#all of this is paraphrased from memory btw might be wrong. its been a while since i read some of these stories

[flovverworks]

srry for showing the class my mid anime boy but unfortunately hes the "i care so much for someone that him getting into life-or-death situations nonstop started eating me inside out of worry until it reached the point where i decided to leave" & "if ur pride hurts the (feelings of) children then that pride is useless" & "i dont think we can live together but im going to make ur favorite food when ure feeling down"

[numbah34]

A Happy Holiday season to all! This year, I’m bringing the PIE.

I hope you’ve saved room for a little additional speculation, because this is a little something I’ve been working on for about 10 days now, and I think it’s gonna be delicious.

*ahem.* Food metaphors aside, here we go:

In order to hypothesize about the true endgames, I’m going to pull from some quotes, explore the definition of “endgame,” and reference some potential evidence that season 8 provided for us.

*Before you continue reading, it is important to note that this is a meta about Plance/Pidgance/Flirtyrobot/26-other-ship-names-I’m-not-listing-them-all, or the relationship between Pidge and Lance. If this particular ship is not your cup of tea, please do not feel obligated to read further, but still have a lovely day!*

When we use the term “endgame”, we tend to define it as the ultimate relationship one or more characters ends up in by the end of the series. Ideally, we like our endgames to be confirmed by canon, but, if they are not and there hasn’t been anything shown to directly refute it, we can often be happy in believing that our faves will get together after the final curtain. Headcanon to fill the gaps, etc, etc.

Plance, however, is a different story. In fact, it is my assertion that they are, in fact, each other’s endgame, as they are surrounded by an incredible amount of evidence to support such a statement, both by canon in-show, in-comic, and in-book, and by answers provided by showrunners and cast alike. Let’s break it down:

1. Lance will end up with someone he needs; what he thought he wanted is not what he needed. (Can I take a moment to complain here a little? I feel like everytime someone asked about ships, they asked in regard to Lance. Did no one ever ask about Pidge and if she would have an endgame? I’m just saying. That would have been helpful information.) I won’t spend a lot of time on this quote, as it has been broken down in just about every plance meta you can find from early on. I will add: throughout the series, Lance has been shown to be the paladin who tries to use humor to lighten heavy situations. If he can crack a joke about it, the others might not laugh, but the mood will become a little less dire. Humor tends to breed hope in those times. Pidge appropriately labeled him as a goofball, I believe not because she thought he was ridiculous, but because she honestly appreciated his humor and his desire to have fun. While Pidge would, many times, roll her eyes at Lance’s jokes, Allura never laughed at them. She would generally look cross, or glare at him, whenever he would try; for example, when he tried to get her to laugh by pretending to read what he was going to say off his hand, and... it did not go over well. And he had to switch tactics and offer comforting words instead. This seemed to be a common theme over their interactions. He was never able to fully be himself around her.

2. Lance will be someone’s first choice. ...And I would assume that would mean that the someone in question would actually want to choose to spend time around him. Let’s be clear about something: at no point, even in their dating relationship, was Lance Allura’s first choice. Just from season 8: when he finally asked her out, she was ready to turn him down so she could go watch a comatose, unresponsive Altean who actively tried to kill them (a different spin on the “I can’t, I have to wash my hair...”), until Romelle and Hunk peer pressured her into it, not by recommending Lance’s finer points but by telling her she needed to relax (Hunk seriously what kind of wingman are you); if there was an option between Lance and the Alteans, she would pick the Alteans every time; she reminded Lance so many times that he couldn’t possibly understand what she was going through that I was about to turn it into a drinking game; on Clear Day, she could have taken that time to go have fun and relax with him, but instead she chose to stay on the ship with the dark probably evil entity that she eerily mentioned was trying to talk to her, WHAT were you THINKING, Allura, you could have been having fun with your friends and taking your mind off things that way! There was NO ONE THERE TO HELP YOU!; when the entity was picking people to try to convince her to release it, it only picked Lance for a hot second before moving on to Lotor; every time we saw Lotor/something representing Lotor in the same scene as Allura, she had a much more emotional response than she ever did for Lance; when she took the entity in and introduced the dangerous plan, his voice was the one she did not want to listen to (and we start seeing some cracks in the ship, too, as he becomes irritated not only that she would endanger herself like this, but also because his thoughts and concerns DO NOT MATTER TO HER); every time he would tell her he loved her, she would question him, or remain silent, until the end when it just felt hollow.

Pidge, meanwhile... well, we’ve catalogued in metas from s1-s7 how she would choose to be around him, from Space Mall to the Feud, etc., and season 8 did not actually short us on Pidge continuing to choose Lance. It started in the first episode, when she found out Lance had asked out Allura. At that point, her choices regarding him involved what she thought would make him happy. Sometimes, that meant doing things like giving up a game they could have enjoyed together or spending her time at the Clear Day carnival earning tickets to get something [actually sparkly] to take back to Allura instead of for herself, and sometimes that meant backing off and giving them space. I’ll touch more on that point in a moment (and you’ll see why that is, in fact, a pun), so stay tuned.

3. Allura will not have an endgame. I’m paraphrasing a bit here, but I believe there was a quote from one of the various interviews floating out there about Allura not having a definite endgame. (I could be wrong, and if I am, please let me know!) Well... that’s not wrong. Allura did not have an endgame, because her character did not make it to the end of the show (which, btw, I’m still sad about. She is an amazing character, and I wanted nothing but a happy ending for her. This season did not end up making me a fan of A//urance, but that is not ever how I would have wanted that ship to end, either.).

4. Lance will have an endgame. I’ll say it again. Allura was not Lance’s endgame. While she may have given him marks (I don’t think for a second she made him Altean, more like gave him a glowy little quintessence tattoo), she was not with him at the end of the show.

So. Who was Lance’s endgame, then? I am absolutely certain, without them having outright confirmed it, that Pidge was Lance’s endgame.

While we might have gotten very few Pidge and Lance interactions in season 8, the ones we got and the ones that were missing are telling. I mentioned in point #2 that Pidge backed off and gave Allura and Lance space while they were dating; at first, I found that frustrating, because I love Lance & Pidge interactions. But... I would have found it even more frustrating if they had continued while Lance was dating someone else. (That would have reeked of Pidge trying to steal Lance from Allura, and there is nothing in Pidge’s character arc about her trying to split people up; if anything, her arc of trying to reunite her family has made her more of a unifying character.) For 7 seasons previous, we find several instances of Lance being in Pidge’s personal space, sometimes even resting his arm across her back, and her allowing him into her personal bubble. But, while Lance and Allura are dating, he and Pidge do not touch. They continue to be framed together in some scenes, and Clear Day really underlined how, when they are around each other, they come alive. They bring out the best in each other in ways you don’t see in their interactions with the other characters. But I digress. For our final canonical evidence clues, let’s take a look at the final scenes in the last episode.

For the vast majority of the series, comics included, Lance and Pidge follow each other in the narrative. We see this again, as we move from a scene where Pidge is excitedly leaving to meet her friends, to a scene where Lance is giving a little school group talk to some little Alteans about how neat Princess Allura was (aside: let’s not begrudge him that, please, because she was really great, and you don’t have to have dated her to recognize that. She loved all her found family, Lance was just the one to receive markings). As he is looking up at Allura’s statue, a wormhole opens and the green lion comes through, drawing his attention to the lion and its pilot. The smile spread across his face is the one we have grown to associate with Lance, and he just looks more himself.

In the epilogue photos, we learn that Pidge and her family are on earth, training up the next group of legendary defenders. We also learn that Lance is on earth, living and working on his family’s farm. Some things to pay attention to:

1. They are both doing work that honors Allura’s memory and sacrifice. Allura had said in the Feud that Pidge and her family would be the most likely to be able to continue her father’s legacy, which was a very important thing to Allura’s character. Lance, apart from giving the occasional field trip talk, is growing juniberries, a flower Allura had once thought extinct, and that she associated heavily with Altea and Altean culture. He might not have understood alchemy, or other parts of their culture, but Lance and his family are farmers, and they do understand plants; this is something he can do that honors her memory. I’m going to emphasize that, when you lose someone you love, you do find yourself doing things to honor their memory; it does not, however, mean that you are miserable for the rest of your life.

2. They are both on Earth. Hunk, Keith, and Shiro are all off doing their own thing, Coran is on Altea (or the Atlas? Was the epilogue specific about what he was up to?), but Pidge and Lance are still in close proximity with each other. Further, Lance’s farm is cultivating a flower that only one botanist from the Garrison figured out how to grow and care for, and that botanist happens to be Pidge’s mom. Not to mention Lance still has Kaltenecker... And, in more than one publication, he talks about getting together with Pidge to play video games. All I’m saying is, they have plausible reasons for visiting each other more frequently.

3. Finally, let’s take a look at the last photos, because I noticed something odd:

In the first picture, it looks like everyone had finished crowding in for the picture, and Lance once again has an arm draped on Pidge (they are finally touching again!), and Pidge is leaning closer to him (hello angling, my old friend). Then you get to the second shot, and… Lance is doing something odd with his hand. You could almost think it was a gesture, but it looks to me more like he was in the middle of reaching to put his hand directly on Pidge’s shoulder. It even looks a little less focused, like he was moving when the picture was snapped. I mean, if he’s not… then what the actual heck is he doing?

Also, the color of those glasses Pidge is wearing... I know, I know, color reaching, but still. And, as this post pointed out, if you check out Chuchule’s tail, he is making a little heart shape in both pictures.

To conclude: while they did not explicitly state it, after 8 seasons of evidence of growth, there is a strong implication that Pidge and Lance are each other’s endgame. We might not have gotten to watch it happen, but... my plance are in bloom. How about yours?