#I’ve watched just over 8 hours of Voltron

[marlow-holly]

After 8 hours, I think it’s time to switch gears to The Clone Wars

[autisticlancemcclain]

thank u @zenstrike for the tag <333333333 i see ur mic and i'm elated about it

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

185! but i haven't updated in like a week and a half so we're probably closer to 190

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

556,104. i am very excited to watch it jump up when i finally finish my longfic teehee

3. what fandoms do you write for?

literally just voltron lol. well not counting baby me's wattpad lol. i started writing almost two years ago and just went ham basically. i've been intentionally avoiding things that i know i will get hyperfixated on bc i don't want to stop my writing obsession lol

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

ooooou i'm excited to check. i know it's changed quite a bit over time. i usually sort them by hits!

i will grind you to sand (beneath my louboutin heels) [voltron, 2573 words]: bamf lance fic where i give him a revolver and let him go ham basically

mr. snuggles [voltron, 1656 words]: one of my very earliest fics! lance, lover of weirdo animals, finds a demonic cat-sized spider and adopts it despite his friend's freakouts

he might not look like he gets bitches (but honey that dick was eleven inches) [voltron, 1136 words]: this one is so dorky lol but it's just secret relationship klance coming to light in the most embarrassing possible way

does anyone know where the love of god goes (when the waves turn the minutes to hours) [voltron, 4283]: a canon divergence au where lance is a seer and convinces the skeptics on his team of his abilities by ending the war

this is the part of me that you're never gonna ever get away) [voltron, 3262 words]: a lance & shiro hurt/comfort with a small autistic lance character study! i'm very proud of this one

5. do you respond to comments?

i definitely do on tumblr! it's one of the first things i do when i wake up actually. on ao3, though...i'm pretty sure i have about eight hundred unanswered comments sitting in my inbox 💀 it's an ongoing issue

6. what’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i'm almost sure it's this post-game show lance leaving fic, because i got comments and asks for weeks begging me to write a happy ending lol. but this fic from the hana universe, from when keith is little and shiro is fighting for custody and they haven't figured things out yet. that one is sad. this dream pov adashi fic is also sad and has no happy ending bc, you know. shiro is in space and adam thinks he's dead and everything. my loneliest series is also still in progress and as such there is no happy ending. and this is my earliest angsty-ending fic with MCD

7. what’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

oh god pretty much everything i write has a happy ending?? if i’m being serious?? frankly i don’t do a lot of linear plot. i just write Scenes that are vaguely connected. BUT my h2o fic had a plot that ended happily, as did my cowboy fic, but truly i’m more of a slice of life kinda gal. all my active wips are plot-driven, though, and i plan for all of them to end happily.

8. do you get hate on fics?

oh god yeah. i get it on brown eyed lance, autistic lance, adhd keith, allura just in general (are you sensing a pattern), my refusal to use readmores, and lately just some demands for me to write differently/more?? most of it is just funny so i post it to goof on it lol, but some of it i just delete and pout about until i forget about it 💀

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

yes and it’s nasty and i will literally never ever post it. although i guess i’ve written some softer stuff that’s more allusion than anything, like in my loneliest series.

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

not anymore, but i did when i was a kid?? i think i wrote a pjo/hoo/divergent/the mortal instruments/homestuck/a bunch of other shit fic when i was 13. i’ve successfully blocked that era out of my mind tho so i’m not sure. i do a lot of insane aus, tho. i wrote a fic based off a country song written in the sixties. so.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

i’ve had people write continuations of my wips?? which i didn’t rly like. i just ignored it.

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

someone has asked me about translating a fic before! haven’t heard anything since tho.

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

i have tried. i’m not very good at it. i have very Specific ideas about things and can be very controlling, so it’s honestly better that i don’t lol.

14. what’s your all-time favorite ship?

klance, easy. been in the trenches of this goddamn fandom since i was 13 years of age. it’s been a Journey.

15. what’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

god, the butterfly effect. i get people asking me to update all the time and i genuinely feel bad, because i have absolutely no ideas or plans for it. i might try to come up with an ending of some kind?? but i wrote that like two years ago, so i have changed a LOT about my writing since then.

16. what are your writing strengths?

dialogue and humour, i think. and sometimes writing lack of emotional communication (if that makes sense — i like to try and write around an emotion).

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

i over explain a lot. and i overuse dialog ur tags sometimes. i have a Very Specific scene playing out in my head and i want everyone else to see it like i’m seeing it, which is my downfall a lot. i’ve been trying to work on implicit stage directions.

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i think sometimes it’s necessary? it can be a good tool for humour, like with cussing that can’t be achieved in english. but while i understand and read several languages i have always always struggled to speak or write in them. it’s very frustrating so i often avoid the subject entirely lol.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

i’ve been writing fanfic in my head since before i knew what it was, but i started typing things at around 11 when i used to homestuck roleplay with my friends lol. messy messy times.

20. favorite fic you’ve ever written?

oh i am my own target audience. i have several.

i need a man (who’s patient and kind): keith-centric post canon (divergence) fic where lance takes him to his family and keith is good with kids and just keith being loved is the whole point. always.

what if i lose it all: an alternate universe where lance, as a baby, loses both his parents, and then is raised by his oldest siblings. in luis’ pov.

when does a ripple become a tidal wave (when does the reason become the flame): brogane fight & angst canon divergence post season 6; covering shiro’s guilt complex and keith’s unwavering loyalty

he’s into superstitions (black cats and voodoo dolls): halloween verse with witch lance and vampire keith! i have barely spoken about this au on here but rest assured i’m thinking about it all the fucking time

the applebee’s universe: modern au with young keith and lance learning how to love each other

ceilings (plaster): non-linear dream-like fic that’s just so trippy and strange i’m obsessed with it

if the sky comes falling down (for you) there’s nothing in this world i wouldn’t do: a keith character study about how the biggest bleeding heart in the universe loves

the hana universe: brogane-centric universe as their family starts rocky and grows

thank u again for the tag zen <33 open offer for anyone else who would like to hop on!!

[petri808]

Oh look at the date! Klance ficlet for @diablosart they know why lol 😏

“What the hell we’re you thinking?!” Keith snapped as he popped his helmet off and chucked it hard at the ground. “Thanks to you were now trapped in a cave in!”

“Look, I’m sorry! I got distracted!” Lance snapped back.

“By what?! We were supposed to be scanning for the jababian dagger. What were you doing, watching your smut videos again?!”

Lance pulled off his helmet with a scoff. “First off, I don’t watch smut videos. Second, even if I did, that’s none of your business. And third, no, I was scanning, just wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

Keith rolled his eyes and spat back with a sarcastic riff. “Well that explains why you knocked both our cats out of the damn air crashing us into this place!”

Using a flashlight, Keith scanned the inside of the cave and noticed a lot of fractures spanning the walls. According to the computer in his Lion, the cave was full of an unstable and weak type of volcanic rock. ‘No wonder it caved in so easily…’ He groaned again. “Just great, if we try to blast our way out, it might collapse the ceiling on us.” Keith walked over to his helmet and picked it up. “I’ll need to do a thorough analysis before attempting to break free. The computers on the ship could do a better job scanning this cave, but they won’t arrive until morning.”

“Are you serious?! We’re stuck in here?!”

“At least for the night, so, stop your bitching since you’re the one who got us into this mess! Why don’t you start a fire while I get to work with the computer.”

“Fine,” Lance stomped away muttering to himself. He was just happy Keith was too irritated and didn’t press him further on what he’d been distracted about.

The pair had been sent ahead of the rest of the Voltron group to look for some kind of special dagger. Lance couldn’t remember what was so important about it, just that it possessed magical properties and they didn’t want it falling into the enemy’s hands. A distress signal was sent out to their ship, so now they just needed to settle in and stay warm until help arrived. He managed to find a cache of old animal bones deeper in the cave to use as fuel for the fire, coupled with some dried leaves and tetrodontyl feathers that must have blown in over the years for kindling. Whether it would last the night was yet to be seen, but it was all he had to work with. Their Lions only held so much in terms of supplies because they weren’t meant to hold long term reserves. But luckily there were emergency blankets and some instant rations they could eat.

Lance never realized just how cold and uninviting a cave could truly be until he became stuck in one. It was creepy with the sounds of bugs scurrying in the darkness, water drops echoing through the silent air, and occasional cracking sounds from any temperature fluctuations. He hated the quiet emptiness because it left open room for his mind to wander and more thoughts to break through as he stared into the flames of their campfire. Lance frowned and brows furrowed, remembering the distraction that led to this debacle. Of course, this was the opposite of what he would have wanted! Their lions sustained damage, and to be stuck, alone, with the reason for his distracted mind was causing his stomach to turn inside out.

Maybe Lance should have pushed Keith harder to drag Pidge or Hunk or Allura along on this trip and not him, anyone but him. He didn’t want to come. Didn’t want to be alone with the man. Hasn’t, for a while now ever since he’d developed different feelings for the guy. ‘How ironic,’ Lance groaned in his head. To go from professional jealousy to romantic pining, he was such a fool. Could anyone blame him? Keith was handsome and smart, but not surprisingly it took someone who could be as hot-headed as himself to catch his eye. Or maybe it was surprising if Lance really thought about it. Girls easily caught his attention, but with Keith it was an attraction that grew through close working confines and of admiration. In essence, he fell for the character of the man and not just for his looks.

“Oi?” Keith snapped his fingers to get Lance’s attention. “The eta is now 8 hours till Shiro and the rest get here.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, okay.” Lance responded in a rather distracted tone that mirrored the monotonous looping thoughts in his head. He felt horrible about causing this disaster in the mission while at the same time kept thinking about Keith…

“That’s all you can say?” Keith questioned his teammate. “Okay?” But when he received no response, he pushed the man’s shoulder hard. “What is going on with you lately Lance? You’ve been distracted a lot and it’s starting to affect your performance.”

“Am I not allowed to have a bad day?” Lance retorted. “Everyone has their bad days, man, it’s not always a crisis.”

Keith sighed. His anger had dissipated but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still annoyed. He thought they were close enough friends that would turn to each other if something was wrong, but apparently he was mistaken. “It’s my job as the leader to worry, so cut the bullshit Lance. I know enough to know something is really bothering you. If you don’t wanna talk about it, fine, but you need to figure it out cause this,” he gestured to their damaged lions, “can’t keep happening.”

“I know, I know,” Lance dropped his head with a long exhale. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to screw up. It’s just— there’s something eating me up and I have no idea what to about it.”

A silence took hold as the two men sat there illuminated by the fire’s light. Keith didn’t want to keep pushing, but he could see the angst on Lances face and it bothered him. In all the years they’ve known each other, there was only one other time he’d ever seen the man so… sad? But it couldn’t be for the same reason, because if Lance had met a new girl he was interested in, Keith was certain he would have heard about it immediately. Lance wasn’t exactly shy about the subject unlike himself. So, what could it be? Keith stared at the fire as he pondered what to say next, but nothing really felt right to say to his friend. This wasn’t exactly a topic he was skilled in with his own little buried secret. For the next couple of hours, they stayed that way, shifting only to stoke the fire or eat some of the rations they had available. It would probably be a great idea to get some rest, but neither made a move to do so. Just… kept staring in awkward silence at a dying fire.

The temperature change in the cavern was slower than it would have been if exposed to the outside air, but nonetheless, by the mid-way mark of their wait the pair could feel it dropping. Blankets were pulled tighter around their bodies in an effort to hold back the cold, and the men had moved closer together to conserve the body heat between them. Maybe it was the exhaustion kicking in, but the limited distance no longer bothered Lance. The hours of silent reflection were also leading him to one conclusion. If he wanted to stop the frustration, coming clean was the best solution. Yet one thing kept holding him back from making the leap— the proverbial aftermath.

Yeah, so telling Keith how he really felt might take the weight off his shoulders, but what would happen after that? What if Keith is disgusted? He’ll not only lose a friend, but how could they continue working together? That would be so uncomfortable! Lance groaned in his head. Would he be willing to give up his role in Voltron? What if Keith ended up leaving instead, causing him to feel guilty about it? Would the others hold it against him? Maybe if they talked it out, they can work out something amicable… ‘Argh!’ Lance screamed in his head as cradled his lowered head. Why did he fall for a teammate!

Keith looked over at the movement and saw Lance’s demeanor. “If you’re tired, why don’t you rest?”

“It’s not that,” Lance mumbled. “I mean I am, but it’s not that.”

“Oh…”

“Have you ever had a crush on someone but didn’t know how to tell them?”

‘So it is over a girl…’ Keith’s brow raised. “Why can’t you tell them?”

“Because, it’s awkward when you’ve known them for so long.”

‘Huh, so maybe it is Allura.’ Keith couldn’t say he was surprised, but it stung just a little. “You should probably just tell them, I mean if it’s eating you up this bad, isn’t it better to just know how they feel too?”

“I don’t know…” Lance sighed. “It’s not like they’ve ever given me a reason to think they’d like me back.”

“Still, once you do know, you can start moving forward again, cause right now you’re stuck and that’s worse.”

Lance glanced over to Keith who was looking in his direction. The man was right. Didn’t make a decision any easier… but he was probably right and all he could do is hope for the best. That didn’t mean he was ready to face Keith head-on either or see the physical reaction the man might have. Lance turned his head away and kept his arms wrapped tightly around himself for protection. “It’s… you…” he mumbled quietly.

“Come again? I didn’t catch that.”

“I said… It’s you.” Lance mumbled again, but this time a little louder.

“Me??”

“See, yeah, I told you it would be awkward— just forget I said anything. I feel better just getting it out.”

Keith forced Lance to turn back to him. “No, I mean I was just surprised cause you’re always chasing after women, but—”

“I’ll just drop it and move on,” Lance cut him off. “I don’t wanna make you feel uncomfortable.”

“But that’s the thing,” Keith interjected, “I’m not. It’s okay because I’ve liked you too but I just thought you weren’t into guys.”

Lances eyes flashed wide. He really hadn’t expected such a response, especially not this quickly. “You do?” His voice trembled as he verified the man’s statement.

“Yeah…” Keith blushed. “I don’t exactly have experience in this stuff, but I like you too Lance.”

Lance jumped up in excitement. “Wow— for once my screw up turned out to be a good thing!”

“Uh-huh…” Keith chuckled. “But don’t do that again!”

[corvus--rex]

Another one that's not truly abandoned, working title Code Violet. Post s.8 Omegaverse, Klance slowburn. Omega Lance has been put on medical leave by the Garrison after the war because of his PTSD, which really just translates to secondary sexism as he's the only Omega among the Paladins. But then Keith goes missing on a Blades mission and Shiro calls the team back together.

~*~*~

He could deal with torture. At least, that’s what Keith told himself, having never been through it personally. But he did know how to deal with pain. A result of too many fights and questionable decisions in his life. But the sensation that overwhelmed his senses wasn’t pain. Or maybe it was. He didn’t know precisely. All he knew at that moment was that he could actively feel every last one of his nerves. He could feel the normal everyday functioning of his body mixed with a racing heartbeat and hyperventilating lungs. And yet he felt oddly detached from it. It felt as though his Alpha was protecting his mind like a mother wolf with her threatened pup. It was a very strange sensation. It felt like it went on forever. He felt something in his body shift. Something new and wholly unfamiliar. And then the pain actually hit. It crept in slowly, radiating from his core until the blooming white-hot flames licked their way through all of his nerve endings. He might have screamed, but he could never be sure. And when the searing pain left, it didn’t go quickly. It smoldered like the embers of a bonfire, burning low in that deceptive way that made it unclear as to whether or not the charred remains were still alight. But Keith could feel it, the low, steady flame that curled its way through his fingertips and all the way to his toes. Neither mind nor body relaxed until the cool touch of unconsciousness wrapped him in its embrace. He was blissfully unaware of being lifted, carried, and finally left in a dark cell while his captors waited for him to wake.

~~*~~ 5 Movements (7 Weeks) Later ~~*~~

Lance was startled awake by his comm screaming for his attention on his nightstand. No one he knew would call at half past five in the morning. All the official evaluations he’d undergone concluded that yes, he had PTSD just like the rest of Team Voltron and everyone else who’d fought in the war, but that with his weekly therapy sessions, he was handling it well enough for active duty. He had the unpleasant suspicion that it had something to do with him being the only Omega on Team Voltron. It didn’t seem to matter, however, as he was kept on medical leave.

When he was woken at the barest hint of dawn’s asscrack, squinting at his comm’s screen, he was shocked to see Shiro on the other end of the call. He fumbled for the button, accidentally dropping the device on himself. He figured he must have hit it somewhere in his sleep and adrenalin-fueled struggle when Shiro’s sleep-deprived face popped up in the holographic projection.

“Shiro? What? What is it? What’s going on?” Lance asked, voice low and rough, his mind not yet fully engaged.

“How soon can you get to the Garrison?” Shiro answered, sounding more awake than he looked.

“Um, probably about an hour. Why? What’s happening?”

The face of the Atlas’ captain darkened. “Keith’s gone missing. He was supposed to check in one movement ago, no one’s heard from him and they can’t trace his comm. It’s the second one he’s missed. Acxa and Kolivan are here requesting a team from the Coalition.”

Lance was awake. He knew Keith was away on another mission, he’d heard it directly from the man himself. He knew Keith would be out of reach for a while. He knew he wouldn’t know if Keith was ok until the mission was over. But he also knew that Keith was expected to keep to the check-in schedule, sending a scrambled message to a secure communications outpost that would then be sent on to Acxa, who was leading the Blades for the duration of the mission. It was almost overly complicated, but the mission was one that required careful stealth. It was the only thing Keith had been allowed to say about it before disappearing for what was supposed to be an extended 3 phoeb mission.

Acxa made sure to keep Team Voltron informed when it came to the check-in schedule, letting them know that Keith was ok. He had made the first three check-ins, even if the team was kept in the dark as to the messages’ contents. Acxa knew that there was a possibility that he could miss a check-in, but as long as his comm was active and could still be traced, she would know that the mission was still going. If he missed more than one check-in, it would raise alarms. Shiro said that he’d missed one a movement ago, which meant that he should have checked in again and hadn’t. If Shiro was calling to say that Keith had missed the check-in, and not that the mission was confirmed to have gone wrong, well, Lance didn’t quite know what it meant, but it wasn’t going to stop him from finding out.

“I’ll be right there,” he said, fully awake and already half-dressed.

Shiro nodded and cut the call.

Forty-five minutes later, Lance was walking into the conference room. He was surprised to see that he was the first one there save for Shiro. Lance was the only one of the team who wasn’t either assigned to the Atlas or stationed at the Garrison. Given his leave status, he’d decided to stay home with his family. The Garrison knew where to find him if they wanted to.

Taking a seat in the middle of the table, Lance leaned forward, resting his arms on the metal surface. “Who else is coming to this?” he asked.

“Adam, Pidge, and Hunk, Acxa is bringing Kolivan, and against my wishes, the MFEs will be here as well. They don’t have the security clearance our team has. They were involved on the front lines, but they’re not us. And they know even less about the Blades. But Iverson ordered it, so they’re coming.”

“Kinda surprised I still have the clearance,” he muttered, even though he knew Shiro would hear him anyway.

“And you know that if I had any real say, you’d be on the Atlas with us. You’re an outstanding pilot, the best at small team tactics I’ve ever seen, and I know no one can iron sight a target like you can. We wouldn’t have made it through several of our missions with Voltron if it hadn’t been for you. I don’t know if you realize it, but we never would have won the war without you.”

Lance looked up at that. Shiro was watching him, the Alpha’s expression one of pride and affection. “How’s that? We did it as a team. I wasn’t any more or less important than anyone else.”

Shiro shook his head. “Not at the end. You’re right about that. It was a team effort. I meant before that. Back when we rescued Slav. We only had one chance at getting him out, and we almost didn’t. If you hadn’t made that shot, we never would have succeeded that day, and – as much as I hate to admit it – Slav’s input and genius went a very long way in helping us win. Without you, none of it would have happened.”

Shock and realization flashed across the Omega’s face. “I – I never thought about it like that. I just did what I had to. We needed him, and I just did it. I never put it together like that.” He stumbled through his words, understanding the weight of what he’d done hitting him. He started at Shiro’s hand on his shoulder.

“I hadn’t either until recently. But that wasn’t a conversation to be had over a call. And I want you to know from me that I have been fighting Administration over your forced medical leave. It isn’t Iverson who’s sidelining you, it’s the heads of the Medical Division. They’re the only ones who can overrule him. Your evaluations confirm what we already know – that you're fit for active duty. The shrinks know it, we know it, even Iverson knows it. I don’t know why the med admins won’t clear you, but I have an idea, and their thought process is wrong. Being an Omega has nothing to do with your capability as a Garrison officer. We will get this sorted out.”

Lance stood up in a rush, nearly knocking the chair over, and crushed his pack Alpha in a tight hug. “Thanks, Shiro,” he mumbled into the Alpha’s shoulder.

“Anytime. I mean it. You’re more than just your service record. You are still, and always will be, part of the pack. Part of our pack. You do know that, right?”

Lance huffed a laugh into Shiro’s shoulder. “That’s about the only part I haven’t questioned. I – I miss him, Shiro. I just want to get him back safe.”

Shiro pulled back, holding onto Lance’s shoulders. “We will. We’re not giving up, not even if I have to go after him myself.”

The door gave a soft hiss as it slid open and closed. Lance and Shiro snapped to see who was there.

“We interrupt something?” Pidge asked, Hunk standing beside her.

“Lance! You made it! Oh, man, I am so happy to see you!” Hunk practically yelled, rushing in to wrap his old friend in a crushing hug.

“Yeah, I made it. I'm happy to see you too, Hunk,” Lance said far more softly and returning the enthusiastic hug.

~*~*~*~

Links to the rest of the series:

1 | 2 | 3* | 4 | 5* | 6* | 7 | 8 | 9* | 10 | 11 | 12* | 13 | 14 | 15* | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19*

[laurenhufflepuff2]

A list of fandoms I'm in (in no particular order, will probably be updated regularly. Some fandoms are more intense and some are more casual. Depending on the fandom, I could go on and on about fandom topics for HOURS. Let's get into it!)

Harry Potter, Disney, Marvel, DC comics, Miraculous Ladybug, Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra, Star Wars, Literature, Winx Club, Nintendo, Minecraft, Little Witch Academia, Voltron, Coraline

Details:

Harry Potter- I got into Harry Potter in 7th grade and now I am the resident expert in my family and in my friend group. I read all the books, watched all the movies (notably the British version), and I've seen the Fantastic Beasts films as well. I've also read Tales of Beedle the Bard (the Warlock's Hairy Heart was traumatizing) along with the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them textbook (plus an updated edition). I also read The Cursed Child script and while I mean no hate to anyone that liked it, I hated what it did to the canon. I am in Hufflepuff with some Ravenclaw tendencies (I took the Pottermore quiz 3 times, 2 out of 3 I got Hufflepuff, the other time was Ravenclaw). I had a pottermore account and I was so upset when it got converted to the Wizarding World page. I cosplayed Hermione in 7th grade complete with British accent and even monologued as her for a talent show (classmates and teachers would recognize me as the Hermione girl all the way through high school). I was obsessed and I still love it even if J.K. Rowling has gone off the deep end on Twitter... yeah... my favorite character is Hermione but I also relate to Luna

Disney- there's so much that goes into the Disney part of my fandom list. I'm excluding Marvel and Star Wars from this part as they were originally separate entities before Disney got the rights to them. I have seen almost every animated Disney film ever and often use random movie quotes in conversation. My favorite villain is Maleficent, my favorite princess is Ariel (followed by Belle, Rapunzel, and Anna). I relate to so many of the characters. I'm not sure who my favorite Pixar character is though (I love Violet, Sadness, Dory, and Piper (from the short)). My favorite Disney fairy is Fawn. My favorite characters overall are Ariel and Stitch. Disney is definitely on the list as one of my biggest obsessions. My favorite movies are Lilo and Stitch, the Little Mermaid, Inside Out, Alice in Wonderland (original), and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Marvel- I mostly get my Marvel exposure through the MCU, other movies, and animated TV shows. I have difficulty reading graphic novels so most of my comic book knowledge comes from friends, posts, or wikis. My favorite characters are Spider-Man, Captain America, Peggy Carter, and Scarlet Witch. I also like Gwenpool, Deadpool, Spider-Gwen/ Ghost-Spider, Venom, Squirrel Girl, Daredevil, Mantis, Gamora, Black Widow, Iron Man, Thor, Loki, Bucky, Black Panther, and most MCU characters. Out of the X-men I really like Professor X, Wolverine, Mystique, Magneto, Nightcrawler, and Quicksilver (either version- MCU or Fox).

DC- this was the franchise I was more familiar with growing up but again, graphic novels aren't easy for me to read so most of my knowledge comes from information pages about the comics or from tv/movies. My earliest experience with DC came from the 60s Batman series, with Catwoman and Robin being my favorites. I also watched the Wonder Woman series from the 70s and a handful of CW shows, my favorite of which being the Flash and Arrow. I also managed to watch all 5 seasons of the Teen Titans Cartoon Network series from 2003. With that being said, my favorite characters are Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Flash, Batman, Nightwing/Robin (Dick Grayson), Green Arrow, Starfire, Raven, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Alfred. I also like most of the bat family, and when it comes to CW I LOVE Caitlin Snow/Killer Frost and Cisco.

Miraculous- this is one of my guilty fandoms but since this is Tumblr I'm not too worried about it. I love Marinette and I relate to her on an astoundingly deep level (minus the stalking and obsession with potential lovers, that's creepy). If I had a miraculous, I'd probably want the Ladybug one, but the Cat miraculous, fox miraculous, and snake miraculous are good too. My favorite character is Marinette/Ladybug.

Atla/Tlok- I jumped on the avatar bandwagon just when it was starting to get popular, so I managed to get through the series before the memes took over everything. Same with Tlok, although i couldn't completely avoid the spoilers for that when i started it. I've been wanting to get into the comics because of the short story comics I've read, they seem easier to read than superhero comics. My favorite characters are Aang, Katara, Ty Lee, Iroh, Korra, Jinora, Asami, Suki, Appa, Momo, Naga, and Pabu. I also like Sokka, Mai, Zuko, Lin, Kuvira, Varrick, Zhu Lee, and Azula. I feel really sorry for her and while I understand that a redemption arc would undermine the importance of her corruption arc, I still wish she could have one. I would love to be a waterbender or an airbender... maybe a waterbender raised in the air nation? Obviously, being the avatar itself would be awesome. The show has taught me a lot of great lessons and put a lot of stuff into perspective for me.

Star Wars- oh boy, talking about this one is dangerous. I've seen firsthand the horrors of the Star Wars fandom but then again no one will probably see this anyway so... I've seen all the movies and I remember watching the clone wars series with my brother when I was younger but we fell wayyy behind and it's taking us forever to get back into it. I've also seen the Mandalorian and quite enjoyed it. I like the prequels unironically, in fact, the prequels are some of my favorite movies. I especially like how they switched from lightsabers being heavy weapons to light weapons that can be used for all kinds of tricks that make for epic battles like the ones we see in Revenge of the Sith. The sequels were fun to watch but when I would analyze them along side their predecessors, I came to the conclusion that, for me, they were good to watch but did not do anything good for the rest of the franchise. My favorite characters are prequels/clone wars Obi Wan and Anakin, Padme, Ashoka, Leia, R2D2, BB-8, R4-P17, the Mandalorian (Din Djarin), and Grogu. If I had a lightsaber I'd want it to be blue, but when I was little I got a purple one like Mace Windu because it was closer to pink and I was into pink at the time. I still have that lightsaber and none of my friends have a purple one so it's one of my flexes. I feel like I wouldn't make a good jedi because of attachments being forbidden, so I'd probably become a grey jedi.

Literature- this is a broad term I use to cover all the random books and stories I liked reading and have studied. So we have Shakespeare (Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet), The Great Gatsby (bored while reading, loved to analyze), Grendel (HATED reading, loved to analyze, Grendel really needed a hug and a friend), The Crucible, Fahrenheit 451, Dark Life (+ the sequel Riptide, both are by Kat Falls good reads, sci-fi and kind of dystopian), The Once and Future King

Winx Club- I think the show is trashy but I still love watching it. I haven't been able to get through season 6 though and I hated what they did with season 8 and Fate: the Winx Saga. My favorite character is Bloom along with Stella and Flora. I prefer rai to nick. My favorite transformations are magic winx, enchantix, and harmonix. My favorite member of the Trix is Icy followed by Darcy. My favorite Pixies are Chatta and Lockette.

Nintendo- mainly Pokémon above all else, followed by Animal Crossing. I have also played (mostly as player 2 or just never beat or watched my brother play) mario games, legend of zelda, pikmin, and kirby. Games I haven't played but I just liked the characters/the lore and probably learned about through Super Smash Bros. are Fire Emblem (Lucina mostly), Metroid (Samus and baby metroid), and Kid Icarus. Pokémon is where I'm most knowledgeable but you'll most likely beat me in battle. I am however great at MarioKart and I always destroy my friends at it. Terrible at fighting games though.

Minecraft- I like playing this casually. Sure, I'll play for hours and hours on end for months, but I prefer to stay exclusively in peaceful when playing Survival mode and I don't make anything too ambitious in Creative mode. I like to write, so sometimes I'll make a rough layout of the settings of my stories in different worlds. I prefer interior design and decorating when building, and when in survival mode I focus more on mining and gathering while my brother works on ambitious building projects. I just bring him the raw materials and furnish the interior when he finishes the outside.

Little Witch Academia- this takes up a smaller portion of my fandom list because there were only 2 seasons and a couple movies and I watched the whole series years ago, but I still enjoy it. At one point I wanted to cosplay Akko, and I loved the nod at Twilight through the Nightfall series. And I especially liked the twist that Shiny Chariot was Ursula, which I suspected for some time. The blend between magic and technology was fun to see, but I was so sad that the series ended RIGHT when Akko finally showed signs of magic proficiency. Also, Shiny Chariot being the reason Akko couldn't do magic was heartbreaking.

Voltron- this takes up a much smaller portion of my fandom list mainly because I haven't even finished it. I know hardly anything about Transformers aside from the Bumblebee movie so to me I just watch it for fun. It reminds me of power rangers, star wars, and star trek, and then there's just a transformer insert. But I don't know anything about Transformers so maybe the show is more rooted in canon than I think.

Coraline- I am in a love-hate relationship with Coraline. I have watched the movie several times, I've read the book, I've watched hours of theories and analyses on youtube, I've watched behind the scenes videos by Laika, and I even wrote a script for a fan film parody. I am amazed at how original the story is and how impressive the stop motion animation is but I also have recurring nightmares from it and it scares me/creeps me out to the max. If anyone asks what my scariness limit is, it's definitely Coraline.

[voltrontranscript]

VLD S8E7: Day Forty-Seven

Season 8 Episode 7: Day Forty-Seven

Transcript by @dragonofyang

Summary: Kinkade and Rizavi film a vlog that follows a relatively normal day on the IGF-Atlas with its humorous moments and the stress of battle.

[Google Doc]

Kinkade: Hello. This is Lieutenant Ryan Kinkade, MFE pilot. The time is 0600 hours. It’s day forty-seven. And this is a glimpse at day-to-day life aboard the IGF-Atlas.

[Cut to Kinkade brushing his teeth as the camera floats over his shoulder.]

Kinkade: Last night, I unpacked my video gear and decided to document the crew. I know it seems strange, but before Earth was attacked, I didn’t go anywhere without my camera.

[Cut to Kinkade running on a treadmill.]

Kinkade: Back home, people asked me why I liked recording things. They also asked me why I didn’t talk that much. To both of those things, I’d always say… [grunts]

[Cut to Kinkade doing pull-ups.]

Kinkade: Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.

Romelle: You’re recording? Why?

Griffin: Kinkade has always been, uh… an individual who’s most comfortable observing and reflecting on life. Being a fighter pilot was actually his backup plan.

[Cut to Kinkade wearing a blindfold as he works on his blaster rifle.]

Kinkade: It’s true. I learned how to shoot with a camera before I learned how to shoot with a rifle. I guess filming is just a small piece of the larger puzzle that makes up the picture of who I am. Hm.

[Cut to Kinkade turning the camera on once more and walking to a fighter jet.]

Rizavi: So you’re really shooting another documentary? Please tell me this is going to be more exciting than that project you did for Mr. Pollard’s biology class about yeast.

Kinkade: That was actually about the process of fermentation. Yeast converts carbohydrates into carbon diox--

Rizavi: Boring! Okay, look, if this little documentary is how history will remember us, I’m gonna help you spruce it up! How many cameras do you have? What’s your visual effects budget? Do you have any smoke bombs?

[Cut to Keith and Pidge facing the camera as it focuses on Pidge directly.]

Kinkade: Okay. We’re set.

Rizavi: So, uh, catch us up on what’s going on.

Pidge: Right. Well, the Atlas is headed to the Grei-Aye system where we’ve identified the remains of a disabled robeast.

Rizavi: Oh! Those things are pretty dangerous, right?

Pidge: Do I need to explain that the robeast was one of the ones used in Honerva’s intergalactic ritual?

Rizavi: No, it’s fine.

Pidge: Okay. Um, so, once the Atlas arrives in orbit around the planet, the other Paladins and I will head down to the surface to secure the robeast and hopefully find its Altean pilot.

Rizavi: Ugh, okay. Keith! Why don’t you tell us about the dangers of this mission?

Keith: Well, every mission has some inherent dangers. For this one, we have to be especially diligent about the robeast. Even if it’s not fully functional, it can still pose an extreme threat. Combine that with the hostile Altean that’s probably still in the vicinity, and you’ve potentially got threats on multiple fronts.

Hunk: Hey, guys. What’s up? You making a movie? Cool. Can I be in it? Now, wait, if this is an action movie… is it? I don’t wanna be in it.

Rizavi: Hunk, we’re trying to do an interview here.

Hunk: Oh, sorry. Yeah, my bad. I just came by to see if you wanted to try this new recipe I’ve been experimenting with. This is just the first pass. The final version of it will be coming soon. No, Bae Bae! Not for you! I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’ll make you some doggy treats later.

Kinkade: What’s the recipe? Can we watch you work?

Hunk: Well, yeah! Yeah, this’ll be great! I’ve secretly always wanted my own cooking show.

Rizavi: What? No! Keith was just telling us about the mission and all the dangers! We’re not losing that to document cooking.

Kinkade: But, I like cooking.

Rizavi: It’s like you’re trying to make this boring.

Hunk: Whoa, first of all, cooking is not boring, okay? And it can bring people together. Some of the best times of my life were spent breaking bread with loved ones.

Keith: So, is this interview over?

Rizavi: No! Great, now the talent’s getting restless!

Iverson: Everyone, report to your battle stations immediately! I repeat… battle stations immediately! This is not a drill!

Rizavi: The camera!

Kinkade: Leave it! We need to go!

Rizavi: But this is gold!

Kinkade: Come o--

Iverson: MFE pilots, report to hangars alpha-bravo! Scrambling fighters in five! Paladins, stand by for launch.

[Scene change as Bae Bae finds the fallen camera and carries it around.]

Shiro: Where did it come from? Veronica, get me eyes on it!

Coran: That thing just appeared out of nowhere!

Shiro: Iverson, fire when ready!

Iverson: Target acquired! We’ve got lock! Wait. No… we lost it! Target has gone dark!

Veronica: Electromagnetic radiation from that planet is overloading our radars.

Shiro: Voltron, do you have a visual? I repeat, Voltron, do you have a visual?

Keith: Not yet. We’re going in now! Stand by! We can’t see a thing in here!

Griffin: Copy that. We have zero visibility as well. We need a visual.

Curtis: Roger. Trying another avenue. Scanning for biometrics. Visual acquired!

Coran: Incoming!

Iverson: Recharging all starboard cannons!

Curtis: Sensors are offline!

Iverson: What is that thing?

Coran: It’s massive!

Shiro: Iverson, open fire!

Coran: Direct hit! It’s coming back around for another shot!

Shiro: Veronica, prep shields!

[Scene change as the camera falls down a vent into Sam and Slav’s workstation.]

Sam: Whatever hit us just knocked loose the gravity generator! Grab the flaxum assembly!

Slav: I can’t do that! It’s red!

Sam: Is this one of your crazy probability, reality things?

[Scene change to a hallway as soldiers float through to their stations.]

Shiro: All crew, report to stations and prepare for Atlas transformation--

Atlas Crewmember: Go, go, go!

Shiro: --in T-minus thirty seconds!

[Scene change as Bae Bae finds the camera again and carries it.]

Colleen: Bae Bae, what are you doing out here? And what’s this in your mouth? A camera? Come on, girl.

Shiro: All crew, prepare for Atlas transformation sequence in five… four… three… two… one!

[Scene change as the camera dies, then powers on again facing Kinkade once more.]

Kinkade: Camera’s fully charged. We’re good to go. The time is now 0900 hours. We just experienced a minor mishap aboard the IGF-Atlas, but we’re back on track. In the future, we’ll hopefully be avoiding creature-occupied gas planets.

[Cut to Kinkade floating through a hallway.]

Kinkade: Hey, Seok Jin, where you headed?

Seok Jin: I’m transporting these samples back to Earth. Commander Holt thinks it can help with the recovery efforts there.

Kinkade: Well, they couldn’t have picked a better man for the job. Take care, man. Hey, Seok Jin… we’ll miss you, buddy.

[Scene change to the camera looking into the mess hall, where Vrepit Sal is cleaning tables and then rotates to face the hallway.]

Rizavi: There you are! Tell me this thing was recording during the attack! That was so intense! Oh, this documentary’s gonna be awesome!

[Cut to Kolivan sitting in a small office facing the camera.]

Kolivan: I believe our heading readout en route was 92254739.275. Wait, no. It was 9.265. Yes. That was our heading per our readout just prior to our deployment.

Rizavi: [mock snoring]

Kolivan: Our teams vary in size. Often we use the three-person unit, but it’s not unusual to have a four- or a five- or perhaps even a six-person unit. Seven seems rare, but... it could happen.

Rizavi: Okay, I like everything you’re telling me, but let’s just try it a little less like you’re reporting the facts to your commanding officer and a little more like you’re telling your friend an exciting story in the gym. You understand?

Kolivan: Yes, understood.

Rizavi: Okay, good. Why don’t you tell us about your last mission?

Kolivan: Our last mission took place on planet K-V Exus. The Blades divided into three four-person teams and we escorted approximately twelve rescue crafts to the surface. I believe our heading readout was 359.222--

Rizavi: Thank! Thank you! Okay, I think we got it!

Kolivan: But I wasn’t done.

Rizavi: Yeah, you nailed it. Yeah. We need to get someone more exciting in here.

[Cut to Coran leaning into the camera as it slowly attempts to focus on him.]

Coran: Then the Atlas started firing with everything it had! And don’t forget the white hole is swirling right next to us the entire time! Oh, no, it’s about to close! Meanwhile, not one, but two, yes, two, robeasts are attacking! Shiro’s shouting out orders. “Coran, get closer! Iverson, open fire!” Beams of quintessence energy are converging from all over the galaxy! Ah! You know, you could just imagine it.

[Scene change to Rizavi turning the camera on in Slav and Sam’s workspace.]

Sam: Welcome to the engine room. What you see here is just a tiny part of what keeps the ship functioning.

Rizavi: Slav, you’ve created some incredible technology. What do you think of the Atlas?

Slav: I can respect any engineering that extrapolates for transmutation, but I wish the writing was in Altean.

Sam: He’s mentioned that a few times.

Rizavi: So what are you doing now?

Slav: Right now we’re about to adjust the gravity generator, which was fractionally increased during our last battle.

Sam: Yes, our gravity generator is actually a fluid system, ever-changing depending on the specific needs of the location, so it requires recalibrating from time to time. Okay, adjust gravity generator back down to .12.

Slav: Copy. Adjusting now.

Sam: What did you press?

Slav: I don’t know! Which one is the two again? I can’t read these weird symbols you call numbers! Hey, big guy, toss me over! Oh, no. Directly on a crack!

Kinkade: Weird.

[Cut to the camera focusing on some juniberry shoots in a pot.]

Colleen: Beautiful, isn’t it? It’s an Altean juniberry. The first one to bloom in nearly ten thousand years. I managed to get it to grow by resequencing the genetic code of a similar plant. I wanna give it to Allura. These are our fertilizers. We have fish emulsion, worm castings, Kaltenecker manure. Just so much great recycled poop! And this is our lighting station. I like to say our lighting array is literally out of this world! You know, because we’re, you know, on a space ship.

Rizavi: Can I take a shot at this?

[Cut to the camera panning across the crops in the grow room.]

Rizavi: Welcome to extreme space harvesting! Where we have plants and crops and super fertilizers all under one roof! Meet Colleen Holt, the botanical genius behind it all.

[Cut to Colleen sitting in a chair in the grow room.]

Colleen: I guess I just liked plants all my life. I’ve done a lot of research, but I know I have much to learn. I guess… I like… the challenge. I’m sorry, where am I supposed to be looking?

Rizavi: Without Colleen, all life aboard the ship could perish. One bad crop, the introduction of one foreign pest, and it’s all over.

Colleen: I just like plants.

Hunk: Oh, sorry. Am I interrupting something again? I just--I just came in to see if Colleen had a very specific type of yeast.

Kinkade: Yeast? What for?

Rizavi: Oh, no.

Hunk: It’s that recipe I’ve been working on. I think I got the topping down, but I’m still trying to figure out the sweet bread.

Colleen: Well, I have so many strains of yeast, it’ll make your head spin. I got AB972, S288C. I even have O unilateralis. Don’t mess with that one.

Kinkade: Are you getting this?

Rizavi: Unfortunately, yes.

[Camera cuts to Kinkade and Rizavi floating through a hallway.]

Rizavi: The time is 1200 hours. We just got word that we are in the Grei-Aye star system. The Paladins will be heading down to the surface of the planet any second now.

[Cut to the camera facing Allura, Lance, and Keith in the hangar for Black Lion.]

Rizavi: Lance, how are you feeling about the mission you’re about to go on?

Lance: Oh, hey. I’m feeling good, I guess. Maybe a little tense. Maybe a lot tense. I don’t know. Why’d you have to ask me that question?

Allura: I think what Lance is trying to say is he’ll be fine. We all will.

Keith: Let’s move out.

[Camera cuts to Kinkade and Rizavi standing a ways away from Blue Lion as it launches.]

Rizavi: Right now, we’re headed to the situation room where we’ll be monitoring the Paladins in real-time.

Kinkade: By the way, you know we’re not gonna be able to bring our camera into that meeting, right?

Rizavi: Says who?

[Scene change to the situation room where Veronica, Coran, Sam, and Shiro are all facing a screen showing a no-signal symbol.]

Sam: Come in, Pidge. Are you reading us?

Pidge: Okay, we’ve just touched down on the surface.

Keith: We’re at the crash site now.

Pidge: That’s the robeast. It looks disabled, just like our intel reported. The Altean should be nearby.

Shiro: Paladins, brace for incoming!

Hunk: I didn’t know it could do that!

Keith: Take cover!

Shiro: Paladins, report! We’ve lost visual. Bridge, lock onto that ship now!

Curtis: Yes, Captain. Adjusting to long-range parameters. Locked on!

Shiro: Light it up!

Curtis: Direct hit!

Lance: Nice shot, Atlas!

Hunk: Yeah, thanks for the cover!

Shiro: Bridge, stay on alert.

[Cut to the Altean viewscreen of Pidge’s point of view through her helmet.]

Allura: Stand by, Atlas. We’re approaching the ship.

Hunk: Guys, there doesn’t seem to be a pilot inside.

Keith: Hey, guys. Over here.

Pidge: Keith’s found something. Let’s go! Give me a second. Just reconfiguring to this barrier’s isometric frequency. There! That should do it.

Keith: Atlas, our target is acquired.

Overlapping voices: Yippee! Alright! Yeah!

Shiro: Great job, everyone!

[Cut to Kinkade and Rizavi floating through another hallway.]

Rizavi: We just got word that the Paladins have returned from their mission. Maybe we can catch a glimpse of this new Altean.

Kinkade: This’ll be the sixth Altean pilot we’ve recovered from the powered-down robeasts left behind after Honerva escaped Oriande. Allura keeps trying, but she hasn’t been able to get any information from them as of yet.

[Camera cuts to Rizavi standing outside a room marked “Authorized Personnel Only”.]

Rizavi: Commander Shirogane said you two were needed on the bridge. We’ll cover your station.

Woman: Yes, Lieutenant.

Rizavi: There! Oh, man, I think we missed the beginning.

Romelle: Tavo, please. You and I grew up alongside one another. You must trust me. We’re here to help.

Tavo: We were told you are a traitor, and I can see now that it is true.

Allura: I’m done talking with him. I’m done with all of them.

Kinkade: Uh, what are you doing?

Rizavi: Sh! I got an idea.

Lance: Anything?

Allura: No. He was just like the others. A true believer in Honerva, and there’s nothing I can say that would make him think otherwise.

Lance: I’m sorry.

Allura: No, I am. These Alteans are the key to unlocking Honerva’s plan. They’re my people, but they won’t speak with me. You have no idea what it’s like to find out after ten thousand years that you’re not the last of your kind… only to be rejected by them.

Lance: I don’t. But I wish every day there were something I could do to change it all for you. You’ve suffered more than anyone should in a thousand lifetimes. But still you persist. Through the pain, you inspire. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you.

Kinkade: No, that’s private.

Rizavi: Kinkade, what are you doing? That was our love angle!

[Camera cuts out, then focuses in on Romelle’s face.]

Kinkade: Please don’t touch that.

Romelle: Oh, sorry.

Rizavi: So, Romelle, you know these Alteans from your time on the colony?

Romelle: Yes, I lived alongside them for many decaphoebs. They are good people.

Kinkade: What do you think would make them join forces with Honerva?

Romelle: I don’t know. But you must understand, my people were hunted nearly to extinction. They’re afraid. And this Honerva… she’s turned that fear to aggression. If there was just some way to get through to them.

[Cut to the mess hall.]

Griffin: I’ve never seen anything like it. All those tentacles… so nasty.

[Cut to the kitchen where Hunk is stirring something purple in a pan.]

Hunk: Oh, hey. You’re just in time. I was just about to add the yeast Colleen gave me. No, Bae Bae! Bad dog!

[Cut to Kinkade and Rizavi sitting at a table with Allura.]

Kinkade: First off, thanks for doing this, Allura.

Allura: You’re welcome.

Rizavi: Maybe we can start with the Alteans we have aboard.

Allura: What about them? They’re on the wrong side of this war and they refuse to speak with me. There’s nothing else to say.

Rizavi: So, you’re frustrated?

Allura: Yes, I am. Oriande was destroyed, Lotor is back, and we aren’t any closer to tracking down Honerva. She’s out there, right now, planning something, preparing, and growing stronger. And we’re here flying around in circles, searching for Fraunhofer lines that don’t appear and scanning for wormhole signatures that don’t exist!

Rizavi: Do you think we’ll ever find Honerva?

Allura: No. I think she’ll find us.

[Camera cuts back to Hunk in the kitchen, this time wearing oven mitts.]

Hunk: Okay, it’s been a long day, but I’m finally done.

Kinkade: What is it?

Hunk: It’s an authentic Altean dessert! I’m gonna give it to the Alteans. Coran helped me with the recipe, but I think his memory was, like, a little bit fuzzy, so, you know, I did some improvising. No big whoop.

Kinkade: You did this for them? Why?

Hunk: Well, I don’t know. Because food has a way of reminding people of moments in time. That’s why I made a dessert. Usually, when you eat dessert, you’re pretty happy, right? Who knows? Maybe this’ll help those Alteans remember some moment that made them smile. Something before all this madness. That could go a long way in building a relationship. Well, that’s just what I think.

[Cut to the Alteans in a holding cell as the camera zooms out and pans to face Hunk.]

Hunk: Please, eat. Look, it’s good! Mm, really!

Tavo: You made this? It reminds me of home.

Hunk: Well, I had a little help from someone born and raised on Altea. A-and I know you don’t wanna talk with them, but Allura and Coran know more about your homeland than anyone alive. They were on Altea until its final day. They both would’ve stayed and died to protect it if Alfor hadn’t sent them away. That’s how much they loved it.

Tavo: I heard Altea was one of the most beautiful places in the universe. Did your Alteans ever tell you about the zyo crystal springs outside of the capital? The stories say those cliffs were more beautiful than all of the stars combined.

Hunk: They never told me about them. But I’m sure they’d love to tell you themselves.

[Scene change to Kinkade sitting in casual clothes facing the camera.]

Kinkade: This is Lieutenant Ryan Kinkade, MFE pilot. The time is 2300 hours. Day forty-seven aboard the IGF-Atlas is officially done.

End.

[avidbeader]

CW: Voltron S8 talk, VLD S8 talk, Shiro’s marriage, ship wars

I’ve been seeing an influx of new VLD fans in the last several months – guess people have more time to watch shows – and it’s brought in a new wave of Sheith fans. And that’s lovely – having more people to create and cheer is a good thing. I know I’ve pointed a lot of people at “Sheith the Movie” so they can have just the Sheith (all 3.5 hours of their scenes with some context) if they want.

However, even if the new fans have been aware of how toxic the klanti shippers were (Klance fans who resorted to slander, harassment, and threats to both other fans and the show’s cast and crew in an attempt to force the studio to make their ship canon), I’m seeing some conflict crop up because some new fans aren’t aware of just how ugly things got in 2018, that most of the people who embraced Shiro and the random groom as a ship were the same people who had spent the previous two years attacking Sheith fans.

In June, we had Season 6. Keith and Lance interaction was at an all-time low. Keith said “I love you” to Shiro in what he thought was a dying confession. Yes, it was preceded by “You’re my brother (in arms)”, but interviews with showrunners like story editor Josh Hamilton made it clear that Keith was trying his best to encapsulate just how important Shiro was to him (without saying that they almost certainly had to include the “brother” line to give DW executives plausible deniability).

In July, we had the SDCC showing of Season 7’s first episode and the confirmation that Shiro is an LGBT character. Klance fans jumped all over the character of Shiro’s ex-boyfriend Adam, because in their minds he would be the key to invalidating Sheith. The media properly observed that Shiro and Adam had broken up over very profound issues and drew the conclusion that if Shiro were to get an on-screen romance in the remainder of the series, Keith was the obvious choice.

In August, we had Season 7. Instead of the heartfelt Shiro/Adam reunion klantis were salivating for, we saw Adam get killed in the Galra invasion. And the klantis rose up, hurling so many unjustified accusations of “fridging” or “bury your gays” over a minor character with a total of maybe three minutes of screen time, that JDS actually had to put his name to an unnecessary apology from the studio.

We also had Keith and Shiro’s backstory, showing just how close of friends they became after Shiro helped Keith join the Garrison, AND Keith saving Shiro yet again. While Lance and Allura continued to grow closer. Because it was clear that the producers had never once considered making Keith and Lance a thing, klanti fans went ballistic with their slander, accusing Sheith of being pedophilic and incestuous when neither accusation has any canon basis at all.

And in December, we got Season 8. Season 8 with a mostly new set of writers who didn’t do their research. Season 8 that tried to cram in too much excess content while finishing up a major plotline. Season 8 that finally showed that the producers had never fully thought through or sought input for handling Shiro, a character they’d originally planned to kill off, decided to make their LGBT rep when told to keep him, and then failed to pick up the strong story arcs he had in the first seasons. And because studio execs gave JDS and LM a single day to change their epilogue cards from minor characters to the main team, we got the very bad decision to marry Shiro off to a random character.

(And the character was random. Stills were leaked that showed Shiro kissing a character that had been seen once in the very first episode, but was too obviously a reference to a character in another series. It clearly didn’t matter to JDS/LM or the people above them who Shiro married as long as it wasn’t another main character. Because we’ve barely passed the point where we can have more than one character of a certain race in the main cast, much less multiple LGBT characters.)

Like they did with Adam, klantis jumped all over “Curtis” as their savior, because to them this should have killed Sheith fandom. And a great many Sheith fans did leave, angry and hurt, not because their ship wasn’t canon (very few Sheith fans expected more than an open ending) but because the concept of Shiro marrying some random character with absolutely no buildup undercut the notion of Shiro as a strong example of LGBT rep. Because those endcards erased every single character’s growth through the series, not just Shiro’s.

Media saw the ploy for what it was, a clumsy attempt to try and reach for a historic milestone when today’s audiences aren’t looking for milestones anymore. Today’s audiences want to be included in the entire narrative. No one talks about Shiro’s wedding as a good example of rep. In mainstream pop media, no one talks about Shiro at all, in contrast to the celebrations post-SDCC. When articles are written about progress in children’s media, Shiro is never included on the list. It’s only this past June, 2020, that DreamWorks shoved Shiro into the background of a collage of LGBT characters from their cartoons, WITHOUT his desultory groom.

LGBT fans, especially gay men, saw the ploy for what it was. Just as the media collectively set Shiro’s wedding aside when talking about positive LGBT rep, gay men spoke out against it. Too bad they didn’t get any kind of apology from DW and the best JDS/LM could say on their one appearance on an “Afterbuzz” was “But we tried! Something was better than nothing!”

And the majority of Sheith fans who remained in the fandom collectively jettisoned Season 8 and began producing even more content. There have been schisms and fallouts, mainly over whether/how carefully to tag for content that includes Adam or “Curtis”, but the fandom as a whole has continued to produce fic, art, vids, and merch. There’s a reason people outside the fandom groan “Sheith in 2020?” There’s a reason antis continue to push their lies about the ship. We haven’t let go of what we love, we continue to create, and we continue to attract new fans.

But most of us do not want to engage in any way with “Curtis” content unless a fix-it is involved (and sometimes not even then – for many of us, Season 8 does not exist). We don’t care about a character who had zero interaction with Shiro before the endcard, whose name isn’t even spoken once in the show’s dialogue – the only reasons we know it are the IMDB credits and one reference in the close-captions identifying who is speaking (and there’s stronger evidence to show that “Curtis” is a last name, not a first name).

If other people find enough of an attachment to this character to ship him, fine. You do you. But most Sheith fans expect those who support Shiro’s wedding to be klantis and therefore look to avoid conflict by minimizing contact. We do not forget. We do not forgive. We just want to be left alone to enjoy our ship in peace.

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.68

Oversleeping by accident, Lance woke cuddled in all directions. Blue near his head, Keith in his arms, Kosmo laying along his back. He and Keith hadn’t talked much, they’d napped, watched a movie that Lance fell asleep during. Keith teased him over it, so they’d put on a movie Keith wanted to watch, then they’d both fallen asleep during it. Shiro brought some clothes and things by for them. Chocolate and blood for him, food for Keith, Kosmo and Blue, clothes for Keith... essentials Keith must have asked his brother for.

Waking Keith up, his boyfriend was his usual zombie self, Lance prodding him along to the shower and do his teeth. For no real good reason he could think of he’s started crying watching Keith brush his teeth. His boyfriend was an aggressive brusher, and Lance knew not to interrupt lest he be stabbed by the toothbrush.

When they came out to no coffee, Keith looked a broken man. Lance dressing in a hurry, grabbing up his phone and wallet, then waiting for Keith to get dressed before promising to buy him coffee. Going out for breakfast would make a nice change, and he needed the distraction thanks to his stupid emotions. Watching a sleepy Keith patting a sleepy Kosmo made him cry all over again, Blue pausing in her grooming to shoot him an extremely judgemental look, like she knew he humans were going out and wondering how long she must be subjected to them before they left. Getting Keith moving again, Kosmo was harnessed up, the walk would do the pup good. If he was too tired, hopefully he wouldn’t be too destructive during the briefing that they’d blown off the day before.

Keith didn’t appreciate the walk to get coffee, and didn’t want to eat anything solid. His grump factor was high, Lance unable to do anything about getting that caffeine into Keith’s blood stream any faster than he was. Sitting in the cafe a block and a half up the road from VOLTRON, Keith barely had time to get through his first cup before Shiro was calling to “ask where they were” and “reminding him they had a very important briefing that they couldn’t skip out on”. Keith acknowledged Shiro in a series of grunts, with the use of the word “coffee”. Shiro must have understood they were getting coffee as Keith hung up the phone with a deep groan, not needing to fill Lance in as he’d heard as it was. It hardly made for the nice distracting breakfast last was hoping for. But it was nice to be outside with Keith, plus they hadn’t gotten in trouble for bringing Kosmo into the cafe.

As they walked back to work, Keith finished his second cup of coffee, now awake enough to talk English again

“Thanks for that, babe... can’t human without my coffee”

Keith looked as if he’d climbed out of hell and was ready to wage war if he didn’t have his morning coffee. The world in danger until the beast was fed, and Lance found it completely adorable provided Keith wasn’t being snappy

“I know, babe. I wish you’d eaten though”

Keith shook his head. They would have been even later if they’d eaten, but Lance was always the hopeless romantic. A nice quite breakfast with his boyfriend and their dog. At least they’d had half an hour in the outside world. He missed the sun...

“I don’t know how you put up with me in the mornings”

Lance cast a quick look around, the people outside were all too focused on their own lives to care, Lance kissing Keith’s cheek

“Years of practise. And I make special exceptions for the man I like”

Making as if taking Kosmo’s lead, Keith wrapped his hand around Lance’s, but didn’t take the lead from him. Lance’s cheeks dusting at holding his boyfriend’s hand in public

“I’m lucky I have you... Shiro’s going to be cranky. He said he wanted to talk before the briefing”

Keith mentioned that... Lance hadn’t expected an early morning briefing or he might have let Shiro caffeinate Keith. They’d climbed out of bed at 8:30. Lance normally awake from about 6am

“We overslept. We both needed the rest”

He still felt like he needed the rest. It sucked. He’d had plenty of blood the night before, but he felt slow and lethargic, like his inner hermit was trying to turn him into a hermit crab. He could have easily pulled his shell on and slept on the pavement if it’d been safe

“Yeah... How are you feeling?”

“Still a bit tired and emotionally drained. You?”

Keith mumbled

“Kind of the same. It was nice having us time”

Lance’s cheeks grew redder as he nearly tripped over air. It was nice. No fighting. No talking about serious things. Just him and Keith, with Kosmo and Blue, as they watched movies on his laptop. Keith had even indulged in a rom-com Lance had seen at least a dozen times. He’d pointed out that Lance was without his usual red wine and blood, offering to send Shiro to pick up a bottle for him

“It was. I’m sorry I’ve been crying”

“As long as you’re okay, babe. I’m sorry I couldn’t function enough to ask properly”

Keith didn’t ask with his words. He asked with the soft touches on his arms... or attempts at soft touches, they were more like uncoordinated smacks

“I know you’re terrible without your coffee... and I would have told you if it was something else. I feel like crying because you asked me”

Keith squeezed his hand

“If the briefing gets too hard, or you’re uncomfortable, tell me. We... we’re taking this slow, and we’re both still getting over things”

His stomach kind of hurt, but touching it didn’t feel right... He liked it better when Keith quietly held him with hand against his belly. He didn’t feel so scared when it was Keith

“I know... Shit... I’m about to cry again. I wish these hormones would get it together”

“Me too, babe... I don’t like seeing you cry. Though, you do cry a lot”

At least twice a day. Feeling his emotions was important and helped him feel more human

“I don’t like crying over nothing. I cried because you brushed your teeth, how much more whack can you get?”

Keith nodded sympathetically

“That is pretty bad”

“I know! Then you and Kosmo were being so cute that I had to cry and now you’re being nice and I want to cry. I feel like I could probably fart then cry over that. It’s ridiculous”

Keith turned his head, shooting him a soft smile. With the morning sunlight, his boyfriend looked like some kind of emo angel. His smile should be illegal this early in the morning. God, he was weak for Keith’s smile

“Maybe a little. It’ll get better”

“Yeah. I have the best boyfriend to help me out”

“I don’t know about that”

“You remembered I wanted chocolate. Could have married you on the spot”

What was he saying now? Lance kicked himself mentally. He was trying not to scare his boyfriend off, not dump love and marriage on him. He was too stupid for words. He should have got himself something other than tea

“You can thank Shiro for that. He asked if we needed anything and reminded me”

“Babe, we were both so out of it yesterday, you deserve a gold star for remembering”

Keith’s cheeks turned red, Lance leaning in to kiss his cheek with a laugh

“Okay. Let’s save some of that energy for the briefing. But thank you”

Keith sighed deeply, Lance thinking he was about to be told off by his boyfriend because “he wasn’t a kid”. Instead, he found himself snorting with laughter when Keith said

“I don’t want to adult”

Keith ignored his brother as they joined everyone else in the conference room after Lance had taken Kosmo back to their room. Taking him by the hand, his boyfriend led him over to the two free chairs between Rieva and Allura. The vampire felt like an old man as Keith sat him down, before sitting beside him and taking his hand. Lance was mortified over the previous day and tired, not at all in the mood for this. He missed his glasses, they’d been crushed by accident in his rush to ride Keith.

“Nice to see you, Lance. Keith. Sorry your coffee date got cut short. You two deserved a break after your heat. Two days... longest yet”

Lance couldn’t manage sarcastic reply to return Curtis’s greeting. He’d clung to Curti’s horn, terrified he was about to ruin everything with Keith. What he didn’t expect was a fresh wave of tears to start rolling down his face. He didn’t particularly sad or sorry for himself, he just felt tired and wanted to be there to support Keith. Shiro was looking at him weirdly, and he couldn’t quite seem to pull himself together

“Sorry... Hi, Curtis... hi, guys...”

Lame. God. He needed to get it together again. He’d embarrassed himself plenty in front of all of them before. Coran shot him a sympathetic glance, Lance trying not to look at him

“Lance still a little exhausted. Heats are a lot, as our Rieva and Matt would know”

Keith had moved his chair a little away from Rieva, kind of like putting a wall between them. Rieva didn’t care. Rolling closer she placed her hand on his arm, leaning in to whisper softly

“I know how it feels after. Your body tells you to be disappointed, even if you’re relieved. You’re okay now. It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling. Matt and I know what it’s like to be wolves using contraceptives... you can talk to us about it. We’ve missed you”

Rieva kissed him on the cheek. She didn’t get it, but she kind of did. More than anyone else in the room. He guessed he hadn’t thought about the empty feeling for Rieva before. It must take a lot to keep their egos under control and not blame each other for not conceiving. He’d been trying not to think about it...

“Thanks...”

“You’re welcome, cute stuff... now I better roll, Keith looks murderous”

“Doesn’t he always when the coffee’s still kicking in?”

Matt snorted, Rieva smiling as she moved back to her boyfriend’s side. Keith tried to move closer to him, which wasn’t happening thanks to the chairs

“Babe?”

“I’m okay... tell you later”

Being stared at by everyone was uncomfortable as hell. Rieva had been trying to be kind, and she was, but he felt like he had too much attention. He didn’t want attention. His heat had happened and if they could kindly not be sitting there quietly judging, that’d be great

“Now, yes. Lance is...”

Ugh. If it wasn’t Curtis, it was Coran. People needed to stop fussing

“Exhausted and hormonal, and without his glasses. We get it. Coran, can we please just start?”

“I was simply... Ah, yes. I see how this might be embarrassing, but we are amongst friends here. Lance’s mood will bounce back as his hormone levels return to normal”

And there he went again. Lance wanted to slide under the table and die... permanently.

Clearing his throat, Keith drew everyone’s attention away from him, Lance scared for a moment that his boyfriend was about to snap at everyone for making Lance so self conscious

“Coran, I think we should move on. What happened doesn’t need to be discussed like this. We’ve already talked about it and this is supposed to be a briefing”

Keith standing up for him made him feel all glowy inside. His boyfriend didn’t hate him or blame him for the near miss. Coran was lucky Keith had caffeine slowly seeping into his system so hadn’t started yelling

“Very well then. Then I guess the first point to mention is that Blades of Marmora will be sending a team led by your mother to discuss our current situation and the recent arrival of Sendak in Platt. Sendak is a high ranking official working for Zarkon. Unfortunately it was his pheromones that caused Lance to react. A nasty piece of work that barely leaves Europe. The Blade’s wish to intercept and detain Sendak, to be prosecuted. Which places this place in an awkward situation as he reached out to inform us he was here to monitor Lotor’s actions”

Lance didn’t care why Sendak was there. Keith was all he cared about and Keith wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be told his mother was coming. He lacked enough coffee for a bombshell like that

“When will they arrive?”

His boyfriend’s tone was cold. Lance feeling like the hand holding his might burn him from how cold those words had been

“Friday coming. Four days from now”

“She’ll be here before that”

Across the table Shiro looked concerned. Matt hadn’t tried to joke either. Matt had probably heard from Shiro about Krolia

“Very well. I’ll be making preparations to house them here. They haven’t provided us with details of how long they’ll be here for, but the team they are sending is compromised of werewolves. I’m assuming you’ll be able to brief us on who we can expect”

Keith pushed his chair back, on his feet and moving towards the door before Shiro could half stand. Lance stood, if Keith was angry he didn’t want him taking it out on Shiro. They were both upright and moving, but they both had a head full of other thoughts. A near miss. A potential baby. Family Keith didn’t know how to have

“I’ll go”

Allura softly said his name

“Lance...”

“I’ve got this”

Catching up to Keith was easy. The idiot hadn’t gotten very far, having punched the very solid wall next to the door. Closing the door behind him, Lance crouched down beside Keith who was staring it his busted knuckles

“Wanna tell me?”

“I hit the wall”

“I can see that. Wanna come back to my room?”

Keith nodded, clearly overcome with his feelings and not knowing how to say what he wanted say

“Come here”

*

Keith didn’t want to be carried, Lance didn’t particularly care as he piggybacked his boyfriend back to his room. Setting Keith on the bed, Lance ruffled Keith’s hair

“You’re over thinking it”

“I stormed out the meeting”

“Okay. Yeah... but, we have had the mother of a last 24 hours. A potentially pregnant boyfriend. Me crying all the time. You barely caffeinated. Coran should have warned you ahead... ugh... this is probably what Shiro wanted to talk about... Now, we’re going to have a briefing of our own”

Lance counted on his fingers as he listed. Hoping Keith would find it funny.

Keith raised his head to look at him

“You’re not going to ask?”

Keith had been through enough. They’d been through enough for now. Skipping a second briefing wasn’t great, but that was too much to spring on Keith suddenly. They’d all been so quick to talk about him, but what about Keith was going through too?

“Babe. You’ve told me enough for me to know. I know work there wasn’t fun. I wouldn’t want to see the people who hurt me either. But you know, we don’t need them and their fancy werewolf squad. We’ve got our own squad. Shiro. You. Half-cursed Curtis. Two faes. Two werewolves and me. Half our squad knows this place better than any stinky Rome Wolves ever could. And we have the greatest person for advice in the Earth on our side. I’m going to grab a blood bag and your going to get your phone out”

Keith scrunched his brow up

“Why?”

“Because fuck today. Message Shiro and tell him you’re okay... because we’re going to be talking about it all”

Lance was feeling determined now... Determined to help Keith and give him back some of his confidence

“We’re going to have our briefing, mullet. You’ve got all the information on your phone. Now you missed out on what Rieva had to say... We’ll get some boards and markers and pens, and make our own investigation boards”

Keith snapped

“You’re not a hunter! You don’t know how this works! It’s not a fucking game. It’s not a joke. We’ve looked at this for weeks and now they’re coming in because none of our work was good enough! I fucked my mission to kill you. Can’t find a fucking serial killer. My mother barely acknowledges my existence. I’m just her son when she wants or when people want to point out all my fucking flaws! James and his werewolf pack made my life hell. I punched my old instructor so fucking hard I blinded him in one eye. I don’t know how to be good enough. Everything I could possibly do was never good enough there. Now they’re here. They’re coming here”

Keith had found his words.

“Yeah. Well, fuck them. They don’t fucking know my city. They don’t even know my boyfriend. I know I’m just a lawyer and probably a liability, but if they’re going to be arseholes, I’m going to enjoy working this out before them. People's lives are at danger. I don’t want that life, but I can sure as hell use these messed up senses of mine to work this the fuck out. If they can’t see you and your potential, then fuck them. As for your mum, I don’t know what to say about that, only she’s missing out on knowing the most amazing man. They treated you like shit, but here you have all of us. You have me. You have Shiro. You have Coran, Curtis, Allura, Rieva and Matt. Coran runs this place to help people. So we’re going to help. I want to help. We make a good team when we actually figure out how to talk. Now, get your phone out. I want to go through everything from the very beginning. All of it. Allura’s briefed me. I know what Rieva said. We’re going to work this out”

Lance’s ego may have flared, but Keith hating on himself pissed him off so much. Keith was a good guy. He was just awkward as hell and being bullied by coworkers wasn’t cool at all. He didn’t want to know the Blades if they let this shit happen.

Keith ran his hands through his hair, ignoring the way Kosmo was trying to get his attention

“Why are you so angry? They... I’m the one with the problem!”

His anger loaf was as bad a his

“I’m angry because you deserve to be respected and seen as you. Not Krolia’s son. Not Shiro’s little brother. You. I have a problem when people hurt my boyfriend. I know you and Shiro started again, but that’s the thing, you two are new here and your working your arses off to make those connections that Coran’s had for years. They’re not here because of the murder. They’re here because Loturd and Sendick dumped a heap of trouble in our fucking laps because there egos are so big they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a human. Keeping hold of that human side is what keeps us sane. What keeps humans tucked up in their beds all safe and sound. You’re not a super hero, you’re Keith Kogane. And I very much appreciate you”

Lance’s stomach grumbled from the tea. Keith looked lost as he continued stared to up at him. Looking back down, Keith fisted his jeans, or tried to, fingers curling but the tight fabric didn’t move

“If... if you’re going to meet Krolia, I should... tell you more about her”

Now was not the time to throw up. Keith needed comfort. Sitting down beside him, he placed his hand over his boyfriend’s

“Okay. If you want to, that’s okay. Like you said, good or bad, I want to know”

“I don’t know how to start. She abandoned my father and I. She left us. She didn’t even come back when he died. I waited and I waited... until someone must have remembered I existed. I kept waiting... even after the funeral... I never saw his... I never saw him again. I... I had so many nightmares. So many dreams. I kept wondering what he must have been thinking about. Did he regret not seeing me again? Why didn’t he get out earlier? Why did it have to be him?”

Keith started to cry, Lance moving to draw him against him. Mornings were never friendly to his boyfriend. Two bad mornings in a row wasn’t fair

“I don’t know. I don’t know and it wasn’t fair. He deserved to be there to see the man you’ve grown into”

“I’m not a good man. I ran away. I stole. I ate out of garbage cans. Broke into places... I... dad had this place in the middle of nowhere I just wanted to get back there”

“Keith, I’m going to ask you a very important question. When you ran away. We’re you safe? Did you have the money for the things you needed? Or did you do what you had to do to keep living?”

“I...”

“No. You didn’t. You did what you had to. You were scared and alone”

“I was bad. I didn’t eat what they gave me. I told them I couldn’t have milk and they didn’t believe me. They thought I was faking being sick. I had nightmares. I was angry and done. I can’t even remember their faces anymore. I know there had to be good people. But I can’t remember their faces”

“You lost your dad. You were a kid and you had no one to support you like you needed”

Rubbing Keith’s arm, Lance didn’t know how to make up for all those years of pain. He was lucky he had his family, while Keith was trapped in a system that was way too overstretched as it was. Lance had major respect for the system when it worked. Not everyone knew how to help people, and sometimes trying only made these problems worse without meaning to.

“I thought... mum left because she regretted having me. She said it was to keep me safe, but she never came for me when I needed her. We can barely talk. I feel like I disappointed her by being alive”

Krolia was off the Christmas card list

“That’s not true! God. Babe. No. You’re human. We make mistakes. I’m not as perfect as you think I am or make me feel. You’re not a disappointment. Have she ever told you that? To your face?”

“No... but...”

He’d been told and knew exactly what that felt like. Not by his Mami though

“Trust me. I don’t think you are. I think you throw yourself head first into everything because you don’t want to lose anything else. I think we need to talk with your mum. I have a few choice words to say to her. I know I don’t understand because my life has been very different from yours, but I swear I don’t see a disappointment when I look at you”

“How can you not? I fucked your life up”

“You did, but you gave me something more. You gave me my first friendship that wasn’t because you worked here and because I had to hide myself. I don’t regret meeting you. Even when you wouldn’t listen to me about not being a vampire. I’d totally take having that same argument every day with you to spend more time with you”

He’d rather not have that argument. Keith had been denser than ill baked rolls

“Please don’t tell her... she’s going to think I’m so stupid. I think I’m stupid... I can’t believe I tried to drink blood”

Lance pressed half a dozen kisses to Keith’s hair. He might punch Krolia but that’d be about it... And he needed to have a stern word with Shiro. And another talk with Coran

“I’m not about to tell her. Okay. I need to throw up, and you need to clean that hand up. And we need cuddles... and chocolate. I know none of that is easy to talk about”

“I feeling pretty talked out”

“Then it’s definitely time for food and cuddles... and I need to message Curtis. We’ll need supplies. We’ll make a start on our own and then talk to the others”

“Can... can Shiro and Curtis... help?”

Keith wanted Shiro close and Lance couldn’t blame him, even if he was slightly sad he wasn’t enough for Keith at the moment

“Sure. Message Shiro. I want you to feel safe here. This room is a safe place for us. Zero judgment and anyone who judges gets a dick punch and sent into the hall”

“Babe, you can’t punch everyone in the dick”

“I can if they upset you”

“I don’t deserve you”

“Nah. You’re like the only one in the world to put up with me. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve you. Now, we’ve got work to do”

[carnationcomplex]

Person who I secretly think is very cool and funny @aspeneyes tagged me to answer 30 questions and then tag 20 blogs I want to get to know better (I definitely don't know that many but I'll try my best...)

1. Name/nickname: Chrissy which is actually already a nickname for Christine and I've been going by that since 4th grade. Got tired of people calling me Christina but now I get Christy so not much has changed lol

2. Gender: cis woman

3. Star sign: scorpio (not that I really know what that means but apparently it's sexy of me idk)

4. Height: 5'8" last time I went to the doctor

5. Time: 9:59 p.m. est (well it's 11:30 p.m. when I'm finishing this but that's when I started)

6. Birthday: November 10th

7. Favorite groups/bands: I'm a kpop bastard as we all know so you got bts, dreamcatcher, txt, and a.c.e as the main ones. I also listen to twice, red velvet, everglow, itzy, stray kids, etc. more casually. Outside of that I do listen to fob and patd (although almost exclusively vices and virtues or pretty odd) and also Daughter because I'm unwell <3 Also the musical Nevermore about Edgar Allen Poe it slaps

8. Favorite solo artists: There are less of these but for kpop you primarily got chungha and then you got hyuna and sunmi and such. Outside of that you mostly got hozier and sleeping at last (isn't he technically a solo artist?) and Marina.

9. Song stuck in my head: honestly it's how you like that by blackpink which I am annoyed about because I don't really like it that much but oh well (I don't dislike all their music just this one song in particular)

10. Last movie: I watched Jingle Jangle with my friends before christmas and a few days before that it was Klaus (which i liked better) with mck and willow

11. Last show: the last show I finished was The Untamed (thank you birdie for the worms in my brain!) and I'm now watching House M.D. because I need something to act like background noise when I'm unwell

12. When did I create this blog: uhhhhhh I think 2017? Or 2016? idk I was in high school probably sophomore year

13. What do I post: basically whatever Fandom I'm in so I used to post about voltron when I was watching that (yikes!) and now it's mostly kpop and then theres that destiel/election meme I made that got an inexplicably substantial amount of notes

14. Last thing googled: 'cat tortoise' (to check how to correctly spell tortie because I was talking to birdie about how my cat has tortie like patterning to some of her coloring)

15. Other blogs: this is the only one we die like men on main and all that

16. Do I get asks: I used to get 0 but now I'll get a few when I reblog ask games and stuff but nothing outside of that

17. Why did I choose this url: the girl I was tragically in love with in high school said if I was a flower I'd be a white carnation because of my 'pure love' or whatever and I've been sad about it ever since

18. Following: apparently it's 126

19. Followers: 109! (It genuinely used to be like 10 until the Meme got over 60k notes and I gained nearly 100 which side note why are you guys still here this can't possibly be the content you signed up for but thanks for being here)

20. Average hours of sleep: uhhh somewhere between 6 and 7, 8 if I'm on my best behavior

21. Lucky number: 21 (which is funny)

22. Instruments: guitar!! (both electric and acoustic but I've played acoustic longer)

23. What am I wearing: a navy blue sweater with thin horizontal white dashes and stripes and grey cotton trousers (also fuzzy light grey socks it's cold in my room)

24. Dream job: it's a fight to the death between being a poignant little actor in poignant little films/plays and being a LPC working with children and teens

25. Dream trip: well I was supposed to study abroad this year, Oxford in the summer with 2 of my friends and South Korea in the fall all by myself, which obviously didn't happen so I'd desperately like to still get to someday. Also a road trip with all my friends would be nice...

26. Favorite food: my mom's mac and cheese

27. Nationality: American

28. Favorite song: there are way too many songs to truly pick one but at the moment the answer coming to mind is the gambler by fun.

29. Last book I read: technically the last thing I read was the script for my university's first spring production (it's an adaptation of Three Sisters by Chekhov)

30. Three fictional universes I'd like to live in: When I was a kid I uses to roleplay being at camp halfblood with my neighbors in the woods so the percy jackson universe has gotta be one of them. I'd say the untamed because it would be cool to magically kick ass with a sword but I'm a woman so I'd probably die... Other than that idk

Alright so like I said I don't know 20 blogs but I'll tag @korimi4 @holdingthispain @waluigiapologist and @restinpeas since you're all newer mutuals of mine! (but obviously no pressure if you don't want to!)

[maddiesup]

Tag game!

I was tagged by @ohbabycupcakes thank u💖

RULES: Name 10 favorite characters from 10 different things then tag 10 people + leave comments on all of them

This is gonna be hard, where do I even start?

1) Keith (Voltron: Legendary Defender)

Okay I'm- trying not to laugh too hard because oh boy, this show was a complete mess. BUT Keith still stays as one of my favorite characters ever just because no matter how badly I was hurt by vld he'll always be precious to me 💖 He's hotheaded, cool and a lone wolf, but needs affection more than anyone else on the team. He's easy for me to relate to as I am more likely to push someone away than to keep them close just to avoid being hurt as well. His development is amazing tho and I love love him so much 😭 also it might be just that I have a soft spot for emo characters lmao

2) Todoroki Shoto (Boku no Hero Academia)

This just reinforces my statement earlier since Todoroki is pretty emo too :') But in a different way than Keith. If you are a part of bnha fandom you know he's generally a little bit overrated, but I couldn't help falling in love with him at first sight anyway lol His backstory is tragic but he keeps pursuing his dream and damn is he good at it. Also the combo of fire and ice is aesthetic goals. However, what I admire the most about Shoto is probably his loyalty to his friends, his will to fight and sometimes his goofy attitude (even if he probably isn't aware that he's being goofy lol) In conclusion: I love him, let's move on.

3) Uenoyama Ritsuka (Given)

Can I just stop to say how much I love given for a moment? Like I've never seen a bl anime/manga that would portray gay characters so respectfully 😭❤️ Ue is basically me gay panicking, I feel the boy so much :') OH also what's up with gays & guitars bc first given, then why r u and now also 2gether :') (I might be falling in love with this trope help) okay so: Ue is panicking when he starts liking Mafuyu but he handles it so well in a way? He doesn't deny his crush even if he is slow to notice it lol He's straightforward and sometimes a little bit rough around the edges, but even if he's supposed to be "the cool guy" we see him in the most hilarious settings and that just makes me love him all the more 💖 he respects Mafuyu and his boundaries and I want more of that in bl anime please

4) Eiji & Ash (Banana Fish)

Uhhhh this anime,,, I CANNOT choose between Ash and Eiji, I'm gonna forever see them as a pair and that's simply it. Ash is another emo one I would like to say that but he's actually not. He's backstory is heartbreaking and the life he has to live is dangerous and scary. He gets used to this reality where he has no one to rely on and no one to trust but then Eiji appears tearing his walls down and making him finally be able to show his soft and sensitive side to someone. Eiji is like a salve for his wounds and yes, I'm still emotional about it bc their relationship is one of the best developped I've ever seen. Their bond is so strong it's beautiful, they would literally die for each other. It's so apparent that they love each other and care for each other so much (don't mind me crying in the corner)

5) Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson & the Olympians)

PJ technically got me into fantasy/sci-fi in elementary school and it stays at the top of my favorite book series list ever (big props to Uncle Rick 👏) The whole series is funny and I would say pretty light-hearted even tho you know,,, Percy saves the world several times, lol, usual demigod things™. He's lovable. Son of Poseidon so he has seaweeds instead of a brain (or so you thought, he is brilliant at strategic planning and has a charisma to be a great leader), has a very good sense of humor, is loyal and would risk everything for his friends. Also he loves his girlfriend very much and I was crying while reading the House of Hades but no one needed to know that oh well. I'm also gonna mention Nico de Angelo here, since he fell in love with Percy (didn't we all tho) and was the first gay character I saw portrayed in the book and oh do I love him 😭💖

6) 707 (Mystic Messenger)

Was I losing sleep over this game? I was. Do I regret anything? Absolutely not. I think my choices are pretty boring tho, since Seven is literally everyone's favorite but oh boy there's a reason for that. Apart from being a talented hacker who knows too much (and I think is cautious of us the most at the start) he has a lovely happy-go-lucky personality composed of all the lame jokes, questions "have you eaten already" and anxiety (another emo one). He's that type of a character who will always try to make you laugh but you never know what's going on inside his head. He's mysterious and we don't get to know him well till his route so pretty much till the end of the game lol. Also he loves his brother, phd pepper, honey buddha chips and Elizabeth 3rd the most in this entire world and I love him for that

7) Evan Hansen (Dear Evan Hansen)

ANOTHER EMO ONE okay but hear me out Evan has social anxiety and its portrayal is almost too real for me. He makes a big oopsie which at the start seems like a little innocent lie but then snowballs to enormous sizes. He gains everything in this bargain, a best (dead) friend, a caring mother, a father, a girlfriend even - and then everything falls apart since it all is built on one fat lie. He makes a lot of mistakes and then some more but you get it and you feel for him, and you cry with him and you're happy for him. And when all of this is over you're glad that he's still there trying his best, taking it one day at a time. And sidenote: Ben Platt's voice is angelic and I love him as Evan 💖💖💖

8) Isak (SKAM)

Another gay panicking one. I'm starting to realize there's a set of traits that I particularly like in fictional characters lol But ye, when I was watching skam ofc it was the third season which gripped me the most and kept me on the edge, bc yet again Isak taking an "are you gay" test was way too real for me. He makes a lot of mistakes along the way of figuring out his sexuality and sometimes stuff with Evan becomes really messy (for both of them) but he stays with him nevertheless ❤️ Skam is literally so good in its portrayal of the characters :') Anyways: alt er love 💖

9) Viktor & Yuuri (Yuri on Ice)

Em, another one that I absolutely can't break up to just one bc how could I? Yuri on ice got me into skating ❤️ I went to an ice rink for the first time bc of this anime and I almost died but now look at me actually finishing my first three months of ice skating training and watching real life figure skating competitions :') Little did I know then. But they're not only my favourites bc of that, I genuinely love the development of their relationship from fan - idol through skater - couch to lovers and history makers in the end. I love how Yuuri is a ball of insecurities and how Viktor manages to reassure him. I love how Viktor fell in love with drunk Yuuri clinging to him. I love how at first Yuuri wasn't able to get too close to Viktor without getting flustered and it changes so drastically to them basically always holding onto each other. I love how Viktor was stuck with no inspiration but then Yuuri came and turned his world upside down. I love how they support and respect each other. I could probably go on into eternity like that and Yuri on ice isn't even the best anime I've ever seen but it's certainly my favourite one ❤️

10) Tutor (WHY R U)

I can't believe I'm so obsessed with thai dramas rn and I'm only gonna include Tor on this list smh He's mental attitude inspires me. He's able to hold so much and appears totally unfazed even if he's barely holding on inside. He's hardworking and doesn't want others to pity him since he can manage it all just fine. He has a kind heart, he's a wonderful friend (especially to Hwa, he always listens to her, gives her pieces of advise, supports her and tries to cheer her up). He never forgets to say thank you when he genuinely feels grateful. But as we've seen he also is passionate and when he loves he LOVES. Also he's the biggest tease to Fighter and I love him for that :') I am so satisfied just by seeing him happy, please do not change that whyru gods 🙏

As it appears I'm done .-. I have no idea what have just happened and if my rambling even makes sense but not that I care at this point. If you read this far, please drink some water now, that was a lot of reading to go through ❤️

Tagging: @wir-ro, @saecookie and any other 8 people who might want to ksks (im too tired to tag lmao)

Don't be like me and go to bed at reasonable hours despite this whole quarantine thing .-. thank again Doreen for tagging since it was really fun 🥺❤️

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

It’s week three of my Global-Pandemic-Induced decision to rewatch all of Supernatural, and so I’m still attempting to make this watch more productive than the last show that I binged.

So I’m on disc two now - that’s episodes 5 - 8 for those of you watching on Netflix. By the time we get to this disc, we know the basic formula for Supernatural as a series - Two Hunks + Fighting Evil to the Power of Acceptable Levels of Gore x Missing Dad = Ratings Gold. Or at the very least, good enough ratings that we’ll give you a season (or fourteen). And then...well...then.

Episode five is “Bloody Mary”, easily the scariest episode of this first season and, based on the nose dive that the formula takes after season 1, probably the entire series. Maybe it’s that the Bloody Mary legend was one that really got me as a kid, maybe it’s just that I don’t do so hot with ghosts, but guys this episode still made me turn on all the lights and avoid all my mirrors. I accidentally turned this episode on at 9pm and regretted it immediately. I walked away at one point to go clean my kitchen to strategically miss some of the spookier points and I walked back in during an even spookier point. I was mad that there were no commercials at the commercial break cut-to-black! The first time I watched this episode, I’m pretty sure I watched it through my fingers. This most recent viewing, I ALSO watched it through my fingers. Guys, THIS EPISODE. 

I will say it a-hecking-gain: This episode scared the SHIT out of me.

AND THEN, THEN! Then this show has the gall to go ahead and drop a major season/character plot point right there in the middle of all this content that I am actively trying not to look at: SURPRISE! Sam has premonition powers and sorta kinda knew that his girlfriend was gonna die a terrible death weeks before she dies. Because sure, why not? 

Ohmiglob the DRAMA.

I’m gonna take a moment to say that, yes, technically this piece of plot gets dropped within our first six episodes, so we can still safely say that, you know, they’re still setting up the story for the rest of the series. It’s not like a sudden twist they drop half way through the season, it’s being laid down as ground work. And I know that this turns out to be a MAJOR issue for the next four seasons at least, but can I just say: Kripke, you’re really throwing a lot at us. I mean, OK. here’s what we’ve got - 

The Winchester’s lost their mom at a young age to some evil thing. Cool, got it.

THEN they have daddy issues with C-minus Single Dad John Winchester. Alright, that seems logical. 

The brothers hunt bad guys looking for the thing that killed their mom. Ok still on board. 

There’s family drama, relatable. 

Dad’s gone missing and we gotta find, ok ok ok. 

Also Sam’s girlfriend dies in a fire, alright, so we’re looking for that thing now too. 

OH! And now Sam has magic powers. 

I mean, it’s a lot, right? We got a lot of layers here. That’s all I’m sayin.

So “Bloody Mary”, right? Big episode, big bad guy, they kinda loophole their way into defeating her but I’m not mad. Big reveal at the end, so kind of an important lore episode. And then...well...then we get the following episodes:

“Skinwalker” - gross-out fx, establishes Dean as a lonely asshole with a lot of APB’s out on him

“The Hook Man” - takes the Urban Legend angle of the show and dials it up to 11

“Bugs” - Does what it says on the tin.

Now to be fair: all three of these episodes have at least ONE shining moment that reveals a little more about the characters we’re working with, and that character development plays out in important ways in the rest of the season/series. But all three of them are arguably---

FILLER EPISODES-ODES-ODES-ODESSssssssss. 

Alright, maybe that’s unkind. Maybe we should call them standalones or self-contained. A Filler is an episode designed to “fill out” your season. It doesn’t necessarily move the overarching story of the season forward, although it may contain some concepts or revelations that are important later. I’d argue that Supernatural has only ever had two kinds of episodes - Series Arc and Filler. Not that that’s a bad thing -  I like a filler episode now and again. Depending on how heavy your season gets (and by all accounts Supernatural gets pretty heavy), they can be a nice breath of fresh air - also known as a Breather Episode. Or they can be just for fun. I’mma reference “Once More with Feeling” again because sure, why not throw in a musical episode in season 6 of a show about vampire slaying, that’s fine. I wanna reference something from Community here too, but honestly anything after season 2 could probably be called filler or self contained, so who even knows. I’ll point at the Voltron episode where they spend a day in the mall to gather some unobtainium for the ship and wacky shenanigans ensue. Point being, they can be times to break the mold and experiment and have fun with what you’re writing. Or they can be ridiculous nonsense. Mileage may vary. 

The crazy thing about these episodes is that they most closely resemble what Kripke intended the show to be in the first place. Kripke wanted a show that revolved around characters investigating American urban legends. What is more quintessentially urban legend than Bloody Mary, the Hook Man and curses from ancient Native American burial grounds? These were stories that I as the viewer was already sort of familiar with because I’d heard of all of them before. What I appreciated, specifically about the Bloody Mary episode, was that they a) acknowledge the fact that these are Urban Legends (capital letters and all) and then b) acknowledge that the legends vary wildly so a part of their job is figuring out what is true and what is rumor. I guess you could also call that a cop out but when I was a kid, I was told that Bloody Mary was the ghost of Queen Mary of England who was sister to Elizabeth I and was also violently anti-protestant. WHERE did I get this story? I have no idea. But I also have no idea where Sam got the “mutilated bride” story from either. 

In an old article I found circa season 2, Kripke actually talks about preferring standalone content to mythology/lore episodes in television. Both as a creator and as a viewer, he wants a show where people can jump in at any time and “join the party” wherever they are. That’s the beauty of procedurals - you don’t need to start from the beginning to enjoy them.

But what really got me personally hooked on the show was the mythology, was the season long arc to find John Winchester and whatever killed their mom. Those mythos episodes were where the meat of the show was for me - it usually involved a lot of feelings and a lot of character development which is still mostly my jam. If I’m obsessively watching a show, it’s because I’m connected to the characters and watching them struggle through the challenges in their path, not because I want to see what monster they kill next. 

And again, I’ll reiterate that each of these episodes contains an important nugget of character. In “Bloody Mary”, easily the least likely to be called Filler, we find out that Sam has weird magic powers that are the real source of his guilt over Jessica’s death. 

In “Skin”, we find out a lot about Dean’s inner landscape from the DopppleDeaner, who reveals that Dean is probably most afraid of people leaving him (be still my 19-year-old heart). 

Wasn’t mad about this bit...

Coulda done without this bit tho...

In “Hookman”...alright, you kinda got me on “Hookman”, but we do get the first appearance of the rocksalt shotgun and Sam talks with a girl about her dad issues which is really Sam talking about his own dad issues in the language of tv shows. Also, he maybe starts to move on from Jessica???? It’s unclear, and also a little weird but I guess he’s only 22 and that’s not that far off from 18/19. 

Really, WB?? Sneaking into sorority houses?

And then in “Bugs”, yes, even in “Bugs”, we get juicy little bit of tension between the brothers as they advise some teen boy about family dynamics. The fight shows a lot about what each character feels about their own experiences growing up the way they did, how they manage the expectations from their own father, and how they believe those family dynamics should exist. I mean I guess you could also argue this is the episode that plants the seed for Wincest, but I don’t really want to go there, let’s not talk about it.

This kid’s like, “This is...not a conversation about me and MY dad, is it?”

So they could be worse. I mean the last two definitely aren’t great, and we’ll see how they measure up to the Monster Truck episode later in the season, but they’re not bad episodes. 

So let’s flash forward to Now again - have we seen the end of Filler Episodes?

As I have mentioned in previous posts and will probably continue mentioning in future posts, the 22 episode season is not the norm anymore. A lot of articles I’ve read point to Breaking Bad as the first American show to really break that mold. Breaking Bad released only 7 episodes in it’s first season in 2007. When you’ve cut your story down that much, there’s no room for filler - you’re basically producing a 7 hour movie. 

Now notice I said American TV show. I’m pretty sure for most of the rest of the world, 22 episodes is way outside the norm, but really I can only speak to UK TV. Seasons in the UK do not last as long as seasons in America. Doctor Who, one of, if not the, longest running show on BBC, aired its first season with 42 episodes, which is mind boggling. But since the series revived in 2005, it hasn’t had more than 13 episodes in a season. Spooks/MI5 never had more than 10 episodes. The IT Crowd only aired 6 episodes per season. Broadchurch had only 8. And because I must complete the Superwholock trifecta, Sherlock seasons were only 3 episodes a piece. These are the shows that spring to mind while I’m writing this, but you get the idea.

So why does American broadcast TV have such long seasons? Well, the answer is: moneymoneymoney.

We live in an age of “prestige” TV. Some throw around “Golden Era”, but there’s been like, a Golden Era of television every 10 years since tv’s became household commodities, so that phrase basically means nothing. TV today is more similar to long-form film making than it was a decade ago. We associate terms like “film” with other terms like “art”, and sometimes we forget that television is, and always was, a business. It’s a business that’s making a lot of money entertaining you for hours on end, but a business nonetheless. I’d argue that it doesn’t mean it’s not art, but I don’t think we can separate the art and entertainment value of tv from its actual monetary value. 

Strategically, the 22-episode season was to get a show to a magical number of total episodes - 100. Once you hit the 100th episode, somewhere around season 5 (thanks math), then you can sell the show in syndicated reruns. This is also referred to as second-run syndication or off-network syndication. When a show is syndicated, that means the production company that produces the show can now sell the right to air episodes to other channels. Think channels like TBS or TNT or even USA Network - they don’t really dabble in producing their own content, they just repackage content from other networks to plug in to empty slots in their programming. And because these channels can air episodes 5 days a week, 365 days a year, that means the production company can actually make more money by selling the show in syndication than when they sold the show to the primary network. The more episodes you have in a season, the faster you get to syndication, and sometimes that means a show that’s on the brink of cancellation due to poor numbers may still get greenlit for another season or two if they’re closer to that magic 100th episode. For a show like Supernatural, that has a very procedural, not-super-heavy-mythos, structure, you can do very well in syndication. Just cuz another network agreed to air your show doesn’t mean they agreed to air it in order, so procedurals work better in syndication than your season-arc shows do. And that’s why we have episodes like Bugs, that have nothing to do with the overarching plot of the season and also phone in some questionable CGI. 

Apparently they DID use real bugs to shoot this scene and everyone got bit to hell but the bugs didn’t show up good and they went with CG anyway?!?

But these days, you don’t have to hit 100 episodes. Sometimes only 80 episodes will do. Sometimes, you run a streaming site and you don’t have to worry about reruns at all because your revenue isn’t generated from air time or even ads, but from subscription prices. Honestly, when you think of it that way, it makes way more sense to greenlight shorter seasons so that you have the budget to buy more and more diverse shows that will appeal to a broader audience of viewers. 

So if Supernatural was produced today, would we get these off-shoot, self-contained episodes that have little to do with the plot of finding Sam and Dean’s dad? It’s hard to say. Knowing what I do about Kripke’s original plans for the show and his thoughts on procedural standalone episodes in general, its possible that he’d still try for a traditional season aired on a traditional TV network. But in that same interview I quoted above, he also mentions that the only way to get into a show with a heavy mythos is to buy the DVDs. We don’t need DVDs anymore - we have Netflix. And Hulu and Prime and any number of other streaming services that pick up any show they can get just to have a larger library of content and attract new viewers. I think a good indicator of what Supernatural would look like if it aired today is Hulu’s Helstrom - a show about two siblings with a childhood marked by strange and terrible happenings, who spend the season trying to defeat an evil demon. This show is a Hulu original that dropped all 10 episodes on October 16, 2020, and damn if that doesn’t sound familiar. I told a friend, “it’s like Supernatural but more emotions.” (Her response was, MORE emotions?!?!?) And before you dive down the rabbit hole, the characters in Helstrom made their debut in a Marvel comic back in the 70’s, so you can just chalk it up to nothing new under the sun. 

Big Mood, guys. Big Mood.

I’ll close this one by reiterating I don’t mind a filler episode. Some fillers can be weird and great and wonderful. I’d say “Tales of Ba Sing Se” (Avatar the Last Air Bender, Season 2)  is a great example - with the possible exception of Appa, the vignettes presented in “Tales” are basically side quests that have nothing to do with the main quest of season 2 and only serve to develop characters. The stories are sweet and touching and also light and fun.

I’m not crying, YOU’RE crying! It’s ok, I’m also crying. 

 And the longer a show runs, the more likely you are to run into these fillers - episodes that take a break from the main action to bring something that’s new and out of the box and possibly/probably writers getting bored with the every-day formula of the show. I think season 1 of Supernatural does a decent job of balancing the two styles of episode so that neither gets boring. In fact, I’m pretty Supernatural was what taught me the difference between the two episode styles in the first place. And the first time around, I was hyped for those season arc episodes, because back in the late 2000’s, I hadn’t seen a lot of TV content like that. Now, 15 years on and mired in a sea of seasons that stick mainly to a season arc story with little to no room for breathing, I think that if all TV became nothing but season arc episodes...well, it’d get pretty boring. 

[porchwood]

Hi just so I understand cause i keep waiting for it and it doesnt seem likely to happen have you kind of fallen out of love with wtm? and everlark in general tbh? cause ive been following you for a while now and you always had lil quotes and pictures and things that reminded you inspired you whatever it was about katniss and wtm and now alllll it is is gadge i followed you because personally i love what you did with everlark and im just wondering if thats gone and not foreseeable any time soon?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to answer this… It’s afair question - to a point. If you’re more of a drop-in person (like me) thanlive-on-the-dash, coming back to find my blog awash in Gadge might have beenquite upsetting. There are several reasons for the current state of things:

1. Life has been driving me into the ground since December26, 2013. (Yes, going on six straight years.) If you were a WtM reader from thebeginning, you may recall that I was pretty energetic and prolific in 2012-2013.Oh, there were tough times, but nothing like what started on the aforementioneddate (a car accident where I was in the “bystander” vehicle and it still got totaled)and has continued relentlessly ever since. Sometimes adversity leads to greatcreativity and sometimes it turns you into a depressed, exhausted, reclusivelump, and the past 5+ years have seen periods of both from me. These past 18months have been exceptionally awful (and expensive), resulting in very littlewriting at all, about any pairing.

2. Writing WtM takes a lot out of me. I don’t know whether thisis common knowledge or not, but it’s the gospel truth. I love that world, Ilove that version of Everlark, but every chapter requires so much hard work, itmakes me tired just to think of it. Not to mention, over the past couple of chaptersEverlark have been pushing for more intimacy than the plot/timeline allows, andso I’ve been struggling with how I want to handle that. Do I fight them andstick to the plan? (I can’t advance the timeline for several reasons.) Do I tryto figure out a cheat for them? They’ve got minds of their own and have changedmy plans multiple times, but this is something they genuinely can’t have, and Ihave to fight them on it. ☹ Which is sad, frustrating, and exhausting.

3. I’m a multi-pairing shipper, and have been from about 3chapters into WtM. Which means that my Everlark fics almost always feature asecondary pairing (or more than one), and sometimes I’ll get a plot bunny for afic about a pairing other than Everlark. Most writers in the THG fandom exclusivelywrite their OTP, whatever the plot bunny, but I find that some plot bunnies don’tfit Everlark as well as they do another pairing. (This is why I’ll never write aBeauty and the Beast Everlark fic unless Katniss is the “Beast,” if you will.)

4. The Everlark fandom is…tricky. I’ve never fit in there. Idon’t write Everlark the way the majority of fans see them (except for Peetabeing “sweet,” I guess), I hated the movies (I refuse to see MJ 1 or 2), and I’vemanaged to really rub some people the wrong way over the years –unintentionally, and for a variety of reasons – all of which leaves me feeling kinda down about Everlark in general. Don’t misunderstand me: I love Everlarkand WtM, but it’s really isolating to be this sad little island of unpopularopinions and unwelcome side-ships. That’s the part I really wish I could makeyou understand. For six years I’ve had Christopher Plummer in my head saying, “You’llnever be one of them,” and he’s so, cruelly, right. I want to cry every time Ithink of Embracing the Season (my E-rated Everlark modern AU oneshot for Lovein Panem - lots of daring for me!) because I poured heart and soul into that andit still wasn’t the Everlark that people wanted.

5. About a year and a half ago (when Strawberry Time reallytook off of its own accord) I participated in Gadge Day 2017, working my buttoff to find and schedule (and tag) over 100 carefully chosen Gale/Madge/Gadge aestheticposts, and for lack of a better way to say it: it turned on my Gadge-dar. After that, thosekinds of posts just leapt out at me whenever I had a chance to scroll, and forseveral months I wasn’t sure what to do with that. With a little encouragementfrom @ghtlovesthg, I came up with #march madgeness – wherein I turned my Tumblrinto Madge/Gadge-land for one month, and it was a blast. (Side-stepping Gadgefor a moment: Madge is a highly underappreciated and underused character,especially in fic/on Tumblr and I love splashing the dash with Madge-love.) Thenext month I launched a run of pent-up Everlark posts (i.e., regularprogramming), but I missed my Madge, so I instituted #madge monday – one day aweek when I could splash the dash with Madge/Gadge. At every juncture I gavepeople tags to block if they didn’t want to see this content (though I stillget unfollows every time I post, alas). I participated in last summer’s THG Reread– on the fringe of it, but my posts (reblogs and meta) were strongly Everlark-focusedagain during that time. So there’s definitely still been Everlark on my blog,but if you’re just dropping in (or for that matter, glancing at my archive), you’regoing to see a majority of Madge/Gadge.

6. Frankly, Gadge is fun. It’s a completely different dynamicthan Everlark, with less pressure to create something transcendent, and whenthe chips are down, I’m more likely to work on something that isn’t my six-years-runningopus. This spring, in the midst of lots of awfulness, I finally wrote a piecethat I’ve had in my head for years – The Best Part of Waking Up – with a differentpairing featured in each drabble “chapter,” including Gadge, Luka/Johanna (whoI’ve been wanting to put out there for AGES) and Jack/Raisa. I haven’t beenable to write quickly in years, and I think I finished those three “chapters”in about two days, maybe three. I completed the Raisa drabble in a couple ofhours and I consider it one of the best things I’ve ever written. (Honestly, ifa pairing was going to topple Everlark in my heart, it would be Jack/Raisa, i.e.,Mr. Everdeen/Mrs. Mellark. I love them to distraction.) Once upon a time I could drabble/sprint Everlark too – notoften, but I could manage it. Maybe it’ll happen again someday, but for thetime being, when I write in quick eager bursts, it’s usually about aside-pairing.

7. Because I just need to say it: about a year ago, I set up a secondary Tumblr for almost all my side-interests and ships outside of THG. When I first joined Tumblr, porchwood was just a fun page where I posted whatever struck my fancy (pretty things, funny things, whatever I liked), and over the next few years, I honed it into a pretty “writer’s notebook” for WtM and my other THG fics (related quotes, aesthetic posts, writing check-ins, etc.). When Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out, I shared a handful of posts pertaining to a new ship (not a new direction for my blog or writing, just sharing my excitement) and it was made very clear to me that people didn’t want to see that content on my page. So when I started watching Voltron: Legendary Defender, I had a sneaking suspicion people wouldn’t want to hear about those ships either. So I started an entirely new Tumblr for that content, and every so often I accidentally post something to the wrong page, which I immediately correct in horror, but people still unfollow. Point being: this blog is THG (and a few personal life updates) ONLY, with a pretty consistent aesthetic. I hide literally everything else that I’m interested in so you don’t have to be bothered by it. Is it really so unacceptable for me to have side-ships (complementary to the main pairing, not threatening to them) in the same universe??

8. Believe it or not, I’ve been working on WtM all along,just not making any massive strides. I tried to chip away at the current chapterduring Camp Nanowrimo last July, and it was a disaster. I thought joining awriting group would be helpful, but I didn’t realize that Camp Nano is basicallya lot of writing sprints in which you try to churn out as many words aspossible, which you then report to your “cabin” – and that’s the onlyinteraction with your fellow writers. I can’t write like that anymore (seeabove) and especially not when it comes to WtM, so I got discouraged veryquickly and sort of drifted away. I reattempted Nano on my own in April and wrotealmost 15K words, but in that instance I was really just using the Nano platform toset and reach a goal (which I didn’t ☹ ); I wasn’t in a cabin and didn’t interact with anyother writers, except my friend @ghtlovesthg, who read the finished portion.

9. I want to finish this dang chapter so much, and frankly, theonly way that’s going to happen is if life gets a little better and I holemyself up with my laptop for hours on end for weeks at a time – and somemagical being comes to support/cheer/comfort me while I do so. It’s currentlysitting at about 25K and I anticipate it will need to be at least double that,which is beyond ridiculous, but that’s the nature of WtM. The chapters are asmany words as it takes.

TL, DR: I still love Everlark and I’m still working on WtM, but my life has been extremely difficult for a very long time and I don’t have a great Everlark lifeline. Gadge and all my other ships are fun, and most of the Gadge you see on my Tumblr is aesthetic stuff for themed days/months/occasions. Anything non-THG goes on my sideblog.

[smartcookie727]

Fanfic Writer Meme

Tagged by: @xambedo​​  💕💕💕

Tagging: @whereisthefood123​, @theolddarkmachine​, @snowmadien​

Ao3 name: smartcookie727 (also on FFnet...I’m not terribly imaginative once I land on something)

Fandoms: Fairy Tail, Voltron Legendary Defender, Boku no Hero Academia, Eden’s Zero, MXTX Novels (TGCF, MDZS, SVSSS), and now Haikyuu!! as of my binge last weekend

Number of fics: About 30 distinct ones (and at least as many in my drafts I gotta have like 15k at minimum in drafts rn as I explore multi ideas) all on tumblr, AO3, and FFnet

1. Fic you spent the most time on: Probably “Precious Time” (my one and only Jerza fic so far). I’m pretty sure that one was in the oven for at least like 3-5 months. I wrote it for my twinsie Carly and wanted everything to be like absolutely on point cause she wanted some Jerza and I wanted to write them well. That or “Malibu Kisses” (the last fic I published wow almost a year ago) I swear I rewrote that like 3x before I landed on the version I kept over a period of maybe 5-6 months. It’s ridiculously detailed and literally the longest oneshot I’ve ever written at a whopping wet and wild 7k adventure of feels. 

2. Fic you spent the least time on: Probably “Tears” (my first Bixanna fic) I think I wrote that in like an hour after watching my friend play a horror game and was the one time I ever took prompts cause I was too afraid to go to sleep even after at least 2 Disney movies. It’s soft and fluffy and my dear friend Kelly wanted some Bixanna and I just ran wild with it.

3. Longest fic: Oneshot: “Malibu Kisses” at 7k, Series: “Forever Mine” at 15-20k depending on if I ever uploaded like one extra fic for it.

4. Shortest fic: “Stay”, “To All the Stars in Her Eyes” and “Desperate Words” are the only ones I have under 1k lmaoooo

5. Most hits: “Forever Mine” series at 7.5k views on FFnet. It was literally my “every day of lovefest” fic

6. Most kudos: “Hiccups” on AO3 (my one and only Nalu fic so far where I did a modern AU and somehow predicted events from the last chapter of the series) with 110 kudos or “Stamina” on FFnet (which was my loooong smexy gajevy fic) with 97 favs. It’s interesting how the numbers for different ships differ on both sites.

7. Most comment threads: “Burn” on AO3. The Sheith fandom is definitely the most vocal and persistent about writing comments or reviews about my fics on either of those websites. And that one was a crazy hot indulgent mess. 

8. Fave fic you wrote: I don’t think I have a favorite? All the ideas I love a lot right now are from multis that are still cooking. But know if the fic gets published, it means I really enjoyed it. Otherwise it would just happily sit in my drafts as a few paragraphs and a silly title!

9. Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: I still wanna go back to “Starfarers” and give my Eden’s Zero flavored Gajevy the rest of their story. There’s at least half a prequel in....you guessed it! my drafts.

10. Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning:

With a grunt, he regained his footing and stumbled out the door and down the hall, straight to the nearest restroom. Locking it behind him, Shiro slid down to the ground and buried his head in the crook of his elbows. 

Fantastic crashes were starting to become something of a brand for him, and it needed to stop. That or he needed to switch his studies to film and put this universal constant to good use. Leaning his head back, he rested against the door. Probably not the smartest thing to do; he’d taken microbiology on a dare his junior year and could list a few too many species of microorganisms that were likely there. Well, it wasn’t the first less than intelligent decision he’d made that day--he’d probably fucked up whatever small chance he’d had with lane three, bolting like that--so what did he care about a few rogue micrococci. 

Carefully, Shiro counted his breathing until his pulse slowed. At least he could still do something properly. What had he been thinking? Jumping into a pool, giving a stranger CPR, headbutting him then ghosting. Shiro was pretty sure he didn’t have a single working brain cell left. That had to be it. Maybe he could get the doctors to change his meds; this had to be attributed to some sort of chemical crossfire. 

You’ve been on these meds just fine for months, idiot. You know chemicals. There’s a framed paper above your desk that says you do. Whatever decrease in brain cell functionality you have has more to do with the chemicals inspired by deep purple eyes and soft lips rather than your pills. 

Shiro groaned. They had been so soft. Softer than he’d even imagined. Shiro had wanted to kiss them until he forgot what it felt like to breathe. However, he was a whole 6’3” of strange man with a robotic arm, and breathlessness like that required both parties’ consent. Still. He’d remember the feeling of it for a long time. Heat started to climb into his cheeks again. Shiro slapped it away. Walking over to the sink, he splashed water on his face. He needed to cool down. No one needed to know how inspiring the encounter had been. 

[sol1056]

the bar was already so damn low it was practically underground

Well, I guess I’ll start with this quick correction, with thanks to @jeannettegray, who pointed out I mixed up days (for S1-S6) and weeks (S7) which would explain why it felt wonky when I was looking at it. Here’s the corrected chart of time in-the-tail versus not-in-tail: 

I included S8 in this version, but without a season coming after it, the only thing to track is the tail itself... and unless something truly wild happens between now and tomorrow, we’re already out of the tail. S4 and S5 had tails lasting 14 days each. I guess S8 isn’t the worst, since its tail looks likely to be 17 days. Yay, three more days of elevated viewership than the two worst seasons. 

Unfamiliar with the expression ‘long tail’? Here’s a reference image showing the rise and fall of a season’s viewership stats. More info in this S7 post, or you can just check my data-cronch tag. 

Or for a more pointed visual, here’s the past six months: S6, SDCC, S7, and S8... the last of which shoots up and comes right back down. Like a rock. 

For S7, I included IMDB rankings per season, and the range was wide enough I had to take good/average/bad and split it into four: great, good, okay, poor -- and S7 had more episodes in ‘poor’ than any other. That’s what I mean when I say the bar was so low the damn thing was underground... and yet amazingly, S8 utterly failed to hop over it.  

In fact, S8 did worse. Much worse.

viewer feedback via IMDB

Here’s all eight seasons, with their respective episodes averaged into each season’s value. It’s... well. Look for yourself.

For comparison, I also did a breakout, where the full seasons got split into 6 and 7, so we're comparing apples to apples with S3-S6 split seasons. The  pattern is pretty consistent, between first-half and second-half, in that the season-half (or half-season) with the ‘finale’ is usually the one with the higher score. People like big finale set pieces, and those tend to get highest ratings. 

Unless, of course, you’re season 8. Then people hate you. 

S1, S2, S5/S6 (as a two-part season), even S7, all have higher ratings for the finale-containing half. And then there’s S8. I usually try to avoid a word as strong as hate, but... there’s really no other word that fits when the difference is that stark. People really, truly hated S8, in case the Rotten Tomatoes score wasn’t enough to tell you that. 

Given the scores for S8, I had to create a new, even lower level to see how the seasons broke out in terms of ratings per episode. Now we have great (green), good (blue), okay (yellow), poor (red), and... terrible (maroon). 

Yeah. So. There you go. Remember when I said last season that The Voltron Show had lost its title as worst episode ever, unseated by the Feud? 

Well, the Feud has been unseated... by ten episodes in S8. Take your pick, there’s plenty to choose from. As of the time of this posting, the current three worst episodes are The Zenith (5.2), Uncharted Regions (5.3) and Clear Day (5.5). I’d list the ten worst but then I’d just be listing all but three episodes from S8, anyway. 

However, it’s interesting to see the pattern form when you put the split-seasons back together. You can see how in some ways, there’s a certain level of audience approval gradually building, I guess as people got used to the story’s vagaries, err, style.

The number of ‘great’ episodes (8.6 or higher) slowly climbs; the number of ‘okay’ episodes gradually declines. S7 breaks that pattern, with only one ‘good’ episode, a few ‘okay’ and the rest at poor. S8, well. Yeah. 

Okay, moving along, to the IMDB traffic. This is another viewership-style stat, since a site’s page tends to get hit the most when people want to know about the show they’re watching. 

The color-dot indicates the ranking for the week of release. S6′s biggest interest was the week it released, which tells me people were going direct to IMDB on the day of release or the next day. When that happens, it seems to correlate with viewers coming to rate every episode, often with a strongly positive slant. They want to get right in there and make their happiness known. 

S7, the leap upwards came a week later, and the utter wildness of the rating (plus the delay) seems to be related more to rubbernecking and controversy, rather than viewers reporting in. S8 not only debuted lower than the previous two seasons, it also had a delayed reaction (indicating more controversy)... and it dropped right back down, in one of the biggest post-peak drops I’ve seen yet.

viewer feedback via twitter

About six hours after S8 appeared on Netflix, I caught this sentiment analysis of the twitter stream for ‘voltron’ as a keyword. This is from midnight California time (point of release) to about 6am California time.

This is the tracker where I can’t review sentiment, and judging from the other tracker I use, the negative is higher... but more negative than positive is never good, no matter the totals. 

Twelve hours after release, I checked the other tracker. Traffic overall was pretty low compared to previous seasons (and nowhere near what S7 had prompted, not even in the same county). Sentiment was running about 3:1 negative --- that is, for every for-VLD tweet, there were three against. 

(If it makes anyone feel better, #Allura was the center of the maelstrom, with Shiro a not-quite-close second. No, despite the impression on tumblr, people weren’t sitting back and accepting Allura’s fate.) 

But seriously, the response was otherwise pretty subdued. This is a general traffic pattern + predictive, for #voltron as of two days after release:

Which is pretty much... nothing at all. If I didn’t know better, I’d think no season had been released at all. It shouldn’t look that flat when a season drops, and it sure as hell shouldn’t be predicted to fall within the week. 

And back to the sentiment analysis, showing the trends over the first week and a half after release. It’s continued to fall in a semi-regular pattern, so this is a fair-enough idea of what it looks like. (It hasn’t changed much; it just keeps gradually dropping.) 

24 hours after release, negative-to-positive was nearly 1:1; since then, it’s stayed pretty consistent with two positive tweets for every one negative. Which, okay, you might say, two-thirds of people expressing an opinion seem to be somewhat okay with things, right? 

Except I think there might only be like a few hundred of them. I mean, the peak up there, of total mentions? Maybe 1200, total. Sure, it’s great that 510 people had something nice to say while 498 were unhappy, but... that’s practically three people in an empty auditorium, if you go by twitter’s usual traffic levels. 

And no one’s sticking around, either. Once again there was a post-release bump thanks to the simmering controversy... and then everyone hung up the phone, left the building, went on vacation, but they sure checked out. 

That leap upwards? That’s not the week of release. That’s the week after. The week of release (second bar from the right) is flat for just a bit, before spiking upwards. And just like the wiki-extrapolated viewership stats, it falls promptly afterwards. Like a rock. 

(I so want to crack a joke about rocks fall, everyone dies, but... #TooSoon?) 

There’s one last chart to explore, but this one’s a bit of a doozy to explain. Once you see what it’s saying, though, hopefully you’ll find it as interesting (and illuminating) as I do. I’ll leave it here for everyone to ponder, and get into it in the final S8 installment. 

Coming in the next few days.

[supercasey]

So I watched Batman Ninja with my buddy Jason the other night...

Under a readmore because I'm screaming and y'all normal people don't need to see this shitshow.

So, like, to begin with; the animation is gorgeous- I will in no way try to deny that- and does a lot of cool things with the art style. You can tell a lot of work went into this movie, and while I personally find it so bad that it's funny, I'm not gonna shit on anyone who likes this film more seriously. (Also, I'm gonna shit on the outfits a lot, so sorry if that comes off as unintentionally racist. I am white and stupid.)

However, other than that... What the shit??? Was that??? I'm still reeling 48 hours later.

The basic plot of this wild ass movie (that I could figure out): Gorilla Grodd has built a time machine so he can go back in time and rule over Feudal Japan and change history (it never really specifies why he chose Japan of all places but go off, DC). He brings Deathstroke (my fav obviously), The Penguin, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, and The Joker + Harley Quinn (because if you want your plans to work you should absolutely bring in the disaster piece of shit that is The Joker).

Also Catwoman is here but from what I can tell it was accidental on her part/I think she's the one who fucked up the time machine??? Unclear.

So everyone goes to the past, including Batman, Alfred, and all the Robins (Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, and Damian Wayne as Robin) (none of the girls but let's be honest, I think they dodged a fucking bullet).

Batman ends up behind everyone else during the time traveling??? Not really explained, but now everyone has been in Japan for two years and Catwoman has depression.

Okay onto me rambling:

They have this scene where every villain gets a title card/one-liner, and everyone else but Deathstroke gets a line that fits their shtick. I feel like they had no idea what to do for a pun/joke, so there's just a literal pause then "... Yeah :)" from Deathstroke. I straight up scream-laughed so fucking hard.

All the Robins look so fucking stupid except for Tim. Nightwing looks like Goku, Red Hood has the tallest bucket on his head I've ever seen, and Damian's hair... good fucking lord.

Also, Damian is completely out of character. The people making this movie, I think, have never read a comic with Damian, and just made him into "annoyingly happy child character that is annoying as all fuck and talks to animals for no reason except Baby" and let me tell you, I got such whiplash from seeing that. Also Damian and Red Hood are apparently voiced by the same guy and my buddy Jason is freaking out about it lmao.

Joker's fucking UGLY next question.

Harley sounds low-key annoying in this film but that might just be me... feels like a lot of people who try to voice her make their voices as high-pitched as possible and it's very grating after awhile.

There's an amnesia plot??? Where Harley and Joker get amnesia after a boat fire??? Red Hood beats the fuck out of them and while I feel bad for Harley, fuck Joker, he can die. They get their memories back by seeing a plant... that looks like Joker's face... as my boy Deathstroke would say: "... Yeah."

There's a clan of Batman ninjas from the past and, tbh, they look pretty fucking cool and I thought they were a really neat concept. Doesn't excuse the bat ghost thing.

OH GOD THE ENDING FIGHT

Through a series of unfortunate events, Gorilla Grodd and all the other villains start fighting each other in giant mechas in order to decide who will rule Japan because of course they do.

My favorite parts from the villain fights:

Two-Face's robot is the shit of nightmares. At one point Deathstroke and Grodd are going at it, Two-Face gets between them, then FLIPS A COIN FOR WHO HE'LL BEAT ON (very in-character I guess but I was still screeching). Btw, he chooses to attack Grodd, and Slade just stands back like "... Yeah :)"

Can you tell that I'm not over that stupid line yet?

PENGUIN HAS SEMI-SENTIENT PENGUINS WORKING ON THE INSIDE OF HIS ROBOT WTF!?!? WHERE DID HE GET THEM!?

Poison Ivy is beautiful, next question.

Okay, back to everything in general:

Grodd reveals that he has been low-key mind controlling all of the other villains this entire time, and that he's the one who made everyone build giant robots. He attempts to take full control of everyone, but Joker does instead. This is maybe the most sane part of this entire goddamn movie.

ALL OF THE ROBOTS MORE OR LESS FORM VOLTRON, LADS!!!

So now our heroes (Batman, the Batsquad, and the Batclan) need to take on this giant robot... so what's a boy to do? Well, if you're Damian Wayne in this movie, you get a magic flute from Grodd after he nearly dies for you, and with the help of your baby monkey friend, summon an army of millions of monkeys that form a giant monkey.

This is a Batman movie. Just thought I'd remind y'all of that.

At first it doesn't work, but don't worry! Another monkey (wearing a pink bow to remind us that she's a girl and the other monkey's love interest) comes and helps Damian play the flute better so the monkeys are better.

Monkeys still aren't enough, so with the power of bats and probably a lot of weed being smoked, the bats that came out of literally nowhere form a giant Batman to punch Voltron.

(Side note: they destroy the arm that Deathstroke was controlling so I don't know why he isn't dead. Never explained. He isn't even really hurt!!!)

The Robins enter Voltron to fight the villains because Joker loses control of everyone: Nightwing vs Penguin, Red Hood vs Deathstroke, and I forget the other match-ups, but nothing matters except that Red Hood walking up to Deathstroke and saying "Tell you what... I'll let you take the first shot" was badass and the best part of the movie.

Too bad we didn't get full fights scenes between everyone 🙃

Batman nearly died??? But lived??? I was so lost at this point and probably should've been paying better attention, but I was too busy trying to convince myself this wasn't a fever dream.

They got back to the present and everyone lived happily ever after, the end :)

Notes: I'm sure I missed some shit but Jesus fucking Christmas, it was a wild ride from start to finish. It was, like, not that great storytelling wise, but it was so bad it was funny??? It was the "The Room" of Animated Batman films.

Batman is a fucking HIMBO in this movie. I dunno how to exactly explain it, but he makes so many stupid ass decisions throughout the movie, it's so funny. When he's trying to blend in with the townsfolk HE LITERALLY CUTS HIS HAIR TO HAVE THE BATSYMBOL ON THE TOP OF HIS FUCKING HEAD!!! WHO APPROVED THIS MOVIE!?!?

I have decided that Deathstroke didn't die because trans rights. Is he canon trans? Well, he is in my heart.

Jason Todd's voice actor did a great job with him, tbh I wish he had been more prominent in the movie.

I literally forgot Tim and Dick were there most of the time they were so unneeded in the plot.

I hated Damian but whatever.

I honestly did enjoy the movie, but probably not for the reasons the creators wanted me to. Again, nothing against the creators, but this was such an odd movie for 90% of it's run time.

7/10 would watch again, if only because it was so funny and nonsensical.

Ratings all together:

Animation: 10/10

Voice Acting: 7/10

Story (If taken seriously): 2/10

Story (if not serious): 8/10

All together; watch this if you're a Batman fan that feels like having a hilarious time and doesn't mind seeing your favorite characters be OOC or doing weird shit. I feel like this movie is best enjoyed on call/while hanging out with friends.

[dragonofyang]

ABTV Mar 4 Transcript

A full transcript of the ABTV Voltron March 4 interview with JDS and LM is below the cut. Special thanks to @voltronisruiningmylife for helping me get it done since it was a monster to transcribe.

@felixazrael @crystal-rebellion @leakinghate

Vrepit Sa!

KC: It’s been a very long road, and here we are at the end of it. We are the Afterbuzz TV Voltron: Legendary Defender after-show and this is our series retrospective. We are--we’re gonna talk about character arcs. We’re gonna talk about stories. We’re gonna talk with some very special guests, and we are, as always, going to have a wonderful time tonight because within the next two hours we are finishing this up and then the Tavern of Lions will be closing its doors for good. So, thank you for joining us for this incredible episode and for this incredible ride, and for the very last time team, it’s time to form Voltron.

Voice overlay: You’re tuned into Afterbuzz TV, the ESPN of TV talk. Now let the buzz begin.

MS: I’m not crying, you’re crying.

KC: We’re all crying. Everyone’s crying. It’s fine, everything’s fine! Hi. Happy Monday.

MS: Happy Monday, everybody, yeah.

KC: Welcome to the end of the universe. There’s a restaurant here. Yeah this is what you’re in for the next two hours. Hello, everyone, we are the Afterbuzz TV Voltron: Legendary Defender after-show. This is the series retrospective. This is everything. This is it. We are going to talk about it all in summary for the most part, and we’re going to have a grand ol’ time. I have with me tonight green lion Megan Salinas.

MS: Hey, everybody!

KC: Rejoining us this evening, red lion Emma Fyffe!

EF: Hey! It’s nice to be back for just this one, you know, very special, sort of, series retrospective. Thanks for having me.

KC: It is so good to have you back for the wrap party. I am black lion Katie Cullen and we have our two wonderful special guests joining us again this week for the last time. We have our showrunners Joaquim dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery.

All hosts: [cheering]

KC: Welcome back, you lovely human beings, and thank you for giving us this show.

JDS: Oh, please.

LM: Thanks for being fans of it. I think we’ve probably said it 8 billion times, but we loved making the show. We loved how passionate so many of our fans were about the show, and it was just, like, a labor of love and it was us just trying to make something that really spawned from our nostalgia and all of the things that influenced us over the years.

JDS: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s it. It was, you know, we loved this property going back to a time when our brains weren’t able to really process what story was. We just knew, “we like that” and that stayed with us.

EF: It was interesting. Today on Twitter, somebody had tweeted something that was basically a poll of what were the first five anime series you can remember watching. And for me Voltron was definitely one of them, and it’s one of those things where again I was too young to really process what was happening, but I just went, “This is cool! I like this thing!”

MS: Yeah, it came out at a time when you didn’t even know what anime was.

EF: Oh yeah!

MS: And so you’re just like, you’re just like, “this is cool, it’s unique, there are robots, there’s an awesome girl pilot”. And yeah, it was a good--for it’s time-for it’s time it was a fantastic adventure, and I feel like you guys updated that feeling very well.

JDS: Aw, thanks.

KC: It definitely was. This was just a wonderful thing. Before we get started, we have house rules. We always have house rules. Yeah, the spoiler warning is, of course, down because we are talking about literally everything. If you would like to be a part of this conversation, if you’re watching live, hello, welcome to the livechat. There is also our hashtag #ABTVVoltron. And, um yeah, this is going to be a big one, I think, and as always the third, final, and most important house rule is be nice or get out. [laser sound effect] And you say that we’re joking, but, um, those of you that were in livechat before stream were there when we disabled it as a test. And I’ve banned three people already tonight. So, we’re not kidding: be nice or ya gone.

MS: I do have to ask, Josh, where are you getting these sound effects?

EF: I know, right? The sound effects are great!

KC: Oh, they’re wonderful.

Josh: I have a plethora of so many things.

KC: We appreciate your plethora. Josh is our Coran tonight and has been for this entire season and he is absolutely wonderful and we love him. But yeah, everyone has opinions. Please feel free to express your opinion, please feel free to express your opinions in a respectful manner. Respectful to your fellow people in chat, respectful to your hosts, respectful to our guests. And if you fail to be respectful, ya done.

MS: And here’s the thing guys, it is perfectly okay to disagree. It’s okay to disagree with all of us. We don’t speak for the entire fanbase. This is all just only our opinions.

EF: I was gonna say, I don’t think we even all have the exact same opinions.

MS: No, no.

JDS: You embrace those differences.

KC: That’s what makes this show fun. If we all sat down and said “Well, I like this thing!” “Well, me too!” “Me three!” “Me four!” Now let’s fill another 45 minutes. That’s not how this works.

EF: No, definitely. Yeah.

KC: So, yeah. Them’s the rules, ladies and gentlemen. And before we get going, I would like to toast to Voltron.

[MS and EF “aww”]

EF: I have actually not had one of these before.

KC: This is the first time we’ve had the Sendak on Ice on air, and it’s going to be the last time I make one of these because it turns out one of the main ingredients has been out of production since 2016.

EF: Oh, wow.

KC: So, love you guys.

EF: Up high.

[indistinct chattering]

KC: To Voltron!

[drumroll]

[John Cena airhorn meme sound]

EF: Tastes like--it tastes like a Jones soda or something. Like a fancy soda that comes in a glass bottle.

JDS: Yeah, it’s good.

KC: I like ‘em sweet. Straight quintessence shot right to the heart. Alright, let’s get rolling.

EF: Okay.

KC: Let’s pick up where we left off from last week, actually, because there was a big part of the, uh, last episode of season 8 that we didn’t have time to touch on and that’s the epilogues. Now, I actually want to open the floor to you guys ‘cuz I--my understanding is there’s a story behind them? And we’d love to hear it.

JDS: Yeah, there is. Um, so, you know, when we originally conceived of the epilogues, uh, you know, the conceit was that we were gonna do these goofy kind of throwaway things that were, like, I don’t know, catching up with characters that we didn’t, you know.

EF: Oh yeah!

JDS: So we had one that was, was--

EF: Like characters we met in the space mall?

JDS: Yeah, like characters we met in the space mall and what they ended up doing. We had, like--

MS: What’s Kaltenecker up to?

JDS: We had Zethrid, I think, teaching, like, a crossfit class.

LM: Yeah, she had a whole crossfit line.

MS: Oh my gosh!

JDS: And it was cute, and it was fun. Um, and you know, by the time we were sort of crafting that portion, it’s right when we were sort of on the receiving end of the fallout from season 7, specifically the Adam and Shiro stuff.

KC: Sure.

JDS: Which we totally understood, there’s sort of a, you know, a big story that surrounds all that. So we made a decision to sort of, uh, recraft the epilogues to one, I think, include Shiro’s beat, but as a result all the other characters, you know, it would’ve felt--I don’t know--it would’ve felt a little weird if we just done, like, “hey--”

LM: Yeah, silly crossfit Zethrid--

EF: Then Shiro’s wedding! [indistinct] Which everyone was at, too!

JDS: Uh, so, you know, we definitely… They were sort of, Shiro specifically was crafted around the idea that we were attempting to reach out to the fanbase that was affected negatively by--

EF: Sure, absolutely.

JDS: --you know, the storyline between Adam and Shiro. So, uh, you know, I think even as we were doing it, like Lauren and I were looking at each other and we were like, “Some people are gonna hate this. Some people are gonna view this as like, a giant band-aid. Some people are gonna view this as, like, pandering. We knew it. We sort of ran it up the chain, uh, at DreamWorks and, you know, there’s again--we’ll get into the background of all that Adam and Shiro stuff. But thankfully, they were--they were open to allowing us to do it because it really was our way of trying to canonically confirm on screen the sort of vagaries around his orientation.

EF: Yeah, I think that I just sort of wanted to address that right off the bat. Just-just from the point of view, is like, for me as a viewer watching that scene, I did not feel like that scene was pandering. I understand why people might feel that way and might feel like it was a big, giant band-aid, but at the same time, a lot of complaints that people had was, “Well, they didn’t even have any conversations together!” I’m like, “This is supposed to be a couple years later, you guys. It wasn’t--this isn’t like, the day after.”

JDS: Yeah, but I honestly think that ideally, had--had the story been available to us--

EF: Sure.

JDS: --had, had the studio at the time been open to us exploring that, we don’t like to just jam characters together.

EF: No, absolutely.

JDS: Our ideal situation would have been to build that relationship.

EF: Oh, sure, yeah, definitely. Um, yeah, but I-I-I feel like I-I understand the mixed feelings about it, but ultimately I’m appreciative of, like you said, the message of, “Okay, well, we feel like people felt like they weren’t a hundred percent sure that Adam and Shiro were definitely a couple, so like, let’s-let’s really address the fact that-that Shiro, who is your, like, super-manly hero is a gay man,” and-and-and the importance of that shouldn’t be belittled by any stretch of the imagination.

JDS: It shouldn’t, but I, you know, again it’s-it’s sort of like we-we can see this thing from a multifaceted view. So, like, as an outsider, I’ve looked at shows and immediately sort of written it off as, like, “Ah, here we go again.”

Hosts: Yeah, yeah, sure.

JDS: I-I think we totally get it. I think we were hoping that people would be able to kind of read between the lines, and there were certain people that could. And I think we have a relationship with you guys, ya know, we talk and hang out so you guys sort of understand where we stand on the issues. So, um, I think that-that plays into it and, you know, obviously appreciate your understanding. I don’t know.

EF: Why, yeah, as you say, I can’t look at this show without my own biases of knowing you guys and having had conversations with you about, like, the process of making this show.

JDS: That’s right.

EF: So…

JDS: Um, but I think, you know, if you’ll allow us to just go back to the sort of, like, the story point between Adam and Shiro, you know, and this isn’t… I think it’s more emblematic of kind of the state of the industry overall and our specific little nook of animation, which was, we were right in this, like, middle area and-and that goes for us as showrunners and for the show in general. So, we weren’t creator-owned, we weren’t creator-driven--I mean, we were creator-driven in the fact that they allowed us to tell a deep story the way we wanted to--but we don’t-we didn’t create Voltron. You know what I mean? For all intents and purposes, this is, like us taking over something like Transformers.

EF: Sure, one hundred percent.

JDS: So there was only so much leeway we had with the stories that we could tell, and honestly, when the Adam and Shiro storyline was sort of being played out and we were sort of meeting some resistance, you know, Lauren and I kind of looked at each other for a moment and said, like, “How are we gonna handle this? Is this something we, like, bail on? Or, like, what do we do here? Like, do we just, like, up and leave? You know, that really wasn’t an option for us.

EF: Of course not.

JDS: And yeah, but also, you know because we had a crew, just like--

LM: It’s not-it’s not just like, “Oh I can’t afford my mortgage!” You know, we have a crew that we care about we brought onto this show. If we abandoned them, we-we don’t know what’s in store for them. We don’t know, do they get to stay on? Do they get to keep their jobs? Does someone else come on and then they’re working under someone else that they didn’t sign up for? Or--

JDS: Or they’re working under someone else that’s just gonna be like, “Alright, we’re just gonna finish the show and not really do right by the rest of it.” Like--

Hosts: Yeah.

LM: We, regardless of what we could do specifically within the show, we knew that at least we could send the larger thematic message through the show, and so that kind of became our focus.

KC: Sure.

JDS: Right, so to get into the weeds of it just a little bit, our original conception, like our original idea for Adam and Shiro, it’s-it’s similar to what you guys saw play out on-screen. There were differences. They both shared an apartment, the scene that you saw, it didn’t take place in, like, the officer’s lounge. Adam was not a member of the Galaxy Garrison, he was a dude that had a job that looked like a working professional. And they had a conversation that clearly displayed that they loved each other and that the relationship was just sort of coming to an end because Shiro was choosing, you know, the Garrison over their relationship. You know, as we sort of got through the process of premise, script, it went all the way down the line. It got storyboarded. And then at some point, you know, we received pushback from the studio and you know, we were sort of a little confused, like, “hey, how did it go, like, so far down the line before we received pushback?” And you know, this is not like a, like, a vilifying of DreamWorks or anything, like, every exec that we ever interacted with was, it was like, “hey, we understand why you want to tell this story. We understand where you’re coming from. It’s a little bit bigger than that. You know, there’s-there’s other, sort of, controlling parties with Voltron which makes it unique. It’s not just a DreamWorks-owned property.” And it just--I think logistically it just got really, really weird.

EF: Well, and like you were saying, it-it’s not something--it isn’t something that you created, so there were certain limitations in terms of, as you say, like, what, how far you could go with stuff you wanted to do with the story, I think.

JDS: Well, yes, but I mean there’s also a, you know, weird sort of hypocrisy there with that. Like, we’re able to show thousands of characters, you know, basically dying on-screen, [hosts indistinctly shouting over him] but we can’t--

MS: --that planet that-that Lotor was working with being on fire! But two people that love each other--

JDS: It’s inherent hypocrisy, but it’s like, one that’s frustrating for us as creators, but I think when we sort of got, you know, we sort of revised the script, we sort of revised, you know, we tried different avenues and it was clear that it was something that wasn’t available to us. It was a storyline, so we revised it. So we made the revision, we basically-we essentially made them like Goose and Maverick for all intents and purposes. It was like they were, you know--we revised the setting. We revised that--what the nature of their relationship. And as we sort of, like, moved down the process, you know, we got to the point where Earth’s invasion was happening and we were like, “We’ve seen Voltron cut through, like, every Galra cruiser. We’ve seen the Galra basically reduced to competitive,” like, not a joke at that point, but we were looking for ways to make them intimidating. We were looking for ways to, like, make Earth’s loss feel heavier.

KC: Yeah, you want them to stop being Stormtroopers.

JDS: Yeah, exactly. So, um, you know, we decided to put Adam on the front lines, to make, you know, Santa’s decision that much--her hubris and all that mess, you know--all the more sort of real. And-and, you know, so at that point it was like, essentially we were like, “Okay, it’s like Tom Cruise crying over Anthony Edwards in Top Gun. Sorry, anybody that’s not forty, you don’t understand that reference.

LM: They were flight partners.

KC: I’ve seen Top Gun.

EF: I understood that reference.

JDS: They were flight partners.

LM: They were flight partners, Anthony Edwards died in a… what was it?

JDS: F-14 Tomcat.

LM: Yeah.

MS: I’m sure the reboot will be out in a couple years.

EF: [indistinct]

KC: They better have volleyball. They better have volleyball, I tell you what.

JDS: That’s right.

KC: Anyway.

JDS: But we got into even weird situations where it was like, you know, I had a, like, Tracer statue, like, prominently placed on my desk, and like, we were like, “Hey, this awesome show Overwatch, with which we share a bunch of fans, like, has Tracer as, like, their lead character and she’s awesome.”

KC: The poster girl for the game of the year is a lesbian.

JDS: That’s right.

EF: And I was gonna say, I-I think too probably for you guys, and I mean, I may be making assumptions that are completely incorrect here, but I think there was a level of, you know, so many people were aware of your involvement with shows like Legend of Korra that had an ending wherein two women ended up in a relationship with one another, which again, actually, when you-when you look at it’s vague-ish.

JDS: It’s vague, but I will say it’s paid off because their relationship built naturally through the body of the show.

EF: That’s very true.

JDS: And that’s what’s important, you know, I think that is what’s important. We were obviously approaching Shiro’s orientation from-through flashbacks trying to show that he was in a-just a mature relationship.

EF: Yeah.

JDS: Um, so it was different.

EF: A-and I think I’ve had some conversations, and I actually wrote an article about it for fandom one time where I was discussing the fact--and this was pre, uh, the final season coming out--and I was basically saying, you know, I understand people’s frustration with the whole Shiro scenario, however, just because the person who he was in a relationship with got killed off, like, doesn’t mean that he’s no longer gay. And I-but I-being completely understanding of people bemoaning the trope of “bury your gays”, which definitely does exist and I’m not saying that it doesn’t and that it’s not a problem, but it is important to know that, again, you have this character who is very much your sort of quintessential, like, alpha male.

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

KC: That’s because he’s with Megatron.

JDS: Exactly.

MS: Obviously! That is canon!

KC: Yes! They’re obviously exes and that’s why the war happens. [laughter] But the “bury your gays” thing, it sounds like-it sounds like it was either gonna be bury your gays or no gays and that’s a rough choice.

JDS: Okay, well, okay, so here’s where we arrived at this. And-and again, you know, we were pointing to things like Overwatch. We were pointing to Steven Universe, saying like, “Guys.”

EF: Oh, absolutely!

JDS: They’re different scenarios. We, I mean, we were in a slightly different position. We didn’t have, you know, that position of being the creators of this IP. And we also weren’t a video game that was directly marketed to, like, teens and above. We were, for all intents and purposes, like, started as a show for boys, like, 6 to 11 to sell as many toys as possible. And that’s just, like, a fact. That’s business and-and it sort of is what it is.

LM: Yeah, I think another unfortunate factor is the fact that animation is so far ahead of the schedule as far as releases that, you know, sometimes really important decisions are being made before people even realize what the core audience should be and you have to--it’s a little bit like gambling, kind of--you gotta put all your bets on this one area, and hope that that plays out.

EF: Oh, yeah! Well because it’s before you can get--because you’ve got the majority of your content written before you can even really gauge an audience reaction at all, as you say, let alone, like, determine your core audience.

KC: Animation is a multiple-year pipeline, a lot of people don’t get that.

JDS: But yeah, specifically with season 7 and 8, we basically held onto season 7. So season 8 was, like, done by the time season 7 was dropping. We had, like, a month left. When reactions for season 7 started coming in and that was-that was day of the drop. We were in a weird position. To DreamWorks's credit, I think the tide started changing internally. They came back to us and said, “Okay, hey, we're open to explore this relationship between Adam and Shiro.” So we were in this weird position where we had, like, all the animation done we had $0.00 left in the budget in terms of like what we could do, and it was like, “Alright we know Adam's fate is what it is, do we do this and sort of, like, take this step knowing that we're going to take some flack?” And we decided to do it, so we revised the dialogue. It was for--you can probably see it in the animation. If you really pay attention, it's like, it's literally our editor cutting out mouths and like puppeting different dialogue. The dialogue is pretty vague, it's sort of the best we could do, and that was a process of, sort of, discussing what we could actually have them say. Season 7 goes down the way it does, pretty-pretty… I think our other big “if we could go back and do it again,” we would not have gone to Comic-Con. [Hosts make “ohhh” noise] We would not have shown the clip at Comic-Con.

LM: We learned a big lesson about managing expectations [everyone echoes LM saying “expectations”] for sure. It’s-it’s such a weird thing because, you know, we’re-we’re in this show, we’re making 78 episodes. You kind of get to this point where you really can’t see the forest through the trees. Like, we lost a bit of our objectivity, and so we’ve kind of gone through all of these versions of the Adam and Shiro scene. And so when we kind of got to this point where, like, some light was peeking in and people were revisiting what we could do, we wanted to celebrate.

Host: Yeah, of course!

LM: Like, we were so excited.

[Indistinct]

EF: Yeah, no, I-I mean, I-I’m--I was there during that Comic-Con panel. I talked to you guys right after and-and I was literally, I-I had been--I had been at the Geek and Sundry and Alpha party the night before, I had stayed out way too late, and I was sitting next to my friend Michelle, and during that scene between Shiro and Adam it was very clear to us that they were a couple. Like, she, like, I remember she, like, started--when my friend Michelle gets excited she just hits people--so she starts, like, hitting my arm and then we were both so excited we, like, tried to lean in but we were both very tired and we clocked heads. And-And I--but again for me, it was like I--and I-I texted Josh--and I was like, “Oh my god, this is so great!” And yeah. And-and I remember watching season 7 in, you know, in the comfort of my own home and-and-and seeing how things went down for Adam and feeling sad, but also thinking, “hoo, I have a feeling there’s gonna be some people that are really mad about this.”

JDS: Yeah, yeah yeah. And it was, I mean, totally understandable. I think--

LM: Yeah, I think, like, again once-once that came down, it kind of snapped us and made us realize, “Oh yeah, this is what we didn’t see.” Like, this is-this is what happens when you’re, like, so, like, laser-focused on the show that you-you don’t get to compute it through the fans’ eyes anymore. You’re kind of just in the creator space.

EF: I think, also you know, you were contending with a fanbase who--so, like, growing up I was really into Gundam Wing. So, to me, it is not surprising that there’s such a large, sort of young, teenage girl fanbase of this show because it sparked a lot of the same sort of, like, fandom interests that I had for Gundam Wing when I was-when I was a teenage girl.

KC: Teenage girls like fighting robots so much.

EF: Girls like fighting robots and cute boys piloting them. That’s just-I’m just throwing that out there!

JDS: Girls also like genuine character. I think that’s the thing that--and that--it dawned, I think we knew it because we had worked on, like, Avatar and we worked on Korra, and we knew that there was an audience thirsting for that type of content. So when we go to Comic-Con and the crowds, every time we went to a different con, it was like more and more female representation in the crowds and more and more questions about the characters and not so much about the big you know.

EF: Definitely.

JDS: You know, I think our, sort of like, machine was in place for what the show was being marketed towards and we were like, “That’s a train that is not really stopping.” But our audience, we recognize, is diverting another way.

MS: Absolutely. And that’s, not to bring other shows into it, but there are other shows where they’re, they experience that same sort of pressure point where the-the show was intended for a particular demographic to sell particular merchandise to a particular group, and when another group latches onto it and gets really excited about that, instead of, sort of, course-correcting and being like, “Oh, we can-we can sell to this group,” instead the show gets taken off the air.

EF: Yeah.

JDS: It’s, like, viewed as a failure or whatever.

KC: Young Justice.

MS: Yeah. I wasn’t gonna name any names!

KC: I mean, we know that’s what happened to it.

JDS: But the great thing, though--

KC: And now it’s back!

JDS: Yeah, it’s back because I think culturally we’re in a very different place with regards to what animation, who it’s playing to, which is awesome.

LM: Yeah, the type of shows that we always wanted to make and always wanted to work on. I think we talked a little bit about this last week, but there was no avenue to really make those shows when we started Voltron, and we were very used to playing in our animation boys toys box. And now those avenues exist, which is magnificent. It’s huge for us because, you know, there was a time when we honestly, we didn’t know if we’d see it in our career. We were always the sad people like, “We’re in America, if we were in Japan we could make these shows.”

JDS: We were also like, “We’re gonna have to figure out really clever ways to work in, you know, these bigger elements and the more mature storyline.

MS: That’s what you guys were talking about a lot last week, is wanting to make the show something bigger than what people expected it to be. To elevate it to something more important.

JDS: But I--so I mean, we’ll continue on and sort of, like, explain how everything played out all the way through-through the-the epilogue stuff. But to DreamWorks’ credit, like, look, they’ll-they afforded us a ton of freedom to explore story and build characters with depth, and like-like heart-wrenching backstories where we’re like, “Is this villain, like, am I feeling true emotion for this villain’s, like, arc right now?” This is, you know, that that’s stuff a-and these types of shows, it’s sort of few and far between. And I know, you know, I’m sure there’s a whole contingent of the fanbase that’s like, you know, “Whatever, dude. Big excuse.” I get it, we all get it. We’ve all-we’ve all sort of been there, but for us it was a big deal.

EF: Yeah, I’m never ever gonna get over baby Lotor, ever.

JDS: It’s tragic. It’s sad. I know!

EF: He’s so cute! Why did they animate him so cute!

JDS: I know!

MS: His eyes were so big.

KC: [indistinct] gone full anime.

JDS: I was having a baby at around that same time. I was like, “My son!”

KC: [singing] “Look at my son!”

MS: And-and talking about a little bit about representation, I know that obviously the Adam and Shiro and the-the epilogue is what a lot of people really wanted us to discuss tonight, but, um, I had one or two people reach out also wanting to discuss a little bit of Ezor and Zethrid because that was… When-when they got their final story beat, I was so-I was so satisfied with it. It was--again, I don’t want to speak for anybody except for myself, like I don’t represent any group other than me. My opinions are my own--but seeing their relationship and seeing the-the way their arc went, I was very satisfied with their sort of redemption arc and sort of all but confirming that yeah they were a couple.

JDS: Right.

KC: As the biromantic ace woman on the panel, I believe I screamed “space pirate lesbians” when that happened. Can confirm, space pirate lesbians.

EF: I enjoyed that, as well as my new ship: Veracxa.

Hosts: [cheering]

JDS: Veracxa. I think that’s about as legit a ship you’re ever gonna get.

MS: Emma texting me in the middle of my-my watch through season 8 going, “Hey, they’ve had one conversation and I’m all about it.”

KC: I just want Rizavi to puppet master all of this. She is the one, like, leaving notes in people’s lockers or going, “Hey! Do you want to eat lunch together?”

MS: And not only that, she’s taking Kinkade’s camera and turning this into a show. It is absolutely.

JDS: It’s like, Real World on the Atlas

EF: I was-I was gonna say, it’s like Tara’s House.

JDS: How dare you! Generational, you kids! It’s Real World!

KC: She just brings the footage back, puts one clip of it on the internet, and says, “Selling it to the highest-bidding network.”

MS: I am positive that Zara would absolutely love this and would totally be down to reprise her role to make this show a reality.

JDS: Uh, yeah. If you would allow me to continue with the [indistinct] before we get too sidetracked. Fallout. Season 7. Actual depression. Like, terrible. Studio’s like, “What is going on” and-and they sort of turned to us. At this point, you know, I think She-Ra is either in development or they’re like, full tilt, sort of, going, and the studios, like, sort of figured out where they stand. So, awesome. It’s awesome.

EF: Yeah.

JDS: We wish it’d happened a little earlier. But it’s-it’s really cool, um, and they sort of turned to us and said, you know, “How-how do you want to address this? How do you want to handle this?” And you know, we, at that point, we had already put out our, sort of, public statements because we just felt like, “Oh my gosh,” like--

MS: “What do we do?”

JDS: --it’s coming down on us. Rightfully so. Um, and so we sort of crafted the, uh, the, you know, Shiro and Curtis marriage as a result. It-it was sort of like a-like a sub-complaint that came out of the Adam and Shiro thing, which was like, “Hey, appreciate it,” but what was there was kinda--

Host: Not clear?

JDS: --was kinda not really clear, like it wasn’t explicit, it wasn’t, you know, they weren’t looking for anybody to, like, be, like, kissing or you know, doing anything like that. But they wanted something a little bit more tangible.

Host: Yeah.

JDS: So this was, like, our way of reaching out to fans and it was like a, like a sort of animated, you know, apology or like an animated sort of olive branch.

KC: Sure.

EF: I mean, I also think that it-it-it sort of needs to be said that in terms of the fanbase that there is a difference between wanting representation and wanting your ship to be canon.

KC: And I think a lot of this was disappointment that one ship did not become canon. And just because your ship’s not canon doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.

EF: No, no, no!

KC: It doesn’t mean it’s a bad ship.

EF: And on top of that it is-it is completely okay to want both. They’re not independent of one another, but there-there is a level of-of you have to recognize that your ship is about you. It’s about you nine times out of ten, especially when it comes to young women exploring your sexuality in a way that is very safe because it doesn’t involve any women. But it’s about you. It’s not about you wanting representation necessarily.

JDS: I think that there’s-there’s definitely that. I think there’s also, you know, I think you can’t deny when, like, two beautiful people are in a room, you’re like, “You should be doing something!” I think, sort of, the shipping phenomenon in general also speaks to the fact there's a hugely underserved portion of the fandom who’s just not seeing something they want to see.

EF: Oh, yeah! Definitely! And I mean, you know, I’ve enjoyed a lot of the, like, fan content that’s come out of Voltron.

JDS: Sure.

MS: The fan community in terms of the artistic stuff that comes out, it’s incredible what people create and the fact that you guys have been able to inspire that creativity shouldn’t also be something that’s diminished.

EF: Oh, definitely not.

MS: For-for all of the, um, the LGBTQ audience members who maybe felt conflicted with this particular epilogue. I know one person reached out to me, going that they wanted more, and one person reached out that, like, they felt that, like, Shiro walking away from the military wasn’t something that fit his character and that’s actually something we’d like to speak to you about because I-I don’t necessarily agree with that assessment. I totally understand where that perspective comes from. But the way it was worded in terms of he left the battle behind, I, yeah. He-he has been through so much in this series that yeah I understand where people have a lot of issues with it, but I think him leaving the military and going and living a normal life with somebody that he cares about, I think that’s a very fitting end for somebody who had been through so much trauma.

EF: Yeah, yeah. I think I see both perspectives on that as well, but I’m more on your-I’m more of the same opinion as you of that didn’t feel out of character for him for me.

JDS: I mean, I don’t know, I think we saw it as like, the dude had been through a lot. You know, we, the circumstances at which we sort of arrived at that scene didn’t allow us, like a, we had like a day to really put that together.

EF: And you’re talking about the whole, like, conversation of everybody sitting around the table leading into the, like, post stuff on the end?

LM: Everything-everything before fully animated was set in stone. Epilogue and on was-was stuff that we made some adjustments, some stuff was similar, if not the same as before. And we just tried to ultimately do what we felt was right, which was give the people who wanted it that legitimacy of yes Shiro, one of our main characters, is in fact part of the LGBT community. It’s on-screen, there’s-there’s no question anymore. We unfortunately couldn’t make a full-fledged relationship at that point because the show was done.

KC: There’s no time and there’s no budget. Animation takes forever.

JDS: It was that-was that situation where we were sort of like, “Do we do this? Don’t we do this?” and we thought it was just more important to do it, to confirm it, to be able to, like, show people in a very clear manner. And we, I think sort of, wholeheartedly accept that it’s clunky. [laughter] It’s hella clunky. Like, and you know we-we sort of--

LM: It’s far from perfect, but ultimately when the opportunity presented itself, I think we would have felt badly if we had not tried to seize that.

JDS: Right.

Host: I think that’s fair.

JDS: And it was, it was, it was, it was sort of like this weird opening where, like, DreamWorks was in this, like, figuring out where they stood and the opportunity presented itself and we were sort of like, “We kinda have to jump on this or it might go away. It might be something…” And you know, again, like, to the studio’s credit, like, I think they’ve sort of figured it out. They’ve obviously afforded us the ability to create something beyond just, like, a show about, like, a robot made of lions that slices another monster in half every episode.

EF: That’s what I was gonna say. It was definitely not a “monster of the week” kind of show by any stretch of the imagination. So that, in and of itself--

JDS: It’s kind of a weird victory.

EF: Yeah.

KC: At the very end of it, at the very base of things, people, and American society, let’s be real, tend to view LGBTQ content, all of that, LGBTQIA content, as automatically mature for some reason and we touched on, like, violence is okay but god forbid you see two dudes kiss. This is a show that is aimed at 8 to 11 year old boys and at the end of it we had two men explicitly kissing at their wedding. You may not like the execution, you may not like who it was, you may think it came out of nowhere, but guys, we got it. A quote-unquote kids’ show. That’s a hell of a milestone.

JDS: Yeah, I think we all had to acquiesce at some point, and sort of, and DreamWorks too, sort of had to say, like, “Hey, your audience is what your audience says.” It’s no longer like what we were sort of building this franchise around. And you know, I think that’s awesome. The-the organic nature at which the audience sort of grew and evolved and sort of became super proactive in, like, creating content and-and sort of created their own series alongside ours is awesome. It’s great. So, I think they-they just sort of, like, at the very end they were just like, “Guys, just do what you think is right.” And we used our heart. There’s a ton we would have-we would have done differently, but to armchair-quarterback 78 episodes over 4 years, um…

KC: Which is what we’re doing in this episode.

[indistinct]

JDS: To really break it down and try to, like, say, “If we had zigged where we zagged,” like, there’s-there’s no-no real good--

EF: Well, yeah, because you could go on about that forever, but it’s all in the past at this point.

JDS: And the other thing is, like, believe me. I’ve been, like, up at night going, like, “Should we have done anything at all and saved ourselves a headache?” And it’s like, no I think we did the right thing under the circumstances given.

EF: Yeah, I agree, yeah. [indistinct]

KC: [indistinct] I’d actually like to top this off with a comment from RedLantern27 in chat because I think they encapsulated it: “It’s like how Team Voltron tackles their problems: might not be the most elegant, but it gets the job done.” [laughter] I say, unless there’s anything else you’d like to add at the end there, I think we can finish that conversation. We are halfway through our show.

JDS: That’s insane.

MS: Thank goodness they gave us more studio time.

JDS: Fortunately they gave us another hour.

KC: Does anyone want another drink?

MS: Oh! I do!

KC: I am not actually kidding, would you like another drink?

EF: I mean, I’ll have some more. Are these RWBY shot glasses?

KC: Yes. Yes they are.

MS: There’s a RWBY one and an Attack on Titan one with Mikasa.

KC: Because Voltron is made for kids and therefore they don’t have official shot glasses. But hey, if anyone wants to send me some, I’d be down.

EF: I am wearing officially-licensed Voltron merchandise, I will have you know.

JDS: That’s awesome.

EF: This is a child’s shirt because I wanted it in red and it didn’t come in red in adult sizes.

JDS: It fits perfectly.

EF: Thank you.

KC: I am wearing hilariously-unlicensed Voltron merch because there isn’t a licensed one that says, “See ya later, paladudes!” And I thought that was apt.

EF: That’s pretty good.

KC: Emma, please help me.

EF: Oh yeah, this is yours, Megan. It was bound to happen (re: minor spill of Sendak on ice).

KC: It was, it was. Yep, that is future Katie’s problem. And while we’re having our intermission I think we also have an announcement.

MS: Alright guys, before we move onto our next topic we wanted to say thank you for making us the ESPN of TV talk. For us to continue to grow we could use your help. If you’re on YouTube right now hit that thumbs-up button and subscribe. If you’re on iTunes, please-please give us a five-star rating. But no matter where you are, leave us a comment so that you can get involved in the conversation. Being a part of Afterbuzz TV has meant so much to all of us and we truly appreciate you supporting us and doing what we love. Don’t forget to tell your friends and keep enjoying our show, and yeah. Guys, this is-this is our last show, and it really means a lot to us that you guys have stuck with us throughout the entirety of this show’s run. We love, as Katie said earlier, our tavern of lions, everybody who’s in the hashtag, and everybody who’s ever done fanart for our silly nonsense.

EF: Oh yeah, there’s some good fanart from the show.

MS: It’s so good!

EF: It’s really good fanart.

MS: It really means a lot to us and yeah, yeah, Katie take it from here before I cry.

KC: Oh, I thought you were gonna read the iTunes reviews.

MS: Do you want to do the iTunes spiel and I do the, uh--

KC: Yeah, thank you to everyone who was supporting us on iTunes and you can still do that even after the podcast is over. If you leave a comment, if you leave a rating leave us five stars because there are five lions in Voltron and that’s how this works. Um, yeah, it helps people who are searching for the podcast find us. It helps bump us up in the iTunes ranks. And, well, if you leave one after this you won’t get a shoutout because that’s life, but for those who left one a little bit earlier we like to do shoutouts on the show.

MS: And apologies to anybody who left one where I’m not getting the chance to read it out. The iTunes, sort of, filter thing in terms of putting it in chronological order does not work on my mobile device, so I sort of have to scroll and guess about what. So if I miss you, I’m so sorry, please screencap it and put it in the hashtag. But we’ve got one from Kiwi12343: “Yay! Almost done, though I am sad to see the podcast go. Voltron has helped me through a lot of crap. Thank you for the thing I could look forward to on Mondays.” And then we have MLaura3456: “Thank you so much for the show, you are all so amazing. I’ve been watching for just a year and it’s been so much fun. I’m going to miss it once it’s over, but I’m glad I was able to watch it. Geeking with you and the guest is just the best. It’s time to form Voltron.” And then we have one from Oz Gint, not sure if I’m pronouncing that right, but, “I found Afterbuzz with RWBY Vol. 2 and I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the animation aftershows. I have unfortunately been unable to catch a live Voltron show, but I’ve listened to them all. Since it’s the last episode, we can finally talk about the biggest surprise of the whole show. That’s right, after eight seasons, Hunk finally took off his headband.”

Everyone: [laughter]

MS: “(cont. -ff last review) Oh and I guess those other things too. I love the review, so long, and thanks for all the fish”

EF: Okay, for me, Hunk’s epilogue was perfect. The fact that Romelle was, like, part of his-his space cook crew, I was like, all in. All in.

KC: And Vrepit Sal.

MS: And Shay, and Bii-Boh-Bi.

EF: It was so good.

KC: This is the new Avengers crew.

MS: Again, apologies if I couldn’t find it, but again, thank you all so, so much. We love you, you’re all the best.

EF: Yeah.

KC: Yeah, and seriously, thank you guys for participating. This has been so much fun and we-it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun without all y’all beautiful humans.

MS: Even if we don’t agree, if you don’t agree with us, if we don’t agree with you, if we don’t agree with each other, it’s okay.

JDS: I don’t agree with myself.

[laughter]

KC: Let’s make life real interesting.

MS: The bottom line here is that the show was always meant to be fun and we had fun doing it, and we hope you’ve had fun watching us.

EF: And I think, too, just, you know, being open to the fact that people have different opinions than you and then--and that-that’s okay is a really important message to kind of put out there, as well.

LM: Absolutely. It’s a message that I learned, like, probably a little too late for my little, immature ass, like when I was in eighth grade, the most important thing was the fact that my best friend bought the same Target sandals I had and how angry I was that she had the same Target sandals that me and 20,000 other Target shoppers had. Like, and I look back at that, and I’m just like, “Why did I waste so much energy on the dumbest thing in the universe?”

EF: Yeah, but also-but also you know, acknowledging the fact that-that people’s opi-like your opinions are valid.

MS: Absolutely.

JDS: And look, I think a lot of people have, you know, as I’ve sort of been trying to come to terms with, with negative reaction, positive reaction, all the reaction but mainly the negative reaction, you know a lot of people have sort of said to me like, “Dude, just tell them it’s a stupid cartoon and, like, not to think too much about it.”

KC/MS: No!

EF: That’s not how that works!

JDS: It’s not, a-and for me these shows growing up literally formed the person that I am now.

EF: Absolutely.

JDS: So, it means-it means as much as it means to people because that’s, you know, that’s their world and that’s-that’s what their takeaway, and if they don’t, if they're not getting or seeing themselves represented properly or seeing some sort of representation that they can latch onto or understand. Or maybe they felt like they were on their way to seeing that and were let down by the fact--like I get it. You know, I think we get it.

LM: It's a struggle that we've dealt with a lot just in-in our careers, that animation is-it’s a medium but a lot of times it’s considered a genre. And that’s something that, like, continues to this day that we’re constantly fighting this battle of, like, “No, you can make--” We try to point to anime, which they have every type of thing. They have a show about specifically tennis.

EF: A-a-a-a-and anime is often by western audiences who are not familiar with the medium considered to be a genre. I have so many people being like, “What should I watch to get into anime?” And I’m like, “What kind of stories do you want?”

JDS: Exactly. Do you like story?

KC: I took my tiny, tiny child to see Princess Mononoke because it’s animated and for kids, right? Like no, that will traumatize your five-year-old. It’s a work of art, but it will traumatize your child. Anyway.

LM: And I feel like video games went through a similar thing for a while with, you know, parents bringing Grand Theft Auto back and yelling at Gamestop employees like, “Why did you sell this to my kid?”

EF: It’s rated “Mature”.

LM: Like, it says right there. If you, as a parent, aren’t checking this. But it’s, you know, content is content and we wholeheartedly believe that animation is content people go to and it shouldn’t be, kind of, reduced to-to just, like, “it’s for kids”.

JDS: That said, we should also--I will just sort of self-check--we should have been aware of, like, sort of what we were asking not only DreamWorks to do, but asking the IP to do. We were asking this show to do things and sort of, like, break out in certain ways that were like, [hesitant noise], you know. We needed to learn, we learned a lot. We needed to learn how to manage some of our tone and stuff back up the, sort of, executive chain better. It was just learning experience all the way around the block.

EF: It’s--yeah--it’s interesting to me because, you know, obviously we were touching a little bit on how DreamWorks has, kind of, opened their minds a little bit to some of the stuff that you guys came up against in Voltron, not necessarily with them, it was a bigger issue of lots of people owning the IP, but I-I-I do wonder this ‘cuz I feel like it’s easier or it seems to be more common to me that in shows that are targeted at a female audience, it's more likely that you're going to find a wider breadth of representation.

JDS: I'm not gonna disagree with you there.

LM: I mean I think wholeheartedly that is just genuinely the truth and I think a lot of it stems from that, kind of, toxic masculinity culture that we're still trying to push onto little boys of like "this is weak. You cannot be these things".

EF: To Voltron's credit very much was trying to--I don't want to say “undermine” is not the right word--

JDS: We were just trying to break the trope, our own trope. You know what I mean? Like Voltron was its own trope and the sort of little nook that we inhabited, like, sort of boys toys was its own weird tropey situation. I think before anybody realized it, I mean we were obviously aware, but it was like we were-we were very much a show for everybody, you know. And that just-that just kind of happened. So, yeah.

EF: Which is-which is a good thing.

JDS: Should we talk about Lance, guys?

Hosts: Yes!

KC: We need to move onto, like, intellectual topics and whatnot.

JDS: I feel the clock ticking.

KC: The clock is actually off, but my iPad is back here and it’s just like, “Okay.”

EF: Armor boy Lance.

KC: I need-I need to stop trying to plan these shows, they don’t ever go as planned. What plan!

JDS: Lance.

KC: Yeah, people want to talk about Lance and we want to hear about Lance. He had an incredible character arc.

JDS: He did.

LM: Did you want to intro him or talk to your…? Because I have a lot of feelings about Lance.

JDS: I think Lauren’s got really awesome perspective. I will say that, like a lot of people we saw, like, “Oh, Lance ends up being a farmer and, like, that sucks.” And not to, like, diminish, you know, I’m not making fun of anybody. But I grew up spending all my summers on my family farm in Portugal. It was literally like one, especially as I get older, is one of the most magical experiences that I could ever, sort of, think of now. And it was all about paring things down, getting rid of all the, sort of, BS that went on in life, living off the land, spending time with family--friends and family--and-and-and really getting down to what’s important in life. And so I think for anybody to say that, like, Lance isn’t getting the ending he deserves, or he should have been, like, a hero, he should have been the sharpshooter that went of into the… I don’t-I don’t think that’s what it was about. I think Lance had an arc where he learned about himself that he doesn’t need to be those things and-and that was a lot of baggage that he was carrying on top of himself. And so, I don’t know if that were my ending, it’s-it’s-it’s an ending I hope to have, to be honest with you. I think a lot of people were worried that, like, the visual of him looking at the juniberry flower meant that he was, like, pining away for Allura for the rest of time, and it’s tragic, it’s sad. It was a love story that played out, but he felt loved.

LM: I saw--I mean, I’ve got feelings about Lance just because I, like--as I have a lot of favorite characters in the show--but Lance is probably the one that I actually identify with the most. As-as someone who, like, I’ve struggled my entire life with insecurity, with self-doubt, with self-esteem, and as a girl who grew up watching shows where, like, almost every female was the woman who was pined after and like even in the original Voltron--the show that I love--every single paladin just wanted to get with Allura.

EF: It was the girl. Like that was very common in animation for a long time.

KC: It still is.

EF: I know.

MS: Yep.

EF: Yep.

JDS: Scarlett Jo-Jo, all of it.

LM: Like, that never felt beautiful, like I never felt like I could live up to that. And it kind of just destroyed my self-esteem because I was like, “Well then, if I’m not pretty, what is my value?” I had no value and so--sorry, I’m getting emotional about this. [Hosts all cry out “no!”]

KC: Please have emotions! That’s why we’re here.

MS: I’m fairly certain all of us have been there.

LM: You know, I get-I’ve worked through it. I, you know, I gained a craft, I, like, I have much more self-esteem now, but it--there’s still those little demons, those little, like, voices that come up and tell you you’re not good enough.

JDS/EF: Mm-hmm.

LM: So having struggled with that, Lance was kind of, like, that character who he had those insecurities and he-he handled it in a different way than I did. He put on this really big bravado and that was his defense mechanism. Like my defense mechanism was sarcasm and I still have it to this day, like, I cannot get that DNA out of myself. Like Joaquim has to deal with it. I’m just, like, sarcastic all day long and he’s just like, “Jesus.” JDS: I love it.

LM: Um, but like, you know, everyone copes with it their own ways, and I’ve known the people who--I know those people who they put on the bravado. And so the beauty to me of Lance kind of coming to this place where he’s a baby--he’s able to abandon that. Everything that he wanted, all of these parades, all of these big shenanigans with stuff that he needed other people to see to feel they knew he was important because he didn’t feel it.

EF: Yeah.

LM: And so finally when he feels it inside, like you don’t need other people to tell you anymore. And so, you know, I-I--when I finally started to feel like I had something to bring to the world, like, suddenly I was happy, like, in myself and I didn’t need, like, I would be just as happy to be making this show and have no one know my name as I am to be able to sit here and talk to the fans about it because I’m just doing something that I believe in. And I feel like that’s exactly what Lance was doing at the end. He realized like--there’s also the story element of that I think maybe we probably didn’t make clear--but Lance is, you know, back on Earth with his family and he’s helping Earth to recuperate.

JDS: Right.

LM: He’s on this farm. He’s providing, like, vital resources that people need because Earth didn’t just bounce back and that was important to him. And he’s able to do it, you know, on a farm where there’s these flowers. There’s all these juniberry flowers. That was another thing, it was a casualty of time in the finale, but we wanted to have this really beautiful moment where, as Allura’s made the sacrifice, juniberry flowers are everywhere.

JDS: Everywhere, like on every planet.

LM: And so--

JDS: It’s a weed. They’re a weed.

LM: --he is able to look at this--[laughter]

KC: They’re an invasive species, it’s a problem.

LM: He’s kind of able to remember her everywhere he goes. So it wasn’t really supposed to be like, “Oh, my life has no meaning unless I’m looking at this flower and thinking of Allura.” It’s just, like, “I am content and I’m happy. I have the people that I care about most and I’m doing something that I feel is important and it doesn’t have to be big and flashy.”

Host: Sure.

JDS: And it’s-that’s-it is a slightly more, sort of, mature idea to get across. And there’s a lesson to be learned on our end, too. We really, sort of, stuck to our guns and tried to make a show that was--didn’t have clean endings or super, like, sort of stereotypical happy endings. A lot of it is bittersweet, a lot of it is sort of dealing with the loss of somebody and the hope that that inspires, you know, in their sacrifice. That being said, our big lesson is, like, sometimes people just want to have the happy ending. So that’s stuff that you have to sort of weigh against your art, against your craft. Like, are we serving the people best? Are we serving our own sort of personal story desires best? Wh-what’s that balance?

MS: It’s a case-by-case basis.

JDS: It is.

KC: And there’s something I want to clarify specifically about Lance’s ending, and correct me if I’m wrong, but a lot of the pushback that I’ve seen is, “Well, he’s sad forever. He’s sad forever and ever.” And like, when you lose someone, you do miss them. The grief heals, but it never is completely gone because this person has gone from your life. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he never got over it. It doesn’t mean that he never fell in love with anyone else. It-it doesn’t mean that he just stopped where he was emotionally. We just got to see a couple years into the future and the trajectory that he’s on.

JDS: And-and I think that, again, is sort of our-our learning place. I think if we had--again, not to armchair-quarterback too hard--but I would have loved to have just had a scene, like, back at the Garrison and he’s, like, teaching a class and there’s some jerky kid that’s just like he was. And he’s, like, mature to the point where he’s like, “Okay, soldier,” like, “Alright I get you.” That would’ve been nice, and I think that would have been something that, you know, it wouldn’t have been, like, sort of the relationship maybe that everybody was looking for, but it would have been the closure that people saw, like, “Okay. Lance is, like, he’s doing the thing.” You know. I don’t know, there’s no real good easy answer.

LM: I’ll tell you what ending I was super jealous of, that you guys were there for, but it was the Star Wars Rebels ending.

EF: Oh my god!

LM: You know, Ezra makes his-his sacrifice and then Sabine is like, “Oh, he’s out there and I’m gonna find him.” Like, man, if we could’ve just ripped that in and Lance was like, “Allura’s out there and I’m gonna find her!” like that would’ve been so cool, but then we would’ve legit just ripped off of Star Wars Rebels.

EF: Just take that from Star Wars Rebels! No, it’s true that--and I mean, I think that’s kind of circling back to some of the stuff that you were talking about of, like, the idea of there not being a, like, clean-cut happy ending, all loose ends are tied up kind of thing.

MS: Because life doesn’t work that way.

EF: Because life doesn’t work that way! And so for me, you know, the-the Rebels ending was incredibly satisfying because it’s like, “Well, we could tell more stories with these people, but if we don’t, we’ve got a-we got a good end to this story.” And that-and that, I really do feel--even though for me I was not a big fan of the Lance and Allura romance. I didn’t like it very much, but that’s--again that’s about me. It’s not about you guys.

JDS: And that’s fine. But honestly I think you--

KC: I loved it, and we can disagree and still be friends!

JDS: Here’s the one sort of point of contention that I have because I could totally see everybody’s, sort of, view on it. People were like, "It came out of nowhere." We were like, "We were literally setting up Lance's angle on that, like, a ways out.” He's sitting there confessing to the mice, like, how he felt.

KC: And then the mice go rat him out.

MS: Right from episode 1 he flirted with every single girl, like, episode 1, you know, he-it’s clear that he kinda-kinda likes this girl.

JDS: That’s also, like--

MS: And it develops from there.

JDS: But that’s also, like, as content creators, like, do we sort of read the tea leaves on that and sort of lean into where fans’ expectations are? Or do we sort of go with-with the story that we were crafting and sort of stick to our guns there? You know, sometimes there's some people in real life that end up with people you're like “huh”.

MS: “How? Okay. I have some questions.”

JDS: That's not necessarily what serves story best but that is kinda life.

EF: I had this whole love triangle fantasy that was going on for those last two seasons. In my mind it was playing out. And that was fine! But like I say, like, that’s that was about me, that's not about the story. Like for me, I was like, “Okay yeah, this is the direction I thought they might go with the whole Lance/Allura thing,” and you know, it was-it was not what I wanted to happen, but that doesn’t make it a bad story.

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

EF: And Lance's overall story arc I really enjoyed, especially because you know it’s-it’s one of the things that we’ve been talking about is this whole idea that we were basically we were dealing with an IP that was like "monster of the week.” It was like, “dudes being in love with one hot girl” and just “macho men with fighting robots” and whatever was happening with Pidge.

JDS: Right, yes, yes.

MS: OG Pidge was insane.

EF: Like, totally bonkers.

KC: OG Pidge was terrifying.

JDS: Descended from a clan of ninjas, by the way.

KC: Did the ninjas last long?

JDS: They needed glasses.

EF: But what I will say is that I think a lot of Lance’s storyline--I mean it was across the board with all of the characters, honestly, both the men and the women--but-but very importantly the men, that they had a range of emotions. They had feelings. They had insecurities. They had, you know, emotional walls built up that it was explained why they were and-and all of that is-is great.

KC: They were allowed-they were allowed to be afraid. They were allowed to be unhappy. They were allowed to be broken. They were allowed to not be right about everything and not be leaders and be wrong in the face of other people. And the show went, “Yeah, that’s okay. That’s normal. You can do that and still be a good person.”

JDS: We-we’d go to the writers’ room and sort of get pitched ideas and we would be like, “Oh man, I don’t know how I feel about that,” and it would be that’s exactly why we should do it. Because you need to ask those questions, like, let’s ask those questions, get those things sort of--

LM: Yeah, I mean like, I had my own personal interests like with Pidge and I was like, I had my agenda that I was gonna expose all of these, like, double standards and it was purely agenda-based. And like Tim, you know, our lead writer had to kind of check me and be like, “Lauren, this show isn’t about your agenda. Like, what you’re trying to do, you’re gonna hurt the story if you try to work this in like that way.” And I had to take a step back and, like, look at myself and look at the story and be like, “Okay, what’s important for the story?” Because obviously we always have our preferences, we always have our likes, and-and like Joaquim said, you get a story thing thrown at you and you’ll knee-jerk and be like, “No no no! I don’t want that to happen to that character.” But then you’ll, like, that’s kind of why you have to let those things happen.

JDS: And they’re-they’re like weird experiments and some of them work, don’t work, and some of them are, you know, sort of fall in this weird gray area where people are just like “[noncommittal noise] I don’t know, I don’t know what to do with this.”

KC: “Well that was a thing that happened. This might as well occur.”

JDS: Yep. I mean it’s silly, it’s-it’s so dumb and I’m--we might have said this, you know, before--but like a lot of people sort of attributed a lot of their sort of personal perspectives to, like, Shiro having PTSD and ensuring this pillar of strength and having gone through these trials and tribulations and-and being an amputee. I hate to admit this because it’s so basic and simple, but like, the only reason he had a robot arm is because I’m like, “Dude, can we have a guy with a robot arm? Like, the Winter Soldier is rad, you know, Cable is rad, Solid Snake is rad, and I just want a robot arm dude.” That was it, and so--

LM: He’s a similar thing with Pidge and, you know, my super selfish her good little girl fantasies, just like here’s a girl and she’s masquerading as a boy, and then you know, she ended up being kind of this pillar of hope for the trans community. And so like, I can’t take credit for that because I didn’t go fully into that, but it’s beautiful that it happened and I can look at that now and I can see where it came from.

EF: I think that-that it just sometimes happens pretty unexpectedly in a lot of, you know, sort of IP. I mean I remember when, you know, Yuri!!! On Ice was this big sensation, and even though for the most part, obviously, it is lauded for its LGBTQ representation, but on top of that there was a certain, like, subset of the, like asexual community that were like, “I sort of see Yuuri as asexual and I feel represented,” and-and that’s a good thing.

JDS: Yeah, a hundred percent.

LM: Absolutely. JDS: I will say, just sort of looking at it holistically, though. Like, Lauren’s sort of desire to, like, build that into the character and my desire to build that into the character are two completely disparate things because I just wanted robot arm dude and she was, like, telling this meaningful, like, inside thing. And I’m just like, “How about that robot arm?”

KC: The Venn diagram overlap is “finding meaning in something random that you didn’t initially pitch that way.”

LM: And sometimes the fans will find this extra meaning that we had no clue was gonna come out of it.

MS: Yeah, and I had a directing professor way back in the day who-who mentioned that sometimes brilliant moments like that could happen completely by accident, or it’s an unintended sort of thing. And the fact that it’s there should be celebrated because it’s-it kind of ties into death of the author a little bit. Like, did the author intend that? Well, does it matter? If that’s your interpretation of it, it’s okay.

JDS: Yeah, I-I once heard the story, I was a huge, you know, sort of child of the 90’s, listen to grunge music growing up, Pearl Jam was like my favorite band, and I heard this story once that, like, this group of campers were singing this song “Black” by Pearl Jam in the forest and Eddie Vedder, like, comes out of the woods, like “Stop singing this song!” and everybody’s like [surprised expression], and he was like-he was coming to that, I don’t know if that’s true. Could be total grunge urban legend, I don’t know. I like the story, though.

MS: And he’s still in those woods to this day.

JDS: But he was, you know, his-- his version of the song was not their version of the song and they found a different meaning. For him it was torture, for them it was like this like sort of nostalgic coming together. And so he had to admit that as well. And I’ve heard other songwriters say the same thing where it’s like, “it’s no longer ours, it’s theirs.”  And that’s beautiful.

EF: Oh absolutely yeah. And as I say I feel like you know uh just kind of circling back to uh what we were talking about with where Lance’s story ended, I’ve seen some really lovely fanart depicting more of Lances future. [Everyone laughing]

KC: This is why we believe in fanart. This is why we believe in fanfiction. Just because the official story is over doesn’t mean that you can’t pick it up and sprint with it.

EF: Oh definitely not.

KC: Have fun.

JDS: Yes.

KC: Absolutely have fun. I-- We’ve had a lot of requests for this in chat, and I think uh, I think we should move on to this, um, let’s talk about Keith.

JDS: Yeah

KC: Let’s talk about Keith story arc. Let’s talk about the boy that went from being a lone wolf to being a leader whether he liked it or not, to embracing being a leader. That was absolutely incredible. We stopped, as we were watching Season 8, re-watching it, and at one point Keith and Lance just had that talk about well I used to think I could do everything on my own, and here we are. And I went, “Oh my God you guys are  all grown up!”

JDS: Yeah, I mean that’s the great thing about this sort of serialized format is that you do get to see that growth. I will say that like Keith is probably the character that we get-- there’s a huge fanbase, but he’s the one that like receives the least amount of flack, it’s like people are--

EF: Yeah I-- I do sort of wonder why that is but I-- But also--

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

KC: We don’t know

JDS: Yeah, it-- It doesn’t really matter to be honest with you. I mean it would be great to confirm just to make people happy, but, like at the end of the day he is who he is, and leaving it open to interpretation. Which is why I will say that, just going back to Allura and Lance really quick, it took that possibility off the table, that pairing, and I think that’s what-- what triggered a lot of people. Because it was like you could have just left well enough alone and we would’ve been fine. That’s, that’s a tea leaf reading scenario there as well you know.

EF: It is. But again guys there’s lots of great fanart.

JDS: There is. Yeah you can totally do that too.

KC: We did say that he could fall in love again. You never know.

JDS: You never ever know.

KC: Go have fun.

EF: Yeah I uh-- Uh-- I just loved Keith throughout this whole series. I think for me he was just the the perfect embodiment of that like emotionally damaged like grumpy boy character.

JDS: He had it all.

EF: Yeah.

LM: He was. He was kind of that animation trope.

EF: It was totally an anime hero.

LM: You know I watched Gundam Wing as well.

EF: Yes.

LM: And you know, hero Yui was, he was tricky for me because at the end I was just like [long pause] “I still don’t like you. There’s nothing in you for me. You just, you’re still kind of an asshole.”

JDS: “I still don’t like you.”

EF: “I still don’t like you.”

LM: And then but Keith actually like, [laughs]  Keith started there and then like, he evolved to someone that I like.

EF: I think that’s what it was because Hiro was my favorite in Gundam Wing, and Keith is my favorite in Voltron and I really do think that it is because like Keith is what in my, like, fan brain like Hiro was going to become. And so I feel like I got experience--

JDS: The evolution, the full evolution.

EF: Yeah, I mean yeah exactly. And Keith. It was very satisfying for me.

KC: Duo was my favorite and then I just [gestures vaguely].

LM: I love Duo, he was my favorite too. And that braid I was like, “Man how do you get a braid like that?”

KC: Um it takes a while.

JDS: Yeah, you gotta grow it out.

KC: Great Podcast day for all the listeners there.

EF: This is where we do an ad for Sugar Bear Hair.

KC: Does it look like I’m on my favorite [river?]

MS: But um yeah with Keith it’s so interesting because last season you guys mentioned how one of the initial concept ideas for him was that he was a child soldier and so it’s so interesting.

LM: That was Lance.

JDS: That was Lance.

MS: Oh that was Lance?

JDS: That was Lance.

LM: Believe it or not that was Lance.

MS: Oh I thought that was Keith.

EF: Whoa.

LM: That was back in our super dark phases where we were just coming off of Korra and we were like--

JDS: Were were gonna open up on season 7, earth already taken over, the kids had to--

LM: We had to--

EF: It was gonna be a battle.

JDS: No seriously that was it. Earth was post-apocalyptic.

LM: We had to recalibrate, like reset ourselves for Korra times to like colorful lion times.

MS: But that being said he starts still out, he starts up actually in a very similar place as Pidge, in-in terms of “I need to protect my family”

KC: And my family’s in space.

MS: And I don’t care about anything else, and over the course of the series they-- they learn at varying speeds how important this extended family is to them.

JDS: Yes.

EF: Yes. And I think too with Keith it was that fact that, you know, that he felt like a very fully-formed character in that you know when as you say when you first meet him like he is very emotionally guarded. He’s very, “I can do all of this on my own.” And I like that we really got into why he was that way. And the fact that he, that like, like, Keith at the beginning of the series I feel like if if he had met his mom at the beginning, he would not have connected with her in the way that he did. JDS: Not at all.

EF: And so it was very satisfying to see this person who had grown up so much like find this meaningful connection with somebody who had not been a part of his life.

JDS: Which is sort of a running thing on our show. And it was I think you know, maybe you mentioned it on the last one, that was sort of at one point going to be the sort of Lotor Keith of it all. Um, they were definitely going to share that element where they sort of had both feet in two different cultures and weren’t really sure where they stood on everything. And sort of Keith becoming the proper representation of that--not the proper but--

EF: No, Yeah yeah yeah

JDS: But sort of like good guy representation and Lotor being the bad guy.

MS: Two sides of the same coin.

EF: Man, now I would have loved to see more Keith and Lotor interactions.

JDS: It was a whole thing.

EF: I would have really enjoyed that because I agree with you that i think that I’m trying to think of like another piece of fiction where they kind of explore that whole idea of okay you have these two people that are effectively the same thing where they’re sort of half in one culture, species, etc. half in another.

MS: And one goes down one path and one goes down another

EF: Exactly. So that there is a nice sort of parallel to both of those characters.

JDS: Yup.

EF: And I also really loved Lotor. And I loved, loved, loved Honerva’s storyline in the final season so much. Her whole, her whole backstory, in the way it ended UGGHH it was so tragic cause she was just trying to connect with her family. Which is again, ultimately like a lot of what this show is about is this whole idea of,  “okay well there’s your family, but you also have to look at, like, your extended sort of chosen family and the connections that you’ve made,” and Honerva never did that. She was so obsessed with like reclaiming this family that she lost instead of going “Oh wait,” you know, “that’s in the past. There’s nothing I can do about it, so maybe I need to expand my horizons.”

KC: Yeah. She was obsessed with the past and unable to move on. And a lot of this show is about, alright, well the past will affect you, the past will influence you, but you need to keep moving forward, you can’t live in the past.

JDS: Yeah. I mean you know we’ve also taken a bunch of heat for sort of like the the abuser and abused of it all between Honerva’s redemption and Lotor’s redemption. Uh, and you know, again that’s we sort of like go back to this, I don’t know, it’s it’s not even like a like a like a hard and fast rule but it’s like there really are no clean answers in life so.

EF: I-I-I don’t know for me I felt like with Lotor uh which what I really enjoyed was this idea of I think that he was fully aware of the fact that he’d gone too far, and they--and at that point instead of going, “I need to back off,” he made the choice to go, “I’m embracing this like 10-fold”

JDS: I think that was the thing that there was a clear delineation of like he-he-he reached this threshold where it’s like, yeah I’m sorry it’s too far.

EF: I’m past the point of no return. And I mean that was you know--

JDS: Safe to say that Honerva probably did the same.

Hosts Together: Oh yeah.

KC: She totally did.

MS: Destroyed so many realities.

LM: I mean there’s also a little bit about each Lotor and Honerva’s arcs that ultimately served Allura’s larger arc. Which was Lotor came along when Allura wasn’t quite as ready to be that super open, understanding diplomat. We saw how she reacted to Lotor. She was furious and so in that interaction ended in a worse way. Whereas by the time she took on Honerva she’d kind of made that journey within herself to get to the point where she could see more of the story, she-- if she had been able to look at Lotor in a different way nothing would excuse what he did but she may have been able to get I don’t know get to a better end with him.

JDS: Yes.

LM: She wasn’t there yet.

EF: There was more story to tell.

JDS: And honest, we’d be lying if we didn’t say we weren’t meaning to tell a tragic story like it was tragic, you know. And it was intended to be tragic. And it was intended to sort of--

EF: And on multiple levels like you said. It wasn’t just tragic that like, “Oh Allura’s gone” and, you know, she and Lance had just gotten together, and she had this great connection with all the other paladins, but I think there is also, as you said that that level of also if she’d been here back at the end of Lotor’s story that there would have been not necessarily forgiveness, but more of an understanding of sorts.

MS: The events could have played out differently.

EF: Yeah yeah could’ve played out differently.

MS: and I and I feel like a lot of people sort of forget too that early seasons, she didn’t know how she felt about Keith.

JDS: Right.

EF: Yeah! Yeah! Which is something that I really liked because of course you’re going to be prejudice against somebody who you know is related to, you know, the race of people who as far as you are concerned destroyed your entire life.

JDS: Right.

EF: They murdered all of your people. Your dad is dead because of them. Like of course you’re going to have that prejudice. And and so the fact that once Lotor came along Allura was so willing to, to cooperate with him, and try and see his perspective. That in of itself was huge, and then it’s even almost more impressive that she comes to this understanding with Honerva because she felt so betrayed by Lotor because she had allowed herself to be like “maybe the Galra are cool.”

KC: She’s learned so much.

JDS: I will say like circumstances-- [he cut off KC] Sorry is it end? Is it over?

KC: It’s not over yet. After you finish that thought we’re hitting our last 20 minutes and I want to hit a couple of points. Please finish your thought.

JDS: I would just say that you know the end that came with you know the sort of conversation where Allura was saying her goodbyes to everybody. And she was sort of asking Honerva for her help, like they were all essentially dead at that point. Like existence was over. Like this was the saving throw that Allura was sort of putting out there. So we have sort of said amongst ourselves, we would have loved to take an entire episode to sort of explore that conversation, and explore that redemption. It sort of was a victim of us just kind of running out of time. But I do think that like that situation was extreme, you know? I think Allura didn’t come to it easily, but she knew it was a decision that had to be made and and she knows a connection that she had to try and establish with Honerva, um, as much as she believed in forgiveness and and all those things it was like you either gotta put up or shut up right now. This is endgame.

KC: You either do this or everyone is gone forever.

JDS: Right.

MS: I have one more quick thought about Lotor.

KC: Better be quick.

MS: The, like, I-- I understand where a lot of people come from, from that perspective, but I do want to throw out there also, and again this is just my opinion, but just because you are suffering, does not give you the right to inflict suffering on other people, and again he had noble intentions but at the end of the day he killed a lot of people.

JDS: Yup.

MS: And yeah again just because you’re suffering doesn’t mean you get to inflict suffering on other people.

KC: I come back to this so often but, cool motive, still murder. Thank you Brooklyn 99 for that one. Alright we have hit the last 20 minutes of our show. So what I want to hit on really quick for everyone: favorite aspect of the show. Character, character arc, episode. Like favorite aspect and favorite episode if you can pick one. I will start to give you all some time to think, but it’s not gonna be long. Found family. I am a sucker for found family in pretty much all forms, and this show was it for me. Starting very much with Keith and Shiro and this friendship that meant so, so much to them, and then enveloping the rest of the Voltron paladins, at different speeds, in different ways, and Allura, and Coran, and expanding out for the MFE’s and the Garrison, and just you cared about everyone. You could see that they very much cared about each other, and it didn’t have to be romantic and it didn’t have to be blood relationships, just this incredibly strong found family. And then in later seasons you could see, “Alright we’ve developed this bond, we don’t need to focus on it as much.” Shiro and Keith are still incredibly close, but it wasn’t Keith’s crutch anymore, so he could move on, he could work with the Blade of Marmora, he could be a better pilot, a better leader. And Shiro, knowing that Keith didn’t have to lean on him as much could go on to lead the Atlas. Like, they’re still extremely close, but we didn’t have to focus on it. Like, I love found family, I love that we were able to develop that. And my favorite episode is still “Space Mall.” Full Stop!

JDS: Bam. [EF starts making a humming noise in the background]

KC: Ride a Kalteneker, have a hallucination, I love “Space Mall.” Alright, who’s next? I’m taking volunteers.

LM: Um, I can go. Uh, so as a kid who grew up with mostly Western animated TV shows, where everything kind of reset episode to episode, and then literally I think I was in high school the first time I saw Robotech on Toonami. And I realized, this story kept going. And it was serialized. And it had real stakes. And there was literally they-they fought the battle against the Zentradi, and then they had an entire season where they just dealt with the Zentradi like living on Earth with them and trying to commingle. Whereas any American show would just be like we won the battle and it’s over. And it all kind of informed my love of then no reset button. Like, there is no ultimate reset. Everything kind of comes at a bit of a cost, there’s no purely happy ending. We’ve had a lot of like areas where our paladins have had really close scrapes, they, they literally saved the world from collapsing with Lotor But they had to give up their castleship. They brought Shiro back to life, but he no longer had his connection to the Black Lion. There’s always like some sort of give and and ultimately with the big culmination in the end with Allura making the sacrifice, it was just, it’s a story, like it’s I guess I’m just a sucker for those stories, like like I love it when things they kind of happen like real life where, if you’re, if stuff gets that out of hand, you can fix it, but it’s probably not ever going to be the exact same.

JDS: It comes at a cost.

EF: Yeah it’s like you rolled an eight or a nine playing dungeon world system where you succeed with consequences.

JDS: That’s right

LM: And my favorite episode is is probably still like “Reunion.” Just like, the emotional stakes. Steve Ahn and I, I think we’re on the same wavelength as far as like the stuff that we love. And, uh, and he knocked that one out of the park for me, so I love it.

JDS: Absolutely. I mean, uh, I’m along the same lines. But I will just say that within the framework of that, Robotech was just, hands down, like the most influential thing sort of animated I think on both of us. It opened our eyes to a lot of stuff. It opened our eyes to sort of there being no boundaries in terms of what animation was, who it was meant for. I recently had a meeting with like an executive who was dealing with it back in the day when it was originally airing, and he had the same thing that sort of the the same phenomenon that we were dealing with what was where he was like “hey kids were watching this but then we realized like their sisters and their moms were watching the show with them. Because it had this--

EF: Well there’s so many cool women in Robotech why wouldn’t they?

JDS: There were cool-- But there was also a through-line, a very strong character arc for each one of the characters. Um and and there was all this stuff going on that just didn’t have to, you know, it didn’t involve like the big robots. They were awesome. But there was a ton of other stuff. I would say within the framework of the serialized crazy show I love the fact that tonally we could go all over place. We could be as slapsticky as we wanted to and as serious and as dire and as heavy as uh we sometimes got. Uh favorite episode--

KC: Space Mall

JDS: I would say “Monsters and Mana” is probably my jam.

MS: I-- uh, it keeps changing for me because I keep thinking like “Space Mall” was my knee-jerk reaction, but Honerva’s backstory, the episode--

KC: SO GOOD.

EF: Give me a top three.

MS: Yeah, “Monsters and Mana.” I’m gonna go with “Monsters and Mana” because I think that was um, but it’s like neck in neck, “Day 47” is also good--

JDS: “Day 47” too.

EF: “Day 47” is awesome.

KC: “The Voltron Show.”

MS: And the ar--that’s the closest we’ve got to the musical episode. The uh Earth two-parter which was something I was super excited about because of the idea of coming back to Earth after the Galra had gotten there first and beat them to the punch. I am super fascinated by what goes on on Earth without Voltron there to save everyone. So there was a lot.

JDS: That was our--that was our Robotech/Macross homage for sure.

MS: There--I liked, I liked a lot of stuff. But as far as my, my just favorite thing about the show? Favorite, ugh it’s just, so I know this is gonna sound hollow to a lot of people who were upset by the way things shook out, but I love how inclusive this show was from the very, very beginning. Most of the team are people of color, which is so so radically different from the way the show was presented originally in the 80’s. It’s been so inclusive and there are just so many women in the world that aren’t damsels in distress, or just moms waiting for kids to get home. Even moms who are waiting for kids to come home are amazing.

EF: Colleen Holt was like, just everything. She’s amazing.

LM: Colleen was great.

KC: Colleen Holt is a holy terror and my life knows--

JDS: I think though, some approximation of your mom, Lauren. Am I--

LM: She pretty much is. My mom didn’t, so I’ve told Joaquim this many times, but like I was not allowed to stay home from school unless I was literally throwing up. Like if I had a cold? At school. If you were like “I don’t feel good”, you’re at school it doesn’t matter.

JDS: Opposite.

LM: I had to be like projectile vomiting into a can if I was going to stay home, and even them my mom would be like “you’re fine.” If I was like, “it’s not fair.” “Life isn’t fair.” That was it. She would get out the violin and like, “Cry me a river” like this is--

KC: Did she have a violin?

LM: She did not. Like it was fake. But it’s like, I learned really quick that whining doesn't get you anywhere. That like, you know, I mean that means that she was a great mother and great nurturer, like super crafty and I got all my creative juices from her and like she’s an amazing woman. And and she you know, Colleen is, is in some ways very much a representation of that.

JDS: Lauren didn’t have to say that, and it’s like we could feel, she was like--

EF: Yeah we were all like “this is Lauren’s mom.”

MS: But everyone from Pidge and Allura to the Galra generals to the MFE pilots to Santa, every woman in this show made me really happy. Just because it shows that women are people capable of doing any job men are doing and it just, it meant a lot. Sorry I didn’t mean to keep stepping on you.

EF: No I was just gonna say uh yeah I think for me a lot of the stuff we touched on about the whole idea of succeeding but there being consequences because that is a more realistic approximation of how things go in real life. Not everything gets wrapped up perfectly with a bow. And to me that I would rather a satisfying ending than one that is just so conclusive that there’s nothing else you can do because that, that’s just not realistic. Never ever going to happen for you. Sorry. Um, uh, and then let’s see. I think favorite episode. I did love the one with Honerva’s backstory, that was really good. I loved the game show episode.

JDS: God bless you, because the internet--

EF: Had so many layers to it.

JDS: Was quite divided on that.

EF: To me that episode was really dark in a good way. Yeah I really really loved that episode. Um yeah and Oh! I remember what I was gonna say. One of the other things that I really really liked about it--and it goes along with the whole sort of succeeding with consequences--is the fact that there was that time skip where Voltron was just gone for two years. And and and getting to see the fallout from that was very um, it was very satisfying.

LM: Yeah.

JDS: That’s awesome.

KC: There’s, we’ve had a lot of consistent--um consensus in chat. A lot of people are talking about “Black Paladins” being their favorite episodes and being a work of art. People liked the game show episode. People liked, people liked all sorts of stuff.  Uh, Honerva’s backstory. One person said, “I liked any episode with a person in it” and I had to agree. One person said, “the pilot, lol jk” but I know you were joking but the pilot is also one of my favorite episodes.

EF: The pilot is, I’m sorry, [interrupting KC], the pilot is outstanding.

JDS: [Whilst scratching his beard] Oh wow. I don’t even remember that episode. I don’t remember that far back in life.

EF: I think they put two episodes--

JDS: They did.

LM: The three first episodes.

EF: Oh the three first episodes were one.

JDS: It just seems like literally a lifetime ago.

EF: And the three of them playing all together in one chunk, it was like, oh my god it was such a good pilot.

KC: It was just “here’s what you’re gonna get, let’s go.”

EF: Yeah

KC: And at the end of that pilot, I was like, “Where is all of it? Please give it all to me.”

JDS: Funny, you know about that episode, about that chunk, you know, we got a note pretty early on as were, like, just out of development but still trying to figure out the tone of the show, was that the show needed more, like, comedy and stuff. So, like, the whole, like, sneaking around the Garrison and hiding in trash cans, all that goofy stuff was originally not in. It was, just, like, “Let’s put some, like, silly gags where they’re, like [silly noises].”

LM: Yeah, we literally sat in a room with the writers and just watched the animatic, and we’re, like, making up jokes we could just stick in. There was, like, I don’t even know if it’s still in there. Was there, like, the giant cat lady with Lance like, “Watch out for a giant cat lady!”?

JDS: No that’s gone. Giant cat lady’s gone.

LM: There’s something about that. Like, honestly, like 90% of them we ended up cutting later because they were like, “this sounds like it came out of nowhere” because it did. Yeah, we sat in a room and we made jokes.

JDS: But you know, to some extent it did sort of sell the fact that we could go as broad as we did. It just kind of hit you with it right off the bat.

EF: Yeah.

KC: Well, we’re close to the end. I know. I want to say a couple things from our other hosts because Mark and Alexis could not be here tonight, but they both sent in messages. And so from Mark: “Thank you to my fellow lions and the fans for welcoming me as the yellow lion. I’ve been friends with everyone for a while, but working on the show deepened our relationship and brought us closer, similarly to the paladins of Voltron. I may not have spent a lot of time as a part of the show, but I’ll remember it fondly. Thanks again to all of the cast and crew for their hand in this magical show. Thanks to the fans for their acceptance and willingness to jump on the crazy theory train with me. Thank you to Katie, Megan, Emma, and Alexis #legday. Let’s have dinner in front of a giant statue in a couple years, yeah?” [laughter] Can’t say anything about the statue, but I don’t want to wait a couple years. You’re local, dude. And from Alexis: “Just wanted to say how--I just wanted to say how sad that it’s ending, but how thankful I am for this amazing show. I’ve met so many great people and so many feels from the amazing writing and acting this show has brought. Sending all my love to the amazing crew and actors we’ve met throughout the seasons of the show. Found new friends and colleagues along the way, making new memories and unforgettable times with our viewers. To my amazing, beautiful ladies, I miss you and love you with all my heart. Thank you for having me be a part of this wonderful family. Mark, you will always be my right foot #legday you handsome devil, you.” They wrote these independently of each other, just so you know. [faint whip-crack sound effect] I don’t know if we needed the whip crack, but I love it. So I-I want to give you guys a chance to do the same thing if you’d like. If there’s anything else you’d like to say to the fans and you as well. So what would you like to start us off, or would you like a minute?

LM: Uh, I’m, you know, I just want to say obviously I feel like I’ve a million times, but just thank you to the fans for watching, for enjoying the show. We made it from the bottom of our hearts trying to make a story that we found compelling, that, you know, we ourselves responded to the emotional beats and we just wanted to put that out there, hope that other people felt for these characters the way we did. I wanted to share with you, Emma, real quick--

EF: Yes.

LM: --as my Sailor Moon compatriot. I did try to pitch, like, an Allura baby at the end. So, you know at the end of the Sailor Saturn arc, how she sacrifices herself and Sailor Moon goes in and brings out little Hotaru?

EF: Yes! Yes, oh my goodness, I’m--I--I feel you on this!

LM: I was like, “Alright. Blue Lion. There’s just a little infant Allura.” And then you know--

EF: [indistinct] And then she gets another, like, chance at living her life, and she doesn’t have to be sad that her dad got murdered--

LM: As a non-Sailor Moon person, Joaquim was like, “That’s a little weird”-- [laughter]

JDS: Well, what was weird for me was, like, Lance raising, like, this woman that he loved.

LM: That’s the beauty of it!

KC: That’s when it becomes orphan and that’s weird.

LM: It goes from romantic to conditional and platonic.

EF: Or she could-or she could be raised by--

KC: Coran.

EF: Zethrid and Ezor!

MS: And Ezor!

JDS: Oh, see that’s a great idea.

KC: I was saying Coran!

EF: Oh, I was thinking she could be raised by, because, you know, the lesbians and the baby.

MS: Keeping the Sailor Moon parallels, it has to be Zethrid and Ezor.

KC: We-we had to derail--

EF: Veronica and Acxa.

[Hosts cheer]

KC: We had to derail the show one last time for posterity.

[Hosts and LM apologizing]

KC: No, thank you. Thank you.

LM: No, no, no. But thank you, ladies--

JDS: Thank you, guys.

LM: --for always being, like, super supportive and honest with your opinions about the show and, just, you know, speaking to it from a, like, objective, like--

JDS: I will say that, like, we know sitting here and sort of, like, having a longer episode and talking about these subjects that usually, you know, you tend to not shy away from but kind of censor yourself a little bit to talking about only because you know you don’t want to, like, piss off anybody that we’re working for. We never approach- we never approach this uh from a place of of fear or--we’re just trying to be genuine with where we’re coming from and where we think the industry as a whole can go. The answers that we provide here probably aren’t going to, like, satisfy the-the majority of the people out there. We do appreciate everybody’s opinion. We do appreciate the fans that have stuck with us over the years on this. We know this show kind of came out of nowhere and people didn’t know what to make of it at first and we appreciate that they-that they sort of rallied around it and-and it provided us so much joy and continues to. That being said, we’re happy that it’s, you know, in the past. This is probably, like, the last Voltron thing that we’re going to be doing ever, so it’s bittersweet for us and we really thank you-you guys and the fans for-for sticking with us and making it a fun experience outside of us being bleary-eyed. Having no sun for long strips of time making the show.

KC: Well, you guys have come in to talk with us so often and we really appreciate that because we know it-it takes time out of your night, it’s kind of a weird time slot, but we really appreciate you coming in and sharing your thoughts and listening to us go off on crazy, crazy theories while you sit there and whistle.

MS: And you’re just like, “Uh-huh, uh-huh”.

JDS: Well, we appreciate you.

KC: “Sure! Sure!” Alright, Megan.

MS: Yeah, just, thank you is all I can say. Thank you guys, for not only supporting us but for giving us a show that we could talk about. Thank you to our-our other hosts that aren’t here tonight, um, but, like, everybody who’s ever sat at this, like, table. Thank you to literally every guest we’ve ever had to share your insight and your time and everything like that. And everybody’s who’s watched even if, again, you don’t necessarily care for us or agree with us, thank you for watching because it means you care about Voltron and so do we. So we at least have that in common. And just thank you to everybody who’s done fanart and, like, animatics and taken, like, stupid goofs that we’ve said and, like, taking them and made art out of them. That to me is absolutely incredible. Um, so thank you guys for making your show that we could talk about and thank you Katie for being like, “Hey, guys, there’s another giant robot show that we need to talk about.” So thank you, Katie, for insisting that we talk about this in addition to all the other stuff that we were talking about and thank you to Afterbuzz for-for giving us studio time to just allow us to gush about giant robots

EF: I think it was too a little bit of a, you know, this show came out of there being a-of the audience asking for it, honestly, because we-we started doing this show not immediately after the first season dropped on Netflix, so it took a little while and-and basically it was like… You know, I remember I had watched the pilot episode and I was like, “Oh man, this is so great” because I--you know--I knew that you guys had worked on Legend of Korra and then, like, when you guys came in I was like, “Lauren and Joaquim know who I am, this is cool.” Because I--you know--I-I-I love Avatar: The Last Airbender, but like, to me, like, Korra is my frickin’ show, like, just ‘cuz it’s about--it’s about a really realistic teenage girl. I know people get frustrated with her, but I’m like, I was that girl.

JDS: But I think that’s--that--that’s sort of, like, the divide and I don’t want to cut you off, but like Korra was literally created without any plan. There was no, like-like big marketing thing around it and so we were sort of, like, jamming this, like, square peg in a round hole when we were coming to Voltron and it worked out as well as it did despite itself in a weird way.

EF: Totally. And, um, and so you know, watching the pilot episode I was like, “Yes, I can feel the same team has worked on this and I know that we’re gonna get an interesting story with very layered characters,” and ultimately that’s what I enjoy in my fiction. End of story. And-and to see the Afterbuzz audience saying like, “Hey, we know that you guys tend to like shows like this. We want to see an aftershow of this.” And Mark Donica who, you know, engineered the show and has been on the show came to us and was like, “Hey, there’s definitely an interest in this,” and so Katie just kind of jumped on that and-and this all kind of came together and, you know, the fact that we’ve been able to talk with so many people who were involved in the show, it’s just--it’s-it’s been a--it’s been really great. So.

MS: It’s been a privilege.

EF: Yeah.

KC: I think we started watching the show when we were in the middle of moving. And I remember--

MS: Katie and I are roommates! We’ve been roommates since college.

KC: Yeah, we’ve been roommates for quite a while.

EF: I had just moved, I think, because they came out in, like, June of 2016?

KC: So we started watching the show, we were in the middle of moving, and I remember coming back home from an Ikea trip and going, “Are you watching Voltron without me? Why are you doing that?” And watching it and saving the last few episodes because I was so sure that Shiro was gonna die in the season finale, and looking back now and going, “Aw, Katie.” And just the show itself has been an incredibly wild ride, so emotional, so much fun. Having to pause the episode and back it up because I was laughing so hard I missed dialogue. Having to get up and walk around after a season finale so I could process what I was seeing. It’s-it’s been an incredible show and it has, it’s so hard to find animation that addresses war and addresses that war has consequences and does it in a way that kids and adults can gel with it. That’s rare for me.

MS: Very rare.

KC: Voltron hit that and it’s been incredible. And then doing this show with you guys, coming off of Robots in Disguise and going, “We’re not done talking about giant robots. Let’s do this, let’s go.” And everyone who has joined us in the chat and everyone who has joined us on the couch and at the table. Everyone who’s ever been a guest on here who was nice enough to donate their time for our crazy little show and had a wonderful, wonderful time talking with all of them. Everyone in the chat who, again did fanart, I’m still blown away that me saying, “I love everyone in this bar” became the Tavern of Lions and someone photoshopped us a menu. Like, you guys continually astound me. It has been an incredible ride, it has been so much fun, it’s been so great and I’m going to miss you all so, so much. Thank you for everything.

LM: Yeah.

KC: On that note, where can the people go on the social medias if they would like to keep up with you?

JDS: Oh, are we doing this? KC: We’re doing this! This is how we close shows.

LM: Alright. @artofLaurenM on Twitter, @thebestlaurenmontgomery on Instagram. Uh, I apologize. I-I don’t post much, now that--

EF: But your-but your collaboration you post about with Miyashiro? Is that--?

LM: Yeah, Tiffanie Miyashiro. Amazing woman, amazing designer, fashion, and-and so yeah.

EF: I want the outfits of all those J-pop girls. [laughter] They are great.

LM: Awesome.

JDS: Uh, @jds_77 I think on something and @jds_247 on the other thing. Uh, hopefully, I’ll get to, like, sketching some, like, fanarty stuff soon and honestly just wanted to leave a little bit of a void in the wake of season 8 and-and just see my family and do things outside of, like, being involved sort of on a day-to-day with the show. So we’ll get back to it, we’ll have some fun, and maybe post some pics of our new digs and stuff.

KC: Mm-hmm. Thanks again, you guys.

JDS: Thank you so much.

KC: For the show, for coming on this show, for everything. Thank you.

LM: Thank you for putting it together. Thank you for leading it, Katie. Always a fearless leader.

JDS: Also thank you for, like, giving a format to the crew who oftentimes don’t really, like, they don’t have a place to, like, talk about what they do and-and how important to the process they are. Like each and every person on our crew, they’re amazing people, one, amazing artists, and really lent to the DNA of the show. You can tell from episode to episode who directed what, who wrote what, because it had their-their-their essence.

LM: Their flair.

JDS: Yeah, their flare.

LM: Mm-hmm.

KC: Thanks again, you guys.

JDS: Thank you.

KC: Megan? Where can the people find you?

MS: Again, thank you everybody. And thank you to everybody who reached out to me this week on Twitter. You guys are all incredibly sweet and incredibly kind. Thank you all so, so much. You guys can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at @themenguin. That’s T-H-E-M-E-N-G-U-I-N. I also do a Lost retrospective podcast called “No Love Lost” where my co-host loves Lost and I don’t. So be sure to check that out.

EF: That’s amazing. I’m Emma Fyffe, I can be found all over the internet wherever Emma pipes are sold at my name @emmafyffe. Yeah, I got a lot of stuff going on, I tweet about it, though, so just, you know, follow me on Twitter and you’ll know everything that it--Oh! Number one, next Tuesday is my birthday. [cheers] But also volume 3 of He Left a Dead Witch is the Call of Cthulu anthology series that we’ve been doing over on the Twitch channel @hyperRPG starts that night, so it’ll be at 7 o’clock p.m. Pacific time. You don’t have to watch the other volumes to know what’s going on, so check that out on twitch.tv/hyperRPG.

KC: You can follow yellow lion Mark Donica at @MarkBDonica. You can follow blue lion Alexis Torres at @atorrest890. I’m Katie Cullen, you can follow me all over the social medias as well as on YouTube and Twitch at @kiaxet. That is K-I-A-X-E-T. I am also on an Overwatch called “On the Point”, and I am on an all things Roosterteeth podcast along with Megan and a host of other wonderful people called the--called “Rooster Team Radio”, so anchor.fm/theroosterteam if you still want to hear us talk about things including giant robots because Gen:LOCK is a thing.

Host: Gen:LOCK is amazing!

KC: Gen:LOCK is such a thing. Well, this is it. Thank you again for coming on. Thank you guys for doing this entire ridiculous show with me. Thank you everyone for watching. See you later, paladudes.

Voiceover: Our founder: Keven Undergaro and me, Megan Menounos, would like to thank you for tuning in to Afterbuzz TV. Remember, we’re not just the first, we’re the biggest in the world and we’re the only destination for all your favorite TV shows. Whatever you crave, we’ve got it, so go to afterbuzztv.com and check out our lineup. Buzz you later!