#but also his perspective here is amazing. keith has some of it as well. that they all have some kind of claim to/ownership of each other.

[waugh-bao]

"He [Mick] used to refer to me as his drummer, and at one time that used to annoy me, because I always thought that he was my singer. They're both right, really. It was just something that annoyed me at the time. It's quite an honor, really, if you think about it. For anyone to say 'this is my something.'"

Charlie Watts, 1994

[uomo-accattivante]

I recently came across a bunch of press articles and photos about Oscar Isaac that are so old, they appear to be out-of-print and pre-date social media. Considering they were probably never digitally transcribed for internet access, I’m guessing that the majority of current fans have never seen this stuff.

Even though a lot of these digital scans are challenging to read because they are the original fuzzy news print, I think there some gems worth sharing with you guys. Over the next several weeks, I will transcribe and share those gems on this page. Hope you enjoy them!

Let’s start with this fantastic 2001 profile piece done before Oscar was accepted into Juilliard:

South Florida’s rising star isn’t just acting the part

By Christine Dolen - cdolen@herald.com

February 4, 2001

As fifth-graders at Westminster Christian School in Miami, Oscar Isaac and his classmates were asked to write a story as if they were animals on Noah’s Ark. Oscar turned in a seven-page play – with original music – from the perspective of a platypus. Then he starred in the production his teacher directed.

He hasn’t stopped expressing himself creatively since. Today, Isaac is one of South Florida’s busiest young theater actors, and certainly its hottest. And not just because he’s a slender five-feet nine-inches tall with an expressively handsome face and glistening brown eyes.

Since making his professional debut as a Cuban hustler in Sleepwalkers at Area Stage in July 1999, he has played an explosive Vietnam vet in Private Wars for Horizons Repertory, a pot-smoking slacker in This Is Our Youth at GableStage, another Cuban on the make in Praying With the Enemy at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the entrancing narrator of Side Man at GableStage, a Havana-based writer in Arrivals and Departures for the new Oye Rep and, most recently, a young Fidel Castro in When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba at New York’s Cherry Lane Theater.

Beginning Wednesday, he’ll be juggling five roles in City Theatre’s annual Winter Shorts festival, first at the Colony Theatre in Miami Beach, then at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. But that is not all: During the two weeks he is doing Winter Shorts, he’ll also be playing dates with the punk-ska band The Blinking Underdogs (www.blinkingunderdogs.com), which features him as lead singer, guitarist and songwriter.

Oh, and he just got back from auditioning for New York’s prestigious Juilliard School of Drama.

All this for a guy a month shy of his 22nd birthday.

Sure, you could hate a guy who’s that talented, that charismatic, that transparently ambitious. But the people who have worked with Oscar Isaac don’t. On the contrary, they’re all sure he has it – that magical, can’t-be-taught thing that transforms an actor into a star.

Playwright Eduardo Machado, who put in a good word for Isaac at Juilliard, says “he does have that star quality that makes your eyes go to him. It’s great that someone with that talent still wants to train.”

“He has a star quality that’s rare in a young actor,” adds Joseph Adler, who directed him in Side Man and This Is Our Youth. “Without a doubt I expect to be hearing great things from him.”

‘I JUST LOVE CREATING’

Isaac, who also makes short films, can’t say exactly why he was attracted to acting. He just knows it makes him happier than anything, that it’s what he was meant to do. And he’s been doing it since he was a 4-year-old putting on plays in his family’s backyard with his sister Nicole.

“I just love creating, whether it’s music or films or a character on a stage. I love taking people for a ride,” he says. “In Side Man, every night I would love being that close to the audience. I felt like I was talking to 80 of my closest friends.

“I could feel what the audience was feeling.”

His powerful, mournful-yet-loving monologue near the end of the play, he said, “worked every night. I knew it would get them. I’d hear sniffles.

“But it had less to do with me than with the atmosphere [created by the playwright and director].”

You could understand if Isaac, surrounded as he is by praise and possibility, had an ego as burgeoning as his career. Instead, he channels the positive reinforcement into confidence about his work.

“He has such a charm and an ease onstage, but he’s very modest,” says New York-based actress Judith Delgado, who shared the stage with Isaac in Side Man. “He’s hungry. He’s got moxie. I was blown away by him.

“He saved me a couple of times. I went up [forgot a line] and that baby boy of mine came through. He’s a joy.”

FORGING HIS OWN PATH

The son of a Cuban-American father and a Guatemalan mother, Isaac was never a stellar student. But he found ways of turning routine assignments – like the Noah’s Ark story – into creative challenges.

His science reports were inevitably video documentaries underscored with punk music. He acted through middle and high school, though he had a falling out with his drama teacher at Santaluces Community High in Lantana over his misgivings about a character. When she refused to cast him in anything else, he got his English teacher to let him play the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors his senior year.

His skepticism about authority and love of playing the devil’s advocate have long made him resist doing things the usual way. His post-high school “training” consisted of one semester at Miami-Dade Community College’s South Campus (where he met his girlfriend, Maria Miranda), touring schools playing an abusive character in the Coconut Grove Playhouse’s Breaking the Cycle, and working as a transporter of bodies at Baptist Hospital, where he absorbed the drama of people in emotionally intense situations.

“It was the most magnificent dramatic institute I could’ve attended,” Isaac said. “I was able to observe the entire spectrum of human emotion, people under the most extreme duress. I was mesmerized watching the way people interacted with each other in such heightened situations.

“I learned everything about the human condition, and it was real and harsh and brutally honest.”

Yet even given his propensity for forging his own path, something nudged him another direction while he was in New York making his Off-Broadway debut in December. Walking by Juilliard one day, he impulsively went in to ask for an application. Though the application deadline had passed, Isaac persuaded Juilliard to accept his, noting in his application essay that most of the exceptional actors he admires had acquired “a brutally efficient technique” to enhance their talent by studying at places like Juilliard.

Though he won’t know whether he has been accepted until the end of this month, his audition last weekend went well, he says. He did monologues from Henry IV, Part I and Dancing at Lughnasa, adjusting his Shakespearean Hotspur to a more fiery temperature at the suggestion of Michael Kahn, head of Juilliard’s acting program – though not without arguing that Hotspur wouldn’t be speaking to the king that way.

Isaac, not surprisingly, loves a good debate.

Adler, GableStage’s artistic director and a man who is as liberal as Isaac once was conservative, savored the verbal jousting they did during rehearsals for Side Man.

“He knows exactly how to pull my chain,” Adler says with a laugh. “Intelligence is the cornerstone of all great actors, and he’s bright as hell.

“He has relentless ambition but with so much charm. He’s very hard to say no to. He has incredible raw talent and magnetism that is very rare in a young actor along with relentless energy, perseverance and ambition. I see his growth both onstage and off. He’s mature in both places.”

Part of his growth, of course, will necessarily involve dealing with the rejections that are part of any actor’s life. His career is still too new, his string of successes solid, so it’s anyone’s guess how failure will shape him. But director Michael John Garcés, who picked him for When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba after Isaac flew to New York at his own expense to compete with a pool of seasoned Manhattan actors for the role, believes his character will see him through.

“Oscar is realistic, but he’s so willing to go the whole nine yards,” Garcés says. “He didn’t go out when he was in the show here. His focus earned the respect of the other actors, some of whom have been working in New York for 30 years.

“He hasn’t had a lot of blows yet, when the career knocks the wind out of you. But he has talent, determination and focus, and if he has perseverance – my intuition is that he does have it – he could achieve a lot.”

FAMILY TIES

His father and namesake, Baptist Hospital intensive-care physician Oscar Isaac Hernandez, couldn’t be more proud. (Isaac doesn’t use the family surname in order to avoid, in his words, being “put in that Hispanic actor box.”)

“I’m ecstatic that he’s probably going to be going to the most prestigious drama school in the United States,” he says. “School will help him focus his energies and give him discipline. He’s got the raw material and the drive.”

Isaac’s mother, Maria, divorced from his father since 1992, is a kidney-transplant recipient who acknowledges that she’ll miss her son if he moves to New York. But, she adds, she wants him “to live out his dreams. He amazes me every day. He calls me every day. I’m very proud of him.”

Even the other guys in The Blinking Underdogs are fans of Isaac’s acting, though it could take him away from South Florida just as the band appears to be, Isaac says, on the brink of signing a recording deal (it has already put out its own CD, The Last Word, with songs, lead vocals and even cover photography by Isaac.

“Oscar’s the leader of the band, a great musician who amazes me and motivates us,” says sax player Keith Cooper. “I’ve been to see every one of his plays. He’s a phenomenal actor.

“I completely buy into his role in every play. As close as I am to him, I forget it’s Oscar.”

His South Florida theater colleagues credit that to Isaac’s insatiable desire to learn and grow.

Gail Garrisan, who is directing him in Donnie and One of the Great Ones for Winter Shorts, observes, “It’s not often that you find a young actor who is willing to listen and who doesn’t think he knows everything. He loves the work.

“He really brought the young man in Side Man to life. When I saw it in New York, it seemed to be the father’s play. When I saw it here, I felt it was his [Isaac’s] play.”

Oye Rep’s John Rodaz, whom Isaac calls “the best director I’ve ever worked with,” gave the actor his first important job in Sleepwalkers at Area Stage. They met when Isaac came to see Area’s production of Oleanna and the actor, knowing Rodaz ran the theater, introduced himself.

“He has so much energy and such a sparkling personality,” Rodaz says. “He knows how to move in the world. He seems to take advantage of every situation in a good way; he’s not a cold, calculating person who’ll stab you in the back.

“[But] he wants it so badly. Everything he does, he’s the leader. When I was 21, I was taking naps.”

Rodaz coached Isaac on his Juilliard monologues and found the experience energizing.

“I got chills just watching him. That happens so rarely. I was so exhilarated when I came home that I just had to go out and run. You just know he’s got all the tools.”

Christine Dolen is The Herald’s theater critic.

###

[elhoimleafar]

HEY YOU !! Here some love, magic, reviews, and Manifestation. (and Thanks in advance for Sharing if you can)....

Well, it is no secret that this Mercury Retrograde in Gemini (we have to blame someone, right?) Is pressing more than normal, or so it seems, and when communication channels fail, everything can happen, on the other hand, between the summer solstice and the full moon that is forming, there a quite unexpected energy push, so based on that, this was not very surprising.

"Manifestation Magic: 21 Rituals, Spells, and Amulets for Abundance, Prosperity, and Wealth", the paperback edition is available from this week (yes, I know, almost three weeks before expected) on Amazon and in many of your favorite physical stores. 

So for all those who pre-ordered, the book should be arriving in the next few days.The digital edition (ebook/kindle) will be available on July 1, yay, the audiobook edition (courtesy of Tantor Audio) in the amazing Bill Andrew Quinn's voice will be available soon for sure.

SO NOW !! Suppose that you are not yet convinced to order your copy of "Manifestation Magic", because, you have no intention of learning something new, perhaps you have no interest in changing your mindset, in healing your personal relationship with money and abundance, in receive with open arms all that the universe has prepared for you, in embracing all that the world has to offer you, etc, etc, etc... OK, here below I leave you some reviews of your favorite authors, and also, the links to order your copy.

~ Reviews ~

"Manifestation Magic: 21 Rituals, Spells, and Amulets for Abundance, Prosperity, and Wealth is a remarkable and comprehensive guide to realizing one’s utmost desires of fruitfulness. Readers learns about the candles, crystals, entities, and lunar, solar and planetary energies that aid in manifesting abundance. The rituals are unique, and the suggested spells are outstanding."

― Miss Aida Author of Hoodoo Cleansing and Protection Magic.

“Get ready to manifest your best life with Elhoim Leafar's latest offering: Manifestation Magic! Leafar is a beaming light of positivity in the magical community and this comprehensive book is his torch for guiding others on their path. With a diverse and expansive approach to spellcasting and ritual, this book speaks to the modern magic makers of today -- showcasing the potently powerful means for tapping into the endless enchantment of the universe. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking to bewitch their lives with an abundance of magic!”.

― Michael Herkes Author of The GLAM Witch and The Complete Book of Moon Spells.

“Elhoim Leafar’s passion is conveyed abundantly in Manifestation Magic, as is his successful teaching style. As an initiate of the Art and a modern-day shaman, he brings to light a unique, powerful blend of spells and rituals for attracting wealth. Using visualization, candle magic, crystals, and prayers, he confidently guides readers into the realm of manifesting their desires.”

― Lawren Leo Author of Horse Magick and Dragonflame.

"Elhoim is among those we call 'wise ones' -- special souls who are highly attuned to the magic that exists all around us. His book Manifestation Magic is a huge download of profound magical wisdom that will shock you into knowing your own power, while gently and simply teaching you how to transform your existence step-by-step. Beginner magicians will feel supported, as they begin their journey into magic while experienced practitioners will be blown away by Elhoim's profound insights. I refer to this book often and recommend it to anyone who wants to truly master the art of manifestation."

― Madame Pamita Author of Madame Pamita's Magical Tarot and The Book of Candle Magic.

“Manifestation Magic is a thorough, yet approachable guide, suitable for beginners. Its exercises are refreshingly new and exciting, while Elhoim Leafar’s insights are always interesting. This is a great addition to any magickal library"

― Lilith Dorsey Author of Orishas, Goddesses, and Voodoo Queens.

"Elhoim shares a beautiful, compelling perspective on manifestation magic rooted in his personal practice, diverse studies, and experience growing up in a magical family in Venezuela. His poetic style will inspire and provides a vivid and welcome complement to the host of useful, practical information contained here. Manifestation Magic is a wonderful contribution to the field of practical magic."

― Durgadas Allon Duriel Author of The Little Work: Magic to Transform Your Everyday Life.

"True wisdom and knowledge are written within the pages of Manifestation Magic. Whether you are a beginner or have been practicing for years, you will get something from this book, or it will remind you of something you’ve forgotten about working with abundance. An easy read, the exercises are simple but powerful. This is a must-have for any practitioner’s library”.

― Amanda Keith & TJ Vancil owners of 3 Crows Conjure and Occult Master Class

“Manifestation Magic: 21 Rituals, Spells, and Amulets for Abundance, Prosperity, and Wealth is bursting with foundational knowledge for magical crafting, along with invaluable wisdom on the nature of courting the spirits of abundance in your life for long-lasting success. You’ll discover a full spectrum of magical practices that are rooted in tradition and years of personal practice. Elhoim Leafar truly displays the empowering qualities of magic as an art and way of life.”

― Shaheen Miro Author of Lunar Alchemy and The Uncommon Tarot.

"Elhoim Leafar has poured his heart and soul into Manifestation Magic. His pages are filled with unique perspectives from his experiences of magic as an urban shaman. This book is an intimate look into the practices of a magician who hails from Venezuela."

― Najah Lightfoot Author of Good Juju: Mojos, Rites & Practices for the Magical Soul.

“In Manifestation Magic, Elhoim Leafar offers a diverse, practical guide meant to help readers ‘achieve happiness, economic prosperity, and abundance through rituals and spells. The book provides brief overviews of astrology and planetary influences; how to arrange spells around days, times, and lunar phases, as well as deities associated with abundance and wealth. The author draws from a plethora of cultural sources and also helpfully touches on psychological barriers to obtaining wealth. Those interested in the magical power of ritual will find Leafar to be a sage guide.”

― Publishers Weekly

Links to order your Copy: 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1578637422/ 

Indiebound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781578637423

[icypantherwrites]

Hi Icy! I've been loving your recent fics w/new characters, like your BNHA fic & your fics w/Keith & Pidge. I'm a patron & love everything you write, but I've always just found it kinda frustrating that every month w/out fail, Lance is always chosen for the FOTM. If you love writing Lance fics & have no problem w/it, that's totally fine & ignore me!! I'd just love if we had the option for choosing fics that aren't always about Lance, esp since poll results are looking a lot more diverse lately.

(cont'd) I know polls are a way for it to be democratic & fair so maybe this is just me being bitter about not getting the results I want, & again if you're totally fine w/it & love writing Lance fics seriously ignore this & I apologize. You're the writer so you're the only one who matters. I'm really sorry if this sounds ungrateful & I'm really trying not to be. I'm so grateful that I get to read your amazing fics & that you give us the option via polls at all. Thank you, & I wish you the best!

---

First off, thank you so much for the Patreon support. I super appreciate it and am glad you’ve been enjoying all of my recent fics.

Second, just to note Keith did win the Fic of the Month in October ;) (although it wasn’t terribly well received so that was a bit disappointing).

To your point though yes, Lance has won every other poll. I did debate taking him off it at one point but the majority of my Patreon supporters are there for my Lance content and to take that option away doesn’t seem fair. I try to provide a good variety each month in addition to Lance to at least change up who he gets to work with for that fic.

And I do try to take it from other perspectives too to give those characters a bit more of a feature even if the trope is centered on Lance. For example, Feel Like a Monster is essentially a Keith fic and The Warmth of a Scar is a look at Lance through Allura’s eyes. And this upcoming one, given the vote, will have some other character perspective as if Lance is the one being rescued via CPR he can’t really narrate that for us ^^; I know it’s not quite the same thing but I do try to give as much a range as I can following the poll results, but I do believe in letting the majority choose and if that’s what they want that’s what they get. And don’t get me wrong, I love writing Lance, so that’s not a problem. It is always fun though to visit other characters but I’ve had so many commissions of late that are Keith or Shiro or even Pidge centric that I’ve been getting my fill over here :)

But, and I think you’ll like this, for February I am planning to do a “Flip it Around February” where I’ll be offering up the option of not just VLD but four other series to write instead. No idea if the vote will go in that direction but it might let us branch out a bit. I am also deciding in that series vote which characters would be appearing on the poll (i.e. for example ATLA could be Zuko, Sokka, Katara and Suki) and Lance is not going to be an option. So if we get VLD Lance will not be the main for February and if we get another series, well, we get a little new blood on the site :)

I also encourage you, if you’d like, to advocate for the character or trope you want in the comments. People can change their vote at any time and sometimes if they’re given an idea you may get some support. I do think the one comment regarding Keith is what spurred the sudden rush of “Lance receives CPR” for this last one so you never know who is reading the comments and what they might be thinking.

I hope this answer helps a little bit :) And if you’re ever interested in getting something completely customized to your tastes commission do open every month on the 5th! ;)

Take care! 

Click below for links to IcyPanther’s:AO3 | Ko-Fi | Patreon |Bookshop

[tiny-opal-essence]

Pocket Paladin Chpt 8

Training

“Good morning paladins!  I hope you didn’t forget about training today.  I expect to see you all on the training deck in 15 doboshes.  Every dobosh one of you is late, that’s an extra 5 doboshes more training for everyone before breakfast.”

Lance groaned as Allura’s voice rang over the comms.

Why does everything have to be so loud from this perspective?

He sat up and groggily rubbed his eyes.  The bed creaked behind him as Keith did the same.  He climbed off of his jacket and onto the nightstand while Keith walked over to the wall.  Keith pressed his hand against the hidden panel and the closet opened.

It is amazing how you wouldn’t even know the closet was there.  There aren’t even lines in the wall giving it away.  Alien technology is pretty cool.

Keith started taking off his shirt, causing Lance to let out a small *gasp* at seeing him shirtless.

Mmm, those back muscles…Not now bi thoughts!

Keith turned towards him when he heard Lance, giving him an even better view of his chest.

“Do you mind?  Don’t be weird.  Just turn around.” Keith said.

“Sorry!” Lance turned away from Keith while trying to get his face to cool down.

Like he said, don’t be weird.

‘You know he doesn’t like you in that way.’

I know he’s straight, but I can still appreciate how good he looks.

‘But what would he think of you if he found out about your little crush?’

That’s why he’s not going to find out.

While Lance was thinking, Keith was going through something similar.

Keith had almost forgotten that Lance was in the room with him before he had *gasped*.  He didn’t know why Lance seeing him shirtless was making him feel so weird.  His cheeks felt warm and there was an odd tightness in his chest.  Was he feeling embarrassed?  He’d never felt embarrassed about his body before.  Was he worried about Lance somehow using this against him?  No.  Whatever it was, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it as he finished getting dressed in his paladin armor.  He didn’t have time to figure it out, as both he and Lance had to get down to the training deck.

“Are you done?” Lance asked his back still facing Keith.

“Yes.  Are you?” Keith responded.

“I don’t have anything else to change into, so yeah.”

“Didn’t Pidge say that your armor had shrunk too?  She gave that back, right?”

“Not yet.  She wanted to try to boost the signal from it since it got scaled down.  So for now, all I’ve got is the healing pod outfit.  Lucky me.”

Lance’s outfit was starting to look less pristine than the day before.  He wished that some of his other outfits had been shrunk too, like his jacket or even just his jeans.  It would let him feel a bit of normalcy.  He was glad that the picture of his family hadn’t been shrunk.  If it had and he had lost it, there would be no way he would ever find it.

“We should get going before we’re late,” Lance said.

“Good idea.  Do you want to go on my shoulder again?” Keith placed his hand down in front of Lance who quickly climbed on.

“Yeah.  I like being closer to everyone else’s eye level.  Less looking up or down on both sides.” Lance sat down between the collar of Keith’s armor and his neck and grabbed onto his hair once more.  “Onwards, noble steed!”

“Really, Lance?”

“Hey, do you want to be late for training?  Less talking more walking.”

Keith let out a slightly annoyed *huff* and started heading towards the training deck.

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

“I’m glad to see you’re all on time for once.” Allura glanced over at Lance when she said the last part.  The others didn’t seem to notice.

Why does she have to say that?  It’s not like I try to be late.

“Shiro suggested we do some more mind melding exercises due to the change in who’s piloting which lion.  Everyone grab a headset.”

“What about me?  I don’t think those come in my size.” Lance pointed out.

“Oh, that’s right.  You can help monitor everything with Coran.” Allura decided.

“Ok.”  Mind melding exercises may not have been Lance’s favorite, but he thought he could at least participate in them somehow like this.

“Don’t worry, my boy.  There’s not much to it.” Coran assured Lance as he was handed over to him.

That’s not what I was worried about, but thanks.

“After breakfast, I can try to make one of these for you.”  Hunk offered.  “It might take a bit, but with some reverse engineering I should be able to figure it out.”

“I can help.  I’d love to know more about how they work.” Pidge added on.

“That sounds like a good plan, but we shouldn’t waste any more training time,” Shiro commented.

Good to know my friends worrying about me is considered wasting time.

“Shiro’s correct.  We should get started.” Allura stated as everyone except Coran went to sit in a circle.

“Alright paladins, you know the drill.  Close your eyes and think about your connection with your lion.” Coran said.

Green and Yellow’s holograms popped up in front of Pidge and Hunk almost instantly.  Blue appeared for Allura hardly a moment later.

“Excellent, Allura.  Your bond with Blue has grown much stronger as of late.” Coran commented.

How come she’s so much better at this than I am?

‘You know why.  It’s clear to anyone that Allura is the best choice for blue paladin.’

Well…Blue picked me first!

‘But she also abandoned you first, didn’t she?  She cut you off as soon as someone better came along.’

While Lance was sorting through his thoughts, Keith was having a little trouble focusing.  The lion in front of him kept switching between Red and Black.  After a few seconds, Red appeared.

Shiro was having a similar struggle.  Black would appear in front of him for hardly a moment before fizzling out in a burst of purple.  It was obvious to anyone watching that he was trying to focus, but it had been so long since he remembered connecting with Black.

“Patience yields focus,”  Keith said as the others felt Shiro’s struggle through the mind meld.

“I should have known you’d use that against me.”  Shiro took a deep breath.  Slowly, Black came into focus in all her glory.

“Well done paladins!  It’s amazing how quickly you’re getting the hang of this new arrangement!  Why I think you’ve done it faster than the paladins of old.  Now, focus on Voltron.”

They’re better without me?

‘Of course they are. You were just holding them back.’

Slowly, the lions all moved towards the center of the circle.  The arms and legs formed perfectly.  As Black came closer to the others, her image shifted to form the head.  Before it could connect with the rest of Voltron, the image became distorted and changed to something much more frightening.

Shiro ripped off the headset and stood up when he saw the face of Haggar appear.  His breathing was heavy as the others removed their headsets.

“Are you ok, Shiro?” Hunk asked.

“To be honest, I’m not sure.  Even though I’m free, it still feels like she’s holding me captive somehow.”  He rubbed at his temples to try and get rid of his headache.

“That’s understandable.  You were a prisoner for a while.  It takes time to adjust back to normal.” Pidge said.

“There’s a part of me that feels like this is wrong, that it’s all some illusion she cast to trick me.”

“I assure you, this is real.”  Allura grabbed Shiro’s hand.

“Yeah, if it was an illusion, do you think she would have had me be like this?” Lance gestured to himself.

“Haha, probably not,” Shiro responded with a smile.

“We’re here for you, Shiro.”  Hunk said.

“We won’t let her get to you,”  Keith added on.

“Thanks.  I was hoping the mind-melding might help me get my thoughts together, or remember more of what happened, but it’s still mostly blank.  I think I remember the second letter of the project name.  It might be a u or maybe a double o.  Definitely an oo sound, but that’s all I got.”

“Ok, so with that, we now have K or C followed by u or oo.  So it’s a coo like sound.” Hunk thought out loud.

“Couldn’t it also be qu for the name?”  Lance suggested.

“Maybe.  Ok, so we’re a little bit closer to figuring out the name of the project.”  Hunk added on.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t remember more,” Shiro said.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Shiro.  Going through something like that and being willing to dig through the traumatic memories is a show of great courage.” Coran responded.

“It doesn’t feel very courageous.”

“It is.  Courage cannot erase our fears, courage is when we face our fears.”  Lance said.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Newsies.”

“Of course your advice comes from a musical,” Keith commented.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How about we all go get some breakfast?”  Hunk stopped the argument before it could grow out of control.  “Now seems like a good time for a break.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Allura added on.

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

“It looks like he’s remembering more than we expected at this point,” Axha said.

“We’ll just have to move the time table forward then,” Lotor stated.

“But what if he remembers too much?” Ezor asked.

“That is of no concern to us now.”

“He seems to be having some doubts about being on the team.  He is also acting slightly different than expected.” Axha pointed out.

“Not to worry.  Any differences in his behavior will be written off as a side effect of being a prisoner.  We need to keep monitoring the situation to make sure it stays that way for as long as possible.”

Kova *meowed* in agreement on Narti’s shoulder.

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

After breakfast, Pidge, Hunk, and Lance had gone back to the training deck to get the mind meld headsets to bring to the workbench.  They were eager to see how they worked so they could make one for Lance at his new height.  Pidge had also finished boosting the signal in Lance’s paladin armor so the comms could reach as far as at normal height.  Lance was just glad to have another outfit to wear besides the healing pod outfit.

Hunk was carefully taking apart one of the headsets while Pidge was digging through information in a book Coran had found for them in the library.  Lance was sitting on the scale with Chuchule so they were out of the way.

“It looks like there should be sensors on the forehead, temples, and behind the ears.”  Pidge looked at the blueprint in the text.

“I think I see them.  Does it say anything about how to remove them?” Hunk asked.

“No, just information on who created them.  Nothing on how they get an electroencephalography either.”

“What’s an electro-sif-ography?” Lance asked.

“Electroencephalography.  It’s a way of measuring brainwaves.  The sensors read the changes in the electrical field from the ionic current in your brain neurons.”  Hunk responded as he reached for the pliers on the back wall of the workbench.

“Wait, brains have electricity?”

“Yep.  There’s enough electricity in the brain to power a low-watt light bulb, though yours might only power a single Christmas light.” Pidge smirked at Lance before looking back in the book.

Was that a dig at my height, or my intelligence?

‘Both’

Hunk had the tip of his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth as he concentrated on removing one of the sensors with the pliers.  He was so focused on the task at hand that he hadn’t heard the last bit of Pidge’s response to Lance.  Slowly, but surely, the sensor was coaxed out.

“Got it!” Hunk grabbed the microscope and placed the sensor on a slide.

Hunk and Pidge started talking excitedly about the technology.  Most of it went over Lance’s head because engineering wasn’t his forte.  He decided to talk to Chuchule.

“How’s your day going?”

Chuchule gave him a thumbs up then pointed at him with an inquisitive look on her face.

“Mine’s going as good as can be expected.  I’m still tiny, which sucks.  No offense meant.” Lance was worried he might have accidentally insulted Chuchule since he was shrunk down to a similar height to her.

Chuchule waved one of her front paws and shook her head to show that it didn’t offend her.

“It’s just…yeah.  How do you handle being this small?”

Chuchule shrugged her shoulders.

“I guess you always being like this makes it easier.  Maybe you and the others can show me the ropes.”

Chuchule nodded enthusiastically before refocusing on what Pidge and Hunk were doing.

Pidge put the headset on the slide and looked at where the sensor had been.  She and Hunk gushed more about the technology and what substitutes could potentially be used to make it in Lance’s size.

“It’ll have to be a helmet instead of a headset because of the size, but I think that will work.”  Hunk said.

“We might have to visit the space mall to get some of the supplies.” Pidge thought out loud.

“Oooh!  Can we go to the earth store when we go?” Lance was excited at the prospect of seeing something from home.

“Ummm.  I don’t think you’ll be coming with if we go.” Hunk sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.

“Why not?  It’s just the mall.”

“You got into trouble at your normal height last time we were there,” Pidge said.

I remember you getting in trouble right next to me.  Heck, we all got in trouble

“We all got in trouble last time-” Hunk began.

Thank you!

“-but there’s just too many people for it to be safe.”

“How is that any different from coming along on a recon mission?”

“For recon, we’re not trying to be seen and we would have our helmet comms.  We can’t wear our helmets in the space mall.  There, we would be talking to people, it would be loud, and if something happened, we might not realize until it’s too late.”  Hunk replied.

“Don’t forget about the swap moons.”

“True, true.  It’s just too risky.”

“Oh,” Lance said dejectedly.

“I can try to get a shark keychain for you if you want.” Hunk offered.

“Thanks.” Lance smiled slightly.

Hunk looked over at Pidge’s laptop and saw what time it was.

“We should go get some lunch before afternoon training starts.”

“Good idea,” Pidge said.  Both she and Hunk placed a hand down in front of Lance as he climbed off of the scale.

“Uh, well, this is awkward,” Lance said as he looked between their hands.

“I want to carry him,” Hunk said.

“You already carried him here, I want a turn.”

“He’s my best friend.”

“Well, he’s my friend too.”

“Guys, please.  There’s plenty of me to go around.” Lance had his hands up in a calm down fashion.

Pidge let out a snicker before apologizing.

“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t be laughing, but it’s just funny hearing you say that when you’re so tiny.  I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, that’s why I said it.  Gotta try to have fun with this situation, right?”

“I’m glad you’re feeling better.” Hunk said.

“Me too.”

“I’ve got an idea for figuring out who gets to carry you-” Pidge started.

Is it letting me decide?

“-Rock, paper, scissors.”

Of course not.

“How about winner gets to bring you to lunch, loser brings you to training?” Hunk suggested.

“Sounds good.  Best of 3?  Rock, Paper, Scissors!”

Every time their fists hit their palms, it reminded Lance of the close call with Shiro’s fist the day before.  He knew that Shiro didn’t mean to do that, though he noticed that Shiro had been standing further away from him than the others after that event.

Shiro’s the only one who hasn’t held me like this.  Is he worried that he might hurt me?  Space-dad would never do that…at least, not on purpose.

He was pulled from his thoughts when he heard Pidge let out a *whoop* of victory.

“Yes!  I won!” She pumped her fists in the air.  She came close to hitting the workbench and knocking Lance over the edge in her excitement.

“Fine, Kaitlyn.” Hunk yielded.

“Closer, but still not my name.” Pidge put her hand in front of Lance and the three of them went to get lunch.

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Keith and Shiro were also walking through the castle ship to get some food.

“How’s Lance rooming with you going?”

“Fine.”

“Have you two built any bridges yet?” Shiro said with a slightly teasing voice.

“No.  Maybe.  He talked about his family a bit.  They seem nice.”

“It’s good to know you’re getting along better with him.”

“It’s kind of hard to talk with Lance.”

“Why is that?” Shiro looked over at Keith.

“I think it’s partially how we butt heads so much and another part it’s hard to get a word in.  He can be so frustrating sometimes and then he says something I don’t understand.  I still don’t get why the chant can’t just be ‘Voltron.’  It doesn’t have to be complicated!”

“If it’s that frustrating, we could see about him rooming with someone else.”

“No!”  Keith and Shiro were both surprised by how quickly Keith responded.  “I mean, I’m the safest option for him to room with.  And like you said, we could build some bridges.  I want to get along with him.”

“That’s good to hear.  I hope you’re willing to open up to him as well.”

“That might take a while.”

“I know.  I still remember how long it took you to open up to me.” Shiro let out a small laugh.

“That was years ago, Shiro.  You can stop bringing it up, you know.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell the others.  Let’s go eat.” Shiro said as they walked towards the kitchen door.

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“Am I the only one that thinks it’s a bad idea to train right after eating?” Hunk asked as everyone walked from the kitchen to the training deck.

“I agree,”  Lance said from his position in Hunk’s hands.  “If you have to wait an hour before swimming, it should be the same with training.”

“Lance, that’s an old wives tale,” Pidge commented.

“The reason we are training so soon after eating is because we don’t know when Voltron will next be needed.  We will not always have the luxury of time to prepare.” Allura explained.

“I don’t see how this applies to me since I really can’t participate in the training,” Lance said.

“You are not getting out of training just because you went and got yourself shrunk, Lance,” Allura said with a strict tone.

Hey, I didn’t “get myself shrunk”.  I stopped the spell from hitting Keith, but she’s making it sound like I wanted this to happen to me.  I mean, sure, there have been times I’ve wanted to get out of training, but I wouldn’t shrink to do that.

“Well, what can I do?  My bayard didn’t shrink with my armor and I can’t exactly fight the gladiator at this height.”

“We will find a way for you to participate.” Allura snapped before apologizing.  “Sorry.”

“Are you ok, Allura?” Shiro asked.

“Yes, I was just up late reading last night.  I don’t mean to be so curt.  I believe I am merely tired.” She responded as they made their way onto the training deck.  “Let’s get started.”

Hunk brought Lance over to a raised section of the floor which put him at about chest height with the others.  Allura began leading the group in some stretching exercises.

It seemed that Lance hadn’t lost any of his flexibility, which he was glad for.  It was one thing that was still normal.

After 5 quintants of that, Allura switched gears.

“Today, we are going to face the gladiator.  Coran has upgraded it with the help of Slav’s blueprints, so it should provide more of a challenge.”

“What about me?” Lance asked.

“You can work on your endurance by running laps on the platform.” Allura decided.  “Strength and endurance are both equally important in subduing an enemy.”

“Don’t worry, the gladiator won’t target you.  It’s already been programmed to not go after the space mice, so it should perceive you as one of them and avoid you.” Coran stated.

“Ok,” Lance responded.

Should I feel offended by that?  I mean, I know I’m a similar height to the space mice, but is that really enough for me to be written off as not mattering?

‘Looks like you answered your own question.’

“I wonder if we could build a tiny treadmill for you.” Hunk thought out loud.

“Or we could avoid going through all that trouble and just get a hamster wheel.  Haha.” Pidge suggested.

I’m not some kind of pet!

“As adorable as that sounds-“ Shiro tried to hide his smile “-that would be a bit demeaning to Lance.”

“What is a hamster?  And why would it need a wheel?” Coran asked.

“A hamster is a type of pet back on earth.  They’re similar looking to the space mice, but a bit bigger.  A hamster wheel is a wheel that is held off the ground that they can run in place in to exercise.” Hunk answered.

“That’s a very practical piece of equipment,” Allura commented.

“It is, until you remember they’re nocturnal and are always running like crazy when you’re trying to sleep.”  Keith’s tone let everyone know he was speaking from experience.

“Didn’t take you for the hamster type,” Lance said.

“I’m not.  It wasn’t mine.”

“Well then whose-” Lance started to ask before Allura interrupted.

“We should focus on the task at hand.  There’s still training to be done.”

Again with the talking over me.  Why?

Allura got in her stance.  “Whenever you’re ready, Coran.”

“Paladins in position?” Coran said from the control panel at the edge of the room.  “Go!”

The gladiator-bot dropped from the ceiling and wasted no time in picking its first target.  With every lap that Lance made on the stand, someone else was facing the robot.  Pidge.  Hunk. Shiro.  Allura.  Hunk again.  Keith.  Back to Shiro.  Lance found himself slowing down as he watched the rest of the team train.

“Keep running, Lance.  This is no time to be slacking off.”  Allura called out.

How did she even know I had slowed down?  She was facing the other way.  Do Alteans have eyes in the back of their heads?

Lance picked up the pace, but still took notice of who was facing the gladiator-bot.  Keith.  Allura.  Pidge.  Hunk.

Ooo that had to hurt.

Lance winced as the floor opened up beneath Hunk.  The room it brought those who fell in training to was actually right next door with a one-way wall/door kind of thing so they could still watch the others train and see ways they could improve.  The bot continued fighting with its staff.

Shiro.  Pidge.  Allura.

And the robot just threw her across the room.  Ok.

Keith.  Pidge.  Shiro.  Pidge.

That might leave a bruise.

Shiro.  Keith.  Still Keith.  Now Shiro.  Back to Keith.  Shiro once more.

Why is it looking at me?  Shiro and Keith are both on the other side of it.

Lance stopped running and stared back at the robot.

And now it’s moving closer.  Oh quiznak!

Lance backed up to the edge of the ledge.  He knew he wouldn’t survive if he jumped off, but he didn’t have anywhere to go.  That was the most distance he could put between himself and the gladiator that was now targeting him.

The gladiator raised up its staff and started to bring it down towards Lance.

There was a terrible *clang* as Lance dove out of the way on the platform.  He looked up and saw that Keith had managed to get all the way across the room to stop the blow.  He couldn’t see his eyes since his back was facing him, but given that Keith was growling slightly, he was willing to bet they were yellow.

In his hurry to protect Lance, Keith wasn’t able to get in a strong stance.  The gladiator shoved him out of the way and the floor opened up around him.  The robot raised its staff once more, but before it could strike, it was stabbed through from behind by Shiro's prosthetic.  Keith’s attack had distracted the gladiator long enough for Shiro to get to Lance.

Lance covered his head with his arms as small pieces of the robot fell around him.  The door in the one-way wall opened and the rest of the team ran over to him.

“Lance!  Are you ok?!” Hunk asked.

“I’m still in one piece.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I thought you said that it wouldn’t target him?” Keith glared over at Coran.

“It shouldn’t have.”  Coran was opening panels and looking at the wiring to see what had happened.  “It should only target paladins, unless we’re doing a protection exercise.  Why did it go after Lance?”

“It might be that the system still sees Lance as a paladin.” Pidge ran over to help Coran figure out what had gone wrong.  “The tracker in his helmet still works even after it was shrunk, so it must be picking up on that.  We might just have to erase Lance’s data from the system.”

“But I have the best score for the shooting range!”

“You can get the high score again once you’re back to normal,” Shiro assured.

“I believe now is a good time to be done with training.  We’ve had enough scares for one day.  We will continue this session tomorrow.” Allura decided.

“I could really go for a shower right now,” Lance said.

“That won’t be happening for a while.  You might wind up going down the drain.  That, and the water pressure would definitely knock you off your feet.” Pidge stated.

“Well, then what would you suggest?”

“…I think I’ve got an idea.” Hunk ran out of the room.

“Well don’t just stand there.  Let’s see what his idea is.” Pidge said.

Pidge, Allura, and Coran ran after Hunk.  Keith started toward the door.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Shiro pointed to Lance.

“Can’t you grab him?”

“Why can’t you?”

“You’re the only one who hasn’t had a chance to carry him,” Keith responded.

“Yeah, and you should do it soon, cause I won’t be like this for much longer.”

I hope.

“I don’t feel comfortable carrying him.  I still feel on edge and I’m worried something would go wrong.  We’ve had enough close calls for one day.”

“Come on, Shiro.  When else are you going to get a chance to carry someone in the palm of your hands?” Lance asked.

“I would rather not literally hold your life in my hands.  What if my arm glitches and you get hurt?”

“Pidge checked for any glitches.  You’re in the clear.”  Keith responded.

“I have this nagging feeling that there’s something we missed.”

“If you’re that worried, I can just hitch a ride with Keith.  It’s not a big deal.  Let’s just go see what Hunk’s idea is.”

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“That was risky, Narti.  If they had suspected tampering with the gladiator, they could have discovered our virus.” Axha commented.

Cova *meowed* on Narti’s shoulder.

“You have to admit, it was pretty brilliant,” Zethrid added on.  “And watching them fall all over themselves to protect him was priceless.”

“Yeah, if we hadn’t been studying them so much, we wouldn’t have known they would blame it on operator error.” Ezor contributed.

“Nevertheless, it was a risky endeavor.  If he had been killed, this would be all for naught.  We must tread lightly in our spying.” Lotor reminded his team of what was at stake.  “Everything depends on getting him alone.”

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Hunk’s idea had been a bowl.  He had explained that since it’s what the space mice used, the same could apply to Lance because he’s a similar height to them.

It was kind of like taking a bath in a hot tub, albeit one without jets, but still nice.  Having to have someone be in the room with him was annoying, even though he knew he was only there in case something happened.  

Keith was sitting on the floor, back against the nightstand the bowl was on.  He had only commented a little bit about how many different products Lance used.  Shampoo, conditioner, face mask stuff, and a few other ones that Keith couldn’t identify for the life of him.  

The bottles were set up on the edge of the nightstand to act as a wall to give Lance some privacy.  There were small amounts of the different products on the edges of the bowl for easy access, small being a relative term.  A washcloth was hanging on the edge of the bowl so Lance could get in and out on his own.  

There was an extra set of the black under armor on the nightstand next to Lance’s dirty one.  Lance hoped that Coran was right in that it would shrink to fit, otherwise he’d only have the outfit he was shrunk in and the healing pod outfit.

Lance looked down at his hands.

“*gasp* I’m pruning!”

“That tends to happen when you spend so much time in the water,” Keith commented.

“Hey, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to go swimming, so I’m going to enjoy this as long as possible.  Besides, I still have a minute until I can rinse off my face mask.”

“It must be like an ocean to you.”

“More like a hot tub, but still better than the pool in the castle.  How the cheese is the water like that?  Water doesn’t float, things float in it!”

“We could talk to Coran and Allura about that.”

“Nah, I don’t want to bother them.  We’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

“And smaller.” Lance could hear the smile in Keith’s voice.

“Oh my gosh, did you just make a pun?”

“I’m allowed to make a pun if I want to.” Keith had to resist the urge to turn around and glare at Lance’s face masked face.

“It just sounds weird coming out of you.  You’re a hard guy to figure out.”

“Well, is there anything you want to know about me?”

“Yeah, I want to hear more about the hamster.  Why did your family have one if you couldn’t stand it?”

“They weren’t my family.  I just lived with them for a little while.”

“Oh, sorry.  I didn’t know.”

“Not a lot of people do.”

“Hey, my lips are sealed.  So, about the hamster.”

“Mr. Fluffy Cuddles was-”

Lance started laughing.  “His name was Mr. Fluffy Cuddles?  That’s hilarious.”

“Anyways, Mr. Fluffy Cuddles was their daughter’s pet.  She would put him in princess dresses and carry him everywhere.  I was in the room furthest from his cage, but was the only one that was bothered by him running late at night.  Apparently, I was the only one that heard it.  I guess now we know why.” Keith pointed to his ears.  “He kept me up so late some nights that I was falling asleep in class.  One day, I got so annoyed, that I went over to his cage while he was sleeping and started banging on it saying ‘How does that feel?  Huh?’ thinking that would get him to stop.”

“You actually thought that would work?” Lance asked.

“I was 8.  And all that did was get me put in a different home and labeled as difficult, troubled, and potentially violent.  They recommended against me being put in a house with other children and especially not in one with small pets.”

“You do good with the space mice.”

And me.  Wait, would that mean I’m thinking of myself as a pet?  I’m gonna stop that thought right there.

“Well, it’s mostly Plachu that hangs out with me while I’m training.  I’ve caught him mimicking some of the moves.  He’s actually pretty good.”

“That’s adorable!” Lance washed off his face mask.

“Yeah.” Keith chuckled slightly.  “How long did Allura say it was until we reached Olkari?”

“I think we’ve still got a varga, maybe a bit less.” Lance climbed out of the bowl using the washcloth.  He grabbed a Kleenex and dried himself off.

“Let me know when you’re done changing.  My leg’s starting to go numb.”

“Will do.” Lance approached the bundle of clothing that was the black under armor.

Hopefully Coran is right.

Lance stepped into the head hole and saw the hole start to get smaller.  It changed at a quick but gradual pace.  Soon enough, the under armor fit him like a glove.

“I’m done.”

Keith stretched his arms over his head.

“Finally.  I was starting to think you might have turned into a mermaid.”  Keith turned around so that he was on his knees facing the nightstand.

“I wish.  Then these looks would be all natural.”

“I still don’t get why you need so many of these.” Keith moved some of the bottles of products to the side and rested his chin on his hands on the nightstand.

“Hey, I take care of my body.  If you love the skin you’re in, you need to show it some appreciation.  You might want to consider using some of them.”

“No thanks.”

“Keith.”  Lance approached Keith’s face and slapped his cheeks with his hands.  “I can see your pores.  They’re dying.”

“My skin is fine.”

Lance realized just how close he was to Keith’s lips when he responded.

Wow.  If I took a few steps forward, it would be like he was kissin-

‘Don’t make it weird.’

Yeah, this is kind of close.

Lance took a few steps back and looked away while awkwardly coughing in his fist.

Keith hadn’t expected Lance to get so close.  He had to cross his eyes slightly so he could see him clearly.  When Lance hit his cheeks, he hardly felt it.  He tried to not breathe too hard when he responded since Lance was right in front of him.  That weird tightness in his chest was back.  

Lance suddenly backed away from him and coughed in his fist.  Keith wondered why he had done that.  Was he doing the whole ‘no homo’ thing that every other straight guy did?  He saw the slight pinkish tint to Lance’s face and realized he must have felt nervous.  Keith knew that he could be intimidating without trying to be, but it was hard to imagine what that would look like from Lance’s perspective.

“Um…sorry I…um…” Lance tried to string his word together.

Why did I have to go and make things so awkward?  All because of this stupid crush I have on his stupid self with his stupid hair and his stupid beautiful smile.  Ugggh, I’ve got it bad.  Why does he have to be straight?

“I’m going to drop you off with Pidge and Hunk while I go take a shower.” Keith stood up and offered his hand to Lance.

“Sounds like a plan.  I hope the Olkari have the supplies they’re looking for.”

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Realities without a Lance: 69 (+15)

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[creativekrissy]

What happened during the 7 month gap after season 7? 🤔

As always, I had an interesting thought. Specifically towards what Keith said to Lance in episode 1 of season 8.

Heres the dialogue:

Keith: “Listen, if she’s going out with you, it’s because she likes you. The annoying, stupid, Earth version of you.”

The whole thing with “Earth Version of you” has me all mind boggled. 🤔

I like to assume during the process of rebuilding Earth, Keith came to see an old sight of Lance before they left Earth and appeared at the Castle of Lions.

I mean think back to how Keith was so shocked to see Lance pilot blue:

He was amazed, shocked, bewildered that this cocky kid ended up presenting very talented skills to the naturally talented.

So when Keith says “Earth version”, I can assume Lance had gone back to his old personality ways somewhat while on Earth obviously. But I think it bothered Keith? In some little way, like to Keith’s perspective of Lance: he wasn’t the Lance he grew to know of while out in space.

So with that thought, does that mean Keith is (dare I say in love?) infatuated with “Paladin Lance”?

If that’s the case, then it could confirm his admiration and affection towards Lance during the series before he left to the Blade of Marmora. Even as he comes back, there is living proof that his connection with Lance ain’t as thriving as it was before he left and came back to see the close connection between him and Allura.

Keith has always been annoyed by this fact. But his own “two year disappearance” unfortunately took away the opportunity for them to (possibly) develope any further.

Anyways, if the accusation of Keith being demisexual is true then it makes perfect sense why he’s not so upfront of his “personal feelings”. Plus, in general if you happen to care about someone so much you want the utmost happiness for them. He’s very supportive of Lance and Allura’s relationship but out of respect in more like it.

Does that not look like jealousy? 😁

Anyway, so if Keith rather preferred the Lance he knows~

Then that could explain the following dialogue after “Earth version”:

Lance: “Man, I’m really gonna miss this place.”

Keith: “That’s why we’ve gotta end this war. And we’re gonna do it with the Lance that’s the Paladin of the Red Lion. The Lance that’s always got my back. And the Lance who knows exactly who he is and what he’s got to offer.”

Interesting is it not? It’s like we get a deeper outlook of Lance from Keith, like confirming he definitely has always acknowledged him from the start. Lance always being there for him personally and in battle. I wouldn’t call it high standards just, seems to me Keith doesn’t like it when Lance is in doubt of himself. At all.

So during this gap of season 7 and 8, I would like to assume Keith witnessed Lance in his self doubting state. Towards the team, towards Allura, and possibly towards Keith. I wanna assume that if there was more time to input these connections between the paladins, we would have seen a conclusion to the feud between Lance and Keith. You know, Lance’s inner hurt over his BOM absence. Also, the reason of his rivalry. But if the show couldn’t include this then apparently I can assume it wasn’t meant to be a huge impact on their connection. If they are THAT close in the sunset scene, it’s safe to say they overcame that minor issue. We know it happened. The reactions and expressions were there to confirm but I’m guessing they overcame it in such a way that assured they acknowledge each other.

So with hints from Lance about asking Allura for a date, Keith most likely chose to step back out of respect. Acknowledging Lance’s feelings for Allura grew stronger and if anything he just wants the guy to be happy, even congratulated him for being able to ask her out. He knows Lance so well 🤧

But thats my thought of about the gap~

I’m not trying to be hardcore Klance shipper, just I want to make sense of what I saw. Thought it’d be nice to share my thoughts and theories because well we all need something positive after the inner loss of VLD 🤧 so hope someone enjoyed~

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 21 October 2019

Quick Bits:

Action Comics #1016 continues brilliantly integrating Naomi into the broader DC Universe as she helps Superman with the Red Cloud and introduces Batman to her mom. Some very nice double-page spreads in this one from Szymon Kudranski and Brad Anderson, with a nice structure from Brian Michael Bendis in the form of a investigative journalist format.

| Published by DC Comics

The Amazing Mary Jane #1 is an interesting debut from Leah Williams, Carlos Gomez, Carlos Lopez, and Joe Caramagna. It plays upon MJ’s resumed career as an actress and a different turn for Mysterio (I need to go back and read some of his stuff with Kindred, because something seems off).

| Published by Marvel

Amazing Spider-Man #32 begins the next stage in Marvel’s seeming neverending onslaught of event after event with the prelude into the upcoming 2099 thing, including the Marvel debut of Patrick Gleason providing line art. The thing that gets you is that it’s good. Nick Spencer, Gleason, Matthew Wilson, and Joe Caramagna give us an interesting hook in a future and a present that have apparently gone wrong, but we’re really unsure what’s happened yet, just that a seemingly powerless Miguel, back in his original costume, needs to find Peter. It’s compelling.

| Published by Marvel

Amazing Spider-Man: Full Circle #1 is a rather fun and funny story that you really have to go into blind in terms of most content. It’s better to be surprised by the experience. It’s an all-star team of talent including Jonathan Hickman, Chris Bachalo, Gerry Duggan, Greg Smallwood, Nick Spencer, Mike Allred, Kelly Thompson, Valerio Schiti, Al Ewing, Chris Sprouse, Chip Zdarsky, Rachael Stott, Jason Aaron, Cameron Stewart, Mark Bagley, Tim Townsend, Al Vey, Karl Story, John Dell, Laura Allred, Mattia Iacono, Dave McCaig, Tríona Farrell, Nathan Fairbairn, Frank D’Armata, and Joe Caramagna playing a game of exquisite corpse, with each team coming up with a more outlandish cliffhanger for the next team to extricate Spider-Man from. It’s hilarious and incredibly well done.

| Published by Marvel

Angel #6 gives us another perspective on the “Hellmouth” crossover event, as a dejected Spike is tracked down by Fred and Gunn. I really like how Bryan Edward Hill, Gleb Melnikov, Roman Titov, and Ed Dukeshire are continuing the ongoing narrative of the series, while still dovetailing seamlessly into the event. It doesn’t miss a beat on either side of the equation, while still presenting an entertaining story in its own right regardless of whether you’ve read anything previously. All while introducing another player that’s already causing complications. Very nice layered storytelling here.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Aquaman Annual #2 seems to have been oddly scheduled, with a story taking place after the still ongoing “Amnesty” arc in the main series, but Kelly Sue DeConnick, Vita Ayala, Victor Ibáñez, Jay David Ramos, and Clayton Cowles still deliver an entertaining story that plays into the DOOM that’s been spread by the Legion of Doom and Perpetua. There’s an undercurrent of animosity, anger, and paranoia that seems to be fostered by the doom mark hanging in the sky, and this story nicely builds on it.

| Published by DC Comics

Ascender #6 begins the next arc, though it is much more a direct continuation from the story unfolding, with Andy captured and Mila on the run by boat. Jeff Lemire continues to inject humour into this story through the sheer ineptitude from the vampires. It’s a wonder that they can control anything.

| Published by Image

Avengers #25 is the finale to “Challenge of the Ghost Riders” from Jason Aaron, Stefano Caselli, Jason Keith, Erick Arciniega, and Cory Petit. It does a good job of building Robbie back up, while showing more of the cracks that we’re seeing in Johnny Blaze that were shored up in Ghost Rider. 

| Published by Marvel

Bad Reception #3 goes hard into more traditional themes around horror and, more specifically, slasher films and it’s absolutely wonderful. Juan Doe is giving us a very compelling mystery here, adding more layers as to why the killer is doing this and adding complications through the different characters. Great stuff.

| Published by AfterShock

Batgirl #40 escalates Oracle’s plans as she launches an offensive on Burnside in order to draw out Batgirl. The art this issue from Carmine Di Giandomenico and Jordie Bellaire gets taken to a completely new level. They layouts and colours are absolutely beautiful.

| Published by DC Comics

Batman/Superman #3 goes deeper into the Batman Who Laughs’ machinations for the Infected and what he’s trying to unleash on the DC Universe. Joshua Williamson, David Marquez, Alejandro Sanchez, and John J. Hill are very nicely executing this story, playing with the darker elements that have been bubbling since Metal, but presenting it in such a way that it’s not a dour, grim and gritty story. Also, though it doesn’t have the branding, this is still absolutely integral to the overall “Year of the Villain” event.

| Published by DC Comics

Black Adam: Year of the Villain #1 aims the infected Shazam at Khandaq at lets explosions ensue from Paul Jenkins, Inaki Miranda, Hi-Fi, and Tom Napolitano. This gives us an interesting look at leadership, humility, and responsibility, seemingly entrenching Black Adam again as a somewhat heroic figure.

| Published by DC Comics

Bloodborne #16 concludes “The Veil, Torn Asunder”, revelling in some of the madness that really grips the world. There’s a real unnerving sense of reality crumbling here, somewhat more horrific than what we’ve seen before. Great art from Piotr Kowalski and Brad Simpson.

| Published by Titan

Contagion #4 gets darker in this penultimate chapter from Ed Brisson, Damian Couceiro, Veronica Gandini, and Cory Petit. Things get even more grim as more and more of the heroes fall and we’re left with a rag tag band of street-level heroes and the z-list ring of magicians.

| Published by Marvel

Count Crowley: Reluctant Monster Hunter #1 is an entertaining debut from David Dastmalchian, Lukas Ketner, Lauren Affe, and Frank Cvetkovic. It revels beautifully in the low budget local network horror programming of the ‘70s and ‘80s, following an alcoholic reporter who gets fired for her behaviour, before taking the job as the host to a b-movie segment like Elvira. Great stuff here.

| Published by Dark Horse

Criminal #9 distances us a bit from Jane and that story in this chapter of “Cruel Summer”, instead giving us a look at what Leo is up to as his father plans a heist and Ricky’s recklessness. It’s a nice side track, giving us a different perspective again along with a seriously messed up robbery. Love the washes for the flashbacks from Jacob Phillips.

| Published by Image

Detective Comics #1014 brings Nora Fries back. And aside from just the extreme lengths that Victor has gone to in order to accomplish it, something about all of this feels very, very wrong and that some new horror is about to be unleashed on Gotham. Beautiful artwork from Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy, Mark Irwin, and David Baron.

| Published by DC Comics

Dial H for HERO #8 gives us the origin stories for The Operator and Mister Thunderbolt from Sam Humphries, Paulina Ganucheau, Joe Quinones, Jordan Gibson, and Dave Sharpe. There’s a rather neat format for the storytelling here as we get parallel stories of The Operator and Mister Thunderbolt, told forwards for one and then backwards for the other.

| Published by DC Comics / Wonder Comics

Doctor Mirage #3 has some gorgeous and trippy art from Nick Robles and Jordie Bellaire. The oddity in the colours and the impressive layouts and double page spreads really adds to the overall feel and atmosphere of the story, immersing you into the surrealism and unsettling feel that even Doctor Mirage herself is feeling.

| Published by Valiant

The Flash #81 concludes “Death and the Speed Force” from Joshua Williamson, Scott Kolins, Luis Guerrero, and Steve Wands. There are some major ramifications here for the DC Universe as a whole and some interesting developments for Hunter Zolomon himself. Like last issue, it’s pretty fitting that this is being handled with Kolins’ art. Also, we see a bit of what might be happening because DOOM won.

| Published by DC Comics

Ghost Spider #3 keeps things interesting as we get a continued build for two different Miles Warren stories on both Earths-65 and -615, from Seanan McGuire, Takeshi Miyazawa, Rosi Kämpe, Ian Herring, and Clayton Cowles. There’s also a feeling that through school and superheroics across two realities, Gwen might be wearing herself out more than she already has been with a hungry costume, which is a compelling fact that might feed into to forthcoming stories.

| Published by Marvel

GI Joe #2 takes a bit of a step back from the explosions of the first issue, still following Tiger, but in a much more introspective and measured way as he keeps getting his ass handed to him by Scarlett. Paul Allor, Chris Evenhuis, Brittany Peer, and Neil Uyetake are giving this a very different feel from any previous GI Joe incarnation and it’s very interesting. Some neat twists and some very welcome humour.

| Published by IDW

Hellboy and the BPRD: Saturn Returns #3 concludes this excellent mini-series from Mike Mignola, Scott Allie, Christopher Mitten, Brennan Wagner, and Clem Robins. I quite like this new approach to the historical series, giving a broader view of the previous years. Also, the development of Liz and Hellboy is wonderful, just great character building.

| Published by Dark Horse

Immortal Hulk #25 is very strange. Very, very strange. The lead story is set in the future where the Hulk has become the Breaker of Worlds and everything is slated for destruction. A pair of former lovers are trying to stop him. From Al Ewing, Germán García, Chris O’Halloran, and Cory Petit. There’s a lot of your usual dystopian future stuff, plus sending something back to save the future, but there’s more to this. The set up plays into some of the Kabbalistic themes and ideas that Al Ewing has been using through this series and we get an interesting interpretation of Binah and Chokhmah here. Though it might be more appropriate to consider them as their Qliphoth. Granted, you don’t need to get into any of this to enjoy the comic. Especially since it will appear much more straightforward in the present as the usual team of Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy José, Paul Mounts, and Petit reintroduce a familiar evil face.

| Published by Marvel

Josie and the Pussycats in Space #1 is a digital original from Alex de Campi, Devaki Neogi, Lee Loughridge, and Jack Morelli. It’s a pretty damn good reimagining of the characters, putting them on an intergalactic USO tour, and then eventually cranking up the weird and the horror.

| Published by Archie Comics

Justice League Dark #16 is incredible. “The Witching War” continues in this story from James Tynion IV, Alvaro Martínez Bueno, Fernando Blanco, Raul Fernandez, Brad Anderson, and Rob Leigh as Wonder Woman confronts Circe and everything gets doomed. The stakes here feel real, especially as the team continues to fall apart.

| Published by DC Comics

King Thor #2 is as epic as the first issue with Jason Aaron, Esad Ribić, Ive Svorcina, and Joe Sabino seriously bringing the thunder here. The artwork is drop dead gorgeous and the magnitude of the confrontation between Thor, Loki, and Gorr is massive.

| Published by Marvel

Marauders #1 gives us our first look at an X-book in “Dawn of X” without Jonathan Hickman at the helm. It’s really good. Gerry Duggan, Matteo Lolli, Federico Blee, and Cory Petit give us a somewhat more lighthearted approach to some of the concepts, featuring a Kate Pryde who for some reason can’t go through the Krakoan gates, so is recruited by Emma to helm a vessel for the Hellfire Trading Company. It then sets up the more serious element of rescuing mutants who wish to accept Xavier’s offer, but are stuck in hostile regimes. Very nice humour here.

| Published by Marvel

Martian Manhunter #9 rounds the corner for the homestretch, with Steve Orlando, Riley Rossmo, Ivan Plascencia, and Deron Bennett plumbing the depths of one of Charnn’s victims and discovering a bit of a plan for what’s to come. The artwork from Rossmo and Plascencia remains some of the most inventive currently on the stands.

| Published by DC Comics

Middlewest #12 puts together the pieces of where Abel and Bobby have been taken and gives us an introductory glance at the horrible place that they’re being forced to work. Skottie Young, Jorge Corona, Jean-Francois Beaulieu, and Nate Piekos continue to work magic on this story.

| Published by Image

Money Shot #1 is definitely unique. Tim Seeley, Sarah Beattie, Rebekah Isaacs, Kurt Michael Russell, and Crank! give us a story of a group of scientists who turn to making alien porn in order to fund their science projects. There’s humour and a lot of oddity here. Also, alien sex.

| Published by Vault

Punisher Kill Krew #4 sees the Black Knight enlisted to the team as they continue to navigate the Ten Realms to get vengeance for the orphaned war children. The art from Juan Ferreyra is absolutely gorgeous.

| Published by Marvel

Resonant #4 dives into the two new regions of Honcho’s island and the Congregation. It’s interesting to see how other areas are dealing with the waves, even in horrifying ways. The art from Alejandro Aragon and Jason Wordie is incredible.

| Published by Vault

Second Coming #4 sees Sunstar enlist help to find Jesus, while Jesus laments Christians with his new friend Larry in jail, from Mark Russell, Richard Pace, Leonard Kirk, Andy Troy, and Rob Steen. Some very interesting ideas presented here about how a religion can get away from apparent foundational messages. This issue is rounded out by the usual text pieces and short stories.

| Published by Ahoy

Sera and the Royal Stars #4 has us still in the underworld, from Jon Tsuei, Audrey Mok, Raul Angulo, and Jim Campbell. It’s very interesting to see the zodiacals interacting with variations on various deities. Also, Mok and Angulo remind us that they’re an incredible art team. The visual shifts throughout this issue are beautiful.

| Published by Vault

Star Wars Adventures: Return to Vader’s Castle #4 gives us a central tale featuring Jabba the Hutt’s extended family and a bunch of disembodied brains, as illustrated by Nicoletta Baldari. We’re also getting to the end of the framing tale from Cavan Scott, Francesco Francavilla, and AndWorld Design and this issue gives us an interesting cliffhanger to take us home.

| Published by IDW

Strikeforce #2 maintains the high level of storytelling from the first issue, continuing to keep us on our toes about this oddball group, and deepens the threat of the Vridai as the team heads to Satana in Vegas. Tini Howard, Germán Peralta, Miroslav Mrva, and Joe Sabino have hit on a winning combination here and it just keeps getting better.

| Published by Marvel

Unbound #1 is kind of a cyberpunk/fantasy series with this first issue focusing on Lukas, a famous hunter who takes on a helper for his current hunt, from Ralph Tedesco, Oliver Borges, Leonardo Paciarotti, and Carlos M. Mangual. There’s some nice world-building here, but the real hook comes later in the story that’s really compelling. I won’t spoil it, but it definitely takes it above what you’d expect.

| Published by Zenescope

Valkyrie #4 unveils a lot more of the context of what happened in the first three issues in a rather interesting way, while bringing back a trio of really old Dr. Strange villains. One of whom will be familiar to moviegoers. Al Ewing, Jason Aaron, CAFU, Jesus Aburtov, and Joe Sabino are telling a very interesting story here with some great twists and gorgeous art.

| Published by Marvel

Wonder Woman #81 concludes “Loveless” and with it G. Willow Wilson’s run on the title, here with Tom Derenick, Trevor Scott, Scott Hanna, Romulo Fajardo Jr., and Pat Brosseau. It’s not bad, progressing with a few changes and setting up Steve Orlando’s incoming arc.

| Published by DC Comics

You Are Obsolete #2 gets creepier, playing up even more of the Midwich Cuckoos vibes and revealing that the kids are actively spying on people, with the implication that they’d use more salacious details to their benefit as potential blackmail. We’re still not entirely sure why anything is going on, but the series is definitely setting up a creepy atmosphere.

| Published by AfterShock

Other Highlights: Absolute Carnage: Lethal Protectors #3, Agents of Atlas #3, Archie vs. Predator 2 #3, Black Canary: Ignite, Books of Magic #13, Fearless #4, Freedom Fighters #10, Future Fight Firsts: Luna Snow #1, Immortal Hulk: Director’s Cut #6, Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - Allegiance #3, Kaijumax - Season 5 #1, Lumberjanes #67, Marvel Action: Spider-Man #10, Rat Queens #19, Red Sonja & Vampirella meet Betty & Veronica #6, RWBY #5, Sharkey: The Bounty Hunter #6, Spider-Man: Velocity #3, Star Wars #73, Tony Stark: Iron Man #17

Recommended Collections: Amazing Spider-Man - Volume 5: Behind Scenes, American Carnage, Ascender - Volume 1, Evolution - Volume 3, GI Joe: A Real American Hero - Volume 23, Harrow County: Library Edition - Volume 4, Hex Wives, Infinity 8 - Volume 5: Apocalypse Day, Invisible Kingdom - Volume 1, The Long Con - Volume 2, Naomi: Season One, Spider-Man: Life Story, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Teen Titans - Volume 2: Turn It Up, Wonder Woman - Volume 1: The Just War

d. emerson eddy is not a pineapple.

[dent-de-leon]

Anyway Lance also got some pretty good solid development in season 6?? I mean, just off the top of my head you’ve got:

Lance literally sacrificing himself to save Allura, that’s like?? Some prime heroism right there?? He saw that she was in danger and he put his life on the line, that’s huge. See also: how Allura cries for him, how she refuses to accept the fact that he may be gone, how she cradles him in her arms and stares at him so sweetly afterwards, ect. There’s a genuine connection there, and it’s been building for quite a few seasons now. 

Lance legitimately completely getting over his playboy phase--something everyone wanted--and acknowledging that his feelings for Allura were so much deeper and real. Even better, he never tells Allura, he never burdens her with his feelings to guilt her or make her uncomfortable. He instead acknowleges that she liked Lotor and instead tries to work through his own (supposedly unrequited) feelings in a very healthy way. 

And, above all else, he literally says his love for Allura makes him “want to be a better person.” That’s literally such a turnaround and easily some of the best character development he’s ever gotten. 

Lance seeing M&M as just a “nerd game” but then giving it a chance and actually having tons of fun with the character, which also leads to him having a genuinely good time. We get to see some more of Lance’s creativity with how he gets into character and loves acting (reminds me a bit of how his comic is narrated from his perspective as like this high fantasy adventure). At the end, he says to Allura, “We have a lot of fun together, don’t we?” And she happily agrees

Lance is the first one to tell Romelle that they can’t just open fire on Lotor’s ship because Allura’s on board and he’s not about to let her get hurt. 

When Lotor and Allura come back from their trip to the rift, Lance is the only paladin that pulls his bayard on them. It’s just Keith, Krolia, and then Lance that have their weapons at the ready. “Allura, step away from Lotor.” She gets understandably upset with him, but he does it because he knows her safety is at risk and he feels it’s the best option for her. 

You can tell Lance looks really concerned for Shiro when he’s being taken over by Haggar and tries to fight it. He’s also the one that regains his footing first and delegates orders--which the team immediates follows, “Allura and I will secure Lotor. Hunk, help Shiro. Everyone else, get down to the hanger and stop those guys.” 

Lance is also the only paladin with his bayard out at the time, and even when Shiro attacks him, he doesn’t fight back, and instead asks what’s going on--he knew Shiro was obviously going through something very bad and didn’t try to hurt him. 

Doesn’t question Keith’s leadership like he did in earlier seasons. Like, as soon as Keith asks if they’re ready to go, Lance’s response is just, “We’ve got this.” He puts his very immature one-sided rivalry aside and understands that, yes, Keith is a good leader, and he’s willing to accept that and follow him. 

This isn’t season 3 Lance very callously and maliciously accusing Keith of using the loss of his best friend to take over the team, or season 4 Lance complaining that Keith is ruining their parades. Like, there’s some very real growth and depth here.

Lance is the one who comforts Allura after everything that went down with Lotor, and he never once tries to make it about himself or uses it as some sort of opportunity to make a move on her. He’s focused enirely on her feelings and validating them, on making sure she knows none of this is her fault and that he’ll always be there for her. 

“Allura, it wasn’t just you who trusted Lotor. We all did.” “Let me tell you, as someone whose made a million mistakes, all you can do is get up and make it right.” Really, that heart to heart was so good and cathartic for her, you can tell by the way she hugs him and thanks him. This is Lance building up his teammates and being someone for them to lean on, and really just sort of living up to the legacy the Blue Lion prepared him for. 

Lance was very viscerally affected by hearing about what happened to Shiro--especially after that moment when he opened up to him in the previous season. At the time, Lance tried to reassure him by convincing him he’d be alright and getting him to try and rest--which isn’t by any means an awful or uncaring thing to do, but he regrets it nonetheless. Even when there wasn’t much more he could have done. 

“He...he tried to tell me, but I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry, Shiro. I--I didn’t know. I could’ve...” Lance cries for Shiro, Lance feels for Shiro, and he’s clearly someone who hates seeing his friends hurt and really takes that to heart. We then have this lovely little moment where Allura reaches out and silently reassues him. It mirrors how he was the one to comfort her when she was crying, and it’s just another subtle thing that hints at how their relationship has really been developing. These two seriously have amazing chemistry and character devlopment together, and it’s one of the highlights of the season. 

So yeah, I really don’t understand this sentiment where people seem to think that season is somehow objectively bad for Lance, or how he just got no content or character development. There was honestly some really solid and well thought out progression for his character, even if it might not neccessarily be what some fans wanted to see--it’s still very much there. 

[sillygurl1021]

Plance Mega Meta

Attention all Fellow Gardeners! LOOOONNG Post Ahead!!!!

This was a pain in the butt to make but well worth it! It's all over the place but it still presents my point of the many reasons why Pidge and Lance is most likely Endgame. Some may be a stretch but most of them have meaning! I know I missed some but it was hard to fit all this together and still remember everything lol

Ofcourse, whether your for Plance or just scrolling around, it's your opinion to agree or disagree! It's fine! This is just an analysis of mine and other gardeners of why Plance may be endgame in our eyes! :)

Alrighty Then!

Okay, I’m starting off with all the comics of them that I know of!

“Lance’s Guide To Falling in Love” explains that you need activities that you both like to do each other. That sounds a lot like Pidge and Lance with the Game Console they both got! That’s a similar activity they always do! “Love is about feeling vulnerable. [. ] finding your best friend. That’s why you have to create opportunities to fall in love.” That whole line pretty much explained Lance and Pidge’s relationship. They are pretty much best friends and I’m so sure they have been vulnerable towards each other in many ways that I will explain later on as well.

That second image on the right is just so cute because Lance is holding her shoulder for reassurance as she plays that chess game they’re lives depend on!

The second two images I put an arrow on so u guys can see which scene starts first. On these two panels, first, Pidge had forgotten a lot of things when she put on that crown. I think it was that it gave her too much knowledge that it made her forget things or something but slowly started remembering and the first thing she remembered was Lance. If that doesn’t show she cares about him, aside from her actually saying she’s glad he’s not dead, then I don’t know what is! I'll also add that the last bit where he said "I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me" and she replies "Is that true?" maybe made her question herself because maybe she thought, Why would I be mean to him if I know I like him? Who knows. Lol.

So the third row of two pictures with Pidge, we all know she super smart and loves intelligent puns and Lance, well he tries to catch on. On the second picture he made a pun that Shiro caught onto so what is his reply? To not tell Pidge lol That just shows how much of an influence she’s become in him!

The fourth picture going down, we have Lance and Pidge saying some sort of jokes where they switch it up the next time they use those phrases again but I just love how close they seem and how gentle of expressions they seem to give each other on the second half of the panels!

As for the famous picture where Lance and Pidge are playing their game, well, Lance says that after seeing his family and so on that the next thing he will do is be with Pidge, and not just that! Take her her favorite cookies as well! That’s a great boyfriend right there! ;)

The last picture all the way on the bottom left is just cute banter and oh gosh. They are so cute!

Now, the final picture on the bottom-right, we have a page of Kaltenecker. But wait, his name is colored in a shade of Cyan… Cyan is a greenish-blue color, the color of the two Paladins who own her! Pidge and Lance! That’s just so darn… ugh! And the fact that Lance replied “Moo” for all the answers and the part where he said “we presume” only means they did all this together! That’s just so boyfriend/girlfriend of them!!! Lol

I’m sorry ahead of time if this gets confusing. I added what season/episodes some are in that I remembered.

The first four I want to talk about (First Two Screen Caps on the first and second row) are from 1x1 (Season 1 x Episode 1) where they are talking about a ship entering earths atmosphere. The fact that they didn’t say spacecraft or shuttle but chose SHIP makes it feel that DW (DreamWorks) did this on purpose because as soon as Pidge says it’s a ship then Lance snatches the goggles, that she is still holding, and uses them! And then she says “We gotta see that ship!” and Lance FOLLOWS! Only Lance! Hunk stays behind!

Top Right>> Okay so now I’m doing this to make it easier lol. This SC (Screen Cap) is Lance noticing that the Kurboros Mission is a touchy subject for Pidge. He’s been close to her since they met so that only makes their bond stronger. That and Lance has amazing Intuitive Skills that we all know of which I will bring up again later!

R2 SC3 (Row 2 Screen Cap 3)>> Pidge is annoyed of Hunk touching her equipment. You know who she isn’t annoyed of touching her things? Lance. 😏

R3>> This whole row is just dedicated to their lack of personal space towards each other! Just a few from many SC! This has to be another foreshadowing man lol

R4 SC1-2>> 7x6 The episode that gave us all heart attacks lol I’m sure you all have heard this already but this episode had so much Plance/Kallura. The cinematic perspective of this whole episode just yelled Plance and Kallura. In these two scenes both couples specifically grab onto each other, there being SC of only when Keith grabs Alluras hand and Lance grabbing Pidge's. The shot where those light creatures come around them, you see Pidge, while holding Lances hand in the sweetest way in the back and same with Allura with Keith. Its just so… so… cinematically pleasing if you go for either ship lol

R4 SC3>> This was just a cute shot of them I put in to fill in the gap lol but its great!

R5 SC1-3>> 1x4 This episode was when Lance saved Coran from the explosion the fake Rover made. When Shiro and Lance are captures by Sendak, Pidge goes to save them only to be captured by him but Lance suddenly woke up from his unconscious state to shoot Sendak and save Pidge. He then falls back to the floor. I think this shows so much. Sure, he has yet to know Pidge was a girl at that time but he’s so close to her that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, even when he’s unconscious lol.

R6 SC1-2>> 1x1 Going back to this episode. I had seen this since I started watching the series but didn’t think much of it until I really put attention to the scene the second time around. Lance was showing off to Pidge, calling himself “The Tailor” and what not. Pidge in response gave a small blush, even of he did fail the simulator test. Sure, he obviously has yet to know she’s a girl but whose to say that’s just how their relationship has unknowingly built up? ;)

R6 SC3>> 2x6 This is interesting because Lance made fun of Pidge first saying her fancy Galra Finder didn’t work, then her showing her annoyed face. It then changes the scene to Shiro talking to one of the Aliens telling them the Galra were there only to change the scene back to Lance and Pidge, Pidge saying “So the Galra were here, Lance.” With a smug expression causing Lance to blush. Why would DW go back to this scene? It’s just playful banter BUT playful banter of them hinting us of a relationship to be maybe!

R1 SC1-2>> It’s cute how Lance is all excited telling Pidge “That’s my thing!” when she didn’t believe he was a good shot haha like he gets excited telling her things!

R2 SC1-2>> These both are from different episodes but are of both Lance and Pidge blushing. Lance from him acting cocky and Pidge from seeing Lance in a body suit (at least that’s what I think) where she can see all the toned parts of his body ;) She is a teenager after all lol

Top Right Down Three>> All these SC are symbolic to me. A foreshadowing because these are a few of many where it shows them together in a single scene or doing the same. This shows me that they can’t be any more similar than they already are! They are one in the same honestly.

Last Three Down>> 5x6 This scene is one of my Favorites! Allura and Lotor had left to check out where Altean Alchemy is held along with the knowledge of Alteans and Lance is freaking out talking to everyone asking if she will be alright or if they are doing anything as Pidge and the rest try to turn the Castle back on. This whole time Lance interrupts them as Pidge works on the castle. Sure it sounds that she’s simply annoyed but if you listen to the tone she sounds more than annoyed! It’s like she’s annoyed, not just because he’s interrupting them, but because he’s over exaggerating about Allura. Obviously everyone is worried but Lance just goes overboard causing Pidge to also go overboard as everyone just stares at both of them back and forth. Haha.

Last 3 Second Row Down>> These three shots are from different episodes but you can see that it’s Hunk and Pidge doing their Team Punk Bump as Lance watches. I don’t exactly remember the order of it and some scenerios are different than others but you can see that he’s not always keeping a big smile. Almost like he’s jealous that they have a ‘Thing’ while he doesn’t have one with either of them *cough* Pidge *cough*.

Last 3 Third Row Down>> This could kind of be related to the last point. 6x3 When they are done playing M&M, Pidge and Hunk got out of their stump from what they are doing, make an explanation of what to do next and run off. Meanwhile Lance looks somewhat annoyed, saying that he doesn’t understand the science words as much as the fantasy ones but his expression from looking at them then look away seems to show otherwise!

R1 SC1-2>> These two scenes have Lance with Pidge’s stuff! Her headphones and some of her pillows! Strange that she’s okay with Lance getting her stuff but not Hunk lol

R1 SC3>> 1x6 Where Pidge reveals she’s a girl and everyone BUT Lance knew. It’s weird that he didn’t know because he has amazing intuition. It kind of feels to me that maybe he’s playing dumb? Maybe he DID know? That’s why he’s always been ‘show offy’ with Pidge. Maybe… just maybe… that’s a big stretch right there but an interesting thought lol.

R2 SC1-2>> These two are a little different. The first one, Hunk and Pidge are teasing Lance because Allura is with Lotor but Pidge is kind of teasing in a ‘Haha she won’t return your feelings’ kind of way because she likes him. In the next one Lance and Pidge are teasing Hunk with Shay but her expression is more playful. Hmm. Interesting. ;)

R2 SC3/R3 SC3>> 7x1 “Wow. They’re a lot uglier than I thought they’d be.” “I think it’s cute. You know, in a creepy hideous sort of way. Like you Lance.” The fact that Pidge acknowledged Lance was even remotely cute shows she likes Lance! C’mon y’all! The look that Coran gives Pidge after that comment just kills me haha. He’s like “Ahhh. I see you Numbah five.” 😂 but really. The fact that Pidge says that right after Lance talks shows it even more!

R3 SC1-2>> So I actually have these two flipped wrong but the one with him by himself is when Pidge calls him the goofball of the team. At first it seems like he didn’t care much, since it’s their usual banter but then when Lance talks to Allura, it seems that Pidge’s words do somewhat get to Lance. Not in a mean way but Lance is vulnerable when it comes to Pidge.

R4>> 2x4 It’s taken me a while to figure this scene out because it was always strange to me how Pidge’s tone is. (Also, sorry I cut off some of the subs 😅) Pidge is amazed by how beautiful the tech is while Lance replies saying “It’s not a sunset Pidge” because maybe he loves sunsets. In that, Pidge replies “Your right. A billion sunsets just happen every day” with a kind of somber tone. Maybe she’s never really cared for sunsets? But in that third SC in the row, there is a small picture of a sunset on a beach on her wall. Maybe she’s coming to enjoy sunsets because of Lance? Maybe he’s talked to her about it? Maybe it reminds her of him? Interesting. There is also one more piece I will bring up in the next set of SC’s.

R5>> These! 1x4 Lance sees Rover but right away wonder where Pidge is because he knows she’s close to it. 7x4 The third SC is from The Feud when Lance is trying to remember Rolo's name. Interesting that right after trying to remember Rolo he says “Yeah. Pidge loved that Robot.” Not “Nyma was awesome.” Or “They tricked us”. He could have said any of that but chose something that reminded him of Pidge!

R6>> 2x2 Lance mentions he likes mermaids (maybe because he’s always loved the beach) and in 4x2 in Pidge’s room, she has a stuffed Mermaid!

Out of context but I just realized that for the whole Rover thing, its on Ep 4 of S 1 & 7. For the mermaid thing it’s on Ep 2 of S 2 & 4. What a weird coincidence lol.?

R1 SC1>> 6x2 Chulatt and Chuchule making a heart with their cute little mice tails! This scene is where the mice tell Allura Lance’s secret of him liking her. What I feel gives away plance, and is ironic, is that those two specific Space Mice create the heart! The little one (Chulatt) is Pidge and the pink one (Chuchule) is Lance. We know this because there was a photo of the mice in Paladin Armor and they were in those specific colored armors. If anyone wants to add that picture in the comments, knock yourself out lol.!

R1 SC2-3>> 2x7 Hey look! Another sunset! And not just that. In the store they got a game console that they worked hard to get together, along with their Moo Child, Kaltenecker! 😏 Lol. This episode really brought out the relationship they have in full bloom! First! Lance was originally going to go with Allura and get her something pretty and shiny BUT instead, he stopped flirting to go and help Pidge get something she really wanted! Plus, had a blast doing it! The tender look he gives her when she’s holding the game is so heartwarming and he’s just as excited as she is to start the console up! Remember what he said is a point to falling in love? “Love is about finding your best friend.” Welp. There ya go Lance.!

R2 SC1-2>> 4x3 Before this scene Matt had complimented Pidge for being smart, so she responded with a goofy smile. Lance also compliments her intelligence right after Matt. She gives him this soft look. I rest my case. Lol.

R3 SC1-2>> 7x9 The Paladins arrive back on earth where their loved ones await them. The most anxious is Pidge as she jumps to her mom and who, you may ask, does it change to right afterwards? Lance. The shot has Lance and Hunk but it’s more zoomed in on Lance with the gentlest look that I believe he’s ever gave honestly. He then gets interrupted by his family running to him, him in tears of the joy in seeing them. THIS is another reason why I believe they are endgame because both love their family so much, who reside on earth. I can’t imagine them wanting to stay in space once the war is over. They are made for each other honestly haha.

Top Right going Down SC 2-3>> These two scenes are parallels. They both have strong feelings for eachother and are extremely protective of one another. 7x3 First Lance with his “Don’t you touch her!”. His choice in words just scream I’ll kill you! Because of how protective of her she is. Knowing he is tired up and unable to do much, he still tried to rescue her. 2x10 Pidge’s “Lance! No!” Just tells me she has liked him for so long. Her feelings were already strong since the beginning. This scene didn’t need to emphasize on her wanting to save Lance and showing emotion but DW did it this way on purpose! ;)

R4>> 6x3 Ahhh. Monsters & Mana again! You know how we’ve all found out that the filler episodes aren’t actually fillers but a foretelling of future things? Well, look at these cuties once again having lack of personal space! And then the second SC is of Pidge looking up at Lance instead of looking at the view like the others but still enjoying herself with her big smile! The third SC is now of Lance giving her that gentle look once again. Instead of looking at the view, he looks at Pidge as she is having the time of her life!

R5 SC1-2>> 5x1 I kind of messed up on my choice of SC but I’m sure you all will still understand. This episode is when Matt and Pidge failed in saving their dad. Pidge is there hugging her legs from the thought of her dad not being around anymore. Lance is the first to turn to see her and then Hunk. What I see though is Hunk having a worried expression and Lance looks a little worried for her as he is turning but once he is standing and looking her way, he looks more determined. Determined for her to get her father but for her to also be safe maybe? Last thing is that on the SC where it shows her hugging her legs, Lance is still in the shot. I would say that this is a vulnerable scene for Pidge because she is so in distress because of her father.

R5 SC3>> 6x7 Just a simple SC of Pidge looking back at Trash Lance as they get ready to leave the Castle of Lions. Trash Hunk is there too but she looks over Trash Lance lol.

R6>> 4x3 This whole row scene is just so cute. Lance and Hunk run to Pidge as she lands. Lance being the first one to get to her just smile at seeing his girlfriend back lol. She gives them all a smile as she holds her little space mouse.

R1 SC1 Down First Two SC>> 1x10 I don’t think many think much of this scene but how can you not? The first SC Pidge messed up the robot and said “Whoops” but the second one was after Lance was asking about Allura, giving off a goofy smile until Pidge’s robot smacked him in the face. Afterwards she said “Whoops” again but in a more sarcastic tone. That’s jealosy at its finest lol.

R1 SC2 Down First Two SC>> Lance is showing off the pictures of him with the alien girls but to Pidge. I sometimes wonder if he did it on purpose to get a reaction from her because she was smiling before he showed her the picture. Jealousy moment numero dos! Lol

R1 SC3 Down First Two SC>> 1x10 I love this scene because as soon as Keith leaves after Lance told him to not leave, he glances over to Pidge who is very unimpressed. Afterwards he turned his head with a smug expression saying “I think I told him” and Pidge responding with the most sarcastic “You are the paragon of leadership, Lance” with him still being all proud. Its all just ugh. I love their relationship hahaha.

R3>> Dancing buddies? I think Yes! Lol how much more perfect can they be for eachother? Hahaha

R1>> 2x4 Yet another scene I love because in this scene Lance and Pidge are kind of moving in sync. Lol. It’s so them haha.

R2&3 First SC>> 7x10 This is another scene that I don’t think that a lot of people take too in depth but Allura and Lance just had a moment where they both blush. Afterwards, all the paladins head out to their destination as they concentrate but Pidge looks like the only one that’s a little… sad? Distressed? The little lines under her eyes show a different emotion than the other paladins. She looks like she’s just thinking. I think she may have seen Allura with Lance and now is torn by her feelings because Allura might reciprocate his feelings. Right after her shot of the green Lion arriving to her, it turns to Lance who is calm and ready but we all know that scene that red showed up just in the Knick of time. I think red knows that Lance is meant to be with another, not with the one he wants but someone he will need.

R2&3 Second SC>> 6x2 This is where Lance is trying to get Alluras attention but she’s too into Lotor to care. Lance says “She’s smart, courageous, and makes me want to be a better person”. Adding on that aside from being an alien princess, she’s those things but that he isn’t a prince like Lotor so what does it matter. The first SC he honestly explained Pidge so if that’s what he is looking for in someone then maybe that was a hint to us. And then he goes on saying that Allura won’t take his feelings seriously and that he has nothing to offer. Maybe this is another foreshadowing that Pidge is going to take it super serious and he doesn’t need to offer anything with her because the way is is already everything she wants ;) That is a stretch though lmao.

R2&3 Third SC>> I’m just going to show you guys and not explain to much with this haha The Plance Nebula! We all know it but I don’t think we all yet know that it’s been in front of our faces all this time! In the intro of every episode when the screen pops up. That’s the nebula just on its side! Now answer me this. If it wasn’t important then why would it be right after Pidge’s Nebula in the trailer for S8???? That’s the only different nebula aside from all the others being the Paladins themselves!

I’m telling Y’all that alllllll this is what makes me think that Plance is Endgame!

This I needed to add alone because they are so cute! They are the only onea that did this lol

7x13 If these scene itself isn't enough to have you think they are foreshadowing them together then man. I don't remember seeing any other two Paladins do this when they use their bayards at the same time on voltron. Its just such a powerful scene for a super power couple!!!

Omg guys I can't believe I finished this. If you read all this then kudos to you! Please let me know what you guys thought or what your opinion is because I put alot of work into this for everyone to have their plance super watered lol

Thanks for the help guys!!! :) @callmesath @ohfishwall @truegryffindorforever2 @gracekogane

💦💚🌱💙

[oosteven-universe]

Collapser #4

Collapser #4 DC's Young Animal 2019 Written by Mikey Way & Shaun Simon Illustrated by Ilias Kyriazis Coloured by Cris Peter Lettered by Simon Bowland     Liam’s first gig as DJ Collapser goes badly after an assassin from space tries to kill him in the men’s room.     There is something about this that just captures the readers' mind and imagination in some seriously great ways. Yes this off the wall and yes it's kid of tongue-in-cheek sarcastic but it's also has this charm and charisma to it that you cannot escape from. What Mikey and Shaun do with the story is precisely what this imprint is all about. That this is an original comic and it doesn't come from anywhere else in the DCU, well maybe outside Dial “H” For Hero that is, with so many one and done identities who can find that scorecard heh, makes it all the better in my humble opinion.     What this book symbolises to me is that there are still plenty of undiscovered characters that can be created so that old ones don't need to be “diversified” for the sake of appeasement or lack of imagination. The opening here is absolutely amazing to see. I mean it is nice to see Liam booking it off stage when the attack begins, I mean he have that black hole embedded in his chest now but that doesn't automatically make him a hero specially when your first instinct to cower and hide. This is just brilliantly done and the way the whole thing is presented just makes you want, WANT, to see more.     The story and plot development that we see within these pages as it reveals the information and hints at the direction the story is going to take is just marvellously done. The character development is sensational. Just the fact that we see the characters constantly growing and evolving thanks to the situations that arise and how they act and react to these moments. Getting to know someone is more than dialogue it's body language and what they do, how they react and what we get here is that and so much more. When we add the pacing to this mix we see the twists and turns that are here along with some great revelations is also what keeps us interested and our minds engaged in what's happening.     The ebb & flow of the story that's created by all the developments and pacing is so extraordinary to see. It is like that “B” Movie that can't stop watching and becomes that cult classic everyone talks about. With this character and this black hole being a part of him, let's face it it sounds on par with The Toxic Avenger and I don't care who you are we all love that stupid film. So yeah what we see and how we see defies logic and that is one of the elements that is so darn good about this whole experience.     The interiors here are marvellous to see. The linework is really strong stuff and while the characters may look goofy or some exaggerated version (actually much better than the now work) of Keith Giffen, on this is actually enjoyable. The creativity and imagination that is on display here is so much fun to see and experience as these alien creatures have come to town to stay. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a wonderful eye for storytelling. The composition inside the panels show how to either utilise backgrounds to enhance the moments or to bring effects and colours which do the same thing. I mean the art in this book is phenomenally well done. The colours are incredible and I love seeing a base colour and then the various hues and tones within it utilised to create shading and shadows. ​     There are quite a few layers within the main story an to see those in his sphere of influence and whether they think he still cares or not is great to see. I love that these guys are not just creating a character but a world and universe that all fit within the confines of this book. The more we see it grow the more we want to see it grow more. I may not be a mainstream DC fan these days but give me this and I am one extremely happy camper. This is so much weird fun and it's like the geeks and nerds as the cool kids in school kind of fun.

[cielrouge]

Voltron Legendary Defender NYCC 18' Panel Recap

Ahhh okay here’s the recap post I promised! It took a little while to transcribe all the individual videos I had (I think almost 11 in the end? lol). So, normally I’m not a morning person at all, but as soon as I saw NYCC announce the Hammerstein panel and realizing this might very well be the last VLD panel ever, you can betcha that I got up at the crack of dawn to get my ass down to Hammerstein this morning pfftt. I got there around 9ish, and while there was already a line it moved fairly quickly after a quick bag check. Since I was by myself, I managed to get a pretty decent seat, actually much than I anticipated, located in the early middle-ish of the ground floor seating.

The panel began with the moderator (I forgot his name, sorry mod! D:) with introducing the cast and crew: Joaquim Dos Santos & Lauren Montgomery (Executive Producers), Josh Hamilton (Story Editor), and the VA’s for Allura (Kimberly Brooks), Pidge (Bex Taylor-Klaus), Shiro (Josh Keaton), and Lance (Jeremy Shada). Keith’s VA (Steven Yeun) didn’t make it, but I’m assuming maybe this was because he had prior commitments to promote BURNING at the New York Film Festival this weekend?

Joaquim and Lauren started off the panel regarding the Shiro and Adam storyline in S7, and some “understandably hurt reactions to it." Joaquim stated that they emphasize with everyone’s reactions and "really do feel for you,” while Lauren added: “so we clearly can’t change what’s already happened, but this experience has stirred conversation about what meaningful representation is, and we hope that this leads to better representation in the future.”

VLD Show Retrospective & General Fan Appreciation

 Lauren then changed gears to take a moment to say: "how proud we are of our crew who has worked so hard, and our amazing cast who has bought so much life to these characters over these past four years," and a "huge thank you to all of the fans who have just showered us with so much love and support."

Joaquin added that they wanted "our final New York Comic Con, really our final con of the entire series to be a celebration of everyone's hard work. And a really awesome look back at what came before this and an awesome look forward to our final season, of a show that we're so proud to be a part of, and had you guys along for the ride."

The moderator asked what it's been like throughout the years to get to this specific part (season 8) and Joaquim said: "It's amazing for us. It's grown every single year, you guys [the crowd] is the best. It's been an absolute honor working on the show."

Josh H. (VLD's Story Editor) also noted: "It's weird being in the office alone, maybe five of us writers in one room," and they question what will or will not work story-wise, but "then you come to Comic Con and people start to cheer because they love a moment so much."

 "It's so different when you're alone by yourself as a writer, and then when you're with an awesome crowd of people. It invigorates you."

 Josh K. (Shiro's VA) added that it's been amazing for him to meet and work with the cast, but specifically highlighted his appreciation for seeing all the "incredible talent that's been peppered throughout the fandom.

Specifically emphasizing how the cast and crew "see so many amazing cosplay, so much incredible art, videos, everything. You guys [the fans] really dove into this show and we love it. We're just as much fans as all of you, and we love sharing the show with all of you. It's been a fantastic experience and I'm sad it's coming to an end."

Jeremy (Lance's VA) chimed in: "You don't to be part of many shows like Voltron in your career, so it's been a blessing to be a part of this show. Everybody here puts in so much hard work into their craft and what they do, but you never know what's going to do well or not, and this show DEFINITELY did very, very well."  And this was because of the fans, particularly highlighting the passion and dedication, and how "it means the world to us."

 Jeremy then pointed out this was a crowd where there actually seemed to be more cosplayers than non-cosplayers, prompting Josh K. to note: "I love going to these cons and looking at everyone cosplaying, and pretending in my head that Voltron is real and now I'm at Space Mall."

 Bex (Pidge's VA) chimed in to say that she would make things a little more selfish since: "I've always wanted to play a cartoon character so this was very literally a dream come true for me." But not only to play a cartoon character, but to play a powerful female warrior."

Bex additionally noted how amazing how that's what's resonated most is "for young kids to see themselves in Pidge and Allura. It's just been the most heartwarming experience."

Kimberly (Allura's VA) then spoke to the experience among the cast and crew and how they've become good friends with one another, and how it's "bittersweet that this is our last convention, but it's been amazing."

Season 7 Retrospective (General Storytelling  Approach & the VA's Favorite Moments)

Josh H. started off that: "S7 was meant to be putting our paladins at a disadvantage."

 So the writers came up with the concept of a 3 year timeskip and "all these stories about going home, and Hunk with his family kind of sprung up naturally from that."

 "There's also a story about Allura. It's kinda subtle, but Allura lost Altea, and now she has a chance to redeem herself and help save Earth."

"A lot of these personal moments start to pop up when we got this new angle, so starting off with this 3 year time gap really helped us."

Joaquim noted it was cool seeing the fan buildup with getting the paladins back home to their families, and "knowing for us, from a story perspective that it was coming down the line, and seeing everything get to that fever pitch point. It was a really great payoff to see it all play out."

Lauren switched gears to comment on the "insane logistics" of the whole big Galra attack at the end. They had some initial trouble figuring out how the Zaiforge cannons were supposed to work.

 Josh H. chimed in to note that Joaquim kept coming to the writers room to say that something needed to be different about this Galra attack, so he and Mitch Iverson would kind of go on walks and try to figure out how the Zaiforge cannons worked.

While Lauren noted that the logistics was a "massive headache, they were still pretty happy with how it turned out since "it was pretty suspenseful, never a dull moment."

 Josh H. added that plot-wise, he liked how the storytelling perspective got to stay on Earth. "We knew that there were going to be seven, Earth-centric episodes," so that gave a lot of time to "meet some new people and come up with MFE pilots."

The writers really enjoyed cracking who the MFE pilots were individually, particularly with the way that Leifsdottir thinks and speaks, so "having this time to stay in one place and time was really fun."

Jeremy noted that they were really happy to have AJ LoCascio (Lotor's VA) still stick around and voice James Griffin in S7.

Joaquim mentioned that for a show of this nature, with all the focus on action-adventure and big explosions and giant robots, it was unusual to "take two episodes and just focus on the logistics on what's going back on Earth while madness is happening. Essentially you had all these meetings going on for what's ostensibly a kid's show."

 In terms of trying to find a fine balance between the Earth storyline and Paladin storyline, Lauren and Jaoquim did wonder whether they could spend that much time on Earth without "seeing Voltron punch something" (ROFL) but they knew it was the right decision as they were reading the scripts when they came in, and it just felt right, and "that's ultimately been a testament to the show. Just going with your gut."

Favorite, Standout Moments of Season 7

 Bex noted that her favorite episodes of S7 were the Earth-centric ones where "we got to experience what was happening on Earth while we [the paladins] were gone. It was everything I got to see and nothing I got to see in the scripts since we weren't there."

 Kimberly noted that the Hunk love was amazing, since he's so "lovable, and we got to see where he was inspired to cook and do all the things that he does, and why he's such a cool guy."

Josh K. added that Hunk really proved himself as the heart of the team.

Jeremy noted that the VA's knew that the Atlas was going to be a thing through the scripts, but they weren't aware of what it actually looked like beforehand.

 Bex humorously chimed in to offer that "Atlas is thiccc. I needs that workout routine, okay?" (omfg)

Jeremy agreed that it has a "nice big booty. It's a thick robot." (And at that point, everyone in the audience started wheezing, shrieking, or cackling).

Josh K. added that the day the episode aired, there was a group chat among the VA's where someone just texted "Atlas is thiccc" and Bex admitted that she had this saved to her Tweetdeck for a longgg time.

 Josh K. admitted that while he's probably biased, this was still his favorite episode, since Josh wanted Shiro to have everything that he deserves, and he loved how "everything was falling apart and everyone was looking for Shiro to lead."

And in terms of the words and the stage direction, Josh remembered just even reading the script just made him swell up with pride for Shiro and think: "This is amazing. Everybody that didn't believe him in the Garrison came back, those that strapped him to a gunnery, and didn't want to listen to him about Voltron is now looking at him to save them."

Bex added the part where Coran calls Shiro 'Captain' for the first time was one of those moments.

And when Shiro finally makes that connection and is able to transform the ship, Josh knew that while this moment was going to happen, he still had no idea how the Atlas transformation was going to look like beforehand.

Josh fondly recalled that he was hoping to see his wife's reaction to the Atlas transformation for the first time, but he missed her whole reaction since he himself couldn't take his eyes off the scene.

Entire Show Retrospective: Favorite Moments and Why

Jeremy’s Pick (Lance and Keith rescuing Shiro in ep 1): "It's special to me, because I think this may have been one of my audition scenes, but it was really one of the  first scenes where you get to see Lance's personality and I love these little moments where he's just very kinda funny and such a goofball, but he still has this goal and is a loyal person. So, when we were recording this scene, I thought: 'Ok I get the character now and this sets the tone for what I wanna do with his character."

Bex’s Pick (Pidge confessing her true identity as a girl): "I love this part. This was something that was in the very beginning not in the audition side, but the character breakdown of Pidge's masquerade as a boy in order to find her family. And who doesn't want to play Mulan? So, it was something that I was waiting for and I remember going back and forth on whether this scene was going to happen in episode 4 or 7. It was really exciting when we got to that part of the script and how we were doing this, and I loved how easy it is."

Josh K's Pick (Shiro rescues Slav): "The thing we know about Shiro, at least in the beginning, is that it seems like there's nothing wrong with him. He seems perfect, he can do no wrong, he's a nice guy, and can kick butt. So sometimes you think, 'can he do no wrong? What's his deal?' and in S2, Shiro meets somebody named Slav and it's once meeting Slav, you start to see that Shiro is not completely perfect. Shiro can get upset, and there definitely is a crack in that paladin armor.”

Josh H's Pick (The 'Slipperies' Scene): "Tim Hendrick came up with the concept of the slipperies as Coran sweating too much and slipping everywhere. Everytime I watch this scene I still legitimately laugh even though the script went through several rewrites."

Kimberly's Pick (Allura and Coran and the milkshake origin): "I think the clip is self-explanatory in terms of our reaction to it."

Lauren’s Pick (When the Paladins hoot fun-sentry into space): "So my clip isn't any moment in the series, but a moment that embodies what our crew does when it comes together, and everybody brings their own thing to it, so it culminates into something so much more."

How Much of the VA's are like their Actual Characters

Josh K. noted that back in 2014, he had just become an actual dad, so he made that weird transition from "living for yourself to having a life were you hold someone else's life in your hands.

”So, he drew a lot of Shiro's "dedication to his team from that feeling. That's really where it all came from.”

While he confesses to generally being more like Lance in real life, still with age and parenting, Josh admits that he's become more of that "space dad type of guy, having to wrangle kids and all that." 

Likewise, he's always liked telling bad dad jokes and now revels in still being able to tell them as an actual dad.  

Bex admits that for her, she feels that "Pidge is so powerful in her own way and so confident, which is so rare for someone so young." So, while Bex isn't sure if she's entirely become the Pidge that she wants to be, but she's getting there.

Kimberly notes that she strives to be like Allura (Jeremy interrupted to say that Kimberly is a queen and has gotten the queenly wave down). 

What Kimberly finds appealing about Allura is that she's a flawed character, but also beautiful, generous, smart, and strong - "these are all things I strive to be, and I feel like I'm becoming more and more like Allura as the show progresses." 

Kimberly also added that Allura is her favorite character that she's ever had the pleasure to voice. Even after recording many, many sessions, Kimberly still had no idea what Allura physically looked like, so the first time she was shown the character concept artwork, Kimberly was "so choked up and blown away," since she had no idea what her skin tone was going to be and so on.

Jeremy confesses that he kind of leans into Lance's personality in real life, but in a joking manner since he likes making people laugh. He finds Lance to be such a goofball and that 'adorkable' type of person, and "that's definitely me in real life, but Lance also has all that sensitive loyal side to him which I have and relate to as well." 

"He's fun to play, but while Lance tries hard to be very flirty at times, I'm not really like that way. Maybe with my girlfriend, I'll try to say flirty jokes and she'll just laugh and tell me to keep trying."

The Existence of the Voltron Scratch Reel

 Lauren explained the concept of a scratch reel where in between the storyboarding, animating, and voice acting process, sometimes they realize that they might need some additional lines, maybe lines get condensed, change names, and so on.  

But they don't always have time to get the actors back in, so "a lot of times, it falls upon one of us to put in some temporary dialogue and fill that space, they animate to it, and then we get the animation back and the actors replace the dialogue and it sounds great. But in the meantime, we get to watch some ridiculously horrible acting on behalf of the entire staff - editors, assistants, etc."

Bex noted: "It's always breaks my heart a little to dub over the scratch tracks, because it's so beautiful," while Josh added that he'd love to see an episode just entirely of scratch tracks."

Joaquim chimed in that they had two seasons of the 'Scratchy Awards,' where they handed out staff awards for the best scratch tracks produced (hahaha), where Mitch Iverson spraypainted a bunch of backscratchers with 'Scratchy' Awards' on it.

 After they aired the scratch reel, Josh H. noted that there are still some times where scratch ends up being in-screen and it's an unexpected surprise when they're reviewing the editing process.

The most popular scratch reel choice among the VA's is Director Steve Ahn, who had a lot of the 'Ok, calm down' scratch scenes, and Steve Yeun once asked: "Could I get that as my ringtone?"  

Jeremy said his favorite parts of the scratch reel were when half the scene were the actual VA lines, and then it was one non-VA word.

 Benjamin Kaltenecker did all of the 'moo' sounds for Kaltenecker.

Josh K. noted that Joaquim voices a pretty decent Shiro, and "that's why you didn't see any scratch scenes of that because it's not bad."

Bex noted that she loved it when Lauren had to voice some of the Galra men for the scratch scenes.

 Lauren noted that most of the scratch scenes were recorded late at night and the cast & crew weren't really fighting to do a scratch scene, and "we're not usually fighting to voice a character, but it's more like 'who has to do it now? Who hasn't done it in awhile??’

“While we're in shame of our bad acting...poor Rhys [Coran's VA] had to sit through and be insulted since nobody can actually pull off Coran's accent.” Though, Joaquim pointed out that Jeremy does a decent Coran impression which he then demonstrated for the crowd.

Joaquim added: "The hardest thing to do is to record scratch in the booth and it's played back to the actual VA's and we can't hear them because their mics are off, but they're pantomiming the loudest laughter."

Kimberly reassured that the VA's loved hearing the crew's voices for the scratch reel.

Josh K. added that "it's like hearing your friends do an impression of you and makes ADR sessions fun, since they can be so technical at times. It's like getting to watch bloopers."

Getting Some of the Awesome Voltron Guest Stars & Fun VA Recording Moments

Joaquim & Lauren: "We bat around some ideas internally, and couldn't believe when the casting directors were on board with some of our ideas: like getting Vince Shlomi or the ShamWow guy to voice the knife store owner in the Space Mall."

The show's head of casting, Anya's eyes light up this suggestion, and it was kind of a celebrity moment when he came in to record.

Weird Al Yankovic was a fixture of Lauren's childhood, and it certainly helped having a voice director legend like Andrea Romano to fall back on.

 At one point, they had Rhys Darby (Coran) and Paul Rubin sort of 'battling it out in the Space Mall haggling sequence' and it was like 'the Lake House of back-and-forth, like they were on two astral planes' but when it came together, it was 'magical.'

 Since Nolan North voiced both Sam Holt and Commander Iverson, there were literally scenes where he was just literally talking to himself, and Lauren noted that "the guy's such a professional that he does things straight through instead."

 Lauren also noted that Cree Summers is one of those VA's who will sideline an entire session, since she's such a hilarious, big personality.

 Jeremy and the other VA's said that recording with the cast was always the highlight of his week. But one of the coolest things was when they had the entire, locked-in VA cast together for the first time, and they realized that they had picked the right people.

 "I know I'm doing my job right in the recording booth when I'm making my cast mates laugh."

Sometimes the cast would get into fun side conversations catching up that Andrea (the voice director) had to interrupt and remind them that: 'We're literally in a take right now and you're having a full conversation. You can catch up later.'

 Bex once freaked out Josh K. and AJ since they were in the middle of a conversation and they didn't hear the sound beeps, but Bex did and suddenly yelled 'GO!'

Season 8 Plot Teasers

Lauren: "Basically our paladins have freed Earth from Galra rule and all that's left to kind of finish the job and free all the universe."

Joaquim: "We do have this one character that you might have noticed in a clip that becomes pretty pivotal, and she's been gone for a bit..." (Which presumably was Hagger/Honerva since the S8 was then aired) 

Fun Misc. Show Tidbits

Bex apparently came to Pidge's audition in a Batman onsie.

During the 'Slipperies scene', the little side panels of Coran's pants come apart and flap like little tails. This wasn't something that was originally in the design, but the animators added it.

The creators once had an original design where Coran had a tail, and Lauren noted "it was super cute."

Jeremy thought the whole Shiro clone saga was awesome, and he specifically loved the Black Paladins episode. 

Lauren and Joaquim admitted that they were even shocked by that storyline since they had a very different storyline at first - "that's the interesting thing about the creative process, since you'll get notes and have to make some changes, but it then takes you to really unexpected places and make for some unique and interesting storylines."

There wasn't time for a Q&A portion, and the panel ended with the Season 8 teaser/first look. Though, I'd have to say that it was still definitely fun watching the teaser with such a large crowd of fans, and basically shrieking and gasping together at different intervals hahaha.

[sol1056]

I keep finding new salt about s7, like: Sendak has 5 warships, which is less than Voltron destroyed in s1 when they went to save Allura. They also had fully recharged the Lion Energy to form Voltron again through the power of friendship. Why why WHY didn't they just fly in, form Voltron, destroy all the ships, and then help sweep up the pieces/defeat Sendak's final ground assault?

My family has a long-running gag about Haley’s Comet. If there’s only one cookie left on the plate, someone will point off in a direction behind everyone and shout, “Oh my god! Haley’s Comet!” and when someone (because someone always does) turns to look, the person who shouted grabs the last cookie for themselves. 

One of the hardest parts of a large-scope story is the final set piece. You need the antagonist (or obstacle) to be big enough that it’ll appear unbeatable, with the odds stacked against the heroes. And you don’t want the heroes coming up with something out of left field (*koff* magic *koff*); the solution is most satisfying when it’s an ingenious extrapolation of some skill or knowledge you’d planted earlier in the story. 

The strategy — defeat the Big Bad — is almost never in doubt. The tension lies in how the heroes will manage that, the tactics they’ll use. Unfortunately, when you dissect most of VLD’s finales, they consist of Attack of the Haley’s Comets. 

S1, they went in with no plan except a frontal attack against an opponent with a thousand times their resources. Good thing they all had plot armor. 

S2, the finale involved getting Zarkon to come to them, so they could shut down his servers to implant a virus (that did what, exactly?) while the rest of the lions dog-fought (lion-fought?) a bunch of sentries for the nth time, then Allura forced the entire station-ship-whatever to go through The Universe’s Largest Teladuv to send Zarkon, uh, far away, for some reason. Then they formed Voltron and sliced at the big station that was again a thousand times larger, fought Zarkon in a Voltron-sized suit of armor and, uh, lastly left the scene via wormhole. Like the station was back online, clearly not destroyed, and besides, Zarkon spent most of S2 easily able to catch up with them, once he knew where they were, so not sure why ‘sending him far away’ had any purpose. 

(This makes Star Wars’ “shoot at this tiny duct on the surface of the Death Star” look downright brilliantly efficient in comparison.) 

S3 had no finale, and S4 involved, uh, Voltron going up against a planet. And almost getting blown up. While two other teams tackled super cannons a system away. Shutting down the relay station to leave a gap for those teams to capture the cannons was possibly the only tactically smart move I’ve seen in a VLD finale, tbh. 

S5′s finale… uh, Oriande, right. S6′s finale was… well, we had the copy-paste Winter Soldier fight between Keith and not-Shiro, followed by Sincline and Voltron facing off. The latter of which seemed to mostly involve a lot of yelling. *yawn*

S6′s finale, well, you already summed it up. I guess ‘just go right for the warships with the cannons’ would’ve ended the battle too soon, so they had to run around for an episode or so. Y’know, make sure we’re suitably distracted from the Haley’s Comet gambit and not realize until too late VLD had stolen yet another cookie.

When it comes to prepping for the finale, Star Wars is a great example of a simple finale that works, because it laid a solid foundation. From very early, the story drives home two things: the plans to the Death Star contain major intel, and Luke’s an amazing and intuitive pilot. We get early chatter about Luke racing, with reminders like his crack about shooting womp rats. Both elements are made credible by the story never contradicting these setups, so when you put together teeny duct + amazing pilot + tunnel-shot cinematography, you get a marvelous heart-pounding finale.  

With the exception of S7 using the shields (a callback to S6E1), VLD has been pretty weak at hinting at skills or knowledge ahead of time. And that’s ignoring that the EPs/writers don’t seem to understand battle tactics vs a solid and efficient strategy. 

They do manage to give Lance consistent tactical smarts (despite fen calling him the best strategist, which he’s not), but otherwise the EPs/writers seem fuzzy on how the two perspectives impact characterization. So right there, they don’t even have a solid sense of how a team would split duties to play to each person’s strength, and that means we end up with battle scenes where Shiro is focused on A, Keith zooms off for B, Lance yells at Keith, while Pidge and Hunk just scream a lot in the background.

A strategy is the big-picture objective: “We need to retrieve Allura.” It’s what must be achieved to consider any action complete: capture that hill, rescue the princess, block the reinforcements. “We come from this direction, move fast, hit here, and hit hard” are tactics: the steps to achieve that objective. Against an enemy with 1000x more resources and size, it’s also a damn stupid tactic. 

The commander sets the strategy, the tactician figures out how the army will manage that. The team’s arrival at the Balmera is one of the few times VLD uses the concepts properly. As the general, Allura defines the main strategic goal. As the field commander, Shiro divides up the labor. Keith and Lance are tasked with blocking reinforcements, and Lance figures out the most efficient tactic: lock the barn doors before the horses get out. 

For the most part, Keith is a strategic thinker, not a tactical one, and that makes him a less useful second-in-command compared to Lance’s pragmatic tactical approach. In fact, those two would be a powerful pair if the writers understood the differences to highlight the two approaches, and how each is crucial for a successful outcome.

What most insults me, as a viewer (and yes, I would’ve said the same at age 10, thanks to reading plenty of history with battle strategies), is that the EPs/writers seem to have decided complicated is a synonym for smart. The result is a series of finales that are actually… pretty stupid. 

I mean, have these people never even read Lao Tzu? Just as a bare minimum. 

What about subterfuge? Like, say, a cloaking mechanism. Wouldn’t that be handy. That got used once for all of Voltron, and it was never mentioned again. Sure, copilot to assist Pidge with the cloaking mechanism? Take your pick: Shiro, Coran, Romelle, I’m sure at least one of them could’ve managed it. Hell, as much effort VLD put into making Kosmo the smartest plot device ever, the damn wolf could’ve done it. 

All warfare is based on deception. It’s not a dishonorable thing to pull one over on the enemy. Wormholing in is only half the sneakage, people. 

Avoid striking at what is strong; hit the enemy’s weak points. Instead, Voltron just goes head-on, over and over, and the only reason it wins is because that’s what’s in the script. Take advantage of chaos: with Zarkon absent in S3, threre should’ve been tremendous opportunities (mostly from previously strong areas now weakened by the internal turmoil), but instead Voltron’s on the outskirts freeing planets like Puig. Well, sure, fine, but is that really the best use of the team’s limited resources? 

Don’t move until you have the advantage, or something to be gained. Aim for what the enemy holds most precious. When the enemy fights blindly and desperately, use their blindness against them to lure them into an ambush (which is possibly the one maxim at use in S2′s finale). Related to that, Lotor does act on at least one principle: rousing and forcing the lions to reveal themselves, so Lotor can determine their vulnerabilities. 

In a war story, I’d look to the uses of strategy and tactics as a way to reveal characterization (of which Lotor circa S3 is the best, if not only, example). But specifically this quote from Sun Tzu: 

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

It’s a classic trope in war stories to have the strategist insist that knowing the enemy — thinking like them, understanding them — is key to victory. Thing is, it’s true. If you don’t understand the enemy’s assumptions, biases, desires, and dislikes, you won’t know how to use those against the enemy. You won’t be able to divine strength from weakness. 

In S1/S2, Allura (and Coran) was the best-placed to understand Zarkon’s objectives, the way he thought, the reactions he’d have to any action. Shiro was a distant second for strategist, with more immediate (if fuzzy) experiences of the empire. In S3, with Lotor as the new antagonist and a completely unknown variable, this really would’ve been the best time for Keith to come to the forefront as a strategic thinker. Allura or Shiro might assume their understanding of Zarkon could be applied to Lotor, while Keith’s lack of firsthand knowledge meant a lack of bias for seeing Lotor as, well, Lotor. 

There could’ve been some interesting contrasts to play with, there, in terms of the different strategic minds on the team. Especially when places against the differing tactical brains on the team (Lance, Hunk, Pidge). But I guess we’ll have to leave that for fandom to fix, along with that mess of a finale in S7.

[storiesbeyondthestars]

Okay, so I read through a bunch of different spoiler free, S7 articles, and I’m going to give my opinions on things I read, and I did take some screenshots of different articles, so this ends up getting kind of long because I am a long-winded person. (Edit: I lied. This got super long.)

First of all, the consensus is that this season is going to be a wild one that focuses more on personal interactions and relationships, which is awesome! 

What we can see from the two above parts of an article (or a couple I can’t remember at this point where I screencapped what from -10 for research habits), is the truth we’ve always known that family is the real story behind Voltron. Lauren said it was about love. It absolutely is. I’m excited to see that this concept is really taking hold here, especially since we’ll be seeing all different kinds of love and family. 

As much as I love my ships, I love the story between everyone has a whole even more. To see this directly is going to be amazing.

Just throwing this out there, I’m like 95% sure they’re referring to Lance here. He’s easily the most sacrificial one of the team, and we know that Jeremy had a hard time voicing something because it was mostly crying. I think we found what it is.

While I’m a bit sad that the girls get pushed aside a bit, I always remember that it doesn’t mean they’re not there, not important, not doing stuff. They are. I get the feeling that they’re not going to go on the same kind of emotional journey as all the boys are this time around, which is kind of telling? 

I’m okay with Shiro not being a Paladin anymore. In fact, I think it’s the best possible thing for his character. He was the perfect leader and comfortable as a Paladin, and the best way to show what a character is made of is to put them in a situation where they’re not in their element entirely. So I am SO excited for Shiro this season.

Also, Hunk focus? Hell yeah. And my little, biased shipper heart did backflips at the last part involving Lance and Keith, though with the acknowledgement that the ‘crush or two’ thing may not at all have to do with them and it could just be about being leader and right-hand of Voltron. Plus...

I’m not quite sure I hold much value in an article that can’t spell Allura’s name right, but if Lance is a focus this season, and Allura’s not, but they show signs of a stronger bond...? 1 + 1 ≠ 2 in this case. Keep in mind, I’m not saying that Lance’s endgame isn’t Allura, I’m just saying that there’s some contradictions here.

Also while on the topic of specific characters...

I saw someone saying ‘oh look Shiro IS going to be a Paladin’. No. No he’s not. This is in reference to Season 3/4 when Shiro returning cut into Keith being Black Paladin. Of course we know the REAL Shiro wouldn’t have pushed Keith and stepped on his toes as much as Kuron did, so I think he’s going to feel bad about that. There may be a little awkwardness to it, but I think we’re going to see Shiro really actively be pushing Keith to lead, taking a step back. It’s what he wanted originally. 

I really, genuinely think that the line up for the lions with this team is final. However, it could hint towards people taking over for them in the future, or moments where they pilot other lions, but not permanently.

This is SUPER interesting. This roadtrip to Earth is going to focus a LOT on interpersonal relationships and I am HERE for that in every sense of the word. I’m very curious about the characters who’ll pull apart, since I honestly can’t see it being the core team, but that doesn’t leave much room, does it? It’s not going to be Keith and his mom. It won’t be Allura and Coran. I COULD see Shiro kind of purposely pulling himself away from the others a bit, including Keith (kind of a stepping off and ‘go be great’ thing like he did with Pidge in S1E1). These don’t HAVE to be negative things. I can’t see it being Keith and anyone, because he’s been gone for a long time from his point of view. So I don’t know.

Gimme all the matchups. Gimme Keith and everyone (since he’s been gone so long). And I genuinely mean everyone. Gimme Keith and Pidge on their field trip or something too. Don’t let them be the Zuko and Toph of the group. ALSO Hunk and Allura. I wanna see them be awesome together. Hunk, Allura, and Romelle side trip please!

Plot lines long thought abandoned. Okay, my shipper brain went towards Klance. I’m sorry, it did. My logical brain, however, says that this is not in reference to that at all. I think that might have to do with Hunk and Shay, whether to say ‘yes this is a thing’ or ‘no sorry but we’ll acknowledge this for you’.  

The second part, character development people have been hoping for with certain PaladinS. Okay, this one does scream relationship-wise to me, but it also CAN still be platonic. It really, really can. I really think this is in reference to either Lance/Keith, or Lance/Allura. And yes, it could genuinely be either one of them. 

This just is sort of reinforcing to him that they’re talking about Lance/Allura, Keith/Lance, or potentially, maybe even Keith/Allura but the last one is less likely to me (that’s the key here, because even watching through again, Keith and Allura being together romantically doesn’t make sense to me, but that’s a personal interpretation. You may very well see something I don’t.)

The way paragraph structure works is you group like things together to make a single point. If something is in the same paragraph, it should be related to other things in it. First episode in season 1 we established that Keith and Lance were going to be tied to one-another’s stories in some form. We also established that Lance was attracted to Allura (he was flirting with her). 

‘Arguably been on that path all along’. They think people are going to argue about it. It’s a romantic ship one way or another, and it has been planned since day one. No amount of screaming, threatening, or crying from a loud, small, nasty part of the fanbase has changed a thing.

I actually can’t find the article where this one came from. Now, first, we need to look at what could possibly be seen as a controversy, since that has a negative connotation to it. It’s also a very interesting word choice. Is it that the majority of the online community is going to lose their shit? Or is it the parents of kids watching it might stop and say ‘wait, what’? 

I genuinely get the feeling that this is either going to have to do with a relationship, or a personal sexuality arc. 

I think if it had to do with Shiro and Adam, they’d say it. It’s not a spoiler anymore. We KNOW they’re going to dive into it more. 

The online fandom is going to be generally super excited for LGBT+ portrayals on this show. It wouldn’t be a controversy at all to show Adashi (I like this one more because Adam called him Takashi), or for Lance to have a bi-arc.

Klance, maybe a little more-so, because shipping in general can be very touchy (if the backlash of calling Adam abusive says anything). It’s still possible though.

Also as much as I don’t want to say it, that small, loud, nasty portion of the fandom that flips out may do just that if Allura and Lance end up being a thing, but honestly, I don’t think either of these last two things would be considered a controversy.

Keep in mind, the core audience of Voltron is not teenage/adult fans online. It’s created as a family show, meaning that it absolutely is made to appeal to older and younger audiences a like, but the core audience are kids.

Kids who don’t spend time on tumblr/twitter freaking out over ship, and their parents that are going to be spending the money on merchandise.

I think many people would be excited to portrayals of LGBT+ relationships, we know that there are those parents that will swear off the show because of it. We know there are people that will scream about it ‘forcing representation in everything’ as if media content in and of itself hasn’t always been informed by political or personal opinions and issues (spoiler alert: it has). 

The ONLY thing I can think that would be considered controversial (which I don’t personally agree with but here we are) would be more LGBT+ rep. Maybe it is just Shiro and Adam’s relationship, maybe it’s Klance, maybe it’s just a bi-arc for Lance. Maybe it’s something else. 

It’s all about perspective. 

OKAY SO THIS PART. THIS PART HERE. They’re going to spend like at least a year and a half getting to Earth. Holy shit. There’s so much room for character moments here and growing together in ways that they couldn’t in the castle. The castleship was HUGE. I mean, the lions are massive and they’re always shown as teeny-tiny compared to it. There was lots of space to get away from one another. Camping in lions? Nope. All together all the time. This is absolutely Why relationships are going to be front and center.

It also means that they’ll be gone from Earth for two years at minimum. That’s insane.

Time itself playing a narrative is amazing too! I get the feeling that everyone’s going to think Voltron is gone. There are going to be aliens on Earth. They also had blueprints nad plans for Altean tech and they had examples of Galra stuff as well. People think Voltron is gone, but they’re not going to completely lose hope. In fact, Voltron will be like martyrs probably. Almost a legend again. ‘Legendary defender’. 

There was also one saying that Voltron might almost be outdated, which is wild but makes so much sense. Lotor made his own that almost beat them, after all (with Allura’s help). Haggar’s been to Oriadne too. Voltron is going to need some kind of boost in the end to go back to being the legendary defender it always was.

And finally...

LESS MOTHERFUCKING TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE FUCK YEAH.

[klance]

s6 rambles

Done with s6 after a century because I don’t have the energy to stay up until 2am to wait until it drops but here I am! Obvious warning but pls don’t read this if you don’t want s6 spoilers (I’ll be tagging future s6 posts with “#voltron s6 spoilers” like always) but also if you don’t like me criticizing the season heavily with very subjective opinions...don’t read 😕my perspective may not align with yours and that’s ok (that includes uhh sh*laddin hate lol though sorry)

Moving on

I think I’ll put my thoughts into bullets like I did last time so it won’t look so disorganized 😐

Sooo I’m gonna start out by saying after some consideration I realy...did not like eps 1-4 lmfao (except for the d&d ep). It was a number of things that did it for me: some parts were too fast paced, most characters felt out of character??, and do not get me started on the cringey unnecessary heterosexual romance moments...u know that post that’s like “that gay feel when you feel a sense of horror/foreboding when the piece of media ur enjoying starts suggesting tension between a guy and girl out of literally nowhere” ya I felt that all the way until lotor and alluras kiss lol

I’ve hated lotor since the first time he appeared in this show and i always had a bad feeling about him and now i know why. I’m glad my girl, gut feeling, has my back

I feel like this season really demonstrated how all over the place the writing feels sometimes once again. I think I needed a refresher from s5 but I feel like I’ve felt this since s3(even tho I loved s3). Just the weird back and forth between acxa and them and lotor and haggar, krolia and keith going to the place where they kept having flashbacks because I honestly do not remember if they explained why they were going there in the first place, and the black lion allowing both Keith and shiro to pilot them even though that shiro wasn’t....really shiro....and the blue lion in s3? S4? had rejected lance to the point he had to use the red lion like WHY only the black lion is like that why not the blue lion or every damn lion. idk I feel like this is just my frustration over lances shitty characterization boiling over

Contrary to all of this there were a lot of other things I enjoyed

Romelle

CORAN

allura being a literal goddess? Even though she was once again put through shitty pain and betrayal after everything :( she really did That and saved everyone for like the 500th time and fucking sent lotor to the shadow realm like he deserves to even know we all know his ass is coming back eventually

Allura and lances friendship. I cannot say it enough, just their endless support for each other since s3. And ya that even includes lances suddenly serious crush on allura which I think is really fucking cute although lol I’m hoping dw doesn’t pull what I’m thinking they will where allura feels forced to reciprocate lances feelings even though she’s never shown anything other than friendly affection to lance (like often happens with female characters in media and just heteronormativity in general ...)

The castle of lions being destroyed actually had me crying so fucking much I hate it

The animation, fight sequences, and dramatization in eps 5 and 7 were breathtaking. I’m pretty sure it was obvious but someone else worked on ep5 right? It just looked really cool and amazing and unique from other eps

That brings me to keith and shiros fight in ep5....we have only a little more backstory on their relationship since the garrison and it really only ever solidified to me their sibling relationship (if the blatant “you’re my brother” keith said....For the 2nd time wasn’t obvious) which is why I just cannot comprehend why people like them together and it only really make me think people that do like incest as well. Don’t even get me started on the age difference,another huge factor

They’re going to back to earth holy shit ;___;

Shiro pls be ok. Again

And that’s it overall I think I would give the season a 5 or 6 out of 10 because of all these things...again this is only my takeaway and I know everyone else will not feel the same! If anything I think I’ll need some more time to digest the season maybe rewatch it when I can to see if my opinion changes. But then again I’ve been here from the very beginning, through ups and downs so I really do feel like this season was just...in the very middle

What about you guys? Did you enjoy the season? Hate it? Miss klance? lol

[as-many-times-as-it-takes]

Not looking for reassurance about canonical Sheith, I just need to vent. I heard you were offering hugs, would it be okay to ask for one, please? I let myself get too damn invested in canonical Sheith and I'm such a freaking mess right now & not in the good way. I really am way beyond old enough to know better, and I'm gay to boot. Again, I should know better! I love Sheith so much & always will, whatever happens in canon. Thank you for letting me vent, you're truly a kind person.

Hey there @mereneith !

You absolutely can have a hug from the craziness of this season. And I know you aren’t specifically looking for reassurance or anything, but I did want to add something to your comments.

There is no such thing as way beyond old enough to know better.

This is a long (very optimistic though!) personal discussion. Feel free to skip it if you just want hugs. Otherwise, read on.

Once upon a time I thought that as I grew older I would be expected to outgrow things and to set aside “childish interests and hopes” blah blah and I would magically transform into an adult and live an adult life.

Well fuck that.

I am a trans gay man, pushing just past his thirties and you know what? Voltron has changed my life. 

You see, we fall in love with characters because we find aspects in them that are important to us. It may be because we see ourselves in them, or find them very relatable. Or perhaps they represent something we’d like to see in our friends or lovers. Aspects that remind us fondly of our friends and family, or perhaps even aspects that remind us of our flaws. But this attachment isn’t childish or silly. It’s actually very healthy and important. As most people know, it’s often very difficult to learn a tough lesson on your own. But if you were to watch a person go through a similar issue who you feel strongly about, you will find that tangential learning can actually teach you a whole lot much faster.

Children are growing up today seeing their hero Shiro as a really awesome, strong man who also happens to be gay, deals with bad stress/PTSD, and has been disabled. How many of them will grow to not only accept these things, but grow and learn from them? So why should this be any different with adults?

I openly admit that I associate very strongly with Keith. I’ve been the outcast, I’ve struggled fitting in and lashing out. I’ve been left behind and felt abandoned again and again to the point that it was easier to push people away ahead of time than it would be to ever try to open up. All the knowledge in the world on fencing, dog sledding, falconry (rehab), archery, swordplay, target shooting, etc etc and all my talents at it still didn’t fix the fact that I was socially inept and hated the world around me. But then I also know the value then, of finding a Shiro in your life. Someone who took that time to push past your thorns and offer you unconditional support and affection. It’s why Sheith resonated with me instantly and why they became so important to me.

So watching the show was instantly a pleasure. I didn’t think it’d ever be a thing to begin with, but I was still content to dream. And when I found a very loving fandom behind it, I actually felt a lot of peace seeing other people who also felt like this. There are a great many people in the world right now who ship Sheith because it is an expression of mutual love, compassion, support, admiration, and dedication. Everyone has their own unique love and perspective on why Shiro and Keith are important to them, but we also share a common passion.

When I first started this blog in Season 3, I had been many years away from my previous blogging experience. Depression, life, and all sorts of stuff had gotten in the way and I’d sort of drifted away from something that had been a great passion of mine. So I thought I’d be brave and start up a blog here.

And it grew, and I made a few friends and had a good time until depression and life got me down again and I disappeared for about a year or so until Season 6. When I returned, I thought for sure I would never keep up with the main blogs or all the truly awesome artists out there. But you know what? I had changed, and I had grown and the fandom welcomed me back with open arms.

Sheith inspired me to draw again. My “You Found Me” piece was not only one of the first digital pieces I’d done in over 6 months, it was also a big leap in what sorts of things I could draw. And I’ve kept pumping out art slowly but surely and each time I do, I’ve learned just a little bit more and been all that much more proud. I started writing again too! Who cares if it’s fanfiction? Why would that make it any less valid or satisfying? I also was a braver man and I started reaching out to people that I saw in the fandom who I wanted to get to know.

And I have completely changed my life. I have made some of the most wonderful friends now. I am still getting to know many of them, but I already am just so happy to have more people to talk to, celebrate with and get to know. I’m part of multiple discord servers, multiple art projects and I have seen an amazing amount of support for my writing! I’ve had my writing translated into other languages, I’ve been called someone’s hero, I see asks and prompts in my inbox of people who want to talk to me and hear my opinion.

Sheith isn’t just important to me, it’s changed my life. The characters have spoke to me on a personal level and I still learn from, yes, a cartoon show. It’s made me think more critically and become more introspective. It’s allowed me to express myself better and find common ground with more people. And with the amount of amazing support from the staff and Voltron in general, Shiro and Keith’s relationship and their characters in general have validated a lot of my life, my orientation, I could go on and on.

I haven’t really said it aloud all at once, but these are all true. Sometimes it’s hard to talk about these things or we’ve been told it’s “childish” or “foolish.” I laugh and weep over Sheith because I am also invested and I want it to come true and I’m not ashamed of it. I am a total gay disaster and have spent days greeting my BFF with “OMG SHIRO IS GAY HOLY SHIT!!!” for days on end after the announcement. I have fussed and wept because I worried it might not happen. Yeah, I feel silly sometimes too. I regard myself as a very logical individual in a very logical profession. But I am also a creature of passion, instinct, and emotion. I want to be the voice for others who are too nervous to speak, who are still not ready yet, or just need to hear it from someone else. I want to be the one to help tell people it’s okay to fall in love with characters and feel strongly about them and learn from them.

I will always love Sheith no matter what. It’s changed my life and made me a better person. And I will endlessly be thankful to the entire Voltron crew for everything they’ve done for us.

But I also have faith and I want to hand out hugs and tell people to keep their chins up.

Remember, 

Patience Yields Focus

Don’t be afraid to be yourself. Don’t feel bad about being invested or taking joy in something. Instead, celebrate it and embrace it. Turn it into a positive force that enriches the people around you. I think Shiro put it best:

Go, be great.

[snkpolls]

SnK S3E11 Poll Results (Manga Reader Version)

The poll closed with 372 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that this is the results of the manga reader poll. Anime only watchers are suggested not to read if you do not wish to be spoiled about certain events! Anime only viewers, click here to view your poll results!

RATE THE EPISODE 367 Responses

Another week, another episode with high ratings. We’re happy to see overall enjoyment of the anime has stayed steady for several weeks!

best episode of the season thus far; nothing in this show has made me cry so hard since ymir's call of silence moment from season 2. WIT did amazing!

Best episode of this season!!! So happy with the way it turned out, except I wish they didn't play the credits when Carla was speaking at the end cause that took away from it. Also, baby Eren is the cutest thing to exist.

F L O C K! Very nice episode

great episode, really helped close things up with uprising and its setting up the change of gears for RtS

It was one of my favourite by far.

The episode was amazing as hell

THIS EPISODE HAD A SENSE OF FINALITY TO THE ARC. DO YOU THINK WE WILL GET A NEW OP/ED NEXT WEEK, DESPITE THE UPCOMING BREAK? 367 Responses

The majority of voters are confident we’ll be getting the same OP/ED combo one more time to finish off the story arc. It’s about an even split between those who think we will get something new and those who are unsure.

Withdrawal already starting to set in... what will we do without new eps.... and new polls to answer... no more new gifs... pls don't make it another 84 years. I cannot take that again.

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING SCENES WERE YOUR FAVORITES? 367 Responses

The most beloved moment of the episode was seeing Eren smile after hearing what his mom had to say about him so long ago. Keith and Grisha’s backstory were close runner ups. The orphanage and the new titan guillotine also got plenty of votes!

I loved to see young Grisha, I like everything about his backstory.

The nosebleed... that is all

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING CHARACTER INTERACTIONS WERE YOUR FAVORITES? 368 Responses

Similarly to above, hearing Carla’s words to Eren was the favorite moment of the episode. Sasha trying to stay away from Keith got laughs out of many of us! Eren making Historia blush, Jean’s heckling him over her and Mikasa’s jealousy about them talking together were also highlights for the voters. Keith interacting with Eren’s parents also got high rankings.

Levi being all worried about Eren was something I really needed <3

Jeans salty ass comment towards Eren about Historia is why I love the man

Hanji's way of getting mad at Keith is even better in anime version and her voice is perfect <3

mikasa cockblockerman

I really really wish we had more Grisha x Carla interactions both in the manga and the anime. The little that we have seen from Eren and Mikasa's perspective shows a very affectionate relationship. Still, I really like how well WIT has brought even those few interactions to life.

Hange was absolutely amazing in this episode. I missed that insane excitement of hers! Historia's look upon being confronted by Mikasa was priceless! And Springles' teasing Marlow! Ahhh this was a very sweet episode! Now I'm just looking forward to the next one for major Eruri feels!

WHO'S MORE OBLIVIOUS TO ROMANCE - EREN OR MARLOWE? 362 Responses

It was a close call, but ultimately Eren wins the award of most romantically oblivious character!

HOW BEAUTIFUL DID CARLA LOOK AT THE WEDDING? 367 Responses

While a few voters weren’t impressed, the majority of voters found Carla absolutely stunning at her wedding.

Carla Jeager is the best mom of this show, that's all😞💖

Fuck Isayama and wit for making Carla so beautiful and just killing her off episode/chapter 1 my gay heart can’t take it

I���m sorry but all I thought whenever I saw Carla this episode was ‘Wow, she looks a lot like if Eren was crossdressing’ like the wedding, no that was just Eren crossdressing

Tfw Carla in a wedding dress looks like Eren with too much blush on... Poor woman, if she only knew what she was getting herself into.

It was so wonderful seeing Carla after so long! She looked absolutely stunning.

HOW CUTE WAS BABY EREN? 367 Responses

The majority of voters agree that baby Eren had the most pinchable cheeks, while a few weren’t fans.

Baby Eren is so cuuute!!!! OMFG

Baby Eren wasn't that cute, but him munching on Carla's hair melted even my frozen heart.

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT KEITH AFTER HE TOLD HIS STORY? 367 Responses

Over half of voters felt bad for Keith after hearing his backstory. 21% felt he was just pitiful, and 12% related to Hange’s anger and disappointment toward him. Most of the write in comments were very understanding of him:

I felt bad for him when I read the manga chapter but I don’t know why, I thought he was kind of pitiful in the anime. Maybe it’s because the scene where Keith feels guilty and wants to apologize to Carla for what he said to her.

This man deserved happiness

I really didn't like him and his excuses.

i respect him

I felt sorry for him. This guy is a good guy but he has very low self esteem.

I think he's the same as Eren: normal person chosen to be someone special

I have mixed feelings about Keith. On one hand, he endured so much suffering throughout his life. He went outside the walls, something unthinkable for most people, and fought for what he believed in for over two decades. In the end, he had nothing to show for his efforts. On the other hand, he cost so many soldiers their lives because he was completely caught up in his inferiority complex. While I feel sorry for him, I agree with Hange.

A little bit of all the choices I suppose.

I relate to him lol

I realized that Keith is the character I can identify the most with. Somehow he resembles my own sad life.

Not as useless as he says

Well how would YOU feel if some rando from oUtSidE tHe fUcKiNg wALLs stole your girl?

I felt really sorry for poor Shadis. He had a gold heart but saw himself as useless. Maybe he wasn't talented commander and lost love of his life, but he is special and unique on his own way. He should understand what Carla was saying about Eren - "everyone is special" - doesn't matter if they do small or big things.

YOUR REACTION TO CARLA’S WORDS ABOUT EREN BEING SPECIAL? 365 Responses

Nearly 40% of voters found the words very touching, almost 30% believe it was something Eren really needed to hear at that time and 24% are still shedding tears over the commentary. A small few weren’t affected by the scene at all.

Eren is special, even if he doesn't think so (in many past moments and also future things he will do). He is different than others and not because he has the power of titans. His personality is unique, but also very realistic. Isayama has portrayed him really well.

Eren isn't special, and that makes him special

Carla's moving words about Eren were sadly wasted on him. Nobody tell Carla!

It was very heartwarming and full of love. Carla didn't care if Eren was going to be special or not. She just loved him warmly.

Those words resonated with me.

This episode by far was one of the most touching to me because Eren got acknowledged by his mother through Keith and i really feel like he needed to hear that because of how it would affect his morals from then on.

KEITH WANTED TO PROTECT EREN FOR CARLA’S SAKE. WHY DO YOU THINK HE GAVE IN AND LET EREN PURSUE THE SURVEY CORPS? 365 Responses

Over half of voters believe that Keith realized he couldn’t stop anything. 30% believe that he could see Eren was truly one of the “special people” that would bring about change. Smaller groups of people believe he cared about Eren’s autonomy or that he wanted to honor Grisha.

He did his best, but his best was never enough. The story of Keith's life as told by Keith.

I think Grisha's final words to him really hit him at that point. That he was just a bystander, but Eren being Grisha's son was anything but. He was one of the special people.

He saw his determination to keep going even though all odds were against him. Who is Shadis to decide to stop him?

He gave up after seeing Eren's determination

He realized no matter how hard he tries, he can't change anything. When he became commander, he couldn't save Survey Corps members from death, or prevent missions from failing. Just as he was a bystander when his fellow comrades fell victim to titans, he is a bystander as Eren progresses.

He saw in Eren the strong personality, a huge will power and also the fact the Eren may be more special than his father.

I think it’s a mix between fate and that he saw Eren was destined to be special so anymore interfering would result in failure in the end on his part. I think he realized Eren was just that Special of a person.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SCENE OF THE VETS TALKING WITH ZACKLEY AND LEVI BEING ENTRUSTED WITH THE SERUM BEING PUSHED TO THE FOLLOWING EPISODE? 364 Responses

35% of voters agree that as long as the scene is included, that’s all that matters. 27% didn’t even realize the scene was missing and 26% agree that saving it for next episode was a good pacing decision. 10% still prefer the timeline of the manga.

Good decision. This episode was cramped as it is, having to skip the ED just to fit in everything, and having cut out so many dialogue, that if they put that scene in something else would have suffered. I already feel bad that Keith's chapter only got half an episode whereas Kenny got a full episode to himself. I've always liked Keith's story better too.

I can't wait!

Good decision. It wouldn't really fit in with the tone of this episode.

THOUGHTS ON FLOCH’S STYLISH RED ANIME-PROTAG HAIR? 361 Responses

Nearly half of voters were initially thrown off by the change in Floch’s hair color, but are ultimately open to it. 30% are still trying to figure out what is real in life and what isn’t. 14% think WIT committed an atrocity. A very small few think it suits him perfectly.

A surprise, to be sure, but a welcomed one.

I demand more swirls

His hair looks like an eagles nest but go off

Makes him more unique, in order to stand out more, but blonde would look better

As a ginger im offended, but I guess they did it to make him stand out ... and look less like Trump.

I thought he was blonde, but I still like it!

I hate floch and this is STILL the worst thing thats ever happened to me

I couldn’t think this was ever possible BUT Wit has made Floch even more awful... His hair is already one of the WORST thing in the world, now the color too. It makes me to dislike him even more lol. Thank you Wit for this pearl

Why they gotta do this to my man?

I imagined him as blonde so I'm still adjusting to that

It makes him look like the sort of guy who pulls over to show off his modified Honda Civic while blaring dubstep from his super rad sound system. Which is exactly the kind of person I've always pictured him as.

Wit seems to be making a lot of hair color changes that we don't expect this season. I don't hate it though.

HOW DO YOU THINK THAT KEITH, CARLA AND GRISHA WOULD FEEL ABOUT EREN IF THEY COULD SEE THE DIRECTION HE’S GONE IN RECENT MANGA CHAPTERS?

The results came out about as expected. Keith was a mixed bag with the majority of voters believing that he would either be neutral or a bit disappointed in Eren’s current actions. Carla being very upset with Eren’s actions got the most votes out of anything, while a smaller few just think she would be disappointed. Most voters agree that Grisha would be either proud or at least very understanding of Eren’s current choices and actions. Makes us wonder how Carla and Grisha would have co-parented as Eren got older!

Why there isn't a WTF option on the "What would Grisha/Keith/Carla think?"

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PV ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 364 Responses

Overall, voters are looking forward to the scene where Eren, Mikasa and Armin have their talk, but 36% of voters are most looking forward to the detail of Levi listening in on them. 15% are looking forward to Sasha’s reaction to getting to eat meat, and 11% are looking forward to Erwin giving his fellow Survey Corps leaders words of encouragement before the retaking of Wall Maria.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

A very poignant one, considering they hired about a dozen of directors just for this episode.

Floch's hair is a bird's nest. Keith=Snape confirmed. Baby Eren eating Carla's hair is the purest thing to come out of this sad-factory.

Bystander is one of my favorite Manga Chapters of the series and the WIT definitely did justice to it. Thanks, WIT.

Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch Floch

I can't believe Uprising is already over! It hasn't even been twelve episodes yet and I'm excited for Return To Shiganshina but I'm also not ready…

I feel like this episode, particularly Keith's story, recaptured some of the sadness and sense of helplessness from early in Season 1. It was a breath of fresh air.

My god! What an episode, ladies and gents. This episode is by far my favorite (except for Floch's hair color, he should have been blonde, not anime-protag red). Now let's wait for next week's talk about the ocean with the Shignashina trio, shall we?

I feel so split. I want Eren to know he's great and brilliant but the way he's going in the manga scares me so much! Who is he now?!

Episode was great but I wish they would've kept these thoughts by Keith: "Those eyes. It's just like his father wanted. His life is like a blazing fire. And I'm sure that fire will burn him to ashes outside the walls. He'll never know what his mother wanted for him."  Not a big deal at all but I just really liked those lines.

Is it just me or did this episode seem to put a lot of emphasis on Armin in a lot of Floch's scenes? Was it the same in the manga?? Foreshadowing??? I don't even remember.

Not enough Erwin. I need more Erwin.

I'm especially in awe of the animation because oh my god, Eren does resemble Carla most, but you can just see current manga Eren in young Grisha's appearance! I'm not so good at figuring out which features of the face make it so, but I think it's beautiful and lends a lot more authenticity to the fact that Eren resembles both his parents in a way, just like people do in real life!

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 345 Responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated. See you again on Tuesday!