getting salty, and too much salt is bad for you. So they’re…curing, I guess. I’ll stop with the bad salt jokes now XD)

But short answer? Keith’s their comfort blorbo, and it’s incredibly easy to have that become “can do no wrong ever it MUST be EVERYONE else!” and…not recognize that kneejerk bias. Ask The Real Fandom Olds TM who’ve participated in fandom culture since the 80s and 90s and that’s a key issue with Current Fandom and especially younger fans (ie, probably our generation and younger.) Add in that a lot of us online trend (in my antidotal experience) towards having untreated anxiety or depressive symptoms and/or undiagnosed neurodivergent brain wiring that an individual might’ve not quite learned how to cope with yet (and many come with emotional regulation symptoms) in addition to…human brains really just Don’t stop developing until mid20s regardless of someone’s birth gender and brain development is particularly chaotic and…well.

That’s a recipe for a volatile fandom, and since the VLD Characters in particular were geared towards Teens or Teen Nostalgia? [Comfort Blorboing Intensifies.]

Now, in one fic series Idea, Keith DOES become the Red Paladin again, but he has to work for it. Really work for it. Like, the Team is still incredibly hurt that he left and never really apologized for ditching them before THAT Scene where Jiro is forced to step in s4. I think I have in my notes somewhere [coughs] prolly a random post or very buried DM to a friend that Red Lion finally outright takes Keith for a joy ride (much like Blue and Black did with Lance and Shiro) and literally has him bouncing around in zero g and gforces until Red’s really willing to accept him back as Paladin. (Also it makes me feel better.)

[tags: blackbox verse, rewrite the stars, blackbox, veeladee fixit. Note that some of the older posts especially I’ve probably discarded. But I do my best worldbuilding thinking aloud, and hey. It’s fanfic. Who gives af about spoilers? Not me.]

But, in Blackbox verse, I wanted Jiro to have his very own Lion…and the Sincline Meteor is right there. Plus, y’know. Fixing-fixing. Making as much work as I felt like since it was intended to be a series, anyway.

Buuut, that’s not the fic idea you asked about.

The one you asked about is actually a Redo of The Black Paladin’s episode following alteanroyals’ prompt of “what if Shiro’s the one who fights the clone, and the clone gets to just come home. Have his own name.” Because, c’mon. The visuals would’ve been incredible, and Josh Keaton and Studio Mir adores Shiro and Jiro even if the EPs and arguably NONE of the writers (even the better ones trying to patch job before bailing out) gave a shit about Jiro as his own character.

So. Back to Keith.

He actually tries flying Black Lion, same as the (egh) canonical episode…and…

WHOOPS. He gets lasers shot at him for his efforts (hA HA~)

Allura steps in, and has a battle of wills against Black Lion, then realizes that what has Black so torqued is Keith tried to dominate the Lion. (Imo? The only reason why Keith could fly with Black in s2-4 was because of the bond they both had with Shiro. “Help me help you.”) And well. Allura’s learned a thing or two: trying to dominate a Lion does NOT work. She learned that for herself with White Lion, she’s now realizing that’s why Black Lion accepted Shiro as it’s Paladin over Zarkon at all. So Allura changes tactics, senses Shiro’s Quintessence still inside Black Lion nearly two years after he vanished, and calls the others in. They do a reverse-balmera ceremony via their voltron bonds and pull Shiro back out—in his OWN body, tyvm.

And well. Remember how it’s technically a “Shiro vs CloneShiro” prompt? Yeah, they fight. (I’ll try not to have them totally wreck the place. All Shiros are Good Shiros.) And when Black Lion comes for them now that the Lion can get a clear shot? Red Lion also comes.

Because Keith isn’t the only character who holds the needed qualities for a Red Paladin. (Reactive instincts, laser focus, loyalty, but often emotionally volatile.) Jiro does too. And unlike Keith, Jiro stayed even when he “no longer” had a Lion to fly from his POV, and he struggled with the rest of the Team to adjust to Lions that no longer suited them in the wake of Shiro’s Absence. So Red chooses Jiro and flies to him. (Black would’ve saved Jiro, too, even though Jiro wasn’t Black’s true paladin. But seeing a Lion accept him, and further proof that he’s not just a poor copy but his own person and even a Paladin in his own right?)

[gemini fic, shiro vs jiro]

Basically, in starting writing and continuing to ruminate on ideas, I realized that Gemini works best as a single fic, so having Firm Consequences make more sense. Other tidying up?

-Allura and the Paladins take the Castle and immediately head out for the Altean Colony while Shiro (and Black Lion at Black’s literal insistence) go after Jiro. (And with Shiro here to lead and analyze + Convenient Recap/Alternate Explanation, Pidge is able to shut down the virus far earlier before it makes the Castle truly dead in the water.) Haggar never gets her claws into them.

-Keith formally leaves the Blades. He had a family, and he turned his back on them. Those relationships won’t be what they were before (ie, symbolic in losing his Red Paladinship), but this time he’s willing to put the work in to repair their trust in him. Meanwhile, the Blades never were going to help him find his mother intentionally no matter how many times he sacrificed his life for them, and his life and the lives of all the other Blades ultimately meant very little to Kolivan and the Blades as an organization. He surrenders the knife to Krolia, and walks away if Team Voltron will let him stay. It not, he can do better good with the Rebels. (Infiltration was Pidge’s thing, anyway. He’s the showy diversion maker.)

-Lotor returns to Orionde. But when he faces the Ancients and White Lion again, he stops attacking and running from his sins. He sacrifices his full life force, and the Drained Alteans revive fully restored. The tragedy his family caused and he ended up perpetuating ends with him. (That does leave…y’know. The Galran Empire without an Emperor. But hey. IF I finish this fic, that’s potential sequel material, baby!)

-

…anyway. Point is, Keith Antis put a bad taste in my mouth, but the point of “Keith loses Red” wasn’t to punish Keith (okay…maybe a little. But that was still mostly Black blasting lasers everywhere. For catharsis.) The point was, “There are consequence, and while some relationships can be repaired or make new ones with the same people after you’ve hurt them, others can’t. You lose them. It’s important to put in the work, but it’s also important to accept loss and endings, especially after you’ve fucked up.”

And well. I felt that Keith Losing Red, Jiro Gaining Red made things narratively tidy.

[discoursecatharsis]

I have an adverse to art from ant1s and sometimes neutrals. Especially if it's both cartoon-y and has an excessive use of pastel colors and the characters have exaggerated features. Also make them appear as a soft g4y/lesb1an™. (i mean, look at how most ant1s draw A//ura, Ke1th, and L4nce ffs) The style itself would be cute if they didn't exaggerate a character's features so much to the point they're barely recognizable and also weren't generally shitty to people over fictional shit.

Yeah ant1s tend to really exaggerate the characters’ features in their art

[shirosucc]

reaal talk tho? i'd be fucking livid if i found out that somebody said "i think you'd make a great couple!" to me and it was in reference to a person i hated. dude i'm old i'm tired i want a nice loving soft relationship - constant bickering is Not Fun. banter is one thing, bickering and being provoked is aggravating. guys who flirt with me like this are immediately put on my shit list

“dude i'm old i'm tired i want a nice loving soft relationship“ hey thanks for the biggest mood of my entire life? god. bantering in a relationship is so entirely .. DIFFERENT from what That Pairing is? it’s fun. it’s playful. you poke fun at each other and it’s okay because you already know each other well. they don’t know each other. almost all their interactions have been negative. they antagonize each other. especially on 1ance’s part there’s this... need to undermine ke1th at every turn. and god i am so tired of people writing it off as “he bullies him because he can’t deal with his feelings for him!” that’s a homophobic trope karen. they’re barely friends. and that’s ok. u can have ur ship but stop trying to make this into smth it’s not. 

[just-shaladin-things]

honestly?? thank u sm for making this blog, from ur local asian. 😭😭 in every show i've watched there's always that token yaoi ship (age/size difference, both good looking, asian looking) and it often gets fetishized soo much and people always!! always!! turn the "uke" (ke1th, in question) submissive which is a big stereotype for asians as if we can't be assertive. especially with the yaoi genre where they fetishize and romanticize underage relationships a lot- so thank you for speaking out ;;

honestly our goal here has always just been to provide a place for all of us to vent, so i’m really glad people are getting something out of this. thank you so much for this ask !!! it means a lot to us :’)

[saltysheiths]

klant1s: seasons 2 and 4 are bad and pointless and poorly written especially episodes 1 and 8 of season 2 those are the worst I definitely recommend you skip two of the most important episodes in the season for character development and skip season 4 altogether except that 30 seconds where /ance says he'll miss making fun of ke1th when he's gone

me: just fucking say you hate the show and stop watching it lmao

[commodorecliche]

loved your response to that l0t0r should rule thing because 100% agree. at this point I don't think any one person should claim the galactic throne (totally a thing). not a//ura. not ke1th (been seeing that one float around and... no. just no). something like SW's galactic republic with a galactic senate might work. that's what I assumed vld was hinting at with the v0ltr0n alliance, they just need to plan a bit better re: the whole freeing planets thing.

I'm glad you agree! I mean honestly, they're basically saying a dictatorship is cool so long as the dictator is nicer than the previous. Lotor is still all about using force to take over other planets - he just seems softer because he's willing to offer better deals to planets who don't put up a fight. Like cool rationale, still a dictatorship. There definitely shouldn't be a galactic throne, especially one where its power is based on the subjugation of other planets and peoples...

[ace-entrapta]

I was tagged by @pureren to do this! thanks for the tag <3

1. What is your sex and gender?

cis female

2. What do you identify as?

uhhhh.....well see right now I consider myself to be somewhere on the ace-spectrum but honestly?? idk. no clue. I can never even tell whether I like someone platonically or romantically, it’s that bad

3. Are you skilled in Martial arts? What do you know or want to learn?

I don’t know martial arts, but apparently my parents are going to enroll me in a karate class so that I can be more active so there’s that?? I’ve legit tried so many sports but I suck at anything that isn’t track and even then I’m meh. always wanted to learn how to play an instrument, especially piano it’s so beautiful

4. How many followers AS OF THIS MOMENT?

exactly 797 and I lov all of you (?? tbh i never expected to get this many i just started this blog in january so that I wouldn’t spam my main w/ nothing but voltron lmao)

5. Are you a morning person?

Depends on the morning really, if I know that I have to go to school or something then no, but if I have a chill day I won’t mind waking up at like 6 or earlier since i can always nap afterwards

6. How many languages have you studied/fluent in?

only fluent in english. I studied french throughout highschool + a course in college but I can only hold a very basic conversation,,,and even then I get confused p easily since I’m just confused in general

7. What are your hobbies?

I love to draw so much!!! I try to practice as often as I can but atm I’m a bit shy about sharing my drawings, esp publicly on tumblr (I’ll draw gifts for my friends though) I also like baking, playing video games, and reading. I dont really count web browsing as a hobby but obviously that too lol

8. What is one thing you did in the past month that you are embarrassed of doing?

jskaahdafr what have I done that isn’t embarrassing?? but probably when I was walking in pubic and one of my friends saw me without me seeing them and they poked the back of my neck and I jumped a good half metre away before tripping over my feet and almost faceplanting onto the sidewalk (dont touch my neck ever)

9. Do you work/highshcool/college?

college!! I finished my associate’s degree this past semester!

10. Tell us one funny joke!

why is Peter Pan always flying? because he neverlands! that joke is so funny, it never gets old. (sorry I’m not a comedian pfft)

I tag @shouhei @worthless-pride @marmoraskeith @cubanlance @keef-kogayne @yaxxm @kuzakat @floralkeith @lanceville @ke1th @keiths-leggys @pining-keith . if you don’t want to do it then ignore this ldjhkjkd. if you’re reading this and want to do it just act like I tagged you ‘aight?

[ruebird]

Yeah my bad when I said Gl@dnis I meant the Chocoparents tropes, I actually do like the ship but hate the way some people portray it and treat it as XV Sh@llur@ not to mention the ones who treat it or as a glorified background decoration for badly done Pr0mpt1s or who bash N0ct1s the way some Sh@llur@ rabid fans bash on Ke1th

yeahhhhh i cant stand parent tropes either. the “space dad/mom” joke is cute until parent tropes start influencing peoples view of that character and aging them up past their actual portrayal, while treating other characters as their “kids” and infantilizing them as a result

g/i folks are especially bad for pinning the mom/dad trope (with heterosexual roles) on two men who are often described as gay, which is?? pretty not cool. and then minimizing noct and prom (who, in canon, are at the least their peers and in noct’s case, their superior) into g/i’s “kids” who need to be looked after like children, therefore also placing unfitting tropes on them too along with pretty ooc characterizations.

and then yeah, there’s the folks who treat s/a and g/i as accessory ships to their k/l and p/n

it’s definitely annoying to see but! lotsa shippers of these ships also dont do that, so i appreciate them for sure lmao

i do feel bad for s/a folks though since many of them are now being attacked by antis like other shiro shippers have been for the last... forever. and no one deserves that.

[discoursecatharsis]

Before tumblr and this fandom, I didn't know anyone that thought 18 was a vulnerable minor. 18 is the acknowledged adult age with 17 being a minor/late teen in preparation for adulthood. Is it that they were so sure he was like 16, so they want to stick with that position? Is it that they're 18 themselves and don't want to grow up? When I was 18, I got a job, apartment and was in college so I just think this is so ridiculous.

18 is also “Schrodinger’s Adult” to a lot of people. For example, lots of ants say that 18-year-old 0ta6ek is a “grown ass man” and he’s too old to be shipped with 16 year old Yur10. But 18-year-old Ke1th is still basically a kid and can’t be shipped with 25-year-old Sh1ro. Ants change their stance on how it suits them. Maybe it was that some of them did hc Ke1th as being 16 or so and don’t want to change that… which is fine and all. But to other people (and most likely canon) he’s 18, so let people ship him with Sh1ro.

I do think a lot of it is that they’re scared to turn 18. They don’t want to admit to themselves that they’re gonna eventually grow up and be an icky adult like the rest of us. Especially because a lot of them tell people 20+ in fandom that we’re “too old” to be in fandom. They’re realizing, “oh crap, I’m gonna eventually be 20 in a few years, but I don’t want to give up my love of fandom.”

I remember seeing an ant1 post about this, responding to an anon they got. Yeah, not all 18 year olds are ready for the adult world. But not all 18 year olds are the same either. Some are more mature and more ready to take on being an adult than others. Ants lump entire age groups (or other group of people) into one, cookie-cutter viewpoint. It’s like they’re incapable of seeing that there’s gray areas with things and that everyone, even if they’re the exact same age, is different from each other because people have different lives and experiences and personalities, etc.

Edit: It just baffles me that ants can’t look at their group of friends and realize this. That just because they’re all the same age, they’re not all the same when it comes to how they’re gonna tackle life as an adult. When I was 18 and a senior in high school, about to go off to college, all my friends went on different paths, depending on their choices, their abilities, their desires. One friend joined the military. One got married. A few had jobs. A few chose to go to colleges far away from home in other states. Me, I chose to go to a college an hour away from home because I personally didn’t feel ready to be too far away from my hometown and my parents. 

If they think 18 year old Ke1th is too young to be in a relationship with an 25 year old, okay cool that’s valid. But others, when they were 18 themselves, were in relationships with people older than them and were capable of handling it. Ants need to realize that and just let people ship She1th, jeez.

[shirosucc]

SALT WARNING: Man I was enjoying all the smiling keith birthday posts until i went into the tag and the second most popular post was L@nce talking to Ke!th instead of Sh!ro in s4ep1 and suddenly K does leave anymore and OP literally goes "L should have talked to K since K does everything he says" and I'm just like.... but L didn't talk to him, remember OP? L didn't bother to... Can we as a fandom just NOT replace all K/S moments with L, at least on his birthday?

yeah your first mistake was venturing into the main tags,,,,, a Rookie mistake,,,,,, i don’t even bother with it i just try to follow the right blogs. but i agree with you, i’m tired of making individual keith moments about his ships. (she1th fandom is guilty of this, but especially kl@nce-- if you remember after keith’s vlog came out, 4 of the 5 top posts in the keith tag were just about lance lol)

also it really concerns me because “l@nce being ke1th’s impulse control” seems to be a popular subject of meta within the kl@nce fandom and i’m sorry that’s just... not how their interactions work...... i could talk about that forever but that’s for another time lol

[discoursecatharsis]

In addition to the fact that O and Y are on opposing sides of the "great divide" do you think that ants conside their ship to be "non progressive" as well? I've heard some say that "the fujos" only ship it because it falls into the "seme/uke" dynamic (because it involves...a dude with brown hair and muscles and a skinny blond guy, who's nicknamed "fairy" I guess. So new discourse: Both partners, in addition to being b-day twins, must have the same hair color, body type, and height, or its gross

Do I think that ants consider 0tayuri to be non-progressive? Yeah, probably. If they did considered progressive, they probably would ship it and do the same mental gymnastics to justify the age gap as they do with K/ance. But they don’t.

I wonder why they don’t see it as progressive, though. It’s a same-sex ship. An interracial ship. It’s the same as V1cturi and K/ance in that regard.

Ants just have this weird, messed up thinking about power dynamics and they think 0tayuri is too much of a power imbalance (even though it’s not, O and YP are pretty close to equals) simply because of their ages and nothing more, so I guess that’s why they view it as non-progressive. 

It’s even more ridiculous of ants to have this view when you really think about it. In my opinion, 0tayuri has better starting grounds for a healthier relationship than those other two. I’m not saying that V1cturi is unhealthy, because it’s very healthy and I love it. But it did start from a fan/idol relationship, which turned into a student/teacher relationship, which then turned romantic. K/ance starts with them nearly hating each others guts, getting on each others’ nerves, constantly bickering. Whereas 0tayuri starts off as two fast friends who admire and respect each other. That’s as healthy a start to a relationship as you can get #relationshipgoals. 

Yet ants can’t get passed the fact that O is an entire 2 years and 4 months older. Because being 18 gives O “more experience” than YP. And ants’ definition of “more experience” is always vague. Do they mean relationship experience? That’s not a given. I’m in my 20s and I have zero relationship experience, there are people younger than me who have dated multiple people and/or are married. Do they mean life experience? O and YP probably have very similar life experiences. Two years isn’t going to make that much of a difference to teenage professional athletes with near equal lifestyles. 

So I think ants are just too hung up on the damn age gap, and the Great Divide for 0tayuri.

And stemming from what you said, I think it also may have something to do with the physical differences between the characters.

With K/ance, they’re nearly equal in size. Close in height and body type. Versus She1th, where Shir0 is noticeable larger than Ke1th. 

With V1cturi... well, the physical size is noticeable with these two. But ant/s would never be against this ship because it’s the canon ship in this lbgt+ anime and if they’re not a fan of this show and the ship, then they lose any Woke Points that they have. 

With 0tayuri, the size difference isn’t that big. Their height difference is actually smaller than V1cturi’s. However, YP is rather petite, and O is kind of stout, so maybe the size different looks bigger than it really is? Especially often in fanarts. idk. For sure it has a lot to do with ants infantalizing YP. They think he’s a literal child. Many ants idiotically believe that he hasn’t even started puberty yet. So that doesn’t help matters.

Wow I rambled a lot. So yeah, idk why ants don’t view O/YP as progressive. I’d be curious to get some insight from an ex-0tayuri-ant. Probably of mix of them not shipping adult/minor characters (with an age gap of more than 13 months), and them finding the physical differences between O and YP “icky” (as if couples with large size differences don’t exist).

[discoursecatharsis]

It's either s/av or fucking M1ni0ns that can be paired with Sh1ro for these demons. There is no in between. Jesus, ant1s are really threatened by Sh1ro taking Ke1th away from their precious k/ance aren't they. 🙄 That meme is well past cursed.

It’d be one thing if it was just a shitpost. People joke around all the time, especially when the fandom is on a dry spell in between seasons, shitposts happen and it can be funny.

But when it’s an ant1 making a shitpost about Sh1ro... it’s obviously not just a joke for them. If it was someone who respected Sh1ro as a character, who respected his popular ships like She1th, okay cool then it’s just a silly shitpost. But when it’s from an ant1 who could clearly give less of a crap about Sh1ro, it pisses me off. Because they just do it to be a dick