#VLD Saltine

[braincoins]

Saltine for Lance's incessant attempts at flirting with everyone lady-shaped, and especially Allura after she made it clear she wasn't interested, and for being weirdly possessive of her when Matt showed up.

HOOOOOOOOOOOO you gotta start with one of my “faves.” (Lance - and especially A//urance - stans, look away now.)

I can deal with Lance’s constant flirting with everything he could even vaguely maybe see as female - he’s a teenage boy, likely lacking in self-confidence and trying to find it in others, seeking validation in the form of (A) beating Keith in something, (B) getting a girlfriend or at least a kiss from a hot chick, or © both. It’s annoying, but if he’d grown out of it over time through the series - or if they’d taken some time to make it CLEAR that that’s what he’s doing, because the target demographic for this likely wouldn’t understand it otherwise - then I’d have been okay.

OMG Lance’s ultimate would have been if Keith were obviously crushing on a chick but then she kissed Lance instead. I think our poor blue boy would have died of sheer happiness right then. 

BUT LANCE AND ALLURA.

The constant hitting on her (badly) even when she showed clear disgust just… UGH. I couldn’t stand Lance for the longest time exactly because of that. 

And then, for a while, he stopped. He was just a really good support for her, and I was starting to get hopeful that maybe he’d realized what a complete and utter assjackal he was being and he was going to be her friend now. What a great development, right? What a great thing for young boys in the audience to see and take in! You can be friends with hot girls that you wanted to date! It can happen! You can just accept that she’s not into you that way and actually be her friend.

But what did we get instead? 

WE GOT VALIDATION OF THE FUCKING NICE GUY ™ BULLSHIT. 

What we got instead was, “Hey, guys, if you hit on a chick and she’s not interested, keep working her! If she’s still not responding, stop obviously hitting on her and instead pretend to be her friend and just wait because eventually she’ll come around and be your girlfriend just like you wanted!”

It makes me so… I can’t… there just aren’t words for how angry this makes me. It’s an insult to Lance and Allura. It’s an insult to A//urance fans - in my opinion. Given that I’m not one, maybe I’m biased. I know that if my ship became canon in this way, I’d be crying in disappointment. Just thinking about it is making me tear up a little.

It’s part of the reason I started getting into Plance, because the way it is in VLD canon? Lance can be friends with Pidge because he’s not attracted to her. But he can’t really be friends with Allura because he’s really just supporting her and being nice to her in the hopes of eventually getting in her pants. AND THAT BULLSHIT IS HORRIFYING. Hell, it even insults Pidge, and supposedly she was LM’s “favorite.” I’m not sure LM or JDS actually know anything about “favorites” because they were like, “Nah, man, no one’s going to like our 6 foot walking beefcake with the anime hair, metal arm, and cool scar. He’s compassionate, brave, strong without being a bully, and a great leader, but all of our fans will be SUPER GLAD to see him go.” So I’m pretty sure when LM said Pidge was her favorite, she just meant, “She’s the only one I can identify with because she’s the only white female in the group, so I’ll just choose her.”

And Lance being possessive of Allura… like, that level of possessiveness is already creepy af if they were in a relationship. You should trust your partner enough that, when some random guy (Matt) flirts with her, she’ll reject his advances. But when you add in the fact that they’re (supposedly) only friends at that point, it’s a whole new level of “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE WRITING HERE AND WHY ARE YOU PRESENTING IT AS OKAY?!” Hell, that scene was played for comedy. Matt’s over-the-top reaction to Allura as comedy, yeah, sure, okay. (Honestly, I don’t know why more people in the series don’t react that way to Allura. Or Shiro, for that matter.) But Lance’s reaction is the comedy counterpoint there and that is in NO WAY something to laugh at. 

LM and JDS made Lance a fucking sleazeball nice guy. Just fucking give him a trilby that he calls a fedora and have him refer to Allura as “m’lady” all the time. If you’d done that from the outset, no one would have wasted their time liking him, loving him, growing attached to him and wanting the best for him only to find out that his own creators fucking hate him AND all his fans.

[sol1056]

I am so glad through your pain I have been introduced to Terrible Writing Advice, ESPECIALLY because the newest one is Plotting A Story and just... oh the VLD parallels, it's hysterical. "Characterization MUST YIELD to the almighty outline, for it's power is absolute!"

omg you people hate me don’t you whyyyyyy are you doing this to me

Just fill any remaining plot holes with weak excuses, and it’s done! Trust me. No one will notice that the plot is so awful that they can’t even look away because it resembles a trainwreck that collided with a bus full of screaming clowns. And the clowns are on fire. 

[basebonded-blog]

                                 THE OBSERVER'S PARADOX

the observation or measurement of an event affects an outcome, so that the outcome as such does not exist unless the measurement is made.

                                       IND. PRIV. VLD LANCE || PENNED BY SALTINE                                                   PERSONALS MAY NOT REBLOG!

[solutionrought-blog]

   GO,

                                                                             BE GREAT

                                                  ind. mutuals exclusive VLD PIDGE

                                                               penned by Saltine

                                     personals may not reblog! Antis are not welcome!

[hyetalrought-a]

                     I DIDN’T KNOW THAT I WAS STARVING

                                          TILL I TASTED YOU

             IND. VLD LANCE PENNED BY SALTINE \\ IND. VLD KEITH PENNED BY ALICE

                                                   PERSONALS MAY NOT REBLOG

                                               ARTWORK CREDIT \\ ARTIST CREDIT

[dynared]

The thing is...even a knockoff Super Sentai Series, Voltron...sucks. (Fun fact, my username is taken from the Sentai Kakagtu Sentai Dynaman, which has a few episodes satirically dubbed in English on USA back in the day).

Sentai and Tokusatsu are constantly about serial escalation as a metaphor for character development, but VLD is very happy to take away from the ante ever since Season 2. Let me use a random example from one, Timeranger. The whole pretense of the series is based on the question of free will versus fate, and the continued strength of the opposition they face is a reflection of that. The upgrades they receive are a conscious choice to face those odds, until the final revelation that puts the context of the series in focus (it admittedly is one hell of a twist that the Power Rangers version, Time Force, played out a bit differently). But in all those cases, there’s always a sense that this power means something, that there are visible symbols of advancement to face greater odds. In many cases, visible upgrades require a proactive approach from the protagonists, whether to make a machine work or to obtain some sort of mystical power and bring it to their side.

Voltron doesn’t show that. My greatest complaint has been the sort of rubber banding of the advancement present. We look like we’re going to move to Lotor and Keith, except pSeason 4 we move back to Zarkon and Shiro. Except now we’re not even showing advancement of the villains tactics (see my complaints about the endless fighter squadrons that might as well be made of saltine crackers).

It fails as a mecha show. Fine, maybe it doesn’t want to be one. But it fails as sentai as well, content to spin its wheels.

If you want to compare Voltron to something, compare it to the 65 episode cartoons of the 80’s and 90’s throughout syndication, the ones that had an immovable status quo, spun their wheels, and were genuinely terrified of resolving the longer arching plot hoping a film would come along. And they almost never did. I think J. Michael Strazynski still has his script for the Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors movie somewhere in his house.

"the writers didn't want to focus too much time on the robots to give the characters more room for development" God that reasoning pisses me off, as if you can't do both at the same time even. Such a thinly veiled excuse.

It’s essentially a thinly veiled admission of incompetence. “Look, our action scenes suck ass because we don’t have Last Airbender’s fight choreographer (one of the reasons the fight scenes in that show look so good), or the expertise of…anyone who’s animated mecha before, but…Lance is Latino! Representation!”

Even the most rudimentary “action, character” episode switch would allow the narrative to show both, something plenty of shows can do. The only answer is a dislike of showing it, or the knowledge they can’t do so effectively. Look, I get it. They don’t have (Insert Japanese studio here) at their beck and call. It’s unfair to compare this to Gundam Unicorn in the action/dialog department. But all those shows are, you know, satisfying to watch and don’t require endless amounts of fanon to convince you the show is good.

[braincoins]

Romelle for the VLD salt thing?

Here’s another “Who?” because, honestly, she serves two purposes:

1) Let Allura and the audience know that Lotor is using the Alteans as batteries, and, 

2) Comedy relief for when Coran’s not around, which, by that point, was most of the time, really.

Do we ever get to see Romelle hanging with Allura and Coran? Do we get to see them spending time together? Does Romelle ever have a moment of OMG YOU WERE THE PRINCESS FROM 10,000 YEARS AGO WE HEARD THE KING SAVED YOU BUT WE WEREN’T SURE!!? Does she ever get to spend any time listening to - and enjoying! - Coran’s stories of the old days? 

Do any of the Alteans get to do anything besides be plot devices? No? Yeah, okay. I mean, Hell, even Allura ends up a plot device in the end, but we’re not salting about her here.

Romelle has no character to speak of, so of course she has very little to develop. She was immediately suspicious of the Lotor Worship going on, had her brother die in front of her when he barely managed to make it back to the colony to let her know what was going on, and... do we ever get to see her mourn him? Do we ever get to see her bond with Allura and Coran? 

Oh, no, she’s just going to run away screaming about how she hates adventures and say some goofy shit around Lance. Oh, and she has horrible fashion sense apparently? Because it’s funny for her to do so, because that’s what she’s here for because Coran who?

[braincoins]

Coran

Oh, you mean “old man comedy relief and occasional exposition dump”? 

The narrative basically forgot Coran existed except for those two things. They forgot that he was the royal advisor, forgot that he had training in a wide variety of skills, and, most of all, seemed to forget that he’s Altean, too and has his own feelings about the destruction of Altea.

Hell, at one point, they got Coran addicted to drugs for the sake of comedy and thus let him be their mouthpiece for what they really thought of most of the characters (i.e., “The Voltron Show” and its insulting one-dimensional portrayal of the characters when Coran ought to be presenting them all as heroes).

And, of course, on top of all of this, he didn’t get to say goodbye. Not even, as I recall, a “tell Coran I said,” message from Allura. Maybe I’m wrong on that, I could only stand to watch that bs once, but I don’t remember Allura saying goodbye to Coran, either, because that’s how totally and entirely the show forgot about him

[braincoins]

For the VLD salt thing, how about Lotor?

You think you’re giving me a toughie ‘cause I don’t like Lotor? 

WRONG. 

Setting aside the abuse and neglect he underwent - because, honestly? cool motive, you still murdered people and used Alteans as fucking batteries - Lotor could have been the BEST FUCKING VILLAIN IN THIS ENTIRE SHOW. Except maybe Haggar/Honerva. 

Lotor was perfectly positioned to be the wild card antagonist: not on the Empire’s side, not on Voltron’s side, but always and entirely on his own side. They tried to do that, but they didn’t know how to do it properly. So what we got was, “No, I made the Empire’s side my side and now I’m going to go apeshit in the quintessence field RAWR!”

Seriously, “and then he went crazy” is the lamest fucking excuse. That is not just bad writing, it’s lazy writing. It’s, “Fuck it, we don’t know what to do with him at this point, soooooo... yeah.”

Hell, even Lotor killing Zarkon felt anticlimactic as fuck! For one, I’d rather someone on Team Voltron killed him - Shiro, Pidge, Keith? - but for another, we didn’t really know anything about their backstory at that point so it’s like, “Oh, and... okay is he dead? I think he’s dead? He’s not dead, is he?” Like, Zarkon - who had been the #1 big bad up to that point - had such a bad death that the fans weren’t even convinced the fucker was dead!

Sorry, I’m getting on how Zarkon was fucked over. [ahem] But seriously, Lotor killing Zarkon had no weight to it at that point. And even Lotor didn’t seem to care one way or the other. And not in that “pointed apathy” way, where it’s like “you and your life are insignificant to me” but more like, “oh this restaurant brought me the wrong food, well I’m not eating here again.” And not even being really all that mad about that. 

I was super into Lotor showing up at first because I fully expected him to be that great wild card antagonist and... yeah, no. He fucks everyone over seemingly just ‘cause he can, not really with a purpose, and then the narrative says, “And then you go crazy and die! THE END!” 

PS we’re also gonna show the gooey remnants of you later, hope you don’t mind, Hate For You And This Show Always, The EPs

[braincoins]

I don't mean to bombard you and feel free to delete, but I still cannot get over how the writers just... murdered Allura. Oh yes, it's glorious that she's the "universe" but... couldn't they have had something better? Like... Honerva becoming the universe and, in doing so, found her family that she so desperately wanted. I get so tight chested thinking about how they ended this show. I don't care who got with who... I care that they took Allura's life for cinematical luster.

We didn’t even get cinematical luster, in my book. Allura’s death doesn’t even make sense, because we don’t know anything about alchemy. All of Allura’s alchemy stuff - like when she’s working on the Sincline ships with Lotor - happens off screen. 

And then all of a sudden it’s just, “Oh hey, Honerva, if we die, we can set everything right.”

What? How? WHY? It… it’s not explained, it doesn’t make sense, and it’s really just there to kill her off to make her this tragic martyr that NO ONE WANTED HER TO BE. 

“Remember, what kids really want and what really drives toy sales is tragedy.” - JDS probably, being the colossal fucktard that he is

Allura was taken from being a princess and the last legitimate ruler of her people to being just a paladin (THAT’S RIGHT I FUCKING SAID IT) and in the “training wheels” Lion, no less (Which denigrates Blue AND Lance, but that’s a whole ‘nother pile of salt). They took what should have been hers alone - Oriande and its mysteries - and made sure she had to share them with another male character (and one who was manipulating her for his own gain, no less) for no established reason (Why is Lotor “worthy” to enter Oriande? It sure can’t be because of his character, given that he was using the Altean people as fucking BATTERIES). They shoved her into a romance FIRST with said manipulator and then with a complete and utter fuckboi (see earlier rant about how dirty they did Lance), made what powers and abilities she had largely a tool of the plot and not actually part of her character (or we would have seen them more often), had her sacrifice the last symbol of her royal birth (which could have been done well with decent writers, but instead it just serves to underscore that no, really, she’s not a princess anymore), and then killed her off. 

Oh, but she gets a statue, so that’s okay.

At no point after season 2* did the narrative respect Allura at all. It’s less like she “died” and more like she spent six seasons being crumpled up and now had finally been thrown away.

*I’m one of the rare people who likes Allura keeping Keith at arms’ length after she finds out he’s Galra and then learning to accept him for who he is. I just wish we’d seen Coran have some of that same problem with Keith and the Blades. I mean, it was his planet, too, for quiznak’s sake! For Alteans to be wary of anyone Galra, given what’s happened, is natural and understandable. Seeing Allura work through her totally-justifiable hate and realize that Keith is not deserving of it was great, but I would have loved to have seen Coran wrestle with it, too. Coran and Allura talking, and Coran advising her - y’know, like an advisor is supposed to do?!?!!? - to think this through and not just go on her gut emotion because, yes, he’s angry at the Galra, too, but even if Keith has Galra blood in him, he’s not Galra. Not in the ways that count. Keith didn’t destroy Altea. I would have loved to have seen them talk that out. 

But then the narrative would have to remember that Coran exists for more than “ha ha old man comedy” and occasional exposition dumps. If we end VLD at season 2, Allura’s stubborn and can hold a hell of a grudge; but when taken in with everything else, it’s just further evidence that Allura “shouldn’t” be a princess in the eyes of the Evil Duo. I mean, how DARE she be mean to JDS’s avatar favorite?!

Still, most of the destruction of Allura takes place starting in s3, so I’m still going to draw the line there.

[braincoins]

Narti!

Who?

Oh, you mean the villain henchman who couldn’t talk and had no eyes, but was shown to have awesome fighting abilities anyway in part because of her bond with Lotor’s cat?

And then Lotor killed her before we even got to know her?

Yeah, honestly, I should have put Narti in the list with Shiro, Allura, and Kuron, because HOLY FUCK do we really have to go into how fucked over she was? Except she wasn’t even on screen as long. This is more “casual fucking disregard” by the showrunners instead of “seething hate and/or sheer incompetence.”

Okay, maybe there’s some incompetence in there, too.

Awesomest fucking general.Killed for no reason.

Seriously, this fucking show.

[braincoins]

Pidge!

You know that part in the film Jurassic Park where Tim calls his big sister a nerd and she insists she’s a hacker? 

THAT’S VLD PIDGE. Hacker? Nerd? BOTH. She’s both. And that’s it.

Sorry, she’s not allowed to have any interests - or abilities - that aren’t related to computers and/or her being a gigantic nerd. Full stop. Computers, hacking, double modulating, video games. 

At one point, Pidge was aaaalllmost about to get some character growth and development when she met the Olkari and realized that all living things have a great deal in common. (This also would have tied in nicely with quintessence and perhaps a further exploration of it as a concept instead of the magical whatever the writers wanted it to be.)

But oh, nope, back to being only interested in computer-y stuff and not things like PLANTS, even though her mother apparently works with them and the Olkari just showed her how to treat plants like computers. 

Oh, and remember Pidge John McClane-ing her way through the Castle in season 1? Hope you didn’t like that too much, ‘cause she doesn’t really get to do it ever again. They let her keep her little illusion thing but after that, they really didn’t let her do her ninja “take advantage of my smaller size” shit ever again. 

Pidge is a static character given the one note NERD characterization and left at that. And supposedly she was LM’s favorite, although LM has said that she doesn’t really relate to Pidge, she was just glad to get another girl on the team.

So... Chick Nerd wearing Green. That’s all Pidge gets despite allegedly being one of the EP’s faves. 

[braincoins]

I can’t stop thinking about how how Shiro as the head allowed for everyone to get a chance to shine. Then with Keith as the head (specifically in the last seasons) suddenly Keith has to do all the final blows. 🙃

JDS said Keith was his favorite paladin.

I mean, you can bring forth all the “Keith was the leader in ‘DotU’” arguments you want, but ultimately?

JDS WANTED KEITH TO BE THE BADASS LEADER DUDE. Because Keith was his favorite paladin, because he relates to Keith, and nevermind stupid shit like “the preceding two seasons’ worth of story and world-building we have.”

And you know what the real bullshit is?

KEITH WAS ALWAYS A BADASS. That’s part of why Lance wanted to one-up him all the time. He was a badass pilot even as a little kid in the simulator. Iverson says he was the best pilot in the class. He’s the bad boy with “discipline problems” who has “trouble with authority” because he’s the cool lone wolf guy with the hoverbike. Shiro says he’s the best pilot of all five of them. Keith does cool shit like carry a knife with him all the time and be all broody and mysterious. Keith is reckless and hot-headed but somehow also always knows what the best thing to do is. He does awesome action movie shit like blasting dudes out of airlocks and fighting robots with swords.

And then he’s just suddenly the leader. And, to be fair, they did show him having some trouble initially. But after that episode, oh, okay, no more problems with Keith leading.

AND THEN MOTHERFUCKING ZARKON IS LIKE GALRA BLOOD IS WHAT MAKES YOU THE BEST BLACK PALADIN AND LEADER AND I’M JUST SITTING HERE LIKE FUCK YOU UP THE ASS SIDEWAYS WITH A BLAZING SWORD, JDS.

There was never any point at which Keith wasn’t a fucking badass, and JDS just wanted more and more. I refuse to believe it’s “Oh we had to make Keith the leader because DotU.” Hell, part of the reason JDS said he related to Keith was because of the situation with Keith’s parents, which isn’t something we got in DotU. 

JDS MADE SURE KEITH WAS LIKE HIM IN SOME WAYS, THEN MADE HIM THE #1 BADASS AND WASN’T SATISFIED UNTIL THE SHOW REVOLVED AROUND KEITH.

“Oh, but at one point they were going to kill Keith.”

Yeah, at one point they were going to kill all the paladins because JDS wanted a goddamn tragedy in a children’s cartoon. JDS and LM wouldn’t know how to make a good story if you gave them step-by-step instructions with helpful illustrations.

[braincoins]

Hunk

Food and Fat. That’s Hunk! He had “fear” in there for a bit, and they gave him just enough of a mini character arc to get rid of that, and now he’s just Food and Fat. Mostly food. Because he’s fat.

“The Voltron Show” hit that nail on the head through the mouthpiece of high-as-a-goddamn-kite Coran: Hunk is good for jokes at his own expense and that’s it.

Look at Hunk cry because he wants to get in on the hug!Look at Hunk relate complicated physics concepts to food, which is something everyone can understand! Ha ha, he relates it to food ‘cause he’s fat, get it?Look at Hunk, who originally enrolled in - and was accepted by! - the Garrison to be an engineer, become a chef! Because food. He likes food more than anything else ‘cause he’s fat, right?

I love Hunk being both a foodie and an engineer, because Hunk clearly wants to fix things. When something goes wrong, he wants to make it better. That’s what motivates him on the Balmera, too. 

Except no, nevermind, he’s really just 100% about food. All that engineering stuff we’re just going to throw out the window. Hunk’s a walking fat joke, laugh at him!

[braincoins]

ok fuck it

I’ve been sleeping a lot lately - like a quiznakton over here - and I’m trying to stay up all day so I can reset my schedule a bit. So since I’ve lost my magic and since I’m salting all over the place, let’s just lean into it. I normally try to keep my blog a positive place, but let’s vent.

Want me to salt about something specific about VLD? Drop it in my askbox. I’ll try to salt entertainingly for y’all. Kinda like ficlet prompts, but... salt prompts. Saltines? Yeah, we’ll go with that. Hit me up, I’ll drop y’all some saltines.

[basebonded-blog]

h e n l o

it’s ya boi saltine with a revamped lance blog yo

got too overwhelmed with how much I had to do on the old one and needed a fresh start, so rp blogs like and reblog if you’d like to interact with an independent VLD Lance!

personal blogs, if you have a rp side blog please message me before following so I don’t block you!