#but hey! at least Honerva gets the happy family she always dreamed of!

[discordiansamba]

Allura-centric AU where she stops Honerva's plan in its tracks during Genesis, but Honerva uses the energy she's absorbed for the ritual to forcibly rewrite their reality.

King Alfor and Queen Melenor never had a child. Honerva is satisfied that she has wiped Allura from existence, but what she doesn't know is that her existence was preserved- and sent ten thousand years to the future on Earth. Allura Anderson is born to normal human parents, and grows up as a normal human girl... except she remembers. She knows that this reality has been forcibly altered.

She sets the Galaxy Garrison as her goal. Surely there, she can find the paladins and connect with the blue lion. She has... a dreadful feeling when she never hears anything about Shiro nor even Sam, two well known figures at the Galaxy Garrison. Her worst fears are confirmed when she enrolls and finds that not only are none of the paladins there, but the blue lion is also missing.

At least Coran is at the Garrison. He's human now too, an instructor for the general education history course, as well as an engineer. He doesn't remember her, but they still forge a new bond. Coran is very fond of Allura! She's whip smart and very talented. Almost like the niece he never had!

But this... creates complications. The paladins aside, if the blue lion here, she's uncertain as to how she'll get off the planet. Except... there is one way left available to her. It's the Kerberos mission. For the next few years, she devotes all of her energy to preparing for it, in hopes of being chosen. It pays off- she's selected, alongside Coran which is... less then ideal.

But she's right. The Kerberos mission is still captured by the Galra Empire. Only once she finally gets there, she discovers the situation is much, much worse than she feared. Not only does the Galra Empire possess all but one of the lions- they have all but one of the paladins as well.

None of them are human any longer. But that's barely a blip on her radar compared to the fact that they are all working with Zarkon. There is a glassiness to their gazes that suggests they are not in control of their own actions, but...

...but she is no longer Altean. She can no longer simply use alchemy to break them free. She's going to have to find another way-

-and she will.

[rueitae]

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Allura is not dead and the story isn’t over. Fight me.

I needed to time heal after season 8. Please take this post canon fic and do with it what you will. 2200 words. Thanks you @sp4c3-0ddity for the usual. <3

Read on Ao3

~~~~~

She sees them all, every possibility in every reality, every moment that makes one branch from the other. Billions of new realities are born every tick as decisions are made in everyday life.

A yalmore turns right instead of left. Her nana chooses a different dress for her to wear on her tenth birthday. A man picks up a piece of trash instead of leaving it on the beach. Each one creates their own strand of reality.

It doesn’t hurt, all this information, at least not her head.

She aches as Earth is destroyed before Voltron is reformed, the Paladins only children. Her heart is sick watching as Lotor grows up in cold loneliness time and time again.

She reaches out to change it, to prevent her loved ones from pain. She finds herself unable to touch or affect anything.

So she observes; all at once she experiences joy for her friends and mourns for what could have been and what has been lost. She sees millions of realities where she has a family of her own, sometimes with Lance but not always. The number of children vary and if her oldest is a girl or a boy. In others she remains single but alive.

Only in the one she left behind does she become what she is.

Which is… what, exactly?

Allura isn’t sure, but it becomes harder to see the different realities through watery eyes. She sees her happy ending unfairly play over and over in different ways. It does nothing to soothe the longing in her heart.

Over time she learns each reality like the back of her hand and begins to foresee the divergent realities. Soon, she cannot tell what is the past and what is the future.

What’s the point of having all this power - of having to leave her loved ones - if she cannot do good?

Physical contact, the first since she sacrificed herself, surprises her and interrupts her concentration.

“Careful, sweetheart. Too much work this quickly will make you go mad.”

Allura turns around in the white void to greet her guest.

Of all the people she expects to visit her in the afterlife, Bob is not one of them.

Allura believes herself a reasonable person, and the last time she saw Bob he’d held her and the other Paladins captive on his game show.

She summons her bayard with a growl and wraps her whip around the surprised host, jerking him and his floating platform towards her.

“What do you want?” she seethes in his face. “Is this your doing?”

“Hey! I’m not the one who decided to go out in a blaze of glory!” he protests, raising his bound hands as high as he can. “That was all you.”

“‘Great judge of heroes’, my quiznak!” Fury fills her heart remembering Coran’s explanation - oh Coran she misses him so much already - of the supposed judge of those who would do great things. “Did you know all of this would happen? Did you know Honerva would try to destroy everything?”

Allura hasn’t seen Honerva since parting with the Paladins. To think all of this, her fate included, culminated from a desire for family.

But blood does not a family make. Allura takes that to heart above all else. Her Paladins are alive and thriving, so she can endure whatever this is for their sakes.

“Hey, I keep tabs on potential heroes! That’s my job! It’s your job to watch different realities, Ms. Lion Goddess.”

Allura lets his words sink in, a pit falling in her stomach. “What… did you call me?”

“Lion Goddess,” Bob says dryly. “Welcome to the neighborhood, by the way. Norlax and I got you a fruit basket. Which I’d love to give to you, if you’d be so kind as to let me go.”

“Can’t you just...poof out, or something?”

“In my realm? Sure. Not in your place though.”

Allura lets the blue bayard revert to its base form. The flash of anger is nearly gone, replaced with a weight in her heart she isn’t sure she wants.

Lion Goddess is what the Arusians first called her, a title she rejected. Even now she does not wish for it.

She now knows this isn’t death.

Bob hovers closer, wrapping a friendly arm around her shoulders and dropping a basket of Altean fruit in her unprepared hands.

“Thank you… Bob. It’s lovely.” Though the words fit the situation, they taste strange as they leave her mouth. The mundane exchange feels like it should take place anywhere other than in this void.

“You’ll get used to it,” Bob assures her as if reading her stunned thoughts. “Take some time to spruce up the place. You’re only limited by your imagination, your realm, your powers, your fashion. And you, kid, have plenty of it, what with bringing back Altea and managing infinite realities and all.” He rolls his eyes. “Just wait until you start getting heroes petitioning your help for their cause. There’s only one you for all realities after all.”

Everything still feels so fresh, the battle and her actions that followed. The looks on the faces of her Paladins - her family by choice - as they said goodbye brought fresh pain to her heart. So perhaps that is why she asks, “Is that why you have guests, Bob? Do you miss your loved ones too?”

Allura doesn’t know why she expects anything different when he shrugs off the personal question with a smirk. “The circumstances are a bit different, but our goals of keeping order in the universe are the same.”

“So you are lonely,” she presses. She wishes to be anywhere else - with either her father and all her loved ones who waited for her, or with those she left behind.

Bob shrugs. “It comes with the job, but there’s no rule against visitors as you can see from yours truly,” he says with a proper bow. ”Is that why you gave him a part of yourself? Do you want them to find you?”

Allura looks at her hands, pink energy glowing around them in anticipation of her will. Lance doesn’t seem to mind the marks, a constant reminder of her sacrifice even more than the statue they built. Does it make him lonely every time he saw his reflection? “I wanted to give him something, anything, after he gave me so much. Can I - is there a way for me to go home?”

“Not without tearing the fabric of space and time,” Bob says, and Allura’s hope sinks. “But hey, what else is new for the Paladins of Voltron?”

Allura doesn’t want that, nor does she want more painful goodbyes.

Only bounded by her imagination, Bob says. Perhaps she can tell them she is alright, that she is going to watch over them; ask if they are truly happy…

She finds them asleep at night in her mind’s eye, in the reality she had left. The small act of Lance, Hunk, and Pidge wearing their Altean pajamas warms her heart. Surely of all realities, here she should be able to do something. She reaches out to the life force she left, eager to leave a message with Lance.

Instead her will finds a stronger and older link. Platt dreams of sampling Hunk’s cooking, Chuchule of sunbathing, and Chulatt of exploring Kosmo’s thick fur.

Allura clasps her hands together, hopeful. “Friends, please, can you hear me?”

Plachu’s whiskers tremble and he wakes, head turning as if searching for her voice.

The others rouse slowly while they chatter, wondering if they all dreamt of their tall friend.

Success! But now...what can she say? Can she just...bring them here?

Black lightning strikes in the distance and demands her attention. Allura severs her connection with the mice in time to see Bob jump in response to the flash.

“What… why is that here?” he shrieks in an understanding that chills Allura’s spine, because she too recognizes it.

The rift entity, the thing that started Zarkon and Honerva towards their path of destruction. The thing she used to bolster her own powers…

And never removed from herself.

“It came with me,” she says in growing dread. Here where she had access to every reality...

The frequency of the flashes increases, getting closer by the tick. The edges of the white void darken as it approaches.

She turns to an awestruck Bob. “How do I stop it? I cannot let it get to the other realities!”

“I’m neutrality personified,” Bob explains as they back away from the black void. “It’s a creature born of the rift between realities; you need the same energy to oppose it.”

Power trembles at her fingertips, begging to be released. Allura grits her teeth. If this is her role now, to protect all realities and keep her family from having to fight any further, then she will do it.

Bob yelps and hovers behind her as the black lightning surges towards them, the last remaining bastion of light. Allura meets it head on, dropping Bob’s gift as the darkness halts at her outstretched arms. It twists around her body, searching for an entry point.

You used us once, let us in again, it taunts.

“Never again,” she spits, and her quintessence overwhelms it.

Not even a yalmore is capable of such otherworldly screeches. The entity from the rift between realities shrinks to its smallest form, resting in the palm of her hand and emanating a soft pink glow.

Because Allura wills it to be contained.

But Honerva proved that containing it is not a permanent solution.

Allura parts the white void as if it were a curtain. It opens to the quintessence field, the place from which it originated, where she allows the entity to drift under her magical supervision. She closes the rift with a wave of her hand.

It will never corrupt again.

Bob breathes a deep sigh of relief and slumps in his chair. “That was a close one. The realities without Voltron are a lot less traumatic.”

Allura tries to imagine what life would be like if the comet had never landed on Daibazzal. She only has to look in on the right reality and the peace she could have had pains her. But… then she never meets her Paladins. In its future, Keith is never born, and Shiro passes away far earlier than is right.

She closes her mind to that reality. She doesn’t want a world where neither of them is there.

To think that small thing was responsible for the corruption of Honerva and entrapped the other Alteans.

She gasps in horror. “I never removed it from the others.” She frantically searches for the malignant entities and visions of the affected Alteans appear in the void above her. Allura tenses. There are five of them still out there. “I need to get them back into the quintessence field as soon as possible!”

“You won’t be able to trap them if they’re outside your realm,” Bob says. “I couldn’t do a thing to you Paladins until you entered my nebula. You may be able to see realities, but you can’t change them - that would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?”

“Then Voltron’s work is not yet complete,” she says sadly. Her friends can’t rest, not when Voltron is the only other force that can oppose these creatures.

“That thing getting into any of our realms is a bad idea,” Bob tells her, “but I don’t have to tell you what could happen if it does.”

“The corruption of all realities,” she agrees. Guilt fills her gut. She sacrificed herself to restore all realities, yet she delivered a malignant entity right where it could do the most harm. But… “If I could contain this one, I should be able to contain the other five before they find a way here on their own. It isn’t safe to leave them unaccounted for in the universe. The Paladins will need to form Voltron to bring them to me.”

Bob grins knowingly, snapping his fingers. “See, you knew the whole time.” He laces both sets of hands together and crosses a leg over his knee. “So, how are you going to bring the Paladins here?”

“Not while you are visiting,” she says sternly. “I will not have you taking them in for your quiznaking game show again.”

Bob sighs dramatically. “Too bad. I was looking forward to seeing a rematch of Shiro versus the Snick.”

She needs to contact Lance and the mice, but first, she needs to get the Paladin’s attention. They also need a way to find her. Lance is good with directions, but his methods would fail in deep space.

Her mouth tugs up slightly, but she’s unable to smile fully with longing overtaking her. There is no greater bond in the universe than between Lion and Paladin, the same bond that allowed Zarkon to chase them across galaxies.

And she was bonded to all of the Lions.

Twin pedestals rise on either side of her. She places a palm on each one, her power flowing through this realm and into the greater universe.

She reaches the Blue Lion first, and her message is instantly understood. The Lions roar in acknowledgement. After the Paladins witness the send off, Allura bids the Lions to join her.

Now she waits for the Paladins to follow, looking forward to a very happy reunion.

[carry692]

Voltron season 8... Or what bothered me!!

Right. First time doing something like this... A review kind of thing. But I have the strong urge to express my feelings about that. Be careful, of course there will be spoilers. So stop reading now, if you don't want any.

So... The first episode was kind of lame. Just preparations and a lot of talking that wasn't very interesting or much relevant for the plot. I'm happy for all the Allurance shippers out there. I'm sure you all cried out in happiness at this point. Gotta say, their kissing scene was kind of nice. I loved the reverence to the 80s voltron at the beginning.

Second episode, lot of flashbacks. Nice to understand Honervas point of view. And kid Lotor was just sooooo cute. Totaly adorable.

And of course we have the usual comic relive episode. But it was nice. Most screentime Shiro gets in the entire season. Which is very, very, very disappointing to be honest. Give my boy the screentime he deserves!!!

But hey, Shiro has been ripped of screentime and importance ever since they decided to make Keith the black paladin. So I was kind of prepared for my hopes and dreams to be crushed. I always hoped he would go back to the Black lion. And when it was clear that that was never going to happen again, I had the theory that he may become kind of the white lion. Or at least an equivalent to that... But that got crushed as well...

The final fight didn't make much sense in my opinion. The Atlas and voltron combining each other into one?? I guess they made that choice so Shiro could be with the team in the final fight for the realities, but it really felt kind of forced and out of place. But we had that situation since Kuron. That plot line was kind of forced as well. So I'm used to it.

It was kind of clear for me, that Allura would sacrifice herself. She has no one (except Koran, who doesn't really count in this regard) in this universe anymore. So her sacrificing herself to safe all of existence and therefore be reunited with her family again (kinda) made sense to me. Poor Allurance shippers though.

It's nice that they followed the 80s Voltron version and redeemed Honerva at the end. Although those Altean super magic powers were always a little to conviniet for my liking.

Speaking of conviniet: the power ups that some of the Bayards got... Way to go to do that in the last season. We can now fully appreciate the new forms of the Bayards in the upcoming seasons... Oh wait... Never mind...

The aftermath was kind of nice. I love the two groupshots they are taking. I missed Shiros facial hair since the days of season 3. And those Glases 🤣🤣🤣 Koran is not changing at all. And Altean Lance... Not quite sure what to think of that. For me it doesn't make any sense. Why would the get those markings, just because he kissed Allura? You wanna tell me, that Alteans can give away their DNA by kissing... Yeah... Right Voltron writers... Pidge and Hunk look nice a little bit older. Keith with his even longer hair looks kind of cute.

AND WE ONLY GIT ONE REAL GROUPSHOT OF KEITH AND SHIRO!!!! AND ONLY AT THE END!!!!

But I'm happy, that they decided to give Shiro a new man. That he got married was so nice. Wish it would have been to Keith though 😜😜. But I'm super happy, that they at least gave us the pleasure of the kiss with his new husband. Very nice.

Anyways... Let me hear your thoughts on the matter. Always happy to discuss.

[lidoshka]

Voltron Season 8 review!

Okay! Finally had the chance to watch season 8?

Not yet? Too bad, because the spoiler free week in this blog is officially over!

Before I start, If you would rather now hear about season 8 you can filter the tags #I will only grant you one spoiler free week #And that grace period is over #we been knew #I can't believe I was blindsided by this #so the leaks were actually a trial test?!

Also, I will try to stay positive and post good things about Voltron during the week, but if you want some salt you can catch all the vitriol about S8 on Sunday (with the tag #salty Sunday)

So onwards to my review! (And boy, I knew I should have worn a different kind of socks on the 14th!)

Overall, I’d say it was a good season…but it wasn’t the best. There were a bunch of small moments that made me really happy, and there were some cool aspects with the animation that I totally loved.

…but there were some things in the second half of the season that totally ruined it for me.

But let’s be positive and point out all the things that I liked for this season!

What I loved about this season:

• The animation was amazing! Both the 3d animation and the way the characters were drawn! Plus a bunch of interesting camera angles! If you compare season 1 art with the way everyone is drawn now you can see the improvement and it’s amazing. • Episode 4 killed me instantly. To me it was perfect. It was sad but also uplifting, and I wanted to cry as much as that Olkarion child with Ryner’s last words and yet appreciated the meaning in them. Yes, I was very sad to see Olkarion gone, but most of its people will live on. We also got to see the Weblum again, which I liked because it was an appropriate metaphor. :) • Allura and Lance had  a date! That was great, they both deserve all the good moments possible • Also, the MFE girls and the Paladin girls shopping is supper funny. • We get to see a lot of people from the Voltron coalition not just Olia’s crew, and it’s wonderful to see the MFE’s, the Rebels, the ATLAS and Voltron all working together! • Cosmo is a nice puppy… and I knew he was going to continue growing! X3 • All Pidge and Colleen’s interactions. All of the Holts interactions actually! I really love how Pidge has her dad wrapped around her pinky, but Colleen is not a pushover and demands a family photo in exchange of the tokens • And I loved that Matt’s (girlfriend? Partner? They sound female, but then again they are an alien so…) are in the photo too!! • I also liked Shiro entering that tournament, we know he has a competitive streak, but we don’t get to see it very often, and this was a good opportunity! • The vlog episode was gold! Not only do we get to see more about the MFE pilots, but we also see the paladins around and a bit of the daily life in the IGF Atlas, plus, it could have just been a silly filler but instead it still managed to move the story forwards. A+ • Shiro using a gun looks really cool and it makes me wonder if his Bayard would have actually turned into some form of firearm. • Lotor is back! Not in the way I hoped but I got to see a tiny Lotor, and I also saw a younger Lotor still full of hope and desire to please his father *sighs* he really deserved so much better… • Lotor literally stole Kova. :P • Honerva’s mecha? Her fusion with Sincline? Voltron/Atlas fusion? They are all amazing designs! • I liked the last scene with the lions saying their goodbyes to the paladins. It was bittersweet because it’s the end of an era but at the same time it’s a sign of hope. It’s like now that there’s peace (or at least the possibility of peace being achieved without the need of a WMD) the lions can retire. Maybe the lions are leaving to look for their new paladins, or maybe hide away again until Voltron is needed once more. That along with the image of the vehicles inside the Garrison hangar was a good nod towards Voltron Vehicle and maybe a future Voltron Force show. Ah yeah, good things.

But now what I really didn’t like:

After careful consideration and watching the season one more time I can say I’m only upset about 4 things: 1. Allura’s sacrifice 2. Episode 5 3. Honerva’s plan and her redemption 4. And the stills of the epilogue

Funny enough the four are connected together in one single sentence: bad writing decisions.

Now, me being critical of the show doesn't mean I don't like it anymore now that I wont enjoy watching it. There are a bunch of shows that have errors and flaws by the dozen, but I still enjoy them but I need to get this out of my chest

Alluras’s sacrifie: Why? Out of all the possible directions they could have taken their story, why this? Why kill one of their female protagonists?!

“but she has made similar sacrifices in other versions” yes, and she was Caucasian and had a romantic plot with the leader of Voltron too and VLD chose to deviate from that, so I don’t see why of all the things they chose to discard from previous versions they chose to keep this.

“She now gets to spend eternity with her father and the other paladins” Do I remind you that Allura lost everything (her family, her nation, her planet, her crown) and little by little she found a new family? VLD has been selling me the idea of “found family” since season 1, why are they changing the tune now?

“Allura was already too powerful, she couldn’t remai— “ No. this isn’t marvel, there were ways to decrease her powers if that was necessary: the creature that got inside her could have damaged her body somehow and had her powers decrease; she could have sacrificed only her alchemy (like Edward Elric in fma!) and she would be a regular Altean (or a regular human if they wanted to go with the allurance ending) and spend the rest of her life rebuilding her nation. There were ways to keep her powers down and still keep Allura around.

“It’s the only way” Allura herself said before she started saying her goodbyes to the paladins… but in this season alone they showed: - A tiny balmera - A whole bunch of balmera. - Voltron+atlas fusion - The paladins using the power of friendship and concentration to enter Honerva’s inner thoughts - The paladins using the power of friendship and concentration <i>again</i> to power up Voltron+atlas so it could escape a collapsing reality - Voltron+atlas giant wings to save the last remaining reality So if they were already pulling out all the rabbits out of the hat don’t tell me the production team couldn’t come up with another alternative other than having “the girl who is magic sacrificing herself for the sake of the universe”

…and why are Altea and Daibazaal back?! Didn’t Reyner said “you mustn’t cling too tightly to the past” and “the old must gave way to the new”? ugh.

*rants for 20 minutes more about poor script decisions*

Episode 5:

It’s bad. And it doesn’t add anything important to the narrative except some gratuitous scenes of the paladins in their underarmor. And the reason why I disliked this episode is about the way the writers try to redeem Ezor and Zethrid.

Last season they sold me on the idea that “this is war and sometimes people die”. This season they wanted to end with an uplifting “everyone has a chance at redemption” vibe which actually just makes me upset.

Oh yeah, Adam –the guy whose only negative mark was that he dumped Shiro—died and no one really mentions him again or talks about what an impact he had on other characters, but Ezor –who was more than willing to torture Pidge back in season 7— she gets to survive and change her ways??

Honerva’s ploy and redemption arc:

Honerva had dreams about being a mother and a wife and spending her life with her family, but she studied the creature from the rift a bit too closely and her mind was poisoned without her even realizing it. In that sense, she’s a victim, and it’s good that in her final moments she got to be back to be the person she was before.

… but as Haggar she helped conquer and destroy thousands of worlds! She was participant in the neglect and abuse of a Lotor throughout his childhood.

“But that was Haagar! Honerva deserves a second chance!” you’d say, but remember that after Oriande she has recovered her memories and she’s not Haggar anymore what did she do? Did she tried to mend her ways and help what remained of the universe to honor her child’s life? Nope. She blamed the Galra, she used the Alteans, she destroyed Olkarion and she dammed the whole universe (and then any other universe) to get the ending she wanted.

Everyone in these universe is gone because of her. And in the end, she got her dream of being with her family.

Even Zarkon got a bit of a redemption scene! He got to go to the same place as the former paladins, with his wife and his son…These three are responsible of 70% of all the bad things that happened in this universe in the last 10,00 years and they get to spend eternity together.

I don’t’ know why suddenly the production staff though this ending was cool.

4. The Epilogue

I think the only ‘last scenes’ I liked where Pidge’s ending and Kolivan and Krolia’s ending. They were nice. But the others? *frowns*

In the “one year later” scenes Hunk is seen in the ATLAS along with Shiro; it’s implied that Hunk is some sort of diplomat who also likes to cook for his guests. In the last image it just looks like he gave up that to become the next masterchef.

Lance’s final still looks sad. He’s the perfect picture of a widower and I think this is terrible unfair for all the Lance stans who were hoping season 8 was Lance’s season. Yeah, lance likes his family and he always missed earth, but there were other things they could have done with him. He could be teaching the new generation of garrison pilots! His ending just makes the audience think he’s recovering from a broken earth.

Keith's image in his ending still looks odd, I think hey were trying to an upper shot or something but his waist looks too slim, and there are several things thet feel weird with the perspective.

...not to mention it says "humanitarian relief organization" ...the blades are all Galra? the fact they didn't bother to spend 5 minutes thinking why "humanitarian" was not a word applicable here tells me all I need to know about the care they placed in this epilogue.

Shiro’s scene is strange because Shiro looks exactly the way he looks when they say goodbye to the lions, but Pidge and Hunk and Keith look like they do in the “years later” design. Consistency is lacking.

Then there’s the thing of how Shiro “found his happiness” with and image of him getting married. What, he wasn’t happy while he was single? Seeing the stars up close, traveling the universe, flying on Black and then leading ATLAS, that didn’t make Shiro happy? Are we now equaling marriage with happiness, is that it?

I get that an gay marriage and a gay kiss on screen is something commendable (it would have bene better if we had seen Shiro and his new hubbie actually interacting tho), and we all love Shiro, but I can think of several images that could have been more satisfactory for his character: him at the helm of the ATLAS, fulfilling his dreams of traveling the stars in peace; Shiro finally getting a vacation; maybe even a description with an older Shiro saying “and Shiro lived many years happy and in peace because he was not sick anymore” all of these would have been more rewarding.

…And the only scene that was animated was Shiro’s wedding? Why? Can you imagine how could it’d have been if instead of the weeding we saw something like “the lions came back one more time to bring back Allura” I wouldn’t even be here ranting for 20 minutes so far on top of my pile of salt if they had done something like that!

And it’s not even as if it was one simple person who made the ending: VLD has a staff of writers, several directors, many producers monitoring, a whole team of animators and several consulting departments…and none of them stopped to think this might not be a good ending to their series?

In the end, I’m still left with some questions:

What is the lifespan of an average Galra? What would be the expected lifespan for Keith or Axca and Ezor and Zethrid?

Does having Altean markings means Lance is now Altean? Cause the show was not clear, is this just a physical memento so Lance has something to remind him of Allura every day or will he live a long life now?

What’s the cosmic wolf’s name? did he ever told Keith?! How much more is he going to grow?

more importantly: What was the name of Keith’s father?!

[kingcygnus]

OK. I know I said that I wouldn't share my negative thoughts but the more I think about s8 the more frustrated and sad I get, that I just need to let it all out. so bear with me.

(I'm on mobile so I can't put on the 'read more')

ALSO MAJOR SPOILERS and as a PSA this is not shipping discourse or even focused on that, even tho I will discuss some of the pairs. it's more on the writing and everything related to it, plot, character story and stuff related to those.

the season started ok. the first episode was ok and I did enjoy those golion/80's voltron references since I used to watch them. but then as it started progressing it just got... bad.

way too rushed, poor character writing, deus ex machinas and bad story telling. also leaving some plot-holes that the only way we can fill is by theories that don't really have much information to ground them in.

let's start with our princess Allura. she was done dirty. not only she felt ooc, the ending they gave her (DEATH) felt rushed and... forced. at first I was glad that allura and lance got together, since it let her have some happiness and also showed lance's character growth. but then, they just killed her. she was all willing to die and no one stopped her (except for coran and lance, and even then eh). and like by the end I was expecting her to appear, bc by all the bs deus ex machina they had showed earlier, I wouldn't have been surprised by this. also, the fact that she kept saying she had lost her family and people and had no one else, while completely ignoring coran, who has always been by her side as a parental figure. it saddens me that they couldn't even say good bye to each other. AND WHILE WE'RE ON THAT: HER DEATH WASN'T EVEN NECESSARY. honerva could have just been "hey, let me repay for my mistakes this way and you can go to continue to bring peace to the universe". but no, gotta add that shock value and sad moment. tl:dr : ALLURA DESERVED BETTER.

now, since we're already on not necessary things. the wedding. the whole epilogue honestly, but let's focus on the wedding. listen dw, I know you were trying to receive your "woke points" by having shiro marrying a dude (whom we didn't know existed or even cared much about him) and saying he found his true happiness and gave up on the battle. like, that's not shiro. at all. not to sound like that fan but, shiro would've married the man of his dreams (or just not married at all) and continued to fight for what he believed in, explore space and just continued to be a pilot. just last season we saw him feeling happy, content, on joining the battle and fighting alongside voltron with atlas. yet you dare tell me that he just left the battle to become a househusband. and since we're on the shiro topic, let's just go all out. what did you do to my man?? if allura felt kinda ooc, then shiro was just,, not shiro,,, he was just,, there. he's a main character, but we just saw him relegated to the background. only moment he kinda came back was during that atlastron battle in which it was the team back together. also, he felt so disconnected towards the other paladins??? like he kept referring them to "paladins" as if they were strangers, compared to before when he would more often call them by their names or "guys" than by "paladins". and even when he was on screen, all we saw him doing was giving orders (except for that clear day episode). there wasn't much to his character this season. and before we change topics, shiro just standing there with a :0 expression while keith was just about to get murdered was so fucking ooc; like back on s2e8 shiro was more than ready to fight the entire bom to save keith, but during this scene he just stood there. awkwardly. doing nothing.

and while we're on shiro and keith. damn it felt truly horrible. let's take off the shipper glasses and look at it from a writing and story telling perspective. a critical perspective. those two had a close bond, they were best friends. keith fucking risked his ass many times to save shiro, even brought him back from the death. he was willing to save him "as many times as it takes" bc that's how much he loves him. he freaking killed sendak for shiro. supported shiro back when he was the paladin of the black lion. got away from the team so shiro, once he came back, could get the chance to fly black again. and in this season, we didn't even saw them interacting but 2 times, and always staying 5 feet apart. where was that friendship and closeness we got a whole garrison flashback for. after this season, all those moments, like haggar saying shiro's bond with keith is the closest and deepest, feel just empty. and like, if dw wanted to add that wedding scene, they could've saved it by having it be keith instead of curtis, you know, a character we had previously seen with a deep connection to shiro, who had a close relationship with. something that actually made sense. like either do it right or just don't do it (they shouldn't have done it). that's just bad (and rushed) writing.

next topic. TOO MANY CHARACTERS OH GOD. there were just too many characters and so little time. yes, it's good to develop new characters so the viewers can sympathize with them more. yes, it's good to have more characters. but not with so little time left. since s7 we were introduced to this new bunch of characters, besides the ones we had already met on the past 6 season. so mix them all up on one whole season, and you just get a mess. bc you either move your plot and underdevelop your characters, or you try too hard to develop them and then slow pace the plot to by the end you realize you're reaching the end, you just rush it all up. it's impossible (or at least very difficult) to balance both these factors in 13 episodes with 23 minutes each. it tires the viewers. having that many characters also causes to forget about other characters that we thought were supposed to be important (matt)

now let's get to the plot holes. listen, sometimes vague writing is good. but it's only good when you're giving the audience something to base their ideas on, and info that they can use and so give them a more solid form. but instead, voltron just drops all this stuff that could've been explored on future seasons, even on this last season, and then just not talks about it anymore like it never happened. and instead just leaves the viewer with more questions than answers. also, making stuff happen just because without any warning or minimal explanation. at the end the lions go. where? idk. why? idk either. are they coming back to the paladins? I. don't. know. it feels just too rushed and like they just wanted to end it for the sake of ending it.

did I mention the deus ex machina?? voltron about to be defeated? spirits of former paladins suddenly can also fight with no explanation whatsoever. voltron loses their quintessence? nope, they just need to believe. voltron about to get killed? atlas comes out of nowhere. the rift about to destabilize? nope, balmeras just appear out of nowhere with no explanation as to how they even got there and how did they know where to arrive and how did they get there so fast. everyone having a breakdown about realities getting destroyed? allura and honerva got that covered by sacrificing their lives (they're literally the goddess-like figures of the show)

this *points to s7-s8* is what happens when you suddenly change your writing team: A Mess.

as a side note: the animation was amazing. the soundtrack was amazing. the battle sequences were amazing. and yea, there were those moments that I did enjoyed from this season, but overall it felt too poor on the writing compared to the previous season which had been amazing. as a I said, this one was made too rushed and with a new writing team, it would've needed a miracle to actually turn out good.

and listen, I wouldn't have been as disappointed as I am if it hadn't been for all those interviews.

yea, we can't blame everything on the vld staff, dw execs are also at fault (deadlines, censorship, etc) since they're the ones at power, but fans are also to blame. two main factors: consumerism and harassment. I don't need to expand on these tbh.

anyways this is my rant on s8. if you read it all, thanks?? maybe I skipped over some other stuff, but these are the things that bothered me the most. specially writing wise.

I just,,, needed to let it out.

[debrajess]

Everything conspired against me watching S8 the second it dropped, but I did watch it over the weekend. I'm also avoiding the fandom meltdown over the ending. Sorry, folks, I've been in fandoms for far too long to get upset because Hollywood didn't validate my ship. If you were expecting otherwise, you're going to have a miserable life of crushed expectations.

Having said that...

Spoilers!

I understand how upsetting it was losing Allura at the end, but I kind of look at it like this: It's an almost an anime tradition to kill off important characters. Back in the day, everyone was praising Robotech for killing off characters and not bringing them back. Original Voltron sent Sven to the hospital planet because you weren't supposed to kill off characters on American daytime cartoons. I'm glad they brought him back (both in the original and now), but I can see from a storytelling point of view how killing him in the original paved the way for original Allura to grow up and pilot a lion.

I didn't like Legendary Defender Allura at first because of the whole drill sergeant thing in S1 (which should have been Shiro's role), but she grew on me and now I ache for Lance who loved her from afar, finally captured her attention, had a relationship with her, and then lost her. I love that she passed along her Altean markings to Lance in the end. I'd like to think that meant that were married.

And as far as I'm concerned, Allura sacrificing herself to make sure that Honerva kept her promise to restore all of the realities - I'm good with it, though it's bittersweet. I can see from the point of view of the writers of a show that's trying to capture an audience that is the age we were when we first discovered Voltron. Do they want to pass along a message that killing your enemies i.e. Honerva is the only way to save the universe? I don't like the message though it does have some primal satisfaction.

For me, even though Lance will spend the rest of his days preaching that Allura saw the good in Honerva, that doesn't mean that Honerva was redeemed for everyone. It's like Luke forgiving Vader in Return of the Jedi. Sure, Vader was redeemed by saving Luke, and gained Luke's forgiveness, but the rest of galaxy will always remember him as a murdering bastard. Same with Lotor and Zarkon -- their legacies are nothing but enslavement, misery, and death, regardless of whether or not we believe that Honerva is reunited with her husband and son in the nebula.

So anyway, I'm satisfied with the end we got. Everyone is, if not happy, at least content. Lance is on his farm in Cuba and will hopefully someday find someone worthy of him. Personally, I don't think Lance gave up on flying. He probably still has a license so he can crop dust, or fly a ship to New Altea to visit his friends whenever he wants.

Shiro found his guy, though I would like to think it happened after he had a couple of more years as Captain of the Atlas. Curtis is cute and he was part of the bridge crew so I can see this happening. I want to believe that, like Keith, Shiro still has a larger role to play in the larger galactic universe. I could see him and Curtis either training the new pilots at the Garrison, but occasionally taking a diplomatic post on New Altea, visiting Coran, and keeping the peace with Galra, or maybe joining Blade of Marmora and helping Keith in his new role.  

Hunk will also pave the way to intergalactic peace through food. I'm going to have to look at his apprentices again because I'm not sure if the Balmarian is Shay. I want Hunk and Shay to be happy together. I think he'll stay on Earth and keep in touch with Lance, unless he's called to cater a big event. I could see Lance supplying Hunk with food from his farm, and Hunk supplying prepared meals for the Blade of Marmora when they need extra for a humanitarian crisis somewhere. There's a nice circle of life there that warms my heart.

I love the idea that the the Galra asked Keith to be emperor and he said "no" (with a few choice words about finally getting them out from under the rule of emperors and not we're not starting that shit again). Yeah, in my heart, Sheith is my ship, but I think turning the Blade of Marmora into a humanitarian organization is brilliant. Obviously, not all is peaceful in the new reality, so the Blades will still need to keep their fighting skills sharp to deliver aid. Keith, Acxa, Cosmo, Zethrid, and Ezor can handle that. Zethrid especially will throw down with anyone who threatens the peace as long as she has Ezor by her side. I also think Keith and Acxa will make a fine couple. If Kolivan and Krolia hook up, I'm good with that too. What's more important is that Keith, with or without Acxa, has a family unit of his own. His relationship with his mother and mentor will make him a great leader, even beyond the Blades. I'm sure Shiro and Curtis will him visit often. We don't know where those two settled after they got married. The canon ending says Shiro left the battle behind, so I doubt he and Curtis would join the Blades, but I can see him maybe in an administrators role - still leading, but not fighting. I wouldn't blame him one bit. What I wouldn't give for a Blade of Marmora series.

The only character that really burned my toast, was Colleen Holt. JFC, Pidge is an adult, she's a paladin of  Voltron. She's a brilliant mathematician / physicist / computer hacker, and how dare her mother think she can ground Pidge for running away to save the entire fucking universe. Screw you, Colleen. Not sure how I feel about "Chip" at the end, but why did they have to cut Matt's hair? Damn. It must be a Garrison thing. Still, if the background characters are the new generation of Garrison pilots, dare we dream that we'll see a Vehicle Voltron in the near future? That would be wonderful. I would still like to know if Pidge ever found someone. On one hand, not everyone needs or wants a spouse, so it's kind of nice to know that Pidge is just doing her thing, but there's no confirmation there one way or another.

I'm also glad they toned down Coran this season. Never liked him, though I was sorry he didn't have a chance to say good-bye to Allura.

As for the Lions flying off into the nebula after saying good-bye to their new Paladins -- makes me ugly cry every time I watch it. We do see Allura's image in the nebula, so I'd like the think she's in there with the original Paladins and she called the Lions back to her to keep them safe should they ever be needed again. Hey, if Honerva could keep the spirits of the original Paladins alive in whatever reality she constructed, then I would like to think that before Honerva died, she did the same for Allura. Allura in the nebula with her father and mother, watching over New Altea.