#I JUST WANT SEASON 3 TO REDEEM VOLTRON

[squeakyleftsneaker]

Hi. Your Voltron posts are cathartic.

Everyone of these characters deserves better, but the one that makes me the most angry is Allura. She loses her planet, her people, her crown, her father, her castle, her agency and then straight up dies. The one person who most deserved to see the end of this war. The one with the most stakes in this fight (imo).

Also, it bugs me as a found family enjoyer, because they could have been great. All the relationships could've been fleshed out and they could have been something. Shiro had a good relationship with Pidge before they just dropped it. Keith seemed to be bonding with Hunk and Allura before he just left for two seasons and lost that. I'm gonna be honest, I just can't see any of them really hanging out after the war.

Anyway, those were my two tangents. Hope you have a lovely day <3

Allura's storyline is. Infuriating. I cannot even begin to express how much the show pissed me off with how they handled her. I am also just. Very frustrated. Like for once she's not a blonde white girl, she's got insanely cool space magic, she's a character that just projects strength in the opening of the show. And instead of stripping that back to build her back up even more, the show just. Sheds it away until by the end of the story it feels like she has supremely little agency– she's a pawn for Lotor, a girlfriend for Lance, a vessel for the evil blob of corruption, the woman who MUST fix the sins that Honerva, the other Corrupting Evil Woman did.

I am. Unhappy. To say the least. About how that was done. I still think the version of this show where she becomes the red paladin after Shiro goes missing is much better from a character standpoint. But even that can't fix the fact that like... she's the last surviving member of her people as they once were and she must die to fix the actions of like. Space Eve, because they decided that their evil alien empire must also be a clumsily handled Adam and Eve story in spite of the fact that the working order prior to Evil Corruption Blob's appearance is... troubling to say the least. Also the choosing to redeem Zarkon et al because nooo it's not their fault they went on a colonial rampage and killed all the Alteans and all that noooo it was the evil corruption blob like. Don't piss me off, show. Don't try it.

Blergh. So much to unpack.

And I'm 100% with you on the found family enjoyer pain train. Just SO frustrating to see what were presented as pretty interesting interpersonal dynamics in episode one be worn away entirely. By season 7/8 not even the longest standing one (at least diegetically but also as shown to us by the show) have any sort of body to them anymore. Which kind of fails the WHOLE POINT of having a big ensemble cast! We WANT to see these guys interact! We want to see them hang out! I do not believe any of them hang out at all!

The moments that really got to me about that were definitely all the times they had the characters try to reminisce with each other about stuff and like. They had NOTHING! Everyone telling Keith how they too, they too! missed Shiro and like. Fuckall in terms of individual moments to look back on. Talking about Allura in retrospect like they didn't even know her. The part where Keith and Lance are reminiscing before the IDGAF-Atlas launches and like. These motherfuckers DO NOT TALK! THEY'RE NOT FRIENDS!

Shit blows man it blows and it BLOWS MY MIND that the show fails on that level because it's such a freebie. You have 6 big principal characters to play with! Split em up have em talk have em hang out! Breathe some life into the world! It's crazy how blowing up the castle ship didn't even feel like much because, well, it didn't feel LIVED IN.

[fishgirl514]

ok. just finished season 3 now im going to ramble:

i was not a huge fan of the fact that the entire season was one really long fight scene in the same location? it got a little boring lol

also a lot of the things that happened just kind of …happened. not a lot of explanation or justification or setting up for logical conclusions.

also i know this iteration of sonic is definitely not the same as other versions of his personality but his unyielding determination to redeem nine when he was literally tearing the universe apart was very odd. like.. sonic wouldn’t do that. he��s never been a guy who’s determined to redeem villains and make friends.

the threat posed by the robots was really inconsistent, esp the big one? ALSO WHEN THE 2 TAILS FUCKING DIED AND EVERYONE JUST MOVED ON ??????? WHAT LMAO.. i know they were alive in the end but still😭

sonic’s whole “my friends!!!!!!!!!!!” thing was so undefined and all over the place. like does he want to save his friends or just nine? because he was being such a pushover with him.

honestly a lot of things were all over the place. dread was moping and refusing to fight and then next scene he’s normal? what does tails even want..? him becoming a power hungry supervillain wasn’t really narratively justified.

for the first 2 seasons there was a bunch of character arcs set up. shadow learns to trust sonic, sonic learns to cooperate with his friends, and he grapples with the concept of having to destroy the new worlds he created to bring back an old one. yeah it’s a complex topic… but if ur going to set up a crazy moral dilemma you have to solve it! instead we got some stupid voltron steven universe bullshit LOL

what happened to the void? and the chaos emerald? WHERE WAS SHADOW IN THE END??? i wanted to know if he lost his memory of everything or not!!!

ghhhhhhhhhh…….. in the end, i still really enjoyed this show. the animation was FANTASTIC and i loved the voice acting and designs and the *concept* the started with. im happy to see that it wasn’t abandoned and im happy that sonic got a netflix series. hopefully this will mean good things for the franchise moving forward but dear GOD they have got to get more subtle with sonic’s character. he’s such a mope it’s making me want to go rewatch sonic x to see him being normal again. this seems really negative and complainy because there was a LOT to discuss but honestly this show still means a lot to me and it helped me through a really dark moment and overall i still think it’s pretty good.

im absolutely going to talk about what i would have done to wrap up all the character arcs in a sort of rewrite thing in another post as soon as i finish thinking it through bc my mind is buzzing.

FUCK ALSO I FORGOT TO SAY THE SONADOW WAS PEAK IM SAD THEY DIDNT GET A CLOSING MOMENT BUT SHADOW CARRYING SONIC BACK WAS MY EVERYTHING AND THE HUG MOMENT WHERE SHADOW DIDNT PUSH OFF LIKE HE DID BEFORE WAS ADORABLE

[superb-owl-sunday]

Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭😭😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.

[the-ferocious-kittyrose]

Rewriting Haggar/Honerva’s redemption arc

One of the many things that bothered me about VLD S8 is Honerva’s redemption arc. While I was never fully against the idea of Honerva getting a redemption arc, I just didn’t want VLD to do it because I knew that they would fuck it up if they tried. And low and behold, I was right!

But yeah, I wasn’t against the idea of her being redeemed. And I don’t mean “redeemed” as in “all is forgiven and she’s just a good guy now,” but more like a Darth Vader, “the things she did were inexcusable and she would never be able to right all her wrongs but she goes out on one good act to show that there was still good in her deep down and she at least had the potential to change.”

I know a lot of people don’t like the whole, “redemption=death” thing, which I understand, but I personally never had a problem with it.

Ok, so why didn’t Honerva’s redemption work? Well there are a few reasons but the one that baffles me the most is that, instead of trying to make her more sympathetic, season 8 seemed to go out of its way to show her being more evil and vile than ever.

And because I have nothing better to do, I’m gonna go through Honerva’s story in VLD and explain what I would change to make her redemption more believable.

(Keep in mind I am not a writer, this is just me ranting about my favorite character and how I personally would’ve written her.)

1. Realizing she’s Altean

I always thought it’s was weird that when Allura said “you’re...Altean!?” In the S2 finale, Haggar didn’t seem to react at all, she just kept attacking. It’s as if she didn’t care or already knew, which doesn’t make sense considering in the S3 finale and S8E2 it’s established that Haggar has no memory of who she was before she died. And in S4E3 she seems shocked by her Altean face (which also doesn’t make sense because her blue skin isn’t camouflage that’s just how she looks after the rift) so it seems like she didn’t know.

Wouldn’t it have made more sence if after Allura said “you’re...Altean!?” Honerva looked confused/shocked? If she became defensive and said Allura was lying/trying to insult her? There’s def anti-Altean propaganda in the empire so it would be considered an insult.

After that she starts questioning Zarkon. And when she looks into his mind, it’s out of genuine curiosity and desire to know the truth, not because, “the empire needs him” or whatever that meant.

And isn’t it a bit odd that she doesn’t seem betrayed at all when she finds out Zarkon has been keeping all this from her? She’s just like, “oh, you’re my husband? Cool.” Wtf???

2. Her past relationship with Zarkon

Okay, I love Zonerva, but if we’re being honest, Zarkon was not the best husband. He enabled the shit out of Honerva, even when it was obvious that the rift was doing serious damage to her physical and mental health. To me, it seems like Zarkon was so blinded by the power the rift gave him that he didn’t realize/ignored the negative effect it was having on Honerva. In the same way he downplayed the negative impact the rift had on the planet.

I think that should’ve been explored more. Maybe Honerva notices that she’s been acting differently and is worried somethings wrong (think S5 Kuron). And Honerva tries to tell Zarkon that she feels strange and Zarkon just brushes it off.

And later, when Alfor visits Diaibazaal years later. Things are pretty much the same except when we sees Honerva, she is very obviously pregnant and Alfor’s there when Honerva falls and goes into labor (instead of a random quintessence seizure). Alfor and many Galran doctors try their best to save her and the baby but she dies in childbirth.

Zarkon goes ballistic. He’s yelling, throwing doctors across the room, and Alfor turns to the doctor holding Lotor and tells them to get the baby to safely, fearing Zarkon will take his grief out on the baby.

Zarkon turns on Alfor, blaming him for Honerva’s death and accusing him of letting her die so that he could get his way and close the rift. He lunges Alfor and roars at him to leave.

He spends the rest of the night grieving at Honerva’s bedside, when Kova jumps on the bed and starts gnawing on her finger trying to wake her up. This is what gives him the idea to bring her back with quintessence.

3. Her current relationship with Zarkon

I think it’s pretty safe to say that they’re relationship didn’t get better after the war began. Zarkon hid her identity and her child from her for 10,000 years and essentially used her as a tool of war. It’s pretty fucked up.

I know it’s pretty well established that Zarkon treats Haggar with more respect than his other underlings, but I feel like it would be interesting to see that change overtime. We see that after Voltron comes back, Zarkon becomes very obsessed with Voltron/Black, and he and Haggar start disagreeing more and more.

Remember the moment where one of Haggar’s druids told Zarkon Haggar said he needed to rest and Zarkon hit them with his bayard and told them, “remember who your master is”? What if, instead of a random druid, it was Haggar who he hit?

I feel like that would be a good way to show Haggar and the audience just how much Zarkon’s obsession with Voltron is affecting him, and make the audience feel a tiny bit bad for her.

Then later in season 4, when Zarkon wakes up from his coma and finds out Haggar brought Lotor back to take his place he gets pissed. He puts a price on Lotor’s head and has Haggar arrested for treason. She steals a ship, escapes, and later on meets up with Lotor’s generals.

Her and Zarkon are officially broken up and her quest to reclaim her identity and get her son back begins.

4. Oriande

I never liked the concept of chosen/sacred Alteans. The idea that some Alteans are just born more powerful than others just feels iffy. My idea of Oriande is that it’s an Altean holly land, any Altean can enter it just depends on whether or not you can pass the White Lion’s trial. Passing the trial proves that your intentions are pure and and the White Lion will bless you with power.

I didn’t like how Honerva seemed to force her way into Oriande, I think it would be more effective if she had gone through normally because, at this point, her intentions were pure. She was going there to purge herself of the dark magic corrupting her and reclaim her memories so she could go get her son back.

I also like the idea that Oriande is a sorta link to the Altean after life, and you can speak with people you’ve lost. Allura gets to speak with Alfor, and Honerva speaks with her mother.

You could also have her be confronted by the spirits of the Alteans she helped destroy. Have the weight of her past actions bear down on her. An important part of any redemption arc is acknowledging the terrible shit you’ve done in the past, and that was severely lacking in Honerva’s arc.

Another interesting thing you could do is have Honerva talk to her younger self. The one that died 10,000 years ago. This kinda thing actually happened in 80s Voltron, young Haggar appearing in Haggar’s head trying to convince her to be good again.

5. Her relationship with Lotor

Now this is where the redemption arc really falls apart. I forget who, but one of the writers said after S5 that Haggar/Honerva was motivated purely by love for her son, but man did they do a bad job of showing that.

And it would’ve been so easy to fix that problem, just have her not be horrible to him. Have them have actual civil conversations, have her protect and defend him. Don’t have her reject him as a fucking baby!

Imagine if, after Zarkon destroys Lotor’s planet, instead of immediately deciding to

exile him, Zarkon says that this is the final straw and he’s going to have Lotor executed. But Haggar speaks up to defend Him. There’s actually a scene in DOTU where Zarkon tries to kill Lotor and Haggar gets on her knees and begs for him to be spared. (Though the scene was mostly played for laughs.)

she asks for mercy and justifies it by saying it would be unwise to kill his only heir. It’s a weak argument, Lotor’s a half breed and couldn’t realistically take the throne, but Zarkon does concede, he still loves her after all, and has Lotor exiled.

And Haggar isn’t spying on him because she doesn’t trust him, but because she’s concerned for him. When Lotor confronts Haggar about sending her cronies after him, she says she knows he’s hiding something. Lotor asks if she’s threatening him, thinking she’s going to rat him out, but she says no, she’s not threatening him, she’s just trying to warn him against doing anything stupid because, with Zarkon seemingly on his death bed, the empire needs Lotor’s leadership.

At this point in the story, Haggar is questioning her loyalty to Zarkon, so I feel like it would make sense for her to be silently supporting Lotor from the shadows.

Then at the Kral Zera in season 5, It was weird to me how she was helping Lotor through Kuron while also telling him he couldn’t be emperor and trying to put Sendak on the throne. I feel like it would’ve made more sense for Sendak to just show up on his own without Haggar.

Haggar wouldn’t even be at the Kral Zera, she would just watch through Kuron.

And then we get to S6 when she actually reveals to Lotor that she’s his mom. This scene was just so poorly done. She never actually apologizes to him, she’s just like “yeah I forgot you were my kid and I never loved you, but were cool now right?” I remember when I saw S8E2 and it shows her after Lotor rejects her and she looks like she’s about to cry, I was just thinking, “this would be very emotional and sad IF she had actually apologized and made it clear that she genuinely loved him.” But she didn’t and I don’t know why!

And then we get to season 8, and of course everything in S8 is bad but Honerva’s story is particularly bad. She’s supposed to be motivated by love for Lotor yet she doesn’t act like she actually cares about him at all.

She manipulates his corpse and when she sees his gross melted body, she doesn’t even react that much. When a mother sees her child’s mutilated corpse, how do you think she reacts? Screaming? Crying?? Hurling??? But no. She’s just like, “...”

And then when she goes to the alternate reality and meets baby Lotor and he rejects her, her reaction isn’t disappointment or sadness, it’s anger and entitlement. She immediately decides, “ok, fuck this kid. Let’s destroy this reality.”

It just doesn’t make sense! This is the season you’re trying to REDEEM her! Why are you going out of your way to make her so vile?

6. Her S7-S8 plan

(Keep in mind I haven’t watched S7/S8 since they came out and barely even watched S8 to begin with, so I don’t remember some things and I can’t be bothered to rewatch them.)

Okay, starting with S7, she’s not in this season at all but in “The Ruins” the druid dude says that her final order was to hunt and destroy the Blade of Marmora. I guess it makes a certain amount of sense because she saw that it was Keith who brought Lotor’s actions to light, but that whole plot was really pointless in my opinion. (Was anybody really hoping for a rematch between Keith and that one random druid?)

If you want us to forgive Honerva for her crimes, you really shouldn’t keep adding more unnecessary crimes. It’s established that there were a lot of Galra war lords vying for power and pirates looking for money, just have it be that Kolivan got kidnapped by one of them.

Then you have her season 8 plan and I’m gonna be real with y’all, I have no idea how to fix this mess.

I feel like the basics of her plan could work. She tries to get Lotor and Sincline out of the rift but when she gets him he’s a melted corpse so the plan then becomes to use sincline to go to another reality to find a living Lotor, but opening all these rifts causes problems and the paladins have to stop her.

But all the shit with manipulating the colony Alteans, killing the White Lion, desecrating Oriande, and destroying Olkarion and entire realities, it was all so unnecessary.

Personally I would cut the colony Alteans from the story all together, there are other ways for Lotor to betray the team. It was a lazy way of making Lotor 100% evil and having Honerva manipulate them is unnecessarily cruel, especially in the season you’re trying to redeem her.

Here’s a very basic outline of how I would do this plot.

If we’re going by season 8’s logic that she needs a sacrifice to bring back Sincline, I would’ve had the Galra she killed at the Kral Zera be the sacrifice, not the White Lion. She stands on the pyramid and talks about how the empire stole her life from her and she wants revenge as she absorbs their quintessence into herself and then uses that to bring back Sincline.

Then when she finds Lotor dead she takes Sincline and uses it to go to another reality where she can be with her family.

The danger comes when she opens rifts to the other realities and rift creatures start coming out and causing damage. The paladins fight them and follow her into the rift to stop whatever evil plan she may have. Because the paladins don’t know that Haggar is now Honerva and all this is just to get Lotor back. They think this is all some plan for multiverse domination or some shit.

Meanwhile Honerva has just been rejected by little Lotor and seeing Voltron show up pushes her over the edge and they fight.

But when they find out the real reason she’s doing all this they start trying to appeal to her and convince her to give up and close the rift peacefully. And similarly to how the paladins had to sacrifice the castle to close the rifts created by the fight with Lotor, Honerva has to sacrifice herself to close the rifts.

In the end, I feel like a Honerva redemption arc could’ve worked if the writers were actually competent and actually made an effort to have her be sympathetic, but In canon, her reasoning, “If I can’t indulge in the simple joys of life, why should anybody else?” just doesn’t cut it.

It’s disappointing. VLD had so much potential. I’m thinking of just rewriting the entire series from the beginning. Hopefully putting all my thoughts out into the universe will help me move on.

[danco110]

If you ever start thinking “Hey, maybe I have too many Commander decks,” let me tell you: you don’t. I do:

WARNING!!! EXTREMELY long post below, describing each deck and a brief summary of its strategy in overly abbreviated and nerdy Commander lingo. I mean, I’m talking a real wall of text, here. I mean it! Read more at your own risk!

——

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THE A-TEAM: These decks have all been around for a while, and have all seen their fair share of wins.

-Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. Artifact storm, and probably the closest I’ll ever come to cedh. WARNING: my Mana Crypt is in here!

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. OHKO tribal. Seeks to blast people wide open with either Embercleave, Kaya’s Onslaught, or Uncaged Fury.

-Bruna, Light of Alabaster. Voltron that can either play nice and fetch Eldrazi Conscription, or not, and grab Spectra Ward.

-Sigarda, Heron’s Grace. Human tokens tribal, and the rightful recipient of my only Doubling Season.

-Admiral Beckett Brass. Pirate tribal. Taking commanders and wincons is fun. WARNING: somewhat unfun to play against!

-Gishath, Sun’s Avatar. Dino tribal.

-Hallar, the Firefletcher. Kicker tribal.

-Syr Gwyn of Ashvale. Knights and equipments and equip 0 Colossal Hammers.

-Nikya of the Old Ways. A creatures-only deck that probably has more interaction than most of my other decks!

-Atemsis, All Seeing. Azor’s Gateway / Twiddlestorm / Untap shenanigans. WARNING: somewhat unfun to play against!

-Gnostro, Voice of the Crags. Flicker tribal with a non-Narset commander so as to not draw too much heat.

-Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty. Cascade / big spells / Simic is broken change my mind / tribal

-Aragon, Roar of the World. Cat tribal, and my first-ever Commander deck!

——

THE B-TEAM: My decks with fairly good performance across their games, independent of wins and losses

-Halana, Kessig Trapper and Alena, Kessig Ranger (Partner). Big bodies / EtB tribal.

-Khorvath Brightflame and Sylvia Brightspear (Partner). Knights and dragons tribal.

-Virtus, the Veiled and Gorm, the Great (Partner). Quietus Spike / force block shenanigans. WARNING: somewhat unfun to play against!

-Linvala, Shield of Sea Gate. Azorius party aggro.

-Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats. Phantom Rakdos party control.

-Tazri, Beacon of Unity. 5C party +1/+1 counters.

-Kazarov, Senior Pureblood. “I can’t play against Krenko anymore today” Pyroclasm tribal.

-Liesa, Shroud of Dusk. Angel and demon tribal (NOTE: no synergy there, I just wanted to stick to the flavor of “alliance with a demon lord”)

-Orah, Skyclave Hierophant. Clerics tribal that always tries for an Angel of Destiny win before it (always) defers back to aristocrats.

-Bruna, the Fading Light. Angel tribal that tries to meld Brisela every game.

-Anafenza, the Foremost. +1/+1 counters tribal, and the deck that made me realize Outlast really should’ve been instant-speed.

-Samut, Voice of Dissent. Exert tribal with vigilance, untap, and extra combats.

-Juri, Master of the Revue. Sacrifice tribal, with a burn subtheme.

-Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas. Big tribal, and the deck that made me realize Experience counters were busted. Run Suncleanser, people!

-Quintorius, Field Historian. Reanimate and blow up your graveyard. Also, Purify the Grave is hilarious!

-Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire. Chaos warp tribal, and a Primal Surge deck that doesn’t have Primal Surge because that card is extremely boring.

-Ishkanah, Grafwidow. Spider tribal that seeks to make opponents forget about Ishkanah’s activated ability until it’s too late.

-Omnath, Locus of the Roil. Landfall and elementals.

-Savra, Queen of the Golgari. Grave Pact tribal. WARNING: somewhat unfun to play against!

-Feather, the Redeemed. Haha, combat tricks go brrrrrr!

-Adeliz, the Cinder Wind. Wizards spellslinger aggro. Also one of the few decks of mine that actually uses cantrips!

-Aryel, Knight of Windgrace. Knights tribal with a removal/control subtheme.

-Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice. Mentor + Double Strike tribal. I only built this deck because I pulled a borderless Outlaws’ Merriment, ok?

-Araumi of the Dead Tide. Self mill encore, and the deck that made me appreciate the singleton rule in Commander.

-Kaza, Roil Chaser. Big spells. BIG! I mean, Electrodominance for 10, into a Karn’s Temporal Sundering, big!

——

THE C-TEAM: My decks that just don’t cut it at a lot of pods, sometimes even against those at appropriate power levels. That being said, however, these tend to be my more storied decks, that I still enjoy playing.

-Syr Alin, the Lion’s Claw. Mono-White go wide, with commons and uncommons only. Part of my cycle of Eldraine uncommon legendary knight decks, 1/5.

-Syr Elenora, the Discerning. Mono-Blue Voltron + draw power, with commons and uncommons only, 2/5.

-Syr Konrad, the Grim. Mono-Black aristocrats...kind of...? It’s complicated, but with commons and uncommons only, 3/5.

-Syr Carah, the Bold. Mono-Red storm, with rares and mythics for Underworld Breach and Past in Flames, because I feel like storm needs those, 4/5.

-Syr Faren, the Hengehammer. Mono-Green infect, with rares and mythics for Phyrexian Swarmlord, because I really wanted a deck that could run that, 5/5.

-Jodah, Archmage Eternal. Avengers Assemble! legendary tribal. I had a lot of bulk legends at the time, and wanted to make something of them!

-Abomination of Llanowar. Literal elf ball. Built in response to my irritation at someone’s Lathril, Blade of the Elves deck.

-Licia, Sanguine Tribute. Lifegain is good, I swear, built in response to my disbelief at the $200 price tag on a store-built Licia deck. Mine costs maybe $100, if you count the sleeves and box?

-Thalisse, Reverent Medium. Tokens tribal that breaks Anointed Procession even further, which made me wonder why green gets all the token doublers *cough*adrixandnev*cough*

-Hamza, Guardian of Arashin. +1/+1 counters, with commons and uncommons only, built because someone at my store wanted to play commons and uncommons only with an uncommon Commander. Thanks for getting me into Artisan Commander, Will!

-Siona, Captain of the Pyleas. Enchantress, with a tokens subtheme. Built because I and a friend both commented that she looked like Wonder Woman.

-Mina and Denn, Wildborn (NOT Partner). Landfall aggro, with all the creatures that pump on landfall.

-Ghired, Conclave Exile. Populate and tokens. Built because I was bored one Saturday and saw I had an extra set of sleeves.

-Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor. Landfall tribal, (again? Sheesh!) built the same lazy Saturday as Ghired, above.

-Armix, Filigree Familiar and Eligeth, Crossroads Augur (YES Partner). Artifact tribal, with a super janky 4-piece Marionette Master loop wincon! Built because Eligeth turns Preordain into “Draw 2 cards, then draw a card.”

-Akiri, Fearless Voyager. Equipment tribal, with an asymmetrical boardwipe subtheme. Built because I pulled an Akiri from a pack, and someone said “ooh, sorry,” from over my shoulder.

-Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch. Unleash counters tribal. Built because I found a Chaos Imps in my bulk!

——

THE MEME-TEAM: These decks...are. Yeah, they are. Not necessarily good or bad. Just...are.

-Kenrith, the Returned King. The game plan is “Get to Trostani’s Summoner, and either flicker it or make a bajillion copies of it.” One day, I found a card named Trostani’s Summoner, and it was love at first sight! My Demonic Tutor went in here!

-Phylath, World Sculptor. Landfall tribal...with 99 basic land cards.

-Rograkh, Son of Rogahh and Keleth, Sunmane Familiar. (Partner) Kill one guy and die tribal.

-Etrata the Silencer. The “I wanted a non-Koma Mirror Gallery deck” deck. Also with a guest appearance from flicker!

-Lazav, Dimir Mastermind. Literally just “Oops! All Control!” Draw, counter, and remove. WARNING: don’t play against this.

-Ravos, Soultender and Livio, Oathsworn Sentinel. (Partner) War of attrition, etb and control. WARNING: don’t play against this. It has like 15 boardwipes!

-Valki, God of Lies / Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter. (NOT Partner) “I want to piss off the table” tribal. It mills your opponents, it plays their stuff, and it removes the stuff it doesn’t play. WARNING: don’t play against this. It runs Jokulhaups, Obliterate, and Decree of Annihilation!

-Svella, Ice Shaper. Colossal Dreadmaw tribal, as in, anything that’s roughly 6/6 makes the cut! It’s actually won games!

-Brion Stoutarm. Hijack and fling tribal. “You know, I’ve never had an Eldrazi titan before. Can I borrow it? Well, see, I wasn’t exactly...asking...?”

-Grumgully, the Generous. Non-human “uno mas” tribal. Tries to run all the counters cards like Renata and the Rhythm of the Wild.

-Subira, Tuzuldi Caravaneer. Small tribal. Just think “mono-r blitz in Commander,” and you’ll get the gist.

-Neheb, the Worthy. Minotaurs and discard tribal. Not as oppressive as Tinybones, or as explosive as Nath, and that’s a good thing. Trust me.

——

THE ALL-RAVNICAN REJECTS: These decks are... *sniff* no longer with us. They were broken down for pieces, for sleeves, or because I slept through each time I played them.

-Najeela, the Blade Blossom. Boring warriors extra combat steps. Broken because I wanted her tri-lands, and I wanted some of her warriors for my party decks.

-Golos, Tireless Pilgrim. Maze’s End lands. Golos is broken and we all know it. Broken for sleeves, and because my first land tutor was always Field of the Dead because of the incoming hate, and not Maze’s End, and I wasn’t happy with that.

-Arcades, the Strategist. Walls. As it turns out, not a lot of decks can contest 3-mana 8/8’s. And against those that could, the deck was put in the ground extremely quickly. Broken because it just wasn’t fun to play.

——

THE DRAWING BOARD: These decks are in the works. Will they see the light of day, and the protection of sleeves? Well, we’ll see, will we not?

-Borborygmos. Go wide and SMASH! My first attempt at a pile of cards; I’m trying for a goblins/saproling hybrid tribal, because both make lots of tokens, but we’ll see how well that translates into actual play.

-Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer. Thopters and artificers and myr, oh my! All joking aside, I just wanted a deck that wants to run cards with Fabricate, because I thought it was a really cool mechanic!

-Garna, the Bloodflame. Reanimator/sacrifice, AKA corpse carousel. It’s a revolving door between the graveyard and the battlefield, yknow, and most of my store’s meta does not run graveyard hate.

I tried to warn ‘ya!

[jcmorrigan]

For the Fandom ask. Voltron.

Legendary Defender because that's the only incarnation I know

Top 5 episodes:

5. "Space Mall" for shenanigans and slice-of-life-style worldbuilding

4. "The Belly of the Weblum" for making me ship Heith so hard

3. "The Journey" because I'm still so ridiculously attached to Vakala and Remdax and they were like the only side characters who NEVER CAME BACK

2. "The Ark of Taujeer" for Morvok my beloved

1. Everything from "The Last Stand" to "Lion's Pride." Look. That was where the god-awful thing with Shadam happened. But everything else? The most edge-of-my-seat arc they'd ever done. Sendak was a minor fave for a while, and I love that they brought him back for one of the most intense battles. I love the ragtag Earth team that had Lance's sister. I love how much time was invested into bringing down Sendak because his conquest was so THOROUGH. And that final battle? YES.

Favorite character: I'm sad to say it's probably Morvok. I'm not saying the rest of the cast is bad. I love them. I'm saying the one-off villain (or two-off if you count the game show hallucination) who spent his entire stage time being a corny, entitled coward was EXACTLY THE CHARACTER I WANT TO SEE IN EVERYTHING EVER, SO OF COURSE I LOVE HIM

Least favorite character: Lotor. I just feel like I never...understood what he wanted? One minute he's a cold and ruthless man, then he's a freedom fighter, then he's a deceiver, but then that's BECAUSE he's a freedom fighter, and I can't sort between his truth and lies anymore. It almost feels like they were just monitoring fan reactions and sliding him from "badass villain" to "redeemable woobie" as they went along depending on what people wanted. I still don't know how I'm supposed to even feel about him.

OTP: Crossover - Lance x Katara (ATLA). Non-crossover - Heith! (But also Vakadax; I almost wrote a longfic about them)

Favorite non-romantic relationship: Paladin friend squad!

Favorite villain/arc: Sendak's invasion was the best arc (Shadam aside). Sendak was my second favorite villain, so that worked out. Morvok didn't have an arc, and probably couldn't have gotten away with one given his sillier nature, so I'm okay with this.

Least favorite villain/arc: Whatever Lotor was doing in season 6. I hate how the finale, which was a battle for "all realities," showed fewer possible consequences and stakes than Sendak going after a single planet one season later. And also that Haggar managed to do the same plot with actual impact in season 8 while also having an understandable motivation that let her be sinister AND sympathetic!

5 songs I associate with it and why:

1. "My Boyfriend's Back" by Angels because of this one random crackvid I saw back when all we had was S1 and it had the popular ships at the time set to this song whenever someone had to rescue the other half of the ship. (Those were the Shallura days, though. Cringe. I mean, we didn't have his canon sexuality yet, so it was fine for the time, but looking back OOF he needs a hot dude instead)

2. "Treasure" by Bruno Mars because I used to be into Klance and watch a lot of Klance vids and I distinctly remember one being set to that

3. Oh my God, I followed this show for all eight seasons. Why don't I have more songs for it?

4. I DON'T EVEN HAVE A HEITH SONG? WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?

5. "King of the Clouds" by Panic! At the Disco is Morvok's theme song as of...right now. Yep. It's him now. Don't question it

[sleepyssnail]

What REALLY happened in Voltron Season 7

I was unsatisfied with Voltron seasons 3-8 so this was my solution.

So, in no particular order, here are a bunch of my headcanons about what actually happened in season 7. None of you can change my mind.

Lotor getting rescued and being treated for his injuries and he’s more than apologetic and can only beg for Allura’s forgiveness

Keith using his bayard in blaster form in an attempt to flirt with Lance

Allura forging a connection with the Atlas like with the lions, and Blue severing their bond.

The paladins returning to their original lions. Please. If not then...

Blue then accepting Shiro as her paladin because she knows he’ll always be there to support the team and lead them that way.

Pidge losing her mind over having three paladins who refuse to swap armor for color coordination.

Shiro activating his bayard form and being so excited about it

Matt, Coran, and Lotor work together to make Shiro another prosthetic that isn’t floating.

Lotor is the one who adds a special camouflage feature that makes it look realistic instead of mechanical.

Shiro sitting with Black for a while and talking about being a leader and thanking her for all she taught him and she lights up a bit and purrs to him before Blue roars in the back of his mind.

Hunk listening to Lance talk about Keith at the same time Shiro listens to Keith talk about Lance and both of them being Done™ with their stupid lovestruck friends

Krolia interacting with the other paladins and having flashbacks to the quantum abyss when Keith told her about them

Lance recognizing Allura has truly wanted him in a romantic way, and he is fine staying friends with her if it means he gets someone he needs later on.

Red, Blue, and Black letting Keith, Lance, and Shiro pilot them respectively if the time calls for it

(Or just because they miss their chosen paladins, but Black would never admit that out loud.)

Adam NOT dying. He’s alive and as sassy as ever.

Shiro and Adam reuniting only for Adam to slap Shiro, call him an idiot, and kiss him before hitting him again.

Shiro: God I love him

Keith: He beat you up

Shiro: Yeah…I forgot how good his right hooks were.

Lotor beginning rehabilitation and trying his best to redeem himself

Voltron game nights happen while Adam insists that the have to listen to the debriefing.

Shiro getting to see his family and just be with them after all that he’s been through.

Keith watching Lance’s back during fights and giving him smirks and little remarks that could be flirty or just nice

Keith: Nice job sharpshooter

Hunk seeing what’s going on and not being surprised when Lance approaches him with a bi crisis

Lance slowly thinking through and accepting his sexuality after realizing he’s had these feelings forever and only just started to think of them as a good thing

Honerva’s altean mecha’s actually are actually stronger robeasts made from surviving alteans and other alien species.

Adam and the MFE pilots make shirts to celebrate the Atlas being thicc

Adam’s shirt: “Atlas is Dummy Thicc”

Iverson: …why–

Adam: It was Griffin’s idea.

Pidge making small adjustments to Green to improve the cloaking and trying to apply it to her armor.

[legendary-defender-of-fandoms]

Would folks be open to a Vehicle Voltron spin-off of Legendary Defender?

I know Voltron left a lot of people disappointed at best and an unholy degree of pissed off at worst, and there’s nothing wrong with any reaction in between. The Voltron writing team dropped the ball with a lot of subjects (LGBT rep, Allura’s death, Lotor’s ultimate fate, Honerva’s “redemption,” etc.), and fans have every right to be angry, or hurt, or whatever.

But . . . . I’ve been thinking about Voltron a lot lately, and a Vehicle Voltron spin-off could be used to give us closure & redeem the franchise. Not the writers, or De Santos & Montgomery, but the characters & the core story deserve a second chance.

I’ll admit, I don’t know much about Vehicle Voltron (except it was an English redub of a Japanaese anime that had absolutely nothing to do with Voltron’s source anime, King of Beasts GoLion). But from what little I’ve gleaned, it could be a decent setup for a Star Trek/Justice League Unlimited sort of sci-fi action ensemble show, with different episodes focusing on separate teams until everyone has to meet up for big battles/finales.

There’s supposed to be about 15 vehicles of all sorts (planes, cars, helicopters, etc,) that make up Vehicle Voltron, broken down into 3 teams (Earth, Water, and Sky/Air). Each group of 5 vehicles makes their own mini-Vehicle Voltron, and when all 3 teams are together they make the big Vehicle Voltron. Perhaps the MFE pilots add one more to their ranks & form the Jet Vehicle Voltron that forms the head of Big Vehicle Voltron.

And with an expanded cast & different teams, the chances for proper representation would increase exponentially! Pilots & Paladins of every skin color, orientation, gender identification/presentation, body type, age, and neurodivergency. Not to mention all the crossovers born of the interpersonal relationships. Perhaps the left arm pilot of Earth Vehicle Voltron has a significant other who forms the head of Water Vehicle Voltron, or the legs of MFE Vehicle Voltron are Twins, and so forth.

Then there’s the appearances by characters from the OG Legendary Defenders. The Season 8 epilogue confirmed that Pidge & the rest of the Holt family spearheaded the Vehicle Voltron project, but they won’t be the only returning cast members.

Veronica probably transferred over from the Galaxy Garrison, either as a Pilot or a communications officer coordinating the deployment of all the Vehicle Voltron teams. And with Veronica onboard, we may see her girlfriend/partner/close friend Axca, who would rope in Ezor & Zethrid as the other members of her Blade of Marmorra relief team.

Perhaps Vehicle Voltron would give Curtis a chance to shine as the tactical advisor for one of the Teams, or an instructor at the Voltron Academy, and we’d get to know him as a character rather than a background Red Shirt hastily converted into a half-assed bit of LGBT rep. And with Curtis we could see Shiro, either as a guest advisor to teach the Teams about the importance of teamwork or just as a supportive husband. The important things here would be to establish Curtis’ personality & show his relationship with Shiro (who’s the better cook, what kind of stuff do they disagree over, how do they cheer each other up, do either of them want kids, etc.).

And think of all the other cameos we could see - Hunk & his culinary crew partnering with one of the Vehicle Voltron teams to oversee peace talks between unfriendly nations, Keith & his Blade of Marmorra team running into another Vehicle Voltron team as both try to evacuate an unstable planet, Veronica visiting her little brother Lance on the family farm & seeing how he’s doing after Season 8, etc.

Then there’s the stories. I have a few basic plots figured out, but there are tons of possibilities:

Welcome to the New Legendary Defenders - this would be the three-part premiere, as we’re introduced to the Vehicle Voltron teams, mission statements, and cast while following one of the new recruits (possibly Chip, or maybe a new character).

New Olcarion - ever wonder what happened to everyone on Olcarion since Season 8 forgot to tell us? This episode has you covered! Perhaps they built their own planet & it’s having some technical difficulties, or they think they found a new planet they could colonize but the planet has sentient life that went hidden until a bunch of off-worlders started stomping around like they owned the place.

Shadows of the Empire - there’s probably still a few Galra who aren’t ready to let go of Zarkon’s era of conquest or Haggar’s era of devastation, and they might pop up every once in a while to cause trouble. Sendack’s dead, but maybe that wormy General from the Taujeerian episode would make his long-awaited return as he tries to establish his own Galra Empire. Or maybe a forgotten cache of Galra sentret droids either never got deactivated or were recently reactivated & are still carrying out their prime directives (I.e. conquer everything in the name of the Galra Empire).

Balmera Pains - a colony of Balmerans reach out to Vehicle Voltron for help. Their Balmera is under distress, and no one is entirely certain how or why. The team shows up to help with evacuations, and they discover the Balmera isn’t dying - it’s pregnant. Everyone’s excited, since a new Balmera hasn’t been born in millennia, but there’s still the issue of tremors & other seismic activity putting the Balmerans at risk.

Lion Goddess - this would be an overarching story in the first season, possibly extending into a second season. It would start with the original Paladins getting dreams/visions/flashbacks of the Lions. Pidge & Shiro would be in Vehicle Voltron more than the others, so they’re the ones who we would see exhibiting symptoms first. Pidge might be dreaming about Green before her alarm goes off at the start of her day, or Shiro might hear some whisper over his shoulder & find nothing there, that sort of thing. The two would probably talk about these flashes & dreams with each other, chalking it up to old memories or PTSD (or one of them might try to pull a Steven Universe & keep their trauma bundled up until they explode into a Kaiju of guilt & self-loathing). This could even be something Shiro & Curtis regularly discuss, as Curtis wants to support Shiro through whatever’s going on. But as the other Paladins make their cameos, we may see them showing symptoms as well (Keith May be restless or irritable, Lance May be distracted or lethargic, Hunk might flinch if folks start talking about lions, space anomalies, or Quintessence, etc.). But eventually everyone will get together & realize they’re being Called by Voltron. Or Allura? Or the Universe in general. This revelation may coincide with reports of distant planets sighting giant flying robotic cats in their area, scaring off folks who come too close to their territory. Then it’ll be time to get the Gang back together to find the Lions & see why they’ve reappeared after so long & what’s going on. Through some complicated shenanigans, it’ll be revealed that the Lions have gathered the life force of Allura & need the Paladins to help with channeling her energies into regenerating her. Not sure if Lotor would be regenerated during this process as well - while his body kind of melted into the Sincline robot, his consciousness/soul/whatever could still be trapped within the space between dimensions, or his energies became entangled with Allura’s as they both drifted in the ether & by bringing back one, they bring back the other. Bottom line, yay, Allura’s back! And after a few episodes in a coma (regeneration is exhausting), she’s up & about and ready for some closure. She & Lance can try to pick things up where they left off & realize they still care about each other, but just don’t work as a romantic couple. She & Coran can get an emotional reunion to make up for Coran being snubbed in the Season 8 finale. Maybe Allura’s QuintessenceBending will have grown exponentially, and now she spreads new life wherever she goes, or maybe channeling all of Honerva’s stolen Quintessence into jumpstarting the Multiverse has left her completely drained of her gifts. If Lotor’s back as well, the two will have a lot to discuss after their shared time in the ether.

Anyway, those were my thoughts on a Vehicle Voltron spin-off. Am I the only one?

[kalluralove]

hi again! how are you? it's been awhile :). so, um, question, and i feel like i've asked this already but why do you think lotura is so popular? despite what lotor's VA keeps saying lotor did commit genocide and almost killed allura. why ship allura with a man who 1) withheld the fact that her people were still alive and 2) were killing her people? tbh allura is a trophy to lotor, she doesn't gain anything from the relationship. it just baffles me

I’m good, thanks! And yes, I do believe we’ve covered this topic but maybe it needs a revisit? So how much time do you have, because I’m about to monopolize it ;)

So, first let me say that AJ Locasio is an absolute gem. He’s the quintessential nice guy, and I understand why girls can be drawn to him. He interacts with them on a regular basis and-- despite his acknowledgement of Lotor’s shortcomings-- is still a huge fan of the character. That’s typical for any actor, be their character the hero or the villain.

But that’s not the end of it. The obsession of giving Allura to him (that’s what it is in a nutshell, there is no two-way street here) has become one of the biggest problems within the fandom. Let’s take a look at why.

1) Allura is a shield for him. He needs her to do things he can’t on his own. For ten-thousand years he’s been looking for a way to solve a problem that was solely the Galra’s. His idea of creating peace balanced on the ability to give them unlimited amounts of what they were killing people for. This requires Allura’s help; without it he can’t complete his work. His “love” for her is simply a need to complete his mother’s work. 

We’ve discussed race before in this scenario. Black women are traditionally used as a means to an end, rarely given their own story for their own sake. Voltron was her father’s legacy, therefore the story should revolve around her mission to protect the universe with it. Instead it was somehow turned into a way to explain Lotor’s evil intention. This is 100% NOT COOL. The showrunners didn’t need to give us a reason, they just needed to give the heroes a nemesis.

2) He’s a master manipulator. He tells Allura how attached he became to a planet he’d been left to run, and how devastated he was when his father killed them all. But that doesn’t jive with what he does to the Alteans. We see scenes of him interacting with them, so much so that they build a statue dedicated to him. They trust him when he separates families, cutting them off from one another permanently. 

Fans will argue that he saved some of them. Did he though? Or did he just keep ones around who didn’t fit the bill, hoping they might produce new generations who could? That’s why Romelle was the only one of her family who survived, she was more useful as a worker. Her death would have gained him nothing. One only has to look back to the mid-20th century to see how that mindset is royally fucked up.

3) Lotor didn’t do it. Or, at least that’s what his rabid fans want to believe. They insist it was Haggar, which is obviously untrue. The fact that Bandor escaped and returned to warn his sister is proof. He outed Lotor. When Lotor and his men came upon Bandor’s lifeless body, the wayward Prince instructed them to get rid of the evidence. An innocent man would have tried to save the young boy, or at the very least tried to look for answers to his demise.

4) The #metoo movement should hate this guy. Much is said about so called “nice guys” who turn on a dime when the woman spurns them (SN: just watched an awesome Netflix series that touches on this) and lashes out at her. Strangely enough, however, they cheer Lotor on. Somehow he’s excluded from their cancel culture. They point out his sad childhood and say he should have been redeemed because of it. 

I, however, like to point out they should have left his past on the drawing board. Allura’s story is the tragic one and deserved much more screentime. These days it’s all about the why, but what do we do with that information? Do we forgive dictators and death dealers because they had abusive parents? No, we don’t. Lotor is no exclusion here. 

Instead let’s talk about how Allura is able to live a positive life despite her tragic history. Her father was murdered by Zarkon. She was frozen and woke up to having lost her entire planet and its people. She was young, inexperienced, and afraid, yet never made it about herself. Her story is the one we should have insisted on in Season 8, instead of trying to restore Lotor to some glory that didn’t belong to him.

*****************************************************************************************

I could go on but I’ll just leave it at this: The fandom has taken on a moniker for Lotor that is telling in itself.

LORD OF THE ONION RINGS

Fitting, because despite it’s thin outer layer and multiple layers, it’s still just an onion in the end. Nothing surprising, nothing special, but best when fried.

And that brings me back to Allura. Why do they want her with him? Because that’s what he wants, nothing more. They don’t give two shits about her. She gets in the way of their boy-love ships after all, and her skin tone is too dark for her to be a proper love interest. That’s why, prior to Lotor’s appearance, she was tossed aside as a girlfriend for Shay (in the name of gay rep, no less) or as a strong woman who doesn’t need a man (again, see: racism). 

Everything Lotor did to Allura, to her people, is written off and excused by parts of the fandom. These are the same “fans” who misconstrue characters to the point they don’t even look like themselves. They don’t understand that loving a character means loving them as is, not as they headcanon them to be. Allura is indeed a strong woman, but she also deserves to be loved and cared for properly. If the L/oturas don’t want to give that to her then they only want happiness for half of their ship, and that’s just sad.

Honestly I could go on all day, but I have stuff to do and have to cut this short. Hope I covered it well enough for you, but please let me know if there’s something I missed!

[squeakyleftsneaker]

Watching Voltron for the 1st Time: S5 Ep. 1-3

Shortass seasons fuckass plot bro how tf did I get here? (this is how i got here). If you don't want to read that, I tutor a kid, she likes this show, she got really excited when I said I'd check it out, was overjoyed when I told her I started it. And I hate disappointing people so hard. THIS SHOW IS DISAPPOINTING ME AND DOESN'T SEEM TO GAF. SO. HM!

The Minimal Redeeming Qualities

So does forming Voltron take them to a weird pocket dimension? Where do they go? What is happening. Idk but I got a laugh out of the fact that only NOW in the FIFTH FUCKING SEASON they see fit to look into it. And getting me to laugh at this show is a win in my book.

I'm ngl I forgor Pidge and Matt had a parent out in space. God their mom must be losing it

This first episode could've been an email. OPEN IT ON THE OFFER FROM ZARKON!!!

I still really like the aesthetics of the displays on the castle.

I really enjoy these fight scenes with 0 stakes they look very good. This show really reminds me of RWBY in all the wrong ways fr

For real, some BEAUTIFULLY drawn stuff here. Neato! It serves no narrative! I just appreciate the skill it took

Zarkon kicking the bucket in episode 2 is really fucking funny I fear. It's not GOOD but I laughed.

Oooooooooo SHIRO'S COMPROMISED AND THE TEAM IS UNHAPPY OOOOOOOOOOOOOO this is being done with the delicacy of a hammer but I will still take it

Hey Lance has a sword now! And I do like him being a based feminist.

I really like the idea of them connecting to each other, I like the fact that Shiro can't do it, I think that's AWESOME as a way to show he's compromised and not himself. I WISH WE'D HAD MORE OF THESE THINGS GOING ON!

I like the idea of Lance taking on more of a leadership role in all of this! It's great! If only they weren't completely willing to screw it over (they will)

FINALLY they've remembered Shiro is supposed to be compromised though and that's cool

Fresh Ass, Baby!

Hey show can you not have Lotor lecturing Allura about being a reverse racist (which is not real even) (bro) "your preconceptions of my race" LOOK AT MY SHOW DAWG THEY THINK REVERSE RACISM IS REAL

Also also, if the show wanted to play this inevitable Lotor double crosssage better, MAYBE MAKE LOTOR MORE BELIEVABLE I WANT TO SLAP HIM 24/7

We really are just not talking about the Keith thing huh

"8 Gs of thrust" referring to the universal gravitational constant is. WRONG. WHEN WE SAY 5Gs wrt thrust and such we are referring to EARTH's gravitational constant! The lowercase g! IF YOU WERE TO USE THE UNIVERSAL GRAVITATIONAL CONSTANT IT WOULD BE TEENY TINY! THAT'S 6.67*10^(-11) BRO 8 OF THOSE IS NEGLIGIBLE THE SCIENCE JOKES IN THIS SHOW BRO THEY BOTHER ME GREATLY NOT TO BE A PEDANT BUT IF YOU'RE HAVING YOUR CHARACTERS BE PEDANTS HAVE THEM PEDANT CORRECTLY IM ACTUALLY LIKE. HEAD ON MARS.

Idk who Matt's VA is but I never want to hear Matt screaming again it was. Wow. Yike. What's the voice equivalent of "A face for radio?" "He's got a voice for photographs" might do the trick.

CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH LOTOR AND SHOWRUNNERS IF THE OLD TIMES REQUIRED PALADINS AND SUPERWEAPONS THAT IS A VERY QUESTIONABLE PEACE INDEED

There are like 4 different shows going on in this one show and the showrunners CANNOT juggle them all wow

It would really be great if Haggar's mind control of Shiro or whatever is going on there was more insidious throughout the show like idk instead of having her tune in and flip a switch in him every now and then DO MORE WITH IT CHIEF

Brother this show is 90% exposition 9% pretty fight scenes and 1% actual stuff and that 1% is a very generous overestimate

I once again wish that THIS SHOW WAS BETTER ABOUT LANCE AND ALLURA! SPECIFICALLY, THEY'VE WEAKENED HER A LOT! AND WHY????? SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO CHANGE????? SHE'S SHRINKING DOWN FOR HIM I CAN'T HAVE THIS!

My piracy website is giving me popups every time I try to fast forward through the voltron transformation I'm losing it

I am rather pissed at how bad they are at handling any character's arc. Keith is Vanished Into The Void until they'll need him to go do something for Shiro. They don't do anything with Shiro unless they need him to act compromised for a second. They make Allura be insecure and dependent on Lance because they need that to work. They only pull out Lance when they need to have something happen. They forget Hunk exists unless they need to have some cheap physical comedy that's mean-spirited and shitty. ALL OF THESE CHARACTERS SHOULD BE ABLE TO COEXIST ALL IN ONE!!!! YOU SHOULDN'T BE ONLY DOING ONE AT A TIME AND ON A TEMPORARY BASIS FFS

This is. SO FUCKING FRUSTRATING to watch. But again my props to the artists who are doing a wonderful job. Credit where credit is due, they've cooked. They've absolutely cooked. I just. Wish they were cooking in the service of something that had real writing.

I fear they'll just not fix any problems in this show and it'll leave everyone feeling like their favorite character has been compromised in service of another. And you'd be correct. ALL these characters bar maybe Pidge are completely compromised in service of hitting a bullet point on their plot plan that they never gave a second pass. It's sucky. They've COMPLETELY screwed over Allura, they've really screwed Keith and Shiro, they're screwed Lance for the tiny amount of time he's been given, DO NOT GET ME FUCKING STARTED ON HUNK.

I have no reason to like most of these characters for who they are in the story because most of these characters don't exist. Which. SUCKS. BOO and HISS.

[acoolemocucumber]

my s8 takeaway even though it’s 4 am and i’m exhausted:

messy plot. boring episodes. unusual dialogue. 

we had a few really sweet klance moments which i’m definitely not going to ignore, but it was all for nothing. 

i got my hopes up really high because i thought the show runners could do better, like they did with korra, but i’m very disappointed. all the foreshadowing for klance - the bonding moment? i thought it wasn’t going to be queerbait. the foreshadowing in the feud? nothing adds up to what happened in s8. 

it was messy writing, and a disservice to lance and allura when their romance was forced. the blatantly romantic scenes in s8 with lance and keith? i’m sick to my stomach when they didn’t pull through. nickelodeon and netflix and very different platforms, but a childrens’ network was able to make two women hold hands and hug eachother (LOK). netflix has so much more freedom, and yet they wasted it on another baseless heterosexual romance. they forced a random guy with shiro just to heal the wounds of killing off adam. 

i’m still gonna love the lance/keith dynamic, but since the show is over, it ended on a very anticlimactic and disappointing note. i don’t know if i’ll be able to love the show as much after what i just watched. 

i’m just really, really underwhelmed and... just plain sad. 

they could have done so much more, but they didn’t, and i’m heartbroken from that. 

if you enjoyed s8, i’m glad. but for me, after years of hoping for a healthy, gay relationship and a bi arc for lance, i got nothing. the picture lauren montgomery drew with shiro and lance holding the lgbt sign? i feel ripped off and cheated. the entire lgbt community should feel baited at this point. i put a lot of faith in the writers and directors, and yet, it’s over. a lot of people were still positive after s7, including myself, and for good reasons. there was a lot of evidence for klance being canon, and the writers were definitely aware of their hints toward it. my hopes were so high, and i thought i could boost moral with my blog so people wouldn’t give up. i wanted to believe jds and lm would pull through. 

i’m sorry if i got your hopes up too high, i wanted to believe things would be the way i wanted them to be as much as any other person. i was trying to spread some positivity, for myself, and other content creators. 

my standards for dreamworks, and the writers themselves, have dropped to their lowest point. i thought they would be able to redeem themselves in the last 13 episodes, but it all went downhill. 

i am lgbt and being baited so shamelessly hurts me in a way i cannot fully comprehend. 

on a higher note, a nifty site called ao3 exists, fix-it fics are a thing (although i’m probably just gonna split myself from this fandom soon), and we did get some good klance this season even if it’s not canon. 

so here’s a note - if you’re upset at the creators of vld - email them a letter explaining your disappointment in a respectful manner. yelling crude things won’t get the point across. i’m going to explain what they did and why it hurt a lot of lgbt people in the community, and hopefully they will understand. 

anyway, even though this season hurt me a lot, this show meant so much to me in the past 2 years, so i have to at least give it credit. 

i won’t be posting much more voltron content as i am very sad at the moment, so that’s just a heads up to my followers. thanks for sticking with me till the end. 

goodbye. <3

[vulcan-highblood]

I'm following you for bnha fic reasons and I have absolutely no idea what the brainy stuff is. Can you tell me what it is and what you like about it? (If not, no worries! This is intended as a friendly "tell me about the thing you like" message, not a rude "why you post about things I don't recognize" message, but I'm tipsy and worried that I have Failed at proper courteous tone.)

Aw no problem, it didn’t come across that way at all! Haha sorry, my tumblr is basically a mess of all my favorite fandoms and the fics I write, so you’ll also probably spy spideypool and fanfics from other random fandoms popping up here occasionally! (I wrote some Voltron and GI Joe for awhile there, so you really never know what’s coming next). Now, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT BRAINY. This guy. This character was my first BIG FAVE, he’s the character who actually first inspired me to write fanfiction.

Years ago, there was this animated superhero series called Legion of Super-Heroes. It only ran for two seasons, and it’s (sadly) not as good as some of the more popular superhero shows with teens in the leading roles (Teen Titans or Young Justice really were a lot better imo). BUT. What it did have was aliens!! Sci fi!! and this wonderful android character who just wanted to be seen as human. Now as someone who also loves Star Trek characters Spock and Data, I have a thing for characters who wrestle with their own humanity, or people’s inability to perceive their humanity.  After the series ended, I was fortunate enough to get my grubby hands on about 30 issues of Legion of Super-Heroes comics, and boy howdy did I ever enjoy them, especially getting to know the many iterations of this android/cyborg/???? character.

Enter: Querl Dox. Coluan. Brilliant. Stubborn. Not particularly approachable. His ancestor was Brainiac, a villain who opposed Superman and used shrinking technology to steal Kandor, one of the Kryptonian cities. Bad dude. Querl was recruited to the Legion of Super-Heroes because he’s smart. He has other abilities, some racial traits, but most of what he can do is augmented by his own ability to create and invent useful technology. His own deepest desire is to redeem the name “Brainiac”, which had been tainted by his ancestor’s actions. So he took the hero name “Brainiac 5″, though most of his friends  and colleagues call him “Brainy” for short.

So why am I writing about him now? Well, I recently learned that the CW show Supergirl brought in the Legion of Super-Heroes for a few cameo episodes. Cool! I’m instantly hooked, sign me up. BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE. apparently, they had Brainiac 5 show up. Even better! BUT THERE’S MORE TO IT. He’s a series regular, starting in Season 4. He has episodes that hearken back to old comics that I’ve read. I’m seriously hooked now. So I start watching.

It got even better. The actor who plays him does a FANTASTIC job. I couldn’t have cast a better brainy if I’d tried. 

So basically my mind just got jolted with a shot of nostalgia, fabulous acting, and a bunch of storylines that are half-formed and cheesy but with the potential for TREMENDOUS angst. which is really where I love to live, in fanfic terms.

So all this to say, if you’re curious about Brainy, I recommend looking on youtube, there’s some great "funny” clips (even out of context they’re fun, I watched them when trying to decide if the actor was good enough to commit to bingeing the last 3 seasons of Supergirl, spoilers, he is), and if you’re interested, check out the wikipedia page about him! (Brainiac 5/Querl Dox, either of those will likely get you there). 

(and hey, if you’re still curious, feel free to read my fics. It’s not BNHA, but it is still superheroes and angst, so... that’s something, anyway!)

Thanks for asking!

[late2theshow]

4 Characters from the New She-Ra that Could die by the End of The Series

As the war of Etheria continues; The two conflicting sides will continue to see casualties in war.  As the conflict continues to rise so to the stakes of all parties in involved to get hurt.  Micah was one of the first to die in the battle against the Horde and we’ve seen several villages become destroyed from the Horde as early as the second episode. For some major motions of character devisement and even closure, some characters do have death lingering over them in order to end the war.

1. Queen Angella 

I love this character and her devotion and love for her daughter are great to see.  She is suffering from the death of her husband and feels responsible for his death.  she also allowed the first alliance to fall apart and under her rule, the Horde has gained more control over Etheria.  She did her best to protect the Moon Stone in the Battle for Birghtmoon, but she was still taken out.  Even before that she was willing to give herself up to the Horde for Glimmer’s safety in No Princess left behind.  she is willing to sacrifice and put herself in danger for the ones she loves.  She would sacrifice herself for Glimmer and could do that in order to protect Glimmer or the Moonstone again.  Her death mid-series would be tragic and add layers to Glimmer maturing into the future Queen.  

2. Shadow Weaver

The fallen mentor to the late King Micah was set up to be the vilest and cruel character from season one.  Her cruelty and cunning are still shown through her betrayal and abuse of Catra and her need to control Adora, but her motivations were also revealed in season two as she did want to stop the Horde.  After being let down by her superiors she did defect to the dark side.  Despite her cruel actions, she did contribute to the Horde’s success and still needs to feel the consequences of her poor actions.  In a way to redeem herself, she should sacrifice herself.  She will die a hero and have a very Darth Vader like death to go out on.  

3. Catra

This young misunderstood villain has a long way to go as far as becoming a healthy functioning adult.  abused her whole life by the only family she knew and left by the only real person she cared for had spiraled Catra into the image of terror she desperately thinks she needs to be in order to achieve her goals and happiness. Her fall from grace in season two could shape for her redemption of spiral her into a deeper level of insanity as she could become just as cruel as Shadow Weaver or turn into someone of her own volition and be the person she wants to be.  Despite her anger and rage she has been shown to care for Adora and Shadow Weaver and may be willing to die for them if it came down to it. For the greater good despite it being an awful trope that Dreamworks did with Voltron, she could be the next Allura.  Even though no one would want that.  

3. Lord Hordak

no one wants this guy alive  Fuck this guy.  don’t redeem him. The masterful genius of technology who has used her intelligence to bring war and misery needs to have a satisficing end for all the damage he has done.  Even if its banishment of death by his own hand by one of his machines killing him.  He needs to go.  

4. Entrapta

The Princess of Dryl gave up her kingdom, left her subject to fend for themselves, left the Princess Alliance, knowing supplies weapons for the Horde and shows to have very little empath for those who she effects around her.  It makes her sound almost like she could be a bad guy.  She may be wrapped in with her love for Science but it could be her undoing in the future.  Hordak can easily kill her once he is finished using her or one of her experiments could kill her.  As of now she still remains with the Horde solely due them supplying her with her needs for her experiments.  Once the Hordes needs are met there is no real future for her in Etheria after the war; unless she is saving them from Hordak or dies by them; she has crossed the moral event horizon when she had the many chances to return to the Alliance or her kingdom and didn’t.  It's not even that she is bitter with the alliance,  she is only doing this in the name of “Science” 

[breeeliss]

If you were put in charge of rebooting vld, what would you change? (Sorry of this is similar to the last ask)

i think if i had to only pick a few things to change, i would start with these six things: 

1) Forgo the lion switch and instead give Allura the Black Lion personally this would’ve made more sense on two fronts. one, it maintains the original integrity of the lion-paladin connection which we were told was dependent on the paladin assuming specific character traits that attracted certain lions. Keith and Lance, arguably, were the perfect Red and Blue paladins based on the attributes we were given and i saw little need to make them switch out. Allura, on the other hand, embodies all of the qualities of the black paladin (and actually wanted it, as opposed to Keith) so it would’ve been a more seamless transition.

second, Allura being placed in the Blue Lion felt very much like a demotion. she suddenly didn’t know how to fly despite coaching the paladins from day one (and being able to fly a battle class altean ship), she became an insecure terrified little girl being hunted by the big bad guy, and she began answering to people she used to command and having her opinions be undercut by people who knew less than she did. placing her in the black lion would’ve solidified her as the definitive leader of Voltron, leader of the coalition, and provided a much more satisfying character arc for her.

2) Not had Keith leave the team in order to completely devote his time to the Blade of MarmoraKeith leaving the team had a lot to do with the fact that he a) was not ready to become the BP/didn’t want to, and b) was being forced to remain the leader of the team and neglect his desire to explore his heritage and culture through the BOM. i feel like keeping Keith in the Red Lion would’ve circumvented a lot of this. he would’ve felt secure as the red paladin and i don’t think he would’ve kept his feelings about his need to explore the BOM a secret from his teammates as a result.

i also think that it would’ve been possible for him to balance both. at the end of the day, Keith was a paladin first and he ultimately returned to being a paladin bc he knew that’s where he was needed. i don’t see why he couldn’t have kept his Marmoran blade and assisted on covert missions while also staying a paladin of Voltron. Keith learning to become a better leader was something he could’ve learned without leaving his friends.

3) Cleaned up Lotor’s characterLotor ended up being more confusing to me than interesting. it seemed like the writers weren’t sure if they wanted to make him a redeemable character or solidify him as a clear cut villain and it shows. i think the fact that he’s a charmer, a manipulator, etc. added a good deal of depth to his character, and made the decision to trust him very confusing. which is good! that’s one of the things i loved the most about Lotor. where he started to lose me was in his backstory where he wanted to spare planets, save lives, and do good things for the universe but needed to…farm and kill Alteans to do it.

it’s not clear how he went from wanting to preserve life to committing genocide. that logic jump was very sudden and never explained. they either should’ve kept his backstory and his desire to preserve life and made him an ally to Voltron, OR they should’ve nixed the abusive backstory and maintained him as an enemy who was set on ousting his parents and ruling the Galra empire the way he wanted. i personally would’ve gone with the latter if i was rewriting, but either works. i think the writers wanted to try and get us to sympathize with a imperialist murderer at the same time they wanted us to demonize a victim of neglect and abuse, and as a result we as the viewers weren’t clear on what we were supposed to think of him.

also, i just personally don’t enjoy the “neglected child becomes a raging homicidal villain” narrative since it’s overdone and isn’t a very uplifting message for victims of abuse and neglect.  

4) Had Allura pilot the Atlas, and given Shiro the Black Lion back the Atlas was built with Altean tech, powered with Altean alchemy, and clearly become a Voltron-esque mech due to a combination of the Altean tech and the Altean magic that Allura used to bring Shiro back. it felt strange to me that Shiro would be the one to pilot this ship when a) Allura has experience piloting battle class ships, b) the ship was built using her culture’s tech, and c) it required Alten magic/alchemy/whatever to reach its potential. it’s more poetic in my opinion for an Altean to captain a human made ship made with Altean technology in a combined effort to oust the Galra.

and, honestly, Shiro’s bond with the black lion was the deepest paladin-lion bond we saw on the show. it’s only fitting that he should get his lion back considering how rewarding he found being a paladin and how much work he put into developing that bond. plus, it would’ve made both Shiro and Allura important leaders in the effort against the Galra which is honestly where the show should’ve stayed. Shiro and Allura co-leading was a really powerful dynamic that i wish the show kept.

5) Did something more interesting with Project KuronProject Kuron was the strangest plot device in the entire show. it was such a mystery when Shiro came back what this project was about, it turns out that this Shiro was a clone, but then the fact that hundreds and hundreds of Shiro clones were created was…..never explained. they were destroyed and that was that.

personally, this goes back to me wanting to elaborate on why Honerva was so drawn to Shiro (both enough to take his arm and use him during a cloning project). i wonder if something about his quintessence fascinated her. i wonder if, without his chronic illness, he would’ve been the embodiment of perfection and an ideal weapon for the empire. i wonder if this is why she outfitted him with Galra technology and planned to clone him to create an army of him for the sake of the war. i wanted a whole arc on just the clones, of Shiro finally grappling with Honerva and the hold she had on him for most of the season, i wanted the team to help in trying to destroy and defeat all of the clones before they were used as weapons against the entire universe, and then i think that would’ve added even more dramatic flair to the infamous black paladins episode (which i wouldn’t even touch, that was perfect).

6) Had Allura sacrifice the Lions in order to save all of the realities (thus keeping her alive)don’t think i have to explain why Allura dying was garbage. found family was one of the biggest themes of the series – was something that Allura herself acknowledged in the very last season – and it’s only fair that she be able to survive, see the fruits of her labor, see the reestablishment of the Altean colonies, be a ruler, be a leader, be alive, have a family, and get to be in love.

i feel like the lions would’ve been a very good alternative as a sacrifice. because it’s clear that after this Voltron isn’t needed anymore. so it would make sense that the lions final use would be to use their combine quintessence (which is likely more powerful than Allura’s) to save all those realities. and it would make sense that Honerva, as a way to atone for the damage she’d done, would be the one to redeem herself through this final sacrifice. it would’ve been a cleaner ending, it would’ve been more satisfying, none of the main characters had to die, and they all would’ve had beautifully happy endings.

[novarasalas]

Second Look Review: Shadows

I love a good villain origin story, especially one that doesn’t feature the heroes in any way, except mentioned in passing and with disdain. And this episode certainly delivers.

This piece is actually coming off as more meta than review. Also, there’s a lot about Honerva and Lotor that I’ve talked about in the past and reference here. Click through my “Honerva” tag and you should find all of it, mostly in the form of answered asks. (psst..is Tunglr still fuxing with links? I want to direct link to things, but...you know.)

This one's for you, Honerva anon. Please never change.

Let’s get started.

-

Bringing on the Heartache

Once again, I have to say, every time I see pre-corruption Honerva and Zarkon, it breaks my heart.

These two loved each other so much.

And Lotor was so wanted.

What a tragedy.

- -

Blood Sacrifice

And here we have flashbacks.

This whole sequence isn’t very clear, actually. It moves from the present and into flashbacks without much preamble. On my first watch-through, this threw me a bit, taking me out of the moment as I struggled to figure out what was going on.

Given this these disjointed transitions, and the fact that it’s never explained, it took me a bit to figure out what was happening, what Honerva was doing.

At first, I thought that as she was draining people’s Quintessence, she was getting glimpses of her past as Haggar, but now I've realized that the flashbacks were only for our benefit.

Her actions at the Kral Zera were twofold: she meant to undo the Empire by killing the remaining warlords vying for the throne, and also to gather enough Quintessence to connect with Lotor to find him.

And the last thing she needed for that, I’m assuming, was to sacrifice something that meant a lot to him.

Goddammit.

This is continuing with the idea that Honerva is willing to sacrifice everything to save Lotor. And entire planet, her husband, even her cat for god’s sake...no one is safe.

Also, I just realized that she’s taken the flame Lotor lit at the Kral Zera. His cat and his flame, then..the only two things left of him.

Also, we’re solidifying the fact that the Galra, or at least the Empirical Galra, are as vampires. And it’s still meant to contrast nicely with the Alteans, who are said to be “life-givers.”

…...that felt really bad to type out.

- - - 

Deification of the Son

Can I admit something?

I’d forgotten that the Alteans on the colony were said to have worshiped Lotor. It seems like so long ago at this point, and so much has happened in the meantime.

Romelle: And over time, the Alteans came to worship Lotor as their savior.

-

Romelle: [This was the world I was born into,] one of unquestioning devotion to a supposed messiah.

But this brought it all back to me.

Honerva:[speaking of the Galra] Your ways weakened a god.

Now this? This is interesting.

I get that the Alteans may have felt this way about Lotor. For generations they’d been told about how he’d saved them, protected them, cared for them. And given that he’s been alive all these years...yeah. I can see why they’d see him in a godly manner.

But why would Honerva feel this way? Why deify him herself?

Well...it’s not actually about Lotor. It hasn’t been since she entered the rift.

Lotor’s feats of alchemy are impressive, if you completely ignore the fact that he’s not the one performing them. He didn’t “pierce the veil”, Allura did. He didn't give Sincline it’s powers, Allura did. He only orchestrated it.

But by elevating Lotor to a god, she elevates herself further. In her speech to the gathered warlords at the Kral Zera, she says:

This flame represents Lotor, son of Zarkon, prince turned emperor, emperor that pierced the veil.

And my Altean blood coursed through his veins.

What a statement.

You see, Lotor is her’s. She created him. And if he’s a god, than she is the creator of a god. A flawed god, but one who’s best qualities he most certainly got from her.

Don’t get much better than that, huh?

And I feel like the Alteans of the colony agree.

Merla: We pledge our allegiance to you, Honerva, mother of Lotor.

And that statue was there in Lotor’s time. He knew that they worshiped him. I guess he had no problem wit that. Like mother, like son I suppose.

Ya know, it’s kinda weird watching an actual cult being formed.

Honerva: May the light guide you.

Yikes.

- - - - 

The Exile

It’s hard having the father that refuses to be happy with anything you do. When you grow up like that, you waste so much time trying to please them, to get them to love you. And it’s usually all for nothing.

We all learn this the hard way. It uh...it’s not typically as hard a lesson as Lotor learns here.

By all accounts, he’s done everything right. He’s done what his father wants, and exceeded all expectations. But he didn’t do it the way his father wanted it done, so he may as well have done nothing at all.

It’s..a familiar feeling. This scene got me real good.

The rush of adrenaline you get as you stand up to your asshole dad for the first time is nearly intoxicating. You know, deep in your heart, that you’re right. You know that he’s being unreasonable. And you’ve had enough, so you say your piece.

And then, as it all comes crashing back down, and you realize how much power this man still has over you, and how your retribution is swiftly coming...well, it’s enough to make you sick.

But it’s no good. The damage has been done. You face your punishment.

Yeah...this still gets me real good. Added bonus of enabler mother, too.

….I keep feeling like I’m telling you all too much, but I really want you to understand where I’m coming from.

I feel for Lotor, I really do. He tried so hard, but there was no getting through to Zarkon at this point - there really hasn’t been much of Zarkon left since the rift incident. He’s only base instincts at this point, all power mad and unfeeling.

And now I”m going to say a few things about Lotor because, well...he doesn’t really show up again, does he?

My first point is that I wanted so desperately to see him come back, to start making up for the things he’d done.

He’d obviously picked up on his parents worst habits. In season 3, he was very much a threat; maybe not as much as Zarkon had been, but he was certainly far more clever.

I wanted to see him acknowledge these things in himself and work to rid himself of them once and for all. It would have been cathartic for me, because that’s something that I had to work on myself.

So to that end, I’m very upset that I didn’t get to have that; that neither of us got to have that.

With that said…

Lotor did some terrible things. He wasn’t some soft, baby; a poor, helpless abuse victim. He’s been an adult for a long time now. And when you’re an adult, you have to begin taking responsibility for the things you say and do.

I spent so long with my bastard dad that, even though I tried very hard not to, I picked up some of his personality traits. For a while, I was just the worst. But eventually, I came to realize these things in myself and I had to decide to make the change. I found my own redemption.

When we meet Lotor, he’s conniving. He has no problem torturing Throk. He has no problem luring Voltron into a situation where they might be killed.

He killed Narti.

Now, I do have to say, watching him do that, I was thinking “I understand the impulse”. I was surveilled too. My father's been know to show up where I am when I’m out with friends. Cameras in the house were not an impossibility. It makes you crazy, being watched like that all the time.

But he killed Narti. That’s, ya know...not ok.

I don’t think, in the end, that he was just using Allura. I’m not ever sure that at the beginning of his time with them that he was just using her. But he was keeping secret the fact that he had an entire colony of her people out there. Her people that he was using for energy production, against their will if Bandor was to be believed.

These things are not ok. I’m not sure if you can truly be redeemed from some of these.

I’m not here to judge, though. I just wanted him to have the chance to realize these things and do better, just like I had to.

I say this because, as I’d mentioned, I’ve written quite a bit on Lotor. I keep seeing all these other posts about how he’s done nothing wrong, and as an abuse victim, he can’t be held accountable.

That...has not been my experience, and it’s not a good way to look at things.

I take responsibility for the things I’ve done and said. Occasionally, someone will try to tell me that I wasn’t so bad, not really. But I was, and accepting that is part of the healing process. You have to break the cycle, and there’s no other way to do it.

Lotor didn’t get that chance. Everyone should get that chance, should they need it.

- - - - - 

Well, that got needlessly personal. Let’s get to the stuff that didn’t fit elsewhere.

This guy is Macidus, Keith’s biggest fan.

I only noticed this time around because I have the subtitles on. This show really has a problem with that. Merla is named in the subtitles in this episode as well, even though her name is only spoken once, and in the second to last episode I think.

-

This is something I enjoyed.

Through the flashbacks, we see that it took a long time to build Zarkon’s base.

Here, before the scene with very small Lotor.

And here, with grown up Lotor.

-

I’d seen somewhere someone post about how Haggar was wearing the same cloak she was in when she was dead. I believe they said it was her funeral clothes, probably something about how metal that was.

Well, I’d like to offer a different idea: She’s been wearing her maternity clothes the entire time.

-------------

In Summary:

Well, that was an episode. Things got explained fairly well, and we got some good backstory. Honerva has gone off the rails and has convinced the other Alteans to follow her.

What did you think? Did I miss anything important? Was I amazingly wrong about some things?

Sorry for all the...personal stuff up there. I wasn’t going to write all that at first, but it’s been on my mind. And hey, what’s the point of having a blog I you don’t use it as your own, personal confessional?

Next Up: ….wait, that’s it?

[spiftynifty]

TeeVee Podcast’s Voltron s8 review

I’ve been waiting eagerly for TeeVee’s review of s8. If you recall, their s7 review was what gave us the man getting choked up about Shiro’s relationship. 

The link to the podcast is here but if you’d prefer a sort of transcript, here are some of the highlights for me. I didn’t always catch who was speaking but I wrote down initials where I could. S=Shanon, A=Antony, M=Moises, C=Chip D=Dan. The panel is divided on their feelings on the season. 2 of them seem to have hated it, one liked it, one thought it was fine, and one feels mixed about it. Anyway here we go, some great quotes ahead. 

Under the readmore cuz it’s long. 

S: "After 7 seasons of a show that was going to be one of the animated series of the decade, they not only did not stick the landing, they fell on their butts, rolled off the mat, off the lines, into the judge's table and their leotard popped open"

"A lot of the plot was callbacks to things from seasons ago that we really probably didn't need to see again." "I wasn't entirely sure that they weren't gaslighting me."

Man Shannon is calling out some great points. She's calling out the dropped druid plot thread, and wondering what the point was of showing Lotor's past when he's dead, and nothing can change in his present and his redemption can't really happen.

A: "endings are hard. I was disappointed with this season [...] it was let down by poor plotting and that final battle made me throw my hands up in despair most of the time. But I have enormous sympathy for the EPs. Maintaining a longform episodic story is hard. And to pull off an ending that satisfies even MOST of the audience is harder yet. and let's not forget they were always upfront that vt always had 'editorial interference' from up top. Toys, the fact that it's aimed at children, corp resistance to some of the more modern social issues that they've tried to tackle. THAT SAID, we don't know what happened on this production, who had the final say, what they argued over. and I say this cuz a lot of the fandom drama over it assumes a LOT over how media and entertainment like this is made that simple ARE. NOT. TRUE. Some of the stuff I've read has been ABSURDLY offbase, like that there were different writers rather than just 1 the whole way through which ignores how TV is made. And if you think these writers just go off and write a script without talking to anyone first and then they come back with something that must be filmed without any changes, THAT'S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS. [..]we don't know who made these decisions. The studio isn't always the bad guy. Sometimes they rescue things that would otherwise have been a horrible mess. And unless you were IN THE ROOM, you don't know, and neither do any of us. So let's all bear that in mind. [...]You can't lay the blame OR credit on any one person. For any of this." 

They're laughing & making so much fun of the final 3 episodes and how baffling they were. 

"Don't even get me started on Voltron merging with Atlas [and the crew disappearing] that was a bad, bad idea." 

"But that was the ONE time Shiro was back with the team!"

a couple dudes are relatively ok with the Allura death because we've never seen a WOC heroically sacrifice herself for the universe and usually it's the Shiro hero character D: They also point out that technically she wasn't fridged so.. yay?

Antony and Shannon vehemently disagree. 

A: "My problem with that ending was more just that it was... not. good." he makes a comparison to RotJ where Vader still dies and it's his SON, who lives, who 'redeems' him. "This was none of those things. It felt like a terrible lesson. You can be so evil that you kill literally billions of people for 10k yrs but if you say sorry just before you're about to be executed it's alright, dw about it, we'll put the universe back to rights. NO, that's a terrible lesson!!"

S:"They had the LIONS. That's my problem. Throughout this series we've had stakes going up but there has always been a trading of ideas, what can we do, what can we figure out, up to the point where they wind up sacrificing the castle, but they go through steps before that 'is there anything else we can do’. And here, there's not even... she didn't even get to say goodbye to Coran! This is the one character, WOC, and she has sacrificed throughout this entire series. She lost her planet. She lost the last connection she had to her father in the AI. She kept LOSING things over and over to the point where she sacrifices her crown to help Shiro. and the thanks she gets is that she has to turn around and say nope I've got to away and fix all of this and apparently never see you all again. It really, REALLY REALLY bothered me. All of my friends who have CHILDREN who watch this show, universally the kids were upset and angry and tearful and HATED that outcome. This did not feel like a triumph. Having to lose Allura like that robbed any kind of triumph in the success of saving all the universes. And I think that's one of the reasons that this last part of the season sits so poorly with me. I feel like it should have ended in a triumphant way. even if it meant losing a couple of the team members or the lions. Of course that takes away the toy aspect which is why that's not an option. We already had several tragedy arcs in this series. Zarkon, Honerva, and Lotor had tragedy arcs. Why does Allura have to have one too? We've had enough." 

Antony & Shanon KILLIN IT on this podcast y'all.

C: "This series relies so much on 'oh wait, there's a new upgrade', 'oh wait, there's this new thing'" A: "Well that was the entire final battle." C: "So there's this handwavy Allura has to sacrifice herself. The heavy lifting wasn't done to make this an earned moment."

S: "I do think, whether it was at the direction of DW or WEP (Vld IP), without those little epilogue cards, there is the potential opening that Allura might be able to return.[..]It was open to interpretation."

One guy likes the Shiro ending for the surprising progress aspect, even though he's not thrilled about how it was put together. also he isn't convinced the epilogue wasn't planned. He likes a lot of s8 but all the stuff he likes is tied to stuff that he really didn't like.

S:"The shiro card is the other reason that I think those things were shoved in. For me, that turns Shiro's entire character into a token when he wasn't before. When they introduced his sexuality, it was done BEAUTIFULLY. There was this conversation with his significant other a mature relationship that ran into its problems and therefore couldn't happen anymore. Adam could've been Adele, and nothing would have changed about that conversation. It was not the defining characteristic of Shiro. It was just something else about him."

S: "And then s8 happens and Shiro is divided from everybody on the team. There are so few interactions of any kind that aren't just barking orders. or making plans. Keith is the prime example. Their friendship had been a backbone of this series and suddenly they can't even stand more than feet 5ft from each other. 

A: “It’s barely evident, yeah.”

M:”And the same with the rest of the main cast. And if they had set that up at the end of s7, that he’s going to go into the background a bit, it wouldn’t have felt as weird.

S: “And they didn’t! S7 was miraculous in the fact that even though he’s no longer in a lion, he’s still got a vital part to play in the series. And s8 erased that. It pretty much neutered him! And the kind of message is once you've revealed this character to be gay, we've gotta keep him out of the way. And if they had not put those end cards in, again the fact that he's a gay man is just the fact that he's a gay man and it's not any bigger or smaller aspect of his character, but they did not EARN him marrying random bridge crew member #3."

A: "and RETIRING! A man who LEFT adam because he felt he had to go and fight."

A: "He left the guy he loved before because of his devotion to"

S:"To fighting to making things right"

A:”To being a soldier and doing the right thing.”

C:”Isn’t the whole point then that he achieves that?”

M:”The fighting’s over and he can leave that behind and he can actually be happy.”

S: “He wouldn’t’ve. I don’t see it.”

M: “I violently disagree.”

C: “I think it was a nice endcap for his character."

Moises also likes this because it’s not a BYG scenario and he gets retired. Shannon is extremely exasperated by these takes. 

S:”For me, it’s like Tangled. You go through Rapunzel and Flynn, going through their adventures, getting closer, getting to know each other, they save each other, things like that. And then she’s reunited with her parents and then we get and endcap that says ‘for political reasons her parents decided they needed to marry her off to the prince in the next county, sorry’. That would’ve had people RIOTING. Thats not how you do a story with characters that people care about. And to shove shiro off onto this random character that we--his name is never spoken!”

A:”No he had like 3 lines in the entire season.”

S:”He had 3 line sin the season, you don’t know his name unless you watched the subtitles, and in the audio narration for the visually impaired, they called him Adam in the endcap. They called him Adam! They fixed that now. It feels like a hugely clumsy attempt to grab the woke points for a character that didn’t need them.”

Moises then talks a little about Shiro and Keith and how he and Shannon both thought there was something there, and still do, but they can’t know what happened behind the scenes and to theorize on the intent of that relationship is “conspiracy theory land” and trying to decide what the writers were prevented from doing is like “reading tea leaves and chicken bones”. He references people extracting things from his own writing. 

M: “As much as I wanted to see that relationship flower and flourish, the fact that it didn’t, look, it’s one of a million times that’s happened for me, with fiction, where things didnt turn out the way I wanted to see them.”

S:”I’m talking about 2 different things, as far as Shiro’s character, vs shipping  issues. I feel Shiro’s character was done a disservice that if they were going to end him in a relationship with another man, they didn’t earn it by throwing that little endcap on.”

M:”Yeah, they could have brought back one less robeast or something.”

S:”The other thing is, I think there is enough out there as far as interviews with JDS and LM to show that at the very least I think they meant to leave it openended. Again  if you take out that endcap, the last shot includes a shot of just Shiro and Keith, together, same screen, looking up as the lions go away, without saying anything further. I know I pie in the sky hoped that they were gonna kiss this season when we did our s7 recap and yes that was the shipper in me talking. I truly did not expect that they would be able to go that far. What I did not expect was for them to tear it down. And I feel like that’s what they did. Between the complete absence of interactions in s8, and then throwing that epilogue in there.”

Dan doesn’t understand how that could be because he sees no reason for them to do that. Shannon patiently explains about DW’s history with LGBT characters but Dan insists that the creators told the story the way they wanted to and he’s fine with Shiro getting a marriage even if it’s a character they don’t know. 

Overall the panelists love the show still, and in most cases prefer to consider it in the realm of s1-6 with a weak final double season (7&8) or that the show ends after s7. They would all love to know how long the NDAs last, a making of perhaps, to know what the heck happened and what changed along the way. Big mood my dudes. Big mood.