#VLD Critical

[soniccrystal]

Lance shouldve been a peace maker instead of a farmer

The first episode shows how well Lance can avoid conflict by shutting Pidge up with his hand before Iverson did something, then in a few seasons manages to get Keith to let himself be leader for the good of the team and when they have to switch lions Allura herself says that he values the team more then he does glory.

Lance's development shouldve been about instead of pretending and trying to be this awesome space hero for fame, fortune ,for a cool adventure and for the feeling of actually being important for once ,he starts seeing how political or regular work can help people and apreciating that and becomes this smart political people person advisor type of guy that has to talk to difficult royalty or governers in order to help make the paladins alliance easier, help the poor or war victims while seeing value in himself. He becomes a hero that while not famous has helped voltron and other people.

[thethiefandtheairbender]

the way watching "The Dragon Prince" is like the exact opposite of how it feels to watch "Voltron: Legendary Defender". Like oh that plot point from season one? Yeah it's going to be continually expanded upon and recontextualized till you have a completely different understanding of it, no it's not going to be dropped.

All those multiple queer characters? Yeah they're going to be saved by the narrative and live happy fulfilling lives. Disabled characters? A variety and all are treated with respect and care and loved by someone.

Yeah the show builds natural but radical character arcs that take interesting emotional directions, and every character is going to evolve at least a little every season with no dropped arcs. Yeah the lore is expanded upon but never broken.

Yeah the show's aware of when a character is supposed to be an unreliable narrative or contradictory because of their cognitive dissonances, yeah they lean into it, it's on purpose.

Themes of identity and found family and leaving abusive dynamics? Yeah they're just developed further and consistently and respecting various perspectives

anyway, watch The Dragon Prince

[uncaught-coolfish]

when voltron first started did any of you guys have “a character would be introduced who was clearly somewhat of a zuko-stand in, who was a victim of child abuse, but then went insane, got told by one of our mains that he was “just like his abusive father”, and 2 seasons later we get that same child abuse victim’s mangled horrible corpse shown to us on screen from behind” on your bingo card because I sure as hell didnt

[timetravellingkitty]

I know japanese!keith is basically fanon (and I love it too dgmw it's real to me) but the showrunners did treat him as a white character in canon. the showrunners handled him as they would a white character and you can tell with him being the only character with no confirmed ethnicity or surname, purposefully disengaging/avoiding with questions about his race and shafting the non white characters in favour of giving him more screentime. don't even get me started on the racism plotline in s2 that is peak whiteness

[the-kittens-of-vol-tron]

Me: yeah I'm rewatching vld :/

My friends: thats such a good show!

Me: ...did yall finish it?

My friends: no! Just up to season four :)

Me: yeah good place to stop

[savethisnewwriter]

Season 6 of Voltron: Legendary Defender done. Thanks guys for telling me in advance what a disappointment it was gonna be. I hate it. It's as if Lotor underwent trauma- descent into madness- killer arc all in one episode and boom! Conveniently dead as well. Thank you writers. I hate it now.

I think I'm happy writing My Shotor fics in ao3. Don't need no canon to ruin me mental health more🥹

(They did to Lotor what GOT apparently also did to Dany)

[kindaorangey]

in my heacanon where keith becomes some kind of desert gym rat after getting kicked out of the garrison

[peachi-blossom]

Non-Hazbin Hotel characters that are better than Charlie Morningstar (Princess Edition)

Regardless of their screen time, development, importance, they are 100x better than Charlie Morningstar. Or should I say, Charlotte Morningstar.

Next, I will find characters that are better than Angel Dust.

[purplina]

they dancing on Amor Prohibido by Selena (longer, fluffy hair and freckles Lance is my roman empire)

here is the link of the tiktok account if you want to say hi :

[burr-ell]

"the tendency of this fandom to only engage with what THEY want these characters to be#as opposed to what their creators are trying to do and the stories they want to tell" slap this on a bumper sticker, you just summed all cr discourse (about PCs at least) in 2 sentences

It truly is maddening (and it's not by any means exclusive to the CR fandom). The reason why the discourse always goes the way it does is that at the end of the day, the loud fanwanky people only see what they would do, if they were self-inserted into the story, as a valid choice; and they are, more broadly, fundamentally disinterested in what others think or feel. There are several examples of this, and the variety of spaces within the fandom that produce these ideas is an indicator that this isn't endemic to one specific group of people.

-Keyleth is an important character whose feelings and choices are validated by the other PCs and cast even if they still disagree with them, in spite of how she and her preachiness get in the way of the Murderhobo Jubilee? It's not because the cast are all friends and they genuinely believe Keyleth is valid and are interested in how these discussions and choices can guide the story. It's because Marisha is the DM's girlfriend, and also here's my totally unbiased theory that my pet favorite players Sam and Travis secretly hate Marisha and Keyleth.

-Vax's presence is still felt and nodded to in the post-canon VM oneshots? It's not because he was an important character who mattered. It's because Liam wants to make everyone talk about his tragedy because he has Main Character Syndrome. Scanlan Wishes for Vax to appear at the wedding? It's not because he cares about Vex or because Sam and Liam wanted a sweet tribute to Vex and Vax's relationship and by extension Liam and Laura's friendship. It's because Liam thinks Vex's life should always revolve around Vax, and Sam wants to enable him and jerk himself off as the one who facilitated it.

-Beauyasha and Fjorester become canon? It's not because the players wanted it and it happened naturally. It's because there was a secret behind-the-scenes push to "force" those ships to become canon instead, and like, Dani Carr is some sort of shipping puppetmaster who made the players do it, and "they" (whomever "they" is) decided to sink Beaujester or Widojest because it was "obviously" going to become canon before the pandemic hiatus gave them time to "make the corporate-approved ships happen".

-Beau and Caleb try to reform the Empire and dismantle the Cerberus Assembly from within? It's not because it makes sense for their stories or that people who would take this position regarding a corrupt government might have a valid perspective that differs from your own. It's because the people at Critical Role Productions LLC are all spineless neoliberal cowards who won't commit to real activism. The best activism, after all, is violent, and violent revolutions have always resulted in stable aftermaths, and the real world has never demonstrated that this mindset is foolish.

-Relatedly: Caleb doesn't kill Trent personally? It's not because the most poetic justice would be to deny Trent the thing he wants most from Caleb. It's because "Limo Brain" is too obsessed with tragedy to have the stones to do "what needs to be done".

-Asmodeus, DnD Satan, turns out to also be CR Satan? It's not because it fits with the cosmology and the lore; it's because Matt Mercer is too attached to the "establishment", and the Prime Deities should have actually turned out to be the bad guys because of my personal baggage about Western religion and Christianity they're a little mean to my blorbo sometimes.

There's a pattern here: fans had expectations that they'd built up for themselves after projecting and building up fanon and deciding what players meant before they explained themselves fully, and when the players strayed from that, they were derided for all manner of reasons. I think we're seeing that same pattern play out in C3 as the story progresses in a way that fans dislike, and in fact we have seen fanwank spread whenever someone does anything that interferes with personally catering to a) the favored ship and/or b) the favored philosophy. (Orym, Ashton, FCG, Percy, Pelor...all valid when they affirm the Fandom Opinions and all disdained when they don't.)

Don't get me wrong, I think there's a place for comfort stories that deliver a personal catharsis. And I'm not going to dismissively say "well if you want it so bad make your own" because, as an artist, I am very familiar with the fact that creating is hard and draining and sometimes you just need to consume instead. But when you become so wrapped up in yourself and your feelings to the point where your perspective is the only valid one, someone else's feels like a betrayal when it isn't. It's always "They aren't doing what we wanted and here's why they're terrible people because of it" and never "Hmm, why is this what the cast wants? Let's examine that."

This isn't a new phenomenon, but I think it ultimately stems from not assuming that other people can differ from you in major ways in good faith. There are a lot of reasons for that (some more understandable than others), but I think you rob yourself of the potential to enjoy something new when all you do is demand what you already want. No matter what you're doing or where you are in life, you tend to become a better and wiser person when you open your mind to what other people have to say, no matter how mundane the subject matter. Sometimes the stories people have to tell are challenging—and the only healthy way to deal with that is to engage with them on their own terms.

[nilfheim-arts]

Last month I did the color wheel challenge and honestly it was so much fun!

[starlight-dnd]

I just think they’re neat!

credit to my sibling @itsmetea123 for helping me make my vision a reality

[holysheithyall]

“The stars collide when you and I intertwine”

[uncaught-coolfish]

i used to be wickedly into voltron, i mean, i never interacted with the fandom barely except for maybe catnippackets' art but anyway i kept watching for a while, ever since it came out but when they killed allura i stopped watching because what the fuck was that for

NO LITERALLY EXACTLY 100%

I thankfully dodged apollo’s nuke because I watched the first season before literally AHYONE got into it but then. never finished the show until it was over and by then the fandom had died down. but YEAH ABT ALLURA

AND THE THING IS??? THEY COUKD HAVE EASILY SACRIFICED THE LIONS INSTEAD OF HER I FEEL. LIKE THEY SAVED THE UNIVERSE OR WHATEVER SO WHAT IS FHE NEED FOR THEM ANYMORE???? LIKE. I STILL DONT GET WHY THEY DENIED ALLURA OF ALL CHARACTERS A HAPPY ENDING AFTER ALL THAT. season 8 just fucking sucked and don’t even get me started on the epilogue 😶

[timetravellingkitty]

I don't like how the narrative focuses on Keith's mom as having left a bigger impact on him than his dad. Like, his dad raised him for the first few years of his life and then died in a fire would he not feel anything for him + just completely goes against the whole "found family, blood isn't everything" theme by making her come back in the first place

[the-kittens-of-vol-tron]

Re editing my PowerPoint and this killed me