#hello vld community Hope this Eats

[bluemantics]

Julance Week One: Broadsword/Youth

I've decided I'll follow @callmelyc's Julance prompts! HI LYC i missed you lots <3 Please give Lyc lots of love and consider following their prompts too!

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A broadsword. Lance stared blankly down at the weapon he held, red and white, gleaming under the harsh training deck lights. Its weight in his hands was unfamiliar, and yet, somehow felt right in a way he loathed. The sword had manifested seemingly at random-- one second, he'd been shooting at bots in the training room, satisfied with the way they dropped at his feet.

"Fuck yeah," he muttered under his breath as another clang sounded. The blue holographic screen lit up with a happy 'ding,' signifying another slain foe. He whipped around to face the next batch, no hesitation present in any of his movements as he dodged, shot, dodged, kicked out, moved faster, sharper, panting for breath.

So the sword shouldn’t have had any reason to appear! Really, it was all a misunderstanding. As the training drones closed in on him, their little propellers whirring in violent chirps, Lance had only barely conjured the idea for a split second. It wasn’t even a thing! Lance had been standing there, face flushed, sweat trickling down the back of his neck, his trigger finger aching. The idea came from an exhausted daze.

Man, he inwardly lamented, eyes focused on the drones closing in. I wish Keith was here.

Boom. Sword. Lance slashed through the clump of bots without pause until the program had run its course.

That thought had been purely utilitarian, of course. First of all, Keith was with the Blade, and was doing much better there! Obviously he couldn’t actually have Keith’s help in a stupid fucking training exercise. It was just that the robots seemed to get in too close for his weapon to be really effective, it being a rifle and all. He hadn’t expected anyone to be listening to his stupid wandering mind and its stupid wandering fixation on a stupid, wandering, mulleted asshole.

He should have known better. Everything about space had been freaky and magical, so why couldn’t his own goddamn gun have a brain?

Lance let out a small, quiet sigh, watching the way his wrist rotated the sword around in a move that he’d seen plenty of times between urgent missions. Rotate in. Rotate out. The tip of the blade formed little infinities in the air, while the flat of it reflected his lost expression back to him. His eyes were half-lidded and his teeth were gritted.

Lance McClain truly couldn’t have one goddamn thing of his own, could he? Doomed to have Keith’s leftovers for the rest of his life, Lance couldn’t help but draw up images of this exact moment happening fifty times before.

A starry-eyed kid who only got to be an attack pilot after a dropout punched a commander. A throwaway paladin who only assumed the red lion once the original pilot had left for brighter things. And now this.

Being the youngest in a large family meant he was no stranger to hand-me-downs, but Keith Kogane’s always left a bitter taste in his mouth. Like he was almost strong, almost talented, chasing after a perfect Grecian champion he’d never catch.

Keith always left him behind with some nagging reminder of his existence, of the fact that Lance could try as hard as he wanted and still never quite meet his standard.

The sword fell to the ground, transforming back into a bayard. Its clatter echoed off of sterile walls with resonating finality. Lance didn’t spare it another glance as he walked out of the training deck.

He was tired of running after an apparition.

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

Hello. Have you any headcanons about galra/altean/ other voltron's races?

Hi, anon. Thanks for your note! Ido have a few head canons about the different alien groups in VLD:

Galrans

They have a warmer body temperaturethan humans or Alteans due to increased metabolism. This gives them some oftheir more Captain America-like abilities, including quick recovery and resilience.

They have music and recordings,but these are used to perpetuate the Galran empire’s aims. Galrans would gowild for human culture and music, which is so diverse and often unrelated orcritical of politics.

Galrans can and like to eat bone.It’s considered a delicacy. On this note, I head canon that Planet Feyiv hasskeleton-like creatures as part of its wintry ecosystem, and that resource iswhy the Galra desired to conquer that planet first, even though they are suited or hotter climates.

They have shorter life spans ingeneral compared to Alteans but still much longer than humans. I wonder if thisis why Zarkon spoke of the desire for immortality in that s3 flashback.

The Galran race has interbredoften, and their ability to still interbreed with Alteans, etc. would suggestperhaps a common evolutionary ancestry somewhere.

Galrans have enhanced senses wellabove those of a human’s, but Galrans with the big fluffy ears have betterhearing than sight, and Galrans with elfin ears have better sight than hearing.

There are planets through theuniverse where Galrans from the original fall of Diabazaal settled and lived inpeace with the native people, sharing their passions about honor and personalself-discipline.

Galrans would love human soapoperas. And trashy reality TV.

Alteans

They have the strangest cuisines of any other people.This is why Emperor Zarkon often hosted dinners for the first paladins, becausehe could not stand the traditional paladin lunch Alfor liked to offer them. Buthe was also too honorable to insult his friend.

The Alteans suffered a major cataclysmand loss of culture in its far-ancient past, like an Atlantis story. Oriande issaid to be an ancient/legendary place, but in s3, Honerva scoffs that the ancientsbelieved lightning was sent from the gods. I think Oriande was built at a veryearly time for Alteans, was well-known at one point, but there was some kind ofmajor collapse (either natural cataclysm or massive war). The remaining alchemistscreated the guardian to protect it from the threat, and the surviving bottleneckedpopulation of Alteans mostly forgot about it, until the riddles and facts becamelegends and bedtime stories, and a lot of scientific knowledge faded back intomythology. It wasn’t for several millennia that science began to once moreovertake mythology.

Royal Alteans have a deeperconnection to quintessence than most Alteans, because they have white hair(there seems to be a connecting factor there between white hair and quintessence?).

The “Ones Who Came Before” mightbe a reference to the destructive, trans-reality rift creatures/The Entities. Itis interesting to me that the term “Life Givers” is explicitly separated from “OnesWho Came Before.” I wonder if the far-ancient Alteans understood that the meddlingof The Entities was necessary for the creation of the branches in the multiverse.Honerva was attempting to seek more knowledge of them but failed to fully grasp/controlthat knowledge, and so it destroyed her.

Olkari

They might share a distant evolutionaryrelationship with Alteans and Galrans. (Perhaps the diaspora from the originalfall of far-ancient worlds?) Their abilities with nanocellulose heavily mimicAlfor’s abilities to build weapons from quintessence, but over time they adaptedto their new environment, hence their excessively different physicalcharacteristics.

Nanocellulose might have once beenmore readily available throughout the universe.

Their traditional music is beautifulenough to make anyone cry. But it is also sacred enough that one must be connected to the planet to be given the right to hear it.

They have regenerative abilitiesand can regrow lost limbs. 

The Olkari once had a great alliance with the Galra and helped them and native Alteans to build a large amount of pre-rift technology.

Honerva and Alfor had several teachers who were from Olkarion.

The Mining Colony (The one Lotor was in charge of before Zarkondestroyed it)

I originally named it Strayix inmy story The Second Law.

The people of that planet knew ofEmperor Zarkon and feared him well before he ever arrived to establish acolony.

About my thoughts on Ven’tar/Lotor:When Lotor was sent to oversee quintessence mining, the people wanted to createa tie between their people and Lotor to ensure their ongoing survival. They’dheard he was a little more reasonable than his father (But Lotor would havebeen quite young still and obviously still attempting to please his father, andso might not have been as kind/diplomatic as seen later in his life.) Ven’tar,a beautiful woman of high rank and education, volunteered herself to make surethe prince would enjoy his stay. (Think of Scheherazade from 1001 Arabian Nights.) Despite aromantic interest and his increasing curiosity in the kind ways of Ven’tar, Lotor soondiscovered that Ven’tar’s kind actions toward him were originally an engineered ploy, and perhaps that her people had an interest in establishing immortality for themselves through such an alliance or otherwise escaping the bad consequences of Galran imperialism. And so, whilehe respected and greatly admired Ven’tar, he could not believe her love for him wasever truly real. This would align with Lauren Montgomery’s s6 statements: “PoorLotor, he’s never experienced a trusting relationship. So he has no clue. Like,all of his relationships are lies… Like, this is normal. This is what normalpeople do.” It was out of respect for her that he ultimately desired to save the planetfrom his father and see it thrive. Ven’tar/his colony experiences might have been a majorinfluence for his ongoing interest in cultures, and for his later attempt topreserve the Alteans.

The people of this planet havemultiple types of vocal chords, resulting in the garbled sound of their voices.

Because of their many vocal chordsand the complexity of their throats/mouths, the people have antennae throughwhich to taste or smell.

They have regenerative abilities.

Some of them managed to escape thedestruction of the planet, just as many Alteans escaped the destruction oftheirs.

Ven’tar lived. Zarkon had nointerest in speaking to her or her people and might have completely ignored herpresence in s8, ep2. (To talk to or do anything to her would require he “lower himself” to interact with an “inferior” species.) Her people might have dragged her away from the fallen Lotor,perhaps using escape pods to disappear to a lesser-known moon.

The people of this colony havebeen rebuilding in secret for the last 10,000 years, living in a hollowed-outplanet previously mined for quintessence. The planet’s thick crust hid themfrom Zarkon’s radar. They nearly appeared to team Voltron when they heard of Lotorrising to the throne, but the subsequent fallout between Voltron and the emperorinspired them to remain hidden.

9,000 years ago, Ven’tar allowed fora fledgling Blade of Marmora to train within their sanctuary. Before dying ofold age, surrounded by family, her last communication to an outcast Lotor wasan encrypted message that “hope is in the stars.”

That’s all I can think of for now.Thanks again for asking!