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harukamitsuki · 6 months ago

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Okay... I am currently back on my Voltron bullshit and continuing my rewrite of Voltron. And I'm constantly reminding of HOW MUCH I HATE LANCE.

Don't get me wrong. I am still treating Lance fairly in my fic, making sure he gets screen-time and a proper character acr and stuff.

But by GODS. This man pisses me off so much and that's only made worse by his stans. I was scrolling through Keith's tag here on tumblr. I also have Kl@nce filtered out. I cannot see a single post without at least three pages of scrolling and then it's only ONE POST. AND IT'S STILL KLANCE BECAUSE IT HASN'T BEEN TAGGED CORRECTLY.

Anyway. Onto the actual things I hate about Lance and not just his fandom.

Lance is a fucking asshole. I mean that on the deepest level. Let's go through it chronologically because I cannot rank it from least to most assholery, because some things are on the same level.

1 - Allura wakes up from the cryopod and Lances catches her. She's confused and dazed and the first thing you should do is ask if she's alright. Oh, but Lance is above that. Instead, he flirts with her. Karma given immediately as she calls his ears hideous and puts him in a submission hold, which is why I kept that scene in my fic, but that was still wrong. I know it was played for comedic effect, but that doesn't make it not canon. It's canonically accurate that if you've awoken from a coma, Lance's first instinct is to flirt with you if you're pretty.

2 - Literally throws Hunk into the middle of a battle. I get that Hunk was supposed to leave the Lion anyway, but just shoving him out when there are lasers everywhere and Hunk has no protection? Yeah. So much for 'best friend'. Add on the fact that Lance never really treats Hunk like a friend. At all.

3 - Okay. Season 1 Lance isn't bad outside of those two examples, even if he has his dumb moments, so let's jump to Season 2. Starting shit with Keith for no reason. People can go 'oh, Keith obviously did something to him at the Garrison' but he DIDN'T. The writers themselves confirmed that Keith did nothing to Lance, he just started shit with Keith all the fucking time. Like accussing Keith of wanting Blue and cutting him off when he tried to explain what was actually happening, even though Lance is the one who was outraged initially that Keith had Red. Or how about Lance getting up in Shiro's face and screaming his head off about how Keith would rather kill people than listen to them, as if he knew Keith at all after bullying him the entire time.

4 - Okay. This one pissed me off the most and is the biggest reason I'm making this post. The fact that Lance used Shiro's death/disappearance against Keith. Keith outwardly expresses his lack of desire to become the leader and accidentally let it slip that Shiro wanted him to do it. To which Lance is all 'convenient that you say that when Shiro's gone'. What. What the fuck. Stans really say that Lance is precious but how the hell are you justifying that? A blind man could see how much Keith loves Shiro, and Lance has the fucking gall the say that Keith is USING his death/disappearance for a position he doesn't want? He didn't even apologise for it. He just told Keith to suck it up later on. This is one of the reasons I hated Lance as the Red Paladin, the others being explained in an earlier post of mine.

5 - Oh, yeah. We're not done. Because after Keith, it's Allura. Allur@nce is probably the worst ship that could have happened, apart from Kl@nce. If you wanted a straight ship, how about what was canon for the past Voltron series? Kallura? Anyway. Yeah, Lance treats Allura like a prize instead of a person. He's posessive in a way that he has no right to be because they were not together. He glares at Matt for flirting with Allura, something he only does once. He gets mad at Lotor and tries to stop them from spending time together, EVEN THOUGH LOTOR IS HELPING ALLURA AND BONDING THROUGH ALTEAN THINGS. HELPING HER KEEP IN TOUCH WITH ALTEAN CULTURE. In Season 8, he literally yells that it should be Lance and Allura?? What a fucking weirdo?? You can't claim that you're destined to be with someone without being together. That's not how healthy relationships work. That's how a stalker's mind works. Lance is constantly flirting with Allura throughout all of Voltron and she never once reciprocated until Season 8 where it's so obvious that Lance is just a rebound but the writers wanna make it so that it's 'true love' and they want Lance to be happier than anyone so they just gift her to him like some sort of trophy. Lance didn't care about loving Allura, he cared about winning her. At least Lotor actually cared for and respected her. I still don't like canon Lotor, but that's mostly because the writers didn't want to deal with gray morality. Cowards.

1 - Honestly the worst example of a leader. It's shown from episode one. Now, there is the argument of learning to become one, but Lance just never learns? He's never facing the consequences of his actions and, if he is lectured, he ignores it. Keith actually takes lessons to heart and tries to improve and he does. If Lance became the Black Paladin, the universe would have been doomed because he can't get over himself for a single moment to even bother listening to anyone else's advice.

So. Yeah. Those are the main reasons why Lance is an asshole. Now to make the Lance stans really pissed.

Reasons why Lance would have been a terrible leader and could never have been the Black Paladin.

Remember episode one? Remember how the hydraulic stabiliser was out in the simulator and Lance still tried to push on, even though Pidge and Hunk advised him not to? Totally great leadership qualities there. There's nothing better than a leader that refuses to listen to you. 'Oh, but Keith is stubborn and didn't listen--' yes he did. He's stubborn and unrelenting at first, but he eventually realises that they're right.

Remember episode three? Remember when Lance bragged about kicking, which made Voltron fall, then proceeded to try it again and failed again even when Keith advised him not to? Yeah. Lance does not make good decisions and does not listen to any advise. Even from the leader's right hand man.

Remember Season 1 Episode 12? Remember how they were waiting for Shiro and Allura to get back and then Keith saw someone taking quintessence so he decided to follow them? Remember how Lance said no and was ignored but did nothing more to stop Keith? He has no authority and no charisma to keep anyone at bay. Pidge herself mocks Lance for being the pinnacle for leadership. Sarcastically. Because he's far from it.

Pidge doesn't respect Lance as a leader, Keith never would considering Lance treats him like shit, Allura can't take Lance seriously with him hitting on her every ten seconds, and Hunk is always questioning Lance's decisions. If nobody respects you, you cannot be a good leader.

2 - Easily distracted. Yes, it's a very popular headcanon that Lance has ADHD, and I agree with that, but that doesn't make it okay. And he's distracted in the easiest ways. Just shove a pretty girl and he'll instantly get distracted and lead the entire team to doom. Remember Nyma and how easy it was for her to steal the Blue Lion? How he didn't even warn anyone that he was taking her out for a ride because he didn't want anyone contesting his conquest? Yeah.

Don't get me wrong. It's fine to have ADHD or get distracted easily. Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece is a great example of a leader who gets easily distracted, but the second he sets his mind on something, he blocks everything out. Lance just doesn't have the capability to do that, nor do I think he'd be able to learn how to.

3 - Gets jealous really easily. As in. Really fucking easily. He's jealous of Keith from the get-go, starting a one-sided rivalry that he's constantly on the losing side of because Keith doesn't care. He gets jealous of Matt when he flirts a bit with Allura. He gets extremely jealous of Lotor for having actual chemistry with Allura. He's constantly jealous and a good leader is only ever in competition with himself. A good leader will only strive to become better for the sake of the team, not to say that they're better than someone else, much less if they're someone that you are in charge of. It's a horrible trait to have.

Jealousy in and of itself is not a bad thing. It's when that jealousy overrides your logic and controls you, instead of you controlling your jealousy: which Lance struggles with a lot. And getting jealous over anyone who even looks at your crush is a very bad thing to do because you do not own your crush. It's okay to be jealous, but not posessively like Lance is. Not to the extent of trying to scare off any potential suitors.

4 - Nowhere near as skilled as Keith or Shiro. Sure, the writers may claim that he is better, but the proof is in the pudding. Keith and Shiro are fucking unmatched. I've defended Lance's skills in a previous post, but I also said in that post that, while he is skilled, he is nowhere near Shiro or Keith's level. I mean, Shiro was the golden child of the Garrison and set so many records. He was known as the best pilot. Keith beat those records and his flying capabilities are always, always noted. I haven't heard a single character comment on Lance's skills, other than to point out how bad they are. Keith was the only one who could have flew through the astroid field, he was the only one who could fly into the Marmora base which was in a blue star surrounded by two black holes, he was able to fly a Galra jet just by pushing the right buttons and knowing what the do, and he's the one who unlocks the warping abilities of the Black Lion. Shiro was able to connect with the Black Lion far before anyone else, able to see through Black and connect with Black to the point of his soul being saved by her.

Lance hasn't done anything spectacular. And, no. He was not 'done dirty'. He was given almost everything he wanted except the Black Lion. The writers claim he's the best pilot, but have not shown it at all. In my eyes, Keith and Shiro will always be the best.

5 - Selfish. Again. Nothing against being selfish. It's perfectly fine to be selfish, so long as it doesn't actively harm others. But for a leader? You should be as selfless as you can be. The team comes before you. And that's exactly what Lance isn't.

Lance is selfish and that's okay, but it's not leadership material. The whole reason Black rejected him is because he wanted the position out of selfish reasons. When he enters Black, he says 'Come on, Lance. You can do this'. In other words, he wants to pilot her because he wants to prove himself. He wants the acknowledgement. He wants the title of the Black Paladin and leader. Black accepted Keith, both at the start of Season 2 and Season 3, because he piloted her for purely selfless reasons. For Shiro.

Lance wants things for himself. Keith wanted things for Shiro. It was only after Shiro came back, (or so they thought), that Keith started focusing more on himself. Even then, he put everyone else before him. He distanced himself from the team so that Shiro could pilot Black again, and he was constantly risking his life for the Blades.

Lance just... isn't the type. He has put others before himself, but he expect things out of it. He expects a parade and acknowledgement. Nobody knew what Shiro went through to rid Zarkon of his connection to the Black Lion. Nobody knew what Shiro went through in his imprisonment because he doesn't want to burden anyone with that. Nobody knew what Keith went through to save Black and Shiro from Zarkon. Nobody knew what Keith went through when they were all mad at him for missing an attack. Lance doesn't withold that sort of stuff. The only thing he doesn't talk about is his insecurities, which he ends up spilling to the mice and Laika (the Yupper) anyway.

6 - Last one. Promise.

Nothing fucking happened. While Keith was gone, nothing of importance happened surrounding Voltron specifically. There was the Lion mind meld and Lotor joining, but all that served to prove was, with the mind meld, if Keith was there, he would have heard Shiro. And with Lotor joining, all it proved was how immature Lance was.

The second Keith gets back, things start happening again. Lotor gets outed as cruel and manipulative (still an ass-pull, by the way), Shiro gets outed as a clone, and so on. If Lance was leading, they all probably would have died ages ago. I'm talking Season 3 Episode 2, ages ago. Because Lance just isn't cut out for it.

So. Yeah. Those are the main reasons I hate Lance and why Black Paladin Lance is an awful idea. Screw the people who believe in it. It is awful.

Like I said, this won't affect my treatment of Lance in my rewrite, because I can fix those issues that come up. I don't have an issue with Season 1 Lance, it's later on that gets problematic. I just hate people building Lance up by bashing all the other characters, then claiming that Lance is the most traumatised, sad character when SHIRO AND KEITH ARE RIGHT THERE. NOT TO MENTION ALLURA, WHO LOST HER ENTIRE SPECIES, AND CORAN WHO LOST EVERYONE INCLUDING ALLURA AND NEVER GOT TO SAY GOODBYE TO HER.

Fuck. I hate Voltron so much but I can't help but love it.

#vld #voltron #voltron legendary defender #voltron lance #vld lance #lance mcclain #anti lance #anti lance mcclain #anti klance #technically #i hate lance so much #i honestly cannot stand him or his fans #i promise i wont make him a horrible person in my rewrite just bc i hate him #i do have issues with other character but lance is the worst offender #anti black paladin lance #anti bp lance #black paladin keith truther #anti allurance

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silentwillowwhisperer · 2 years ago

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Krolia

Alright, I just had a thought.

I get that it's a major plot point that Krolia is part of the Blade of Marmora, but what if she was just another soldier?

What if she had been heading to Earth as a Galra soldier, and was shot down by a Blade member?

And then Keith's dad saves her!

So after that, she either decides to change after falling in love with him and realizing that destroying planets is killing innocent people like this man, oooor she continues to fight for the Galra.

If she continued with Galra, then she most likely would reunite with Keith in a battle, or at least see his picture in some battle briefing and be like, oH CRAP THAT'S MY KID.

And then if we continue on this path, then Keith would see her, and she tells him who she is, either mid-battle to throw him off, or to tell him why she won't kill him.

And if she were to do it mid-battle, Keith would be absolutely crushed and either have a character development arc in which he pushes back his feelings of betrayal and hurt and defeats her, or he gets distracted and she manages to injure him.

If Keith defeats her himself, (and this is all during fighting her) then right before she passes out/ dies they would have a moment where either Krolia apologizes, or tells Keith that he was a the best and worst mistake she's ever made, and either way she would tell him that she's proud of him.

If Keith were to get hurt by her, Lance would shoot her down and rush over to Keith. There would be one of those moments where character A is like dying, and character B places character A's head on their lap and like cries while character A is making some heartfelt speech and giving them a bunch of cliché advice, you know?

And then Keith passes out, and the team is there by then to rush him back to the castle and he makes it.

And then he breaks down when the reality of what happened with Krolia hits him.

And he has a moment with one of the paladins, BUT ONLY ONE OF THEM. More than one other paladin ruins the moment, don't ask me why, it just does.

And then if Krolia were to be still alive (This is assuming that the 'I'm proud of you' moment never happened), then she would rise up in ranks until when Zarkon dies, she's the empress. Haggar and Voltron think that she's controlling Krolia, so Haggar is targeted by Voltron and the coalition.

They CANNOT defeat her, no matter what they do, but then Krolia takes her out in order to gain full power of the Galra empire, and everyone's just SHOCKED. Krolia doesn't even do it in secret, this is like a full-on battle and she goes, "Bold of you to assume that you EVER controlled me, Witch. The only one who valued you was Zarkon, and that made him weak."

And then she straight-up stabs Haggar and leaves the battle saying to the paladins, "We've both won this battle. Now go. We all know that you are outnumbered here."

AND THEN instead of the whole Honerva thing, it's them against Krolia.

Keith would most likely be the one to kill her. Or maybe Krolia would have the same ending as Honerva! Though if that were to happen, then Allura can still sacrifice herself.

And throughout this, KLANCE exists. Allurance shippers can BACK OFF. ALLURANCE. NEVER. HAPPENS. AND NO. I am NOT adding Allurance to my computer's dictionary so that it will stop autocorrecting me, because the only ship that belongs in the dictionary is KLANCE.

*deep breaths*

Thank you for reading my Ted Ta- oh who am I kidding, thank you for reading my rant.

btw, does anyone else simp for Matt and that robot-masked alien girl??? Like, oh my goodness it is SO CUTE. In the clear day episode, (the one where Shiro wins the arm-wresting competition) the girl is INCLUDED IN THEIR FAMILY PICTURE. NO JOKE. LOOOOK!!!

MATT'S GOT A GIRLFRIEND!!!!

Sorry about that. I live for this kind of stuff.

If there's spelling errors, (at least more than usual) then feel free to correct me. I'm typing really aggressively right now, which usually leads to a WHOLE lot of mistakes. So, oops.

#keith kogane #krolia #canon divergence #vld #voltron #voltron legendary defender #notes of klance #klance #AHHHHHHHHH #matt's gf #warning: this post is extremally confusing #tawny post

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whatthehelliswrongwithme · 3 years ago

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Voltron Part 38

Yes, the season 7 wrap-up gets to be it’s own post. Why? Because I said so. Fuck you.

(If y'all expect a literary analysis: Please don't. I just want to share my dumb thoughts)

Honestly. I expected worse

It may just be, because I was warned of the last two seasons so many times. But it wasn’t that bad. Still liked it more then season 4

[It *was* a mediocre season right after a really good season. So maybe the general dislike came from that?]

The episodes at the beginning were the better ones. I’m not really a huge fan of this “Keeping up with the Garrison”-thing

I don’t think that the battles are interesting. I’m here for the characters. So the last battle just was dragging on and on and on...

This season also really liked killing off characters and fake-deaths

And it kinda felt like they reused a lot of the animated shots

Also it kept on introducing new character to which I have no attachment to (Looking at you, 4-eyes and Random ass children)

4-eyes.... Yeeeeaah.

They did a “Bury your gays”, I didn’t really recognise his and Shiro’s realationship as romantic and he basically had no screentime. So. Bad Rep. (The goddamn COW had more screentime than he did!)

My favourite episode was “Sheith flashback! Flasback! Honey, Moustache man shrunk the kids! Flashback! Oh yeah, Allura’s there too”

(Also they actively parraleled 4-eyes with Keith. Which is just another huge Sheith thing. Which I very much enjoyed)

Shiro: Look at how they massacred my boy! He's now more of a mentor-role than one of the core-members. Kinda like moustache man. And I think that’s pretty stupid. I liked him more as a Paladin (Why did he leave the Black Lion? We’ll never know) (The answer’s, Bad Writing)

Keith has kinda grown into his leadership role? It was nice to see him being soft with characters other than Shiro. But it’s weird that he kept on making references to the Red Lion.

Lance is the Sharpshooter.

But also he had his whole “homesick”-thing since the very first season. And it kinda felt like he should have been the main-focus, when they returned to earth

Hunk finally got the screentime he deserves! He had some angst, some heroic moments... Good for my boy!

Pidge fucking finally got her whole family back. Which I guess is really the end of her arc then... Gurl, you gotta get a new motivation for the last season.

Allura. I’ve got nothing to say really. The season focused on “returning to earth” and she really has no association with that.

Moustache man is honestly still one of my faves. He just want’s to be a Dad to Allura. And I respect that

(He's a single dad, who works two jobs. Who loves his kids and never stops. With gentle hands and the heart of a fighter. He's a survivor)

Sailor Moon and space wolf were just completly forgotten about in the last couple episodes. But I like them. Maybe next season, they'll get more screentime

Krolia’s gone, but at the very end, she was there again? If she’s still in S8, why did they make her temporarely leave?

Klance had some moments. If you squint really, really hard...

Sheith. Aaaah yes, my favourite. Not as many moments as I hoped for but still pretty significant ones

Coming out of the right corner is Shallura! What an unexpected return! With such moments as “being worried space parents together” and “gifting a really fucking ugly arm” !

Allurance kinda seems inevitable now. It’s obviously the ship the show pushes the most. (And it’s straight, so thats a huge factor). I think it’s cute, but if it does become canon it better fucking be not as one-sided as before!

Plance! Plance! PLANCE! Gosh, I live for Plance. They’re just so cute together!

Adashi? Why does this exist? We literally know nothing about 4-eyes?

But, whatever makes you happy (And I’m really sorry for you)

Romura is really fucking cute. And even though it has basically no scenes, it's still somehow one of my favourite ships

Shidge. (I’ve got nothing to say. I just want to make a joke.) Shidge-shipper’s ideal realationship-dynamic is that picture of a small hamster trying to eat a banana

Hunelle came out of nowhere, and I kinda dig it...

Predictions for the last season:

They gotta solve the space witch-problem (After she was literally only in the gameshow episode)

They’ll probably still want us to care about the Random ass children somehow

Give me Furry back. I don’t care how they do it, just make it happen. She deserved better then to be killed off by Lotor

I demand more cute slice of life-episodes!

And either an anime-trope Beach-episode. Or an american cartoon-trope Bodyswitch/ Shopping-episode

It’s probably just gonna end in another big robot battle in which I have no interest in. Won’t it?

Remember when these post were really short? Yeah, me neither.... Only one season left! Once agagin, I just wanna thank everybody for putting up with my bullshit, that are these posts. Glad some of you think I’m funny! And thanks to everyone commenting, liking and reblogging! (Especially the comments explaining some background-infos are nice) Love you all❤!!!

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imjustheretoseetheprivateblogs · 3 years ago

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Voltron for the fandom ask

Since you didn’t give me a single character, I’ll just have to cast a wide net; Team Voltron incoming!

Shiro

Favorite thing about them? Well, honestly, Shiro’s probably one of the more likable characters on the show.

Least favorite thing about them? I feel like both fandom and canon tend to give him a flat character arc too much.

Favorite line? Form Voltron

brOTP? Keith

OTP? Shallura

nOTP? Shaladin, & most ships involving villains.

Random headcanon? Shiro’s grandmother is basically a one woman Japanese adaptation of Golden Girls

Unpopular opinion? If Shiro was going to die or retire, it should have been in Season 7, at the earliest. Then we’d feel the gravity of the loss. An S2 twist was alright, but

Song I associate with them? Hunted by Steve Jablonsky, The Born King by Daniel Pemberton, Come Together cover by Gosmack, and possibly Broken Parts by Hollywood Undead

Favorite picture of them?

Allura

Favorite thing about them? I like how passionate she is. Whenever she’s being silly or sad or angry or whatever, Allura goes for broke.

Least favorite thing about them? Allura can be a bit of a know-it-all. Granted, she’s very smart, but still she can be pretty stubborn when it comes to admitting to be wrong.

Favorite line? Pidge is a what!?

brOTP? Coran

OTP? Shallura, though I also like unrequited Lotura

nOTP? Allurance

Random headcanon? Allura doesn’t have a bellybutton since she was hatched from an egg.

Unpopular opinion? I’ll admit that while aspects of Allura’s character arc in VLD were clumsy, I do feel that fandom tends to give her a halo.

Song I associate with them? The White Whale Chant by Roque Banos, though I could see Angel with a Shotgun

Favorite picture of them?

But I also like this one

And also this

Keith

Favorite thing about them? say what you will, Keith’s feelings of insecurity and lostness can be relatable.

Least favorite thing about them? Him getting shotgunned into the leader position rather than exploring

Favorite line? no lines. Only gifs

brOTP? Shiro and sometimes Lance

OTP? Goodness, I’ve got three; Kacxa, Komelle, and a secret one just for me until furthr notice.

nOTP? Klance.

Random headcanon? Keith can purr.

Unpopular opinion? Keith could have been a good leader of Voltron, but we never really see the arc of it. If it’s there, it’s kind of hidden.

Song I associate with them? Everything I Need by Skyler Gray

Favorite picture of them?

Also this one, because I like it.

Pidge

Favorite thing about them? They got the sass

Least favorite thing about them? Pidge can be kind of closed off at times... Look I’m trying my best here.

Favorite line? “ It's kind of cute...in a creepy, hideous way. Sort of like Lance.”

brOTP? Lance & Hunk. Garrison Trio

OTP? Plance, though I also kind of like @chibi-pix ‘s Bandidge pairing

nOTP? Shidge and incest

Random headcanon? Pidge believes in the mothman

Unpopular opinion? IDK if I consider Pidge a member of the LGBTQ+ community

Song I associate with them? Last of the American Girls by Green Day

Favorite picture of them?

Lance

Favorite thing about them? I guess I like that Lance’s ultimate character arc is one of realizing the value of teammates over glory and finding grace through humility.

Least favorite thing about them? Lance can be pretty obnoxious at times. Like, really dislikable. And I know that makes him a good character, I’m just saying that I wouldn’t get along with him in real life.

Favorite line? “As someone who’s made a million mistakes all you can do is get up and try to make it right.”

brOTP? Hunk, Pidge, and sometimes Keith

OTP? Plance, but I also like Lirance from the Space between Stars fic by @thethiefandtheairbender

nOTP? Klance. It’s just... not very interesting to me. I’m also not a fan of Allurance, either. No hate, I just don’t really care about them.

Random headcanon? Lance is Roman Catholic and somewhat protective of his faith.

Unpopular opinion? Lance can kind of be overblown, by both canon and the fandom.

Song I associate with them? One for the Razorbacks by Green Day

Favorite picture of them?

Really, I like any image where Lance eats crow, but I also like those moments where he’s like this.

Hunk

Favorite thing about them? Hunk’s a pretty cool guy, in all honesty: gregarious, relatable, understanding. Really he’s just a great guy.

Least favorite thing about them? IDK, maybe... fear? (I got nuthin)

Favorite line? The one where he said he had a family too in a really quick awkward way, when Pidge was leaving.

brOTP? Lance & Pidge, the other two amigos

OTP? Hunnay

nOTP? Everything else, I guess

Random headcanon? no headcanons. Only Gifs.

Unpopular opinion? The food jokes with Hunk could work. They just need a little better framing and a little less... tonedeafness

Song I associate with them? The Mycroft Suite by Hans Zimmer

Favorite picture of them?

Coran

Favorite thing about them? you gotta love his energy. The man just can’t seem to lose his enthusiasm.

Least favorite thing about them? uhhhh... some of the goofiness I guess.

Favorite line? “It’s like the old proverb says; a man can be driven to do anything if a beautiful woman is just really, really mean to him.”

brOTP? Alfor

OTP? I don’t really have one for Coran *shrugs*

nOTP? any of the Paladins or Allura.

Random headcanon? Coran was born offworld, but later moved to Altea after striking up a friendship with Prince Alfor.

Unpopular opinion? Coran should have gotten more screentime.

Song I associate with them? Ariel Swarm by Elliot Goldenthal & Christ in the House of his Parents by Daniel Pemberton

Favorite picture of them?

Send me a character & I’ll answer some things about them

#Asks #Answers #Thanks for asking #whoo this was a big one!#Next time just pick one character #VLD #Voltron #Shiro #Allura #Coran #Keith #hunk #Pidge #Lance #headcanons #sorry for the late reply #Long Post

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everlastingfable · 4 years ago

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a jumbled mess of my thoughts about voltron

This’ll probably be the messiest post you’ll ever read. I’m done trying to finish this and edit it into something coherent, so I’m just combining the 3 drafts I have written out into one massive post. I doubt anyone will read this whole thing, but each draft is a sort of rewrite of the last, so there’s a lot of overlap. But there’s also a lot of new thoughts too as I kept thinking about this. There’s also a lot of unfinished thoughts.

There’s mostly negativity in this btw. This fandom had/has an amazing ability in making you think that this show was utter garbage. on par with riv//erdale or s//pn, but it really wasn’t. Like many shows they had weak points, it was never perfect, but it’s much better than we’re told to remember it as.

Intro from Draft 3 because I liked the way I started it:

This is all of my thoughts about Voltron, the show itself and the fandom. I have tried to write this post out for over a year or two now, so it was originally intended to be my final thoughts about the show. Obviously, it’s evolved since then into whatever this is. There may be some things that I’ll be wrong about, because I’m not about to dig through hundreds of discourse posts and old interview videos to prove a point that I doubt anyone’s gonna care about. This will 100% be based on my thoughts, opinions, and experiences.

That said, I don’t even know how to begin to describe how much I love this show. I’m probably one of the few people who have no regrets about enjoying this show as much as I do. I’d wholeheartedly recommend watching it, because it’s genuinely a good show. Voltron did the unimaginable for me. I don’t usually enjoy sci-fi stories. I especially don’t enjoy mecha stories. Yet somehow, Voltron combined the two and made a show that I loved so much I can’t stop thinking about it even though it ended over 2 years ago.

Draft 1: thoughts about a year after it ended without rewatching any seasons since it ended

It’s been about a year since voltron ended. I never wrote my thoughts about s8/the show then so here it is now. Because I decided to wait a year I honestly don’t remember a lot of specifics. But I still have a lot to say about it. This is very long and is basically everything I have to say about this show. I love voltron. It’s been an important part of my life during college. 90% of all papers I wrote were about voltron. But as much as I love it, I won’t deny that it fell apart at the end.

Note: I tried to categorize these thoughts so I don’t get off topic and can talk about everything fully. But because they overlap so much there’s definitely some minor repeats when I connect two parts but decided to hold off talking about it all the way until the right section.

PRODUCTION

This is something I’ve expressed concern over while it was airing, but in a span of 2 and a half years, they premiered 78 episodes. That’s a lot, especially when you consider that production for s3 started after s1 premiered. There’s a lot of really good voltron review videos out there that aren’t just “oh I’m so cool I hate voltron” but there was one that talked about how the production was a mess and the writers couldn’t make up their mind for the endgame ship. And while that doesn’t sound like an important issue, it really does show when it comes to how characters are written together and (I think) the fandom war.

Summarizing what that video said because I don’t remember who made it, the writers/producers never made up their mind on which ship was supposed to be endgame (klance, sheith, allurance, kallura). And this really does show in the show itself. I don’t like klance. I especially hate it because of my experience with the fandom, but I won’t deny that they were sometimes written romantically. The same goes for sheith. And that’s the problem.

I don’t think the world building parts of the show was fully developed either. Shiro was supposed to be a teen like everyone else but then he was an adult. His and keith’s relationship was honestly vague for a good while. I don’t think anyone really knew how each characters’ relationships with each other was supposed to progress. Was allurance always supposed to be endgame? Because they didn’t really interact that much until like season 6, and then it was kinda sudden from what I remember. There was very little, if at all, parts where we were shown oh allura might like lance romantically. Keith’s relationship with the main cast didn’t exist for like 3 seasons. It was messy.

Speaking of which, keith disappeared for a good portion of the show. I assume it’s because steven yeun was busy. Which is fine but then I think about how quickly voltron came and went, I wonder why they couldn’t slow down a bit so they could still have steven voice keith during those episodes. Maybe it’s because of how much I love keith, but he honestly felt like a central character to me.

If I think about teen titans, for example, this show also had 5 main characters. Sometimes certain characters would get a spotlight for a season, but all-in-all they were fairly equally represented. It didn’t feel like robin was the main character. But that’s how I feel about voltron. Keith, and shiro to an extent are the main characters. A good portion of the plot relies on them. Shiro got kidnapped, keith leads them to the blue lion. Shiro is the leader with keith has his right-hand man and they mostly interact with each other. So when shiro “dies” and keith takes over, it starts to feel like keith is now the main character. Now he’s the leader and the arc is about him growing into becoming the black paladin and stopping lotor, who is his main enemy. But then he disappears.

Again this is most likely because of my bias towards keith, but the episodes after that felt lackluster. Lance didn’t really get his character growth to become a good second-in-command. Because that development was supposed to be based around keith. :P. A big part of lance’s growth is to learn to stop needing to feel that he’s better than keith. And him accepting keith as the black paladin was a huge part of it. But with shiro as the leader again lance loses that development. Keith’s not in the picture anymore, and the person in-charge was already in a leadership position and has nothing to learn by being there.

Before I go way too deep into my thoughts about the plot/characterization, I do want to mention the animation. The fighting scenes are amazing and one of the most beautiful 2d animation I’ve seen. That is, when it is actually animated and not just the camera panning on a still image. Here’s where my biggest concern over the time comes in. 2 years is absolutely not enough time to animate that many episodes. I was genuinely worried for the animation company because it could not have been a good experience. And yes, we got more episodes sooner, the quality definitely dropped and it’s a real shame. Who knows when we’ll get another american cartoon in this style. I love this animation style but it takes time and a lot of skills to do, so not that many companies do it. I honestly wished they took their time with the show not just to get more time to animate, but also to flesh out some of the plot.

PLOT

As hunk said in one episode, they don’t linger on dramatic events that just happened. This show is very fast paced, and that’s not a bad thing. But they never took the time they needed to really feel the weight of everything that happens. Keith’s galra heritage reveal was basically swept under the rug. So was the shiro clone, lotor’s death, zarkon’s death, naxzela, and so many more. In general, that was a big problem with how the episodes went. If it wasn’t for the sheer number of fanfics covering those topics, they were really swept under the rug. It honestly kinda felt like the writers didn’t know what to do with the aftermath of their reveals. But some of these were pretty essential to the plot of the story.

Keith’s part galra! So he doesn’t look it but there had to be obstacles with voltron forming the coalition. He’s part of the race that caused this war. I honestly think we should’ve seen that reveal become part of the plot, or what was the point of it? They could’ve just as easily wrote keith to be a regular human just like everyone else. Taking the time to add that part of his character needs to have some significance in the story. And yeah, they had krolia appear but she wasn’t really a significant character except to kinda magically fix keith’s problems. In general it felt like they forgot parts that they were foreshadowing with keith. Why could he turn purple sometimes? Did that quintessence he was hit with fix him or help him hide the galra parts? Why does he look so human? What is up with him having that quintessence sensitivity? I’m all for shows ending with some questions unanswered because sometimes it’s impossible to answer it all and let it feel natural, but this just felt like they forgot or decided it’s too much of a hassle and just ignored it.

Okay going into more specifics now, s8 was kinda meh. It especially felt bad because it came out the same day as spiderverse which had a very similar villain motivation, but objectively done better. I think honerva’s motivation came out of nowhere. We see in the flashback episode that she was so intent on getting knowledge that it literally destroyed daibazaal. So, it was established that her motivation is knowledge. Even though she lost her memory and regained it, as haggar she was still very focused on quintessence. We know she was gathering a lot of it, and maybe they said it and I forgot, but we never knew why. Family wasn’t really shown as a motivation for her. Even with lotor it didn’t seem like she wanted to be a family again, but instead was using him for her own unknown motivations. Anyways, the season felt awkward. And the new dynamic they had really needed more time. The last season should’ve expanded to be at least 2 more. It would’ve fit a lot better imo. S1-2 would have zarkon as the main villain, s3-6 would have lotor, and s7-8 would have haggar, who was also the puppeteer throughout the entire show. But she didn’t appear for s7 and her motivations didn’t really make sense in s8 so it evidently felt rushed. There were also so many major characters in s8 we needed more time to see them interact.

So the ending with allura becoming constellations. Gonna be honest that whole last part had me confused. Especially with the fact that I barely remember what happened, why are the old paladins like trapped in the lions? I could excuse the other 4 but zarkon? Especially a zarkon that’s not corrupted? It was weird and didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and that’s all I’ll say about that. I don’t even want to try to suggest an alternative because I think that whole last half of the season is so messy it can’t be fixed. But it was so obviously pandering to the fandom it hurt. Lance getting those marks was so obviously referencing when people wanted lance to be altean in response to keith’s galra heritage. The shiro/curtis kiss was very “look see he is gay and not just because we said so” while nice, was very weak (why wasn’t keith in the shot?).

Despite my complaints, I remember liking s8. I really liked the addition of the atlas, even though it didn’t feel like we were watching voltron anymore sometimes. S7 had to be one of my favorite episodes since s2. Not to say that s7 is better or worse, but I really like it because it felt like a genre shift. I usually don’t like space sci-fi or mecha stories. Voltron somehow managed to combine the two and make me love it. S7 did not feel like either of those. First, a good half of it took place on earth. And I believe two episodes didn’t even have the main cast, and when team voltron finally made it to earth, voltron wasn’t even there until the final battle. I genuinely loved it. I think it was a very well done invasion/apocalyptic story that doesn’t get told in animation that often. But if I think about s7 with the rest of the show, it was awful. It broke up the tone the show usually had and it was a very different way of storytelling that voltron didn’t have before. It wasn’t a space sci-fi mecha story, it was an apocalyptic action story. Voltron was so unimportant they sat on a moon for episodes. It stopped becoming voltron and started becoming a spin-off.

I do have to add that I absolutely loved the color themes in s7. We already had purple for the galra, but in s7 it was very obvious that alteans are themed blue and earth is themed with orange. I loved it so much and it was great. I do like that they gave shiro something to do. Honestly not killing him off in s2 made him an awkward character afterwards. But I didn’t like that they brought back sendak. There was no explanation for it and it wasn’t good imo. He didn’t really do anything besides conquer earth then die. Haggar was also absent the entire season which definitely didn’t help her storyline in s8 because we didn’t know what she was doing the entire time except abandoning everyone who was loyal to her.

I’m usually not a fan of time skips, it has the tendency to gloss over character development or create glossed over recap. Honestly I wish voltron spent more time over the blade of marmora massacre or just the bom in general. They received no rest. Literally everyone part of that group died except for kolivan. Speaking of that episode, there was no explanation for how keith was able to know where macidus was about to appear and that honestly bugs me. There’s so much about keith we don’t know. He has so many abilities we were just never told.

Again a lot of problems within team voltron is that there was never any follow up on things that happened, like keith leaving the team. He becomes the black paladin and no one bats an eye. Lance did make one comment about keith leaving but then it wasn’t ever mentioned again. I get that the writers/producers wanted the dynamic the original had, but they didn’t take the time to work up to it. Keith wasn’t a natural leader, but he suddenly is because he spent 2 years on a space whale with his mom and a space wolf. Like I mentioned earlier, voltron feels like keith is the main character but then they dropped him for a few episodes, realized that he’s important and added him back in while saying “oh he went through a time skip so he grew into the role he needs to be in now”. It feels like a cheap pay off.

I’d like to specifically talk about my thoughts on each season and work back but honestly I don’t think I can remember s3-6 separately. So they’re being chunked together.

Lotor had the potential to be a really great villain. But he had to be foiled with keith. They have a lot of similarities that I think could’ve really played off well together. Lotor isn’t really allowed to have a leadership position. Yeah he was technically in charge while zarkon was recovering, but haggar didn’t really allow him full control. But, he was a great leader. He knew how to read his enemies and form an alliance. Meanwhile, keith had a leadership position thrusted to him, and frankly he wasn’t a good leader. He tends to keep to himself so he never really has to make decisions with a team. It could’ve been great, but shiro had to still be in the story. I’m honestly conflicted about this because on the one hand, I think it really ruined character developments for the main cast, but then I loved the clone shiro plot line. I think keeping shiro prevented keith from growing. He was able to remain dependent on shiro instead of actually bonding with the rest of the paladins. And of course he had to just go awol. Also, lance didn’t really get to have as prominent of a role as I think he could’ve had with keith.

These seasons are also when the lions stopped being sentient robots that specifically choose their paladins to just really cool spaceships. We don’t get that level of bonding that was so prominent in s1 and 2. That’s also something I’m conflicted with. I think the lion swap was a great way for character developments, but it also removed a lot of it. It kinda made the bonding feel useless. The swap also changed the dynamic of the group. Instead of shiro and allura being co-leaders, and everyone else feeling like they’re on equal footing, it felt like Keith was the leader with lance being a needed right-hand man. Hunk and pidge were off doing their thing and allura was a leader but also not. Maybe if they had spent more time working with this dynamic it would’ve felt better. But they didn’t and it didn’t. Voltron also implied that allura was the only one that could control the castle ship, but then she goes to become a paladin and who’s driving the ship?

I do wish we could’ve gotten more about the altean colony and the reveal about lotor’s plans, but that got overshadowed and forgotten by the clone shiro reveal. Maybe I just missed it, but I wasn’t sure what the galra empire and lotor were collecting quintessence for. Was it just to make mechs to rival voltron? Lotor’s death was also very unclear.

The coalition was a much needed thing, but I think very badly executed. They were gathering people from malls. These people are regular civilians who probably don’t know how to fight or fly a ship. I thought it was really weird that they were just getting regular people (aliens?) to sign up like they’re applying to be part of the army. But we never see them maybe join the rebel force matt is part of to learn how exactly to help. I think about avatar and how they also had a rag tag group of people to fight against the fire nation, but these weren’t just regular people living in a village. They were either warriors or very skilled benders. The voltron coalition was just regular people. That genuinely annoyed me because the voltron show just felt like those army propaganda ads, but exciting. Not to mention it was a very hard to watch episode.

It was definitely making fun of how the fandom complains about how characters are getting reduced to a certain characteristic. But it wasn’t done in an entertaining way like the ember island players episode from atla because some of those were legit complaints (like hunk being the fat/food guy) and that stuff wasn’t resolved. Like the ember island players made fun of sokka constantly talking about meat or katara crying all the time, but the show made it very clear beforehand that these characters are much more than that. Is hunk really more than the food guy? As far as the show mentions, the only things he’s done was make the machine to help find the blue lion, and help save the balmera. All of which was in season 1. After that hunk honestly took the backseat in voltron.

I mentioned earlier, but the time skip on the space whale felt like we were cheated out of keith’s character development. I mean we got development, but we didn’t get to see it. The vlog short showed that keith believes a lot of his problems stems from not having a mom (and a dad) in his life. But instead of seeing keith learning to trust and open up to people despite having so many people in his life leaving him, we get a cute montage of him with his mom. As if it makes sense that two years with his mom would fix everything. (side note, I know a lot of people were saying how obvious it was that krolia was keith’s mom, I genuinely did not know until she said so at the end of that episode).

I’m not gonna talk about my thoughts on s1 and 2 because I’m pretty sure I live blogged those and honestly I don’t think I remember it.

CHARACTERS

Now I’m finally talking about the characters and I’m starting off with keith as if I haven’t talked about him enough already. I love keith. He’s undeniably one of my (if not the) favorite characters ever. And he’s obviously a fandom favorite if we’re considering the two biggest ships in the fandom. Or maybe he really is just the secret main character of voltron. We know so much about him, for someone who loves keith, it’s great. We basically know his entire backstory, and yet we know no one else’s (except maybe lotor but even that’s iffy).

I never rewatched a single voltron episode since it ended, and I can’t watch any of the connected shows (meaning shows that have the same ppl that worked on it or the same fans, think dragon prince and she-ra) because the fandom was the absolute worst one I’ve ever been in and parts legit trigger me. I am fascinated with fandoms. I love it. I chose my major because it was the closest I could get to just learning about them 24/7. But the voltron fandom was so incredibly toxic and over two ships? Honestly the fandom itself was a major reason why I couldn’t get super invested in the later seasons. I get afraid when it seems like a certain ship might happen. I actually hoped that certain characters just didn’t interact. (I’m not gonna get much deeper in this because I don’t want to touch this topic with a ten-foot pole, at least not now) Aside from that, I think that the plot and characterizations for voltron got really messy post s2. The lion switch was never handled well imo, and post switch the lions lost that sentient personality that was established in the first two seasons. It also didn’t make sense aside from the writers wanted everyone in the original lions. Or at least, we never got the proper character developments into those roles. Keith left right after becoming the black paladin.

I think another major problem with the show is how some decisions felt like pandering. I remember hearing that they didn’t kill off shiro because he was a fan favorite, so he had to stay for marketing and to make more money. But then keeping shiro alive would’ve derailed the original plot idea. I wish I could see how the story would’ve played out with shiro staying dead.

Draft 2: rewatched the show then started writing this

So I wrote a draft of this like a year ago, realized I don’t remember the show much, so I rewatched the whole show and started rewriting my thoughts.

Pre-rewatch thoughts: It was a good show that was poorly executed

Mid-rewatch thoughts: it’s a really good show that just has some weak points (the second half of lotor’s arc, team voltron’s importance in season 4-6 it feels like a lot of filler episodes until keith shows up again)

End-rewatch thoughts: it's actually a really good show. It has some weak points and some really strong points. Season 8 was confusing though. I went through most of it going yeah okay I guess that can happen.

Final verdict: it's a genuinely good show

What went wrong

It ended on its weakest season, which was also the most abstract and different season. While the main antagonist changed throughout the seasons, it still continued to be the galra empire. Even when lotor joined, the team was still fighting fractions of the galra empire. Meanwhile, season 8 didn’t have any conflict with the galra. The antagonists were honerva and the alteans, who are very different types of villains compared to the galra. There was also little build up to that change. Sure, we got to experience that briefly in season 3 when they went to the alternate reality, but I don’t think that was built up well. Also, the protagonists and the audience are just not prepared. We don’t know how the alteans work like the extent of their abilities, but we were given dozens of episodes to learn about the galra. As a result season 8 just wound up with me feeling confused and thinking “uhh sure I guess they can do that, that makes sense maybe?”

It could not pick who its protagonist is. Yeah the five humans plus allura (and coran?) are the main characters but most shows with multiple major characters still focus one one character as the protagonist. Like atla has aang, adventure time has finn, umbrella academy has five. Voltron just never picks someone and the group constantly changes too, so you end up having to not focus on any character for the sake of time. Of course not all shows do that. Teen Titans had each season focus on a particular member of the team, and tbh I was wondering if that was what they were planning for the show, especially when season 2 was so Keith focused but guess not.

It feels like they did not have the time to fully flesh out the story. Voltron came and went so incredibly fast. They had 8 seasons (technically 6 if you group up the halved seasons). But also the show only lasted 2 years. It honestly horrifies me to think of the time crunch everyone on the team was going through, especially the animators. You can see the drop in quality as there were very few scenes that involved actual animation for the middle bulk of the show. So then, how much time did they have to develop the story, in addition to execs telling them what they can and can’t do. There’s so many arcs that seemed to start then get forgotten, and I don’t blame the writers for that at all. Although I wish we could’ve learned more about Lance and the Altean sword and Keith with his apparent quintessence sensitivity, they probably just didn’t have the time to plot those out.

It had too much outside influence. Such as, the writers wanting to kill off shiro, but then being forced to keep him on the show because the execs said to. And honestly, the fandom. For example, the whole last episode with Lance getting the Altean marks (an obvious omage to ppl wanting Altean Lance).

What went right

There’s a reason why the show became so popular (aside from being a reboot of a popular 80′s show) and it’s because of the characters. I’m not about the whole “we become attached to characters because the writers did them wrong but we fans can see the potential and that’s why fan works are better” bs that I see going around this site all the time. The first season particularly wrote these characters so well. They’re relatable but also intriguing enough for you to care about what’s going to happen to them.

Some thoughts regarding popular fandom discussions:

It’s a plot-driven show with character-focused fans

I like to think of there being two ways to tell a story: by being character-focused or plot-driven. Plot driven shows are ones like atla, young justice, legend of korra, etc. There’s a conflict that gets introduced and the story revolves around that conflict. Character-focused shows are ones like adventure time or we bare bears, they’re less concerned about a plot line and focus more on the characters interacting with their world. Of course all stories incorporate both parts, just some focus more on one than the other. So, here’s where I think a lot of the issues about voltron and the fandom comes from. Voltron is a very obviously plot-driven show but the fandom is very character-focused. I won’t deny I loved the episodes about keith. Season 4 and 5 were hard for me to watch because I missed my boy. But that’s where the arguments come from. People get upset that their fav isn’t in the spotlight

It didn’t queerbait

I understand watching a show for representation, I really do, but voltron is not that show and that's okay. Not every show has to be revolutionary in its representation of marginalized people. I won't pretend to know the harmful tropes for marginalized people. My consumption of media is not usually diverse. But I will stand by my stance that a large part of voltron's later seasons is about the casualties of war. So of course a lot of people died. I also firmly believe that the producers had a much easier time adding diversity to their own created characters than the main voltron characters, because of rights and all that complicated nonsense. So as a result the ones who were more expendable and could die were also the same characters that they could add diversity too.

I’m gonna add the definition of queerbait here so we’re all on the same page: Queerbait is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation.

But here’s the thing. We were told at comic-con or one of those cons that Shiro is gay, and he had a boyfriend. They actually gave us that. Yeah it wasn’t as explicit as She-ra got, but that’s another point for later. There was no lying about it. Shiro is canonically gay, and his boyfriend was Adam. If anything, this whole thing came out of wanting Keith in a relationship with Shiro or Lance. Yes. I will admit, there are plenty of scenes between Keith and Lance, and Keith and Shiro that can be read as romantic. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but did any of the cast members tease the possibility of Kl//ance or Sh//eith (VAs don’t count, sorry but they don’t really have a say in the story)? Because unless they did, and they did repeatedly, the fandom queerbaited themselves. So many people in the fandom were so certain that Keith would be in a relationship with one of them, there was basically an all out war. Even if there was a chance, did you really think the creators (who were pretty active in early fandom days) would continue that development? It was so so toxic they were forced to shut off any possibilities of that.

In regards to minority characters

Again, I'll admit vld is not the place to go for real, proper representation. Their characters tend to be characters that happen to be a part of a minority rather than a minority character. wtf does that mean? Well, you can swap (earth) races for just about any character and it wouldn't make too much of a difference in how they act. There's some lines that wouldn't work like Lance's "I'm just a boy from Cuba" but other than that there would be no significant change. Of course this goes down to preference. Would you want a minority character whose struggles reflect those in real life and as a result be defined by that aspect of themselves, or do you want a character that just happens to be a part of a minority group but whose life is not really affected by that?

Draft 3: months after the rewatch, mostly an attempt to reorganize the previous two drafts

I’m gonna start with the negatives just to get the ranting off my chest. Season 8 was bad. Yeah. No argument there. Although I wouldn’t say it was bad in the same way Game of Thrones and Supernatural was bad. Rather, it was an interesting and complex premise that didn’t have the build up it needed and honestly needed a few more passthroughs to iron out some parts. At worse, I felt it was confusing to the point where I just accepted whatever new worldbuilding thing they threw at me. The issue with Season 8 vs Seasons 1-7 is that Season 8 had a completely different villain, and a brand new cast dynamic. We got 7 seasons (65 episodes) developing the Galra as the villain. We got to learn who they are, their motives, how they operate, etc. Not only that, but they were pretty basic and easy to understand villains. They’re conquerors. They don’t have any sort of magic, they really just use brute force to attack and enslave the planets. In striking contrast, the Alteans in Season 8 weren’t conquerors. They didn’t care about controlling the universe. They also had magic abilities that our main characters don’t understand and didn’t explore. Season 8 had villains who could create illusions, mind control, and manipulate quintessence. The Alteans are leagues beyond the Galra in terms of complexities as an antagonist, but they didn’t get nearly enough time to be fully developed.

Also, Season 8 essentially doubled the cast size. So despite the fact that we have yet to see much of Keith-as-the-black-paladin Voltron group dynamic, now that screentime is being balanced with the MFE pilots and other Garrison characters. Essentially, there were too many characters, and too little time to flesh out the ideas of this season. A side note, Haggar’s (Honerva?) motivations were lame. I think it would’ve been much more interesting if her plans were just to continue the research she did 10,000 years ago with the rift. That would’ve also brought back the rift monsters which we never got an answer for. What even are they? Instead, her goal to have a family again is really weak. Even in the flashbacks she never showed any care for the more familial aspects of her life. It didn’t make sense for that to be her drive. It also didn’t help that Season 8 came out on like the same day as Spiderverse and the antagonists for both had the same goal, but Spiderverse did an immensely better job.

Another thing that didn’t make sense to me was Keith giving the speech to the rest of the Galra. He is not the right character to give that speech. Sure he’s Galra, but he didn’t even know for most of his life. For him to say “we” like he’s also a citizen of the Galra empire feels so weird. He never grew up with the Empire’s influence, and we never saw him experiencing Galra culture with the Blade. He learned about the Galra as an outsider, and despite the fact that he’s part Galra (he doesn’t even remotely look Galra), I don’t think that gives him the authority to say a speech like that. The speech is similar to Zuko’s at the end of ATLA, and that makes me feel like it would’ve been a lot better had Lotor said it. I think even Kolivan would’ve been a better fit than Keith.

The more I’m writing about Season 8, the more I’m remembering just how messy and confusing it was. Additionally, the last bit of Season 8 was so obviously pandering to the fandom it gives me second-hand embarrassment. Lance getting those marks was so obviously referencing when people wanted Lance to be Altean in response to Keith's galra heritage. The Shiro getting married was just to make it more obvious that he’s gay, but had no build up. (There were definitely more but I didn’t write myself a list and I’m not rewatching that season)

Second, “Voltron queerbaited”. [this was posted before here]

Speaking of which, Voltron premiered summer of 2016 and ended in winter of 2018. That’s about 2 and a half years where they aired 78 episodes. That’s stupid fast, especially for an animated series. I’m constantly worried about what the people working on that show had to endure. For sure, Season 3 with Shiro coming back wasn’t written until at least Season 1. I recalled the execs demanding that Shiro not be dead since he was a popular character. It’s honestly concerning how little time they had to work on the show, and it unfortunately showed. In the later seasons, a lot of the shots were just still frames that moved across the scene. And the plot line with Lotor could’ve used some work. Although, I think Shiro being forced in there was also a reason for it being so shaky.

I honestly hate Seasons 4 & 5. I cannot tell you what happened because my brain keeps erasing it. Obviously, the lack of Keith had a huge impact on my opinion of those seasons, but it also felt like a whole lot of filler episodes, and not the fun ones with character development. With Keith mostly out of the picture, and Lance becoming the right hand of Voltron, that should’ve been a great time to develop Lance to become a second-in-command. To have him go through an arc where he overcomes his insecurities. It would’ve also been an amazing time to develop his and Shiro’s relationship. But we didn’t get any of that.

I genuinely believe Keith was supposed to stay the black paladin and Shiro wasn’t supposed to come back. Keith would be an amazing foil to Lotor. They’re both half-Galra. They’ve both been given a new leadership role that they don’t want. The middle arc always felt so weak to me, and as I mentioned earlier, the Allura/Lotor interactions were awkward. It feels shoehorned in because someone has to interact with Lotor and I guess the writers decided Allura was the best option?

Season 3-6 felt like the epitome of what happens when showrunners are forced to do whatever the execs say and have no time to properly develop their story. I’ll forever be bitter at all the character and relationship development we lost because of that. We never got to see Keith really learn to open up to the team and start to trust others. But Keith still had to get to that point, which is why I assume they had the time jump for him. It’s so disappointing because we lost what could’ve been a great character development. It also made Keith being the Black Paladin again feel cheap. We didn’t get to see the struggle he had to be the leader Shiro saw he could be. He was just suddenly leading them and they worked like a proper team.

Voltron also had a lot of plot holes. Now, I don’t expect shows to answer every question, because it’s impossible to tie everything up and leave no questions unanswered in a natural way. But, there’s a lot of things that felt like the beginning of a plot line or honestly needed some answers. Like, Lance shifting his bayard to a sword. What was the point of that if it was never mentioned again? It felt like that was an important start to an arc for him that just got forgotten. Also, what was up with Keith’s quintessence sensitivity? How was he able to sense where that druid was. How did he know he could summon his bayard to him. I think the part that bugged me the most was that Keith was the only one who did that. Also, Keith’s eyes becoming slitted during his fight with Kuron was never addressed, and I really wish it was. It felt like such a throwaway moment that could’ve been interesting to explore more. Although I’m not too upset with that one as I think we were given enough to piece together a reason for it.

#have fun with this monstrosity of a post #over 7k words #personal #my thoughts about #frxstguardian #kingofthewilderwest #honestly the only two people this post was intended for #I give up!!

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simplysparrow14 · 3 years ago

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Hi, sorry if this is strange or inappropriate, but what's Klance? I'm just starting to get into Voltron and I'd rather like to know what I'm getting myself into lol.

Hi! It’s alright, your most Ethan welcome to ask questions regarding the things that I yell about on tumblr. STRAP YOURSELVES IN BECAUSE ITS A LOT.

To summarize the whole Voltron thing: Voltron is considered to be one of the most toxic canvases in exsistance. It was mainly due to its abundance of shipping wars and toxic fandom members, most of them being “Klance stans”.

Most of the Voltron shipping community consisted of:

Klance (Keith and Lance)

Allurance (Princess Allura and Lance)

Sheith (Shiro, the black Paladin and Keith)

Essentially, Klance is the ship name for two of the characters within Voltron: Lance (the blue Paladin) and Keith (the red Paladin). It a combination of their names that most of their shippers used in order to help tag artwork and fan-art of them with.

It was once a very popular ship in the Voltron fandom, but overtime it’s made itself known as the worst shipping community in existence thanks to its toxic shippers and followers.

Allurance and Sheith were two of the more healthy shipping communities within the fandoms ( as far as I’m aware. Shipping is really big and so sometimes news of stuff gets lost)

people were pretty chill with what they had in the fandom. They were litterally just vibing with the show. In most fandoms, you’ll most likely have a group of people who will challenge your shipping views. With Voltron, it was the klancers who were challenging other people with their views.

They kept saying that Allurance was forced (even though when it was hinted at in the first episode) that Sheith was pedophilic (it’s not. Shiro never groomed Keith. They’re two consenting adults.)

To better explain:

When shipping, people have their varied preferences. Some people love the enemies to lovers, others like red/blue color variant types of characters (think ruby and sapphire from Steven universe)

People were really gung-ho about Klance becoming canon. Like, they seriously wanted Klance to become canon. People were making theory vids and posts and whatnot about how it was going to be canon (it never did. The writers literally never planned for Klance to be canon in the first place.) it went so far that literally, I remember this, people were posting things with the words: “Klance canon king!”

Allurance and Sheith shippers were also getting large amount of death threats from klancers as well, saying that we were supporting a pedophillic ship or an unhealthy ship. This is where we get the “ship wars” from, because would literally go back and forth over posts about whether their ship was right or wrong.

Oh but it gets even better: during Voltrons run on Netflix, during production, both the voice-cast, the writing staff and other members of the Voltron crew were constantly getting death threats and harassment posts from Klancers demanding that they make Klance canon.

It makes this even worse because Klance literally has no romantic chemistry. Any of the so called “chemistry that the fandom says they have is literally made up and fake.

They don’t like each other, and by the end of the show, are just good friends. They’re development is literally about them becoming friends. For a majority of the show, Lance views Keith as a rival: nothing more.

So yeah…. Klance is wack, I fucking hate it, and I hope to god it never reads its ugly ass head up again.

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wellmetooman-blog · 4 years ago

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ok so random thoughts on why I loved vld's first episode of season 8 (also, I know that vld's shipping enviroment is really toxic so keep in mind that this is just my opnion so plz dont attack me just because you ship different ships than I do) :

•they did a little tribute??? to the '80s voltron and it was very well done

•any episode that pidge has more screen time is a good episode honestly

•allura hugging pidge is just 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺I love that even though they are very different they do not have any rivalry (thats what I call writing proper characters interactions, btw I am so tired of the trope: there is only two girls in the group and they fight for male attention like??? wtf so thanks for not doing that i guess)

•the whole shopping part is just great

•allura looks so beautiful in literally all of the outfits she tried on

• because of like season 1-4 I THOUGHT LANCE WAS KIND OF ANNOYING BUT HE DIDNT DESERVE TO BE SO SAD IN THIS EPISODE AHHH HE LOOKS SO DEPRESSED :(:(:( poor lance

•speaking of lance, I was quite happy that they gave him more development other than “ haha I love girls ;);) “ and “haha jokez”. I think he portrays very well people that tend to make jokes as a copying mechanism but are hurt on the inside. ALSO PLZ DONT BE SAD AAAA YOU ARE PART OF THE TEAM AND YOU MATTER >:(

•THE KLANCE SUNSET SCENE🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺it just ahhhh my heart just melted. They are so cute and when Keith, the guy that usually avoids mushy stuff, says his true feelings for his « friend » that is having a hard time 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺it is just so wholesome and it makes me so happy.

•just Keith chilling with his wolfie watching the sunset🥺🥺🥺🥺ahhh

•lance is not someone I am really atracted to but HE LOOKS SO GOOD IN HIS DATE OUTFIT 🥺

•I really ship klance but I also think allurance is wholesome BUT it makes me so mad that they didnt devoleped it enough to make it endgame. (I will do a post soon about my opnion on this ships situations bc it is just a mess in my head rn)

•with the last point said, I loved the tree scene SO BAD, it was cute, sincere (I could really see allura's struggle of feeling lonely, lance's pain of being rejected and the way they confessed to each other was just so sincere🥺) aesthetically beautiful and their picture in the end was just🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 so dang CUTE

•luca is really atractive dang

#voltron #vld #pidge #keith kogane #allura #lancemcclain

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omegawizardposting · 4 years ago

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i mostly was into voltron for sheith and the fact that i was horny for both zarkon and sendak and i dont know what that says about me

We’re all a little bit horny for Zarkon.

I’m actually taking notes on a series for the first time in my life, and one of my notes is literally, “Established relationship between Shiro and Keith; should Sheith have been endgame?” and that’s fucking hysterical to me.

Legit, I am keeping a close eye on Shiro and Keith’s relationship, Lance and Allura’s relationship, and I’ll be watching Allura and Lotor’s relationship when the time comes to determine my feelings re: the canon validity of all three. Keith and Lance are also being monitored.

Gut reaction based solely on memory: Sheith was plausible; Allurance was obviously endgame, but not necessarily a well-written relationship; Lotura was plausible and showed some promise until MY BOY’S untimely demise (even though I would have killed for gay!Lotor); Klance was never even within the realm of plausibility.

(Also Sendak/Haxus is the most implausible of all ships, but dang me if I ain’t a sucker for workplace romance.)

#steeiydan #pondering potats

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anathtsurugi · 5 years ago

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All right, my fellow chickadees, a lot has been going on in the world of Anath Tsurugi. Much more than computer breakdowns and the allure of a shiny new fandom. While I don't imagine those of you who've recently started following me for my Good Omens content expected anything like this, I feel like those of you who have been with me for Star Wars and Red vs. Blue and longer might want to know some of this. Might want to know some of the things that have gone into the recent chapters of my work. I just feel like, maybe, I owe you all some sort of explanation?

No. That's wrong. I know I don't owe anybody anything. I suppose I just want to get it out into the world, get my thoughts in order, as it were. It doesn't matter so terribly much if nobody reads it; it will be a lot to take in. Mostly, I just want to tell you all a story. Because telling stories is how I cope, how I interact with reality. My need in all of this is to try and create something beautiful out of something that was painful.

So...would you mind if I told you a story?

As most things are with me, this is a story about love, about love and friendship and heartbreak and family and resilience. At the end, though, it's nothing more and nothing less than a story about love.

As some of you may have heard or picked up on, my wife and I have been attempting to have a baby. At this point, it's been roughly a year since the process began (financing, insurance coverage, choosing a donor, etc.). The first attempt didn't take, but the second one did. My wife got pregnant and we were both suddenly anxious/excited/hellafuckingnervous parents to be.

As honesty is the name of the game tonight, I would have to say that 'The Colder the Winter, the Warmer the Spring' has largely been fueled by my own anxieties over becoming a parent. Like...am I good enough to properly raise another human being? What human in their right mind would even give me the chance? What is it possible for someone as emotionally stunted as I am to give to a child? Is the love between my wife and I strong enough to do for a little one in a world that will already be against them merely for the crime of being born to two women?

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, I imagine you'll have seen a lot of this in my telling of the story of Zeb, Alex, and little Arkalia, and will probably see it more now that you know it's there. But really, that seems to have happened with a lot of the major storytelling undertakings in my life. The 400K Sleeping Beauty epic I wrote for the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle fandom was fueled almost exclusively by my pining for my then roommate, now wife. The MCU and Red vs. Blue verses I crafted sprang up around the planning of our wedding. I suppose this was just the natural next step, for us and for my craft. If you see genuine terror in my writing of Zeb's and Alex's fears over not being good enough parental figures for Ari, that is why. This is my way to ask and to hopefully deal with the answers to these questions.

So things were going well on planet Earth, or at least they were in our little corner of it. First trimester was plugging along. We were dreaming up names and having conversations about how we wanted to parent. I was going ugly early on the whole 'wait on your wife hand and foot' thing and upping my nutritional game in the kitchen. We were designing a Miyazaki nursery of epic geekdom and talking about how we'd be covered on all bases, since she's such a huge Harry Potter fan and I'm nothing if not an uber Star Wars nerd. I was learning she considered me a more fit parent (which makes zero sense to me, given that she's the one with a decent head on her shoulders, whereas me? I'm just a dreamer, and sometimes it seems that's all I'll ever be, but...yeah, that's a conversation for another time), but the point is that it was all fine. Sure it was nerve-wracking, but we'd figure it out somehow, just like we did everything else. It was what we wanted. We were in it together.

Then we got back the results from the genetic testing the doctor's office advised we have done.

And oh, no. No, it wasn't fine at all.

Trisomy 18.

I had never heard of Trisomy 18 before we got those results. I suppose Trisomy 21 is the one you hear about because it's actually survivable. With Trisomy 18, the 5% of babies who aren't stillborn largely don't make it past the first year. It was not, they informed us, an infallible diagnosis. They would schedule us an ultrasound to be certain, but the numbers were not in our favor.

We didn't talk to anyone but each other that week, not really certain how we wanted to handle things until we knew more. Some of the extended family is fairly religious and conservative and we just didn't need that bullshit on top of everything else. We didn't need other opinions. It was our decision, and the conclusion we came to was that if the diagnosis was truly that bleak, then we would terminate the pregnancy before things got out of hand...before continuing would bring harm to my wife or suffering to either her or the baby. At that point, it becomes a question of 'Do you love your child enough to take the decision onto yourself, even though it will break your heart? Do you love them enough not to force them to suffer for someone else's misguided notion of what is and is not life?'

I didn't consider much during that week the effect all of this was having on me. I told myself I had accepted and was prepared to move forward should the worst happen. My concern was largely for my wife and what she was going through. She was, after all, the one who'd been experiencing it all. We were barely out of the first trimester and she wasn't showing yet. So far as I knew, we hadn't reached the point of quickening. It was all still distinctly her experience. If I hoped for a miracle, it was for her sake, not my own. I thought, 'I can take it. I'm tough. Put the world on my shoulders and I'll carry it for you. I would give everything I am to take your pain from you.'

I am, as I mentioned earlier, very emotionally stunted. I know it was far from their intention, but the impression I received from my own parents growing up was that my thoughts and my feelings on any given matter were not particularly important. Oh, I was consulted, certainly. The veneer was there, but if the correct answer was not given, it was little better than if I'd said nothing at all. So I had long since ceased to say anything of any real value out loud. (In truth, my wife was one of the few people to make me feel that my thoughts and feelings had value, but again, that's another story.) I don't often give of myself outwardly. Trying to draw words from my throat is oftentimes comparable to trying to pull a ball of razor wire up from the pit of my stomach. Sometimes the only way I can give of myself is in writing. All the things I can't give voice to come out in my work. So I am, probably to an unhealthy degree, somewhat proud of my own stoicism. With me, it's always 'No. You don't get to break. No matter what they throw at you, you will not feel it. You will remain unharmed, unbent, and utterly unbroken.'

(Heh, shit. Writing it out like that now, I'm suddenly left wondering if that isn't the reason I'm so damn good at breaking characters. Because writing out those moments of absolute shatter are the only way I'll ever allow myself to feel them...because it isn't me breaking. But...in a way, it is. Isn't it.)

Point here being that allowing that mentality to boil beneath the surface will eventually erupt to sucker punch you in the face. That happened to me as I was leaving work to go and pick my wife up for the ultrasound. The thoughts I hadn't allowed myself to think all week suddenly started to creep in on me.

Is this...somehow my fault?

(At the level of logic, you know it's not. It's a bloody game of genetic roulette. A one in five thousand chance. But there's always the one. Somebody's always going to take the bullet.)

Was I not ready for this? Did I not want it enough?

(Ridiculous. I know what it's like to get shafted at the genetic lottery. I've been dealing with PCOS since I was 18. While the disease isn't fully understood, there is a genetic component. Saying that this was somehow either of our fault was akin to saying that my own illness was somehow my fault. Even so...even so, you can't help but ask...)

Bloody fucking hell! Did I do this? Was there something- anything I could've done to stop this?

(You know. You know you couldn't have done. But still the thought haunts you.)

I hadn't allowed myself to feel it...to cry. I don't doubt that we both hoped for their numbers to somehow be wrong, but I think we both already knew at that point that it was over, and I hadn't let myself start to grieve. So there I was, hurtling down the highway with tears pouring silently down my face.

Traffic depending, it takes anywhere from a half hour to an hour to get between the bookstore and her office, so I had time to get myself back in order. I didn't want to make this any worse for her than it already was. I know what it does to her to know I've been crying, since I do it so rarely.

(You don't get to break.)

But...well...then something happened on the way to the hospital. I had my iphone on shuffle playing the playlist I'd compiled to listen to while working on Star Wars fic, and while we were driving, our wedding song came up in the shuffle. 'Boxes' by the Goo Goo Dolls. We had our first dance to it and I sang it to her while we danced.

I need a family to drive me crazy

Call me out when I'm low and lazy

It won't be perfect, but we'll be fine

'Cause I've got your back and you've got mine

I should probably have it understood that I have 'Boxes' on all of my writing playlists. It's just the love song to me now, and as far as fic writing goes, I tend to gravitate to ships that reflect the relationship my wife and I share. Kalluzeb, KuroFai, Bagginshield, Stucky, SpiritAssassin, MaineWash, Shallura, Kanera, Klance, Sterek, Zutara, and now, of course, the Ineffable Husbands themselves. The list goes on, believe me. Every word I write for each one of my couples is my love song to her, and my experience of the love between us. If you've ever commented on the depth of love and emotion you felt when reading one of my stories, then you've felt what I've felt, and I hope I've made your world a little brighter for it. In this particular instance, though...this...our love song...if we were going to have a miracle that day, that was it. (I know. One song on one playlist, nothing particularly miraculous there. But a one in seven hundred chance during a fifteen minute drive? I was going to take what I could get.)

You are the memory that won't ever lapse

When twenty-five years have suddenly passed

Wherever you take me, it's clear I will go

Your love's the one love that I need to know

You are the sun in the desolate sky

Your life's in these words and it can't be denied

Wherever you take me, it's clear I will go

Your love's the one love that I need to know

If I hadn't been driving, I would've reached out to hold her hand then. Normally, we sing the song together when it comes on, then we play it again, maybe a third time if we're really feeling it. I couldn't sing this time, not during the first play through, anyway. I was a little too choked up. But I managed a few of the lyrics the second time through.

I don't have the words to tell you what a comfort that song was in that moment. It could've been any song on that playlist, but it just happened to be that one.

(This hurts. We're both writers, but I don't think either of us could hope to express just how much it hurts. But remember...I chose you and you chose me. You were my dearest friend and I love you more than I can ever hope to say. It hurts now. It may never not hurt, but we'll get through. We'll be fine. We'll get through it together, like we came through everything else to stand at the altar together...and how we'll come through it all again to hold a new little someone. We're here together.)

So we faced it together, got the news we were expecting. There were other tests they could've done, but neither of us saw any point to it by then. Even if it wasn't specifically Trisomy 18, it was plainly something just as bad. We made the call there, and I do want it understood that we made the decision to terminate the pregnancy. Despite what ultimately ended up happening, I won't have that spun any other way.

So calls were made, insurances were checked out, and the procedure was scheduled. We were, unfortunately, just a touch too far outside the first trimester to safely be able to just take a pill. The abortion had to be done surgically, and my wife preferred to be put under for it, fearing she might panic if she were conscious.

And I did, of course, promise to tell you how this all started to align with the writing of the more recent chapters of TCTW, along with my beginning scraps of Good Omens fic. It began that same day, actually – the day of the ultrasound. Because I had to come home from that and write Ash's birth scene.

That wasn't all that difficult. Largely numb at that point, I didn't have much trouble writing out the dream of a happy birth. But it started to get harder a few days later when I was sitting alone in the waiting room. By then I was working on the scene where Kallus is finally able to contact Zeb after coming out of his two week coma. It wasn't even a little bit of a stretch for me to write Zeb's desperation and panic during that scene because they were my own (though I suppose I managed to spare myself a little grief writing the scene from Kallus' POV instead of Zeb's).

Another thing I ought to tell you about myself is that I'm...something of a method writer, I suppose is the term, in that I will attempt to write when I'm angry, when I'm in pain, when I'm exhausted, when I'm heartbroken, in an effort to convey the experience of these things faithfully. So, in some strange way, this was almost...familiar territory for me. To write my own feelings into the scene as it was happening. Everything came off without any trouble. The doctors came to me after it was over and told me that he'd already had no heartbeat by the time they'd begun the procedure. It was comforting in its own way. Eliminated several question marks as to whether or not we'd made the right choice. I brought my wife home once she was awake enough to be discharged, and it seemed we were pretty well on the road to recovery. But, as some of you may have already noticed, this is where we come to the part of the story where something more is lost.

My wife needed something to turn her attention to, so it seemed to us a good time to handle OS updates for my eight-year-old laptop, which was an odyssey of itself. Point being that somewhere in the middle of all this my WIP draft of that chapter was lost to the digital ether.

Everyone around me was asking why it should be so hard to rewrite the lost scene. After all, I'd written it before, hadn't I?

Yes. Yes, I had.

I had written that scene when I was alone in a hospital waiting room, heartbroken and afraid, conscious every moment for an experience my wife was blessedly able to sleep through. This was why it was so devastating to me to lose that scene. Bitter as it was, it was a piece I'd poured a large part of my heart into in a moment of despair. In its own odd way, it had been beautiful in its desolation. I had already lost something precious that day. Why did I also have to lose what I had managed to create from that anguish?

It was a moment I knew I never wanted to revisit. Nor could I ever hope to recapture the emotion of it in writing, no matter how many times I tried. I could never portray the rawness of what I'd felt in that moment. So I didn't try. The scene as it exists now is particularly disheartening to me, not because it's bad, but because it's just...not what I wrote. The scene currently in the story is hollow and has no heart. There's no truth in it. The piece of my self that I gave in that moment was lost, and I can never get it back.

So, with yet one more loss endured, I continued on. I managed to make the rest of that chapter what I wanted it to be, so I could at least be proud of that. Chapter 15 was also easy enough to handle, as it was far removed from the family and childbirth aspects of the story, simply building upon what already existed in Rebels canon. But then the time came to write chapter 16, and once again I struggled.

By its very nature, TCTW has always heavily featured pregnancy and childbirth, so there was never going to be any skirting that, but another aspect I had always planned for was Zelina experiencing the death of one of the babies she was delivering. It was always meant to be part of her character arc as a rising medic and I knew I couldn't turn away from it. My wife asked me if I could change it, but I wasn't going to do that. If I was going to change something like that, it was going to be because the story merited it, because it would benefit from such a change. It was not going to be because of my own weakness. Even so, I know I delayed writing it for as long as I feasibly could. (That was also when Good Omens started to come into the picture, but we'll unpack that in a moment.)

For all I claimed to be a method writer just a few paragraphs ago, I can tell you now that I've never had such a visceral response to a scene I was actively writing as I did that one. My fingers trembled on the keys, feeling a little weak as I moved through the words. In fact, my whole body felt weak and I had to bite down hard on my lip to keep back the feeling of nausea, everything inside of me rebelling at the notion of describing the death of this little baby. For all Zelina's experience with Akinah and her stillborn son is such a small part of the overall chapter, of the overall story, it was still the hardest thing I'd ever had to write. As with everything else, though, it seems I managed to keep this in, too, as my wife tells me none of this was outwardly visible while I was writing. I sat next to her the whole time and, apparently, the only indication I gave that anything was wrong was the fact that I was still and quiet throughout. (To give you a better standard of comparison for what she's used to, I'm normally much more expressive when I write. I'll start mouthing dialogue or testing out expressions or gestures I'm describing. I once had to explain to my brother-in-law that I was actually channeling a character when he was concerned over a horrified look I had in my eyes at the time. If I, personally, were horrified, you wouldn't know it. All you would get would be a blank slate. So of course my wife would notice something was off this time.)

It was such a little thing...such a little thing, but still it was hard. It was a relief to move on, to have death and despair conquered throughout the rest of the chapter, but even near the end of it, when Zeb is lingering over saying goodbye to Arkalia, knowing he'll have to give her up...in some small way, he speaks with my voice...saying goodbye to the son my wife and I might have had.

Of course, that particular goodbye will turn out much happier than my own did in the end. But will you be seeing me continue to deal with this a lot in future pieces? Most definitely. TCTW will continue to bear most of the emotional fulcrum (yup, little in joke there), but it's also why I've been getting into writing Good Omens fic of late. Though the theme of parenting's remained the same, it's allowed me to turn my energies toward things a little more light-hearted. This was all about the time I started piecing together my little Good Omens 'Star Wars' AU, and when I put out my mini one shot of Crowley and Aziraphale as parents. Though I have started to come up with a wider verse for that particular ficlet (because it's me; how can I not? There's actually an in joke with my wife and I whenever the subject of long fic comes up with me. She'll ask, "What's the one thing I asked you not to do?" "Write Sleeping Beauty." "And what did you do?" "Wrote Sleeping Beauty," I respond meekly.).

And for all I said my Good Omens fic is giving me the opportunity for more light-hearted fare, I have also got a story idea that deals with Crowley and Aziraphale losing a pregnancy, but also with the one they don't lose. So you'll be seeing me deal, yes, but hopefully you'll also see some worthwhile stories come out of it all since, as I said, telling stories is how I cope. You'll be seeing my newly blended concoctions of angst, loss, and sorrow, but you'll see joy from me, as well. Because, as a great storyteller once said, "...let there also be Hope. It may be a grim, thin hope...but let us know that we do not live in vain." Really, that's what writing and storytelling are to me, whether they be fan fiction or any other kind – torches against the long nights that are pain and sadness, and blades against the endless tangles of thorns that are self-doubt and fear.

Wow. Heheh. Waxed hella poetic for a minute there. But no. I don't think I'll tone it down. It's a truth, and whether that truth is used to discover the strength to be a parent through a Rebel warrior and an ex-Imperial, to find a way to live through pain with an angel and a demon who have endured for over 6,000 years, or even just to find the way to a smile with a ninja and a mage in a coffeeshop AU where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts...a truth is a truth. My wife and I might not ever be facing down giant planet-killing super weapons or averting the Apocalypse with nothing more than a flaming sword and a tire iron, but when our IRL challenges feel as insurmountable as those things, well...it helps to be able to weave a story and begin to find some of those truths.

And yes, we are doing better. It's been a few months now and we're starting over again. The going can just be a little slow since not every attempt is successful and, let's face it, assisted reproductive technology don't come cheap. And as much work as I put into my fic writing, there's not a whole lot of money to be made in the field (none at all, in fact, but...turning away from it...who really wants to read another publishing hopeful's dewy-eyed delusions of sci-fi grandeur?). So if the going seems slower with me, I do apologize. Know that I never cease to write (as I'm quite certain that if I did, I would simply go mad...*backward glance* er...well...madder, at any rate, but that's neither here nor there) and I'm hopeful of creating some good things from all this. It just...sometimes it takes a while to slog through everything. So, as always, I hope I continue to do for you. Whatever capacity you might support me or my work in, know that my wife and I appreciate it.

It won't be perfect, but we'll be fine.

#Adventures in storytelling #Kalluzeb #Star Wars Rebels #Misadventures in reproduction #Ineffable Husbands #Good Omens #Miscarriage #Abortion #Fandom and how it relates to my life my love and my work #I guess you could call this a behind the scenes look #Personal

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witchycosmo · 6 years ago

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Why I think voltron fucked up and fucked up bad

(this is going to include spoilers and a lot of ranting and bitching on what could have been a great series but was fucked up more than it’s own fandom)

Forget klance, forget allurance, forget all the ships, I don’t give a fuck about that this season!

Let’s start with the biggest (in my opinion) fuck up the show did, Lance’s character. I know a lot of fans overhype his character, and I have to agree, the fandom does have favor Lance a lot more than the other characters of voltron. But you have to understand why the fans care for Lance so much, it’s because of how relatable and likable his character is. Not to mention the amount of potential before this god aweful season. Lance started out as a flawed character with a few insecurities he hid through his boisterous attitude and confidence. With how the show started off, it felt they were going to delve more into his insecurities and where he saw himself on the team, allowing him to truely learn about himself and maybe even become an even bigger part of team voltron. But nope. Fuck that shit! Throw all that build up into a lack luster arch on his relationship with Allura and focus most of his character around their romance!

In the scene where the team meets the original paladins, Lance meets Alfor and Allura meets the Blayz. This part really pissed me off because it only served to point out this problem. Imagine if it were Lance meeting Blayz. The two have the exact conversation he and Allura had. It would fit so much better. It would also make the reunion with Allura and her Father so much more powerful. Her getting to see her father only driving her more and when he is freed from Honerva, the emotions would have been so much stronger.

Lance becoming a farmer was a stupid idea that only drives my point ever further! Lance saying he wants a simple life, to me, is bull shit! He started out wanting to become a fighter pilot for Christ sake! And looked for adventure (the scene in of him flying the blue lion and the animation in how he reacts fucking shows this!) The writers really fucked up its character, even when they had so many opportunities. Not to mention the fucking Altean bullshit they pulled out of their asses that I really don’t want to get into because this is long enough!

Second, Allura. They killed her off. It was a fucking stupid idea in the first place. Why did the writers kill her off? Was there even a legit reason? I didn’t see one!

I don’t even want to talk about how she was one of the only main female character of color! Do I think the writers had racist intent? No. Does that make it any better? No really. It just shows how much the righters weren’t really thinking in the first place.

Third, the righting in general. It was just bad. Lance turned Altean because... I don’t know. There were two filler episodes in a row. One was Kinkade making a documentary about life on the Atlas and Voltron. There was a scene that lasted about ten minutes that had a dog holding the camera. It was slow and boring. Ezor just... turn good... for reasons. Bullshit excuses everywhere. The ending. Shiro marrys some random dude, and while great for lgbt wedding, it’s out of now where and just thrown into the story. It last a minute or less.

Fanfiction writers show more respect to the show than the actual fucking writers for Voltron. How can an unpaid teenager write a better story than a paid professional?

What I am mostly pissed about, is how the show could have been so much more than what it turned out to be. Voltron could have been so much more. And I’m not talking about representation or pregression in media and shows, though that is a big part. I’m talking about how it could have been this amazing adventure where these 7 amazing characters explore space and fight to keep the universe safe from the galra and learn more about their team and themselves while also learning maybe things aren’t as black and white as they seem. While the show started with this concept, it fell the moment Lotor turned traitor. That, I think, is where the show truly started to suffer.

Don’t even get me started on how the show runners decide to hype up the show.

Fans had put so much into this season, hoping it would fix the show. But instead it only made it worse and brought what most seasons kept at minimum, to a much greater level. It show caste all what was wrong with the show and only made it worse.

This season was meant to fix what started out as a great show, but it only managed to make it worse.

Like with Lance, the show help so much potential, but ended up being wasted away.

(Sorry for how long this is and it just being me bitchy about the new season. I really just needed to share my thoughts and clear my head. I really think the only reason I stayed in this fandom is because of how many amazing artist and writers are in it and how creative the fandom can be.

Despite how fucked up this fandom can be, and Voltron not being that great of a show, it’s the creativity the show inspires and bring out the best of people’s talents.

I only wish the show would live up these fans that create because they see something more.)

What are your thoughts?

#voltron

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blu-boi-is-best-boi · 6 years ago

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I know Klance stans are dead, But, are we really?

I know Klance fans are in the ringer, but I’ve looked over season 6 and I understand everything.

Allurance was planned from the begining.

I know i’m going to sound crazy, but it will make sense when I explain.

During season 6 Lauren shot down as many ships as she could, for a specific reason.

Lotura, BOOM GONE

Sheith, Buried

Lauren planned everything, she plotted this season like a motherfucker. She is planning for Klance.

-Now, let me explain how, and why-

I’ve been a writer since 5th grade and understanding plots, climaxes and resolutions is my very purpose of being an Author, not just off fan-fictions.

Lauren is under a position of no choice, her entire team has practically spoiled her endgame already. This is why none of the VAs talked about Allurance.

Allurance is an illusion to strain you away from Klance, it’s called preserving plot. She’s making us think that Allurance is the end game on purpose. She’s wanting to keep Klance a surprise. Now, I don’t blame her but the way she’s doing it is cruel, but effective. Now, I’m not against Allurance shippers, I respect you, this is just analyzing, please understand I’m a multishipper. Now my conclusion, Lauren...

She’s using Lance.

Lance obviously is in love with Allura, but Allura doesn’t love him back. It’s a love quarrel that’s been going on since the beginning. But, Allura was in love with Lotor, and she still is...

She wanted to save Lotor, on the very fact she had feelings for him. She loved him.

But here comes in Lance into this situation, he’s a rebound. Allura is only accepting his love on the fact that she is heartbroken. She doesn’t know what to do, she doesn’t know how to handle it.

Lance falls for this, while Allura doesn’t realize what she’s exactly doing. Here’s where Lauren comes in. I’m sorry to say this, but Allurance will be cannon for a while, it’s her plan overall.

Once Lance realizes that she doesn’t love him, his world is going to start to fall apart. Currently, Allura is his world, and when Lotor started coming around, he realized this world was falling apart. Lance is vulnerable, he’ll do anything for the princess. Even if that means being a rebound, both of them are breaking their hearts together. It’s a toxic relationship because of her love for Lotor.

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Now Keith, we’ve learned a lot about him in this season. His birth, how he came etc. Because of these reasons he has learned about himself, he isn’t an orphan who’s mom didn’t care about him. Krolia loved her son, enough to sacrifice herself, Keith understands this now, his vlog

“I don’t know why I’m that way…maybe…I’m naturally untrusting because my mom left me?! and so instead of accepting people into my life…I push them away before they reject me? I guess I have some walls up”

This quote is powerful, a lot more powerful than what the fandom thinks, he didn’t trust anyone. He even didn’t trust Shiro for the longest time.

Shiro is a large key part to his development, he still questioned Shiro if he was going to leave him, even after countless times of Shiro telling him otherwise. He loves Shiro, not in a romantic way but a bond that of like a father/brother figure. This bond is extremely strong, and he questioned that from the beginning.

LIKE, is the key word, he was unsure, and from even then we knew Keith wasn’t feeling right, or in place.

Season 6 changed this questioning, he no longer questioned, Shiro is his brother, and he will always love him that way. He’s accepted who he is, a Galran, BOM member, and Paladin of Voltron. He’s accepted people, fully into his life, he trusts Shiro.

This is why he is developmentally ready for a romantic interest. The Keith arc is over.

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This is also why he ignored Lance, during when they met, he had priorities.

Lotor and Shiro, because of what the planet showed him, that Shiro was going to loose it. He had no time to re-coop with ANY of the team at all, not just Lance. He had learned some info, that needed to be given.

Lance walking up to him, just shows he still has interest, but when Keith shows none, he’s confused.

Lance is confused, he wants to love Allura, and remembers the bonding moment. He chooses to ignore the bonding moment. He isn’t ready to move on from Allura. Allurance fixes this issue, though it is cruel.

Lance isn’t physically ready for Keith, even though he pines for him, he is distracted by Allura, and until she drops the ‘I wasn’t intrested in you, I was just heartbroken’ He will not move on.

Now during this Lance development, Keith might get a boyfriend. It’s a large possibility due to jealousy, and pinning over Lance when he’s dating Allura.

It’s just plot writing, and physically makes sense, I didn’t want to post this until I had enough information....

Season 6 provided, I clicked the puzzle pieces.

Edit:

In no way am I saying Allura is going to be bad and use Lance, I'm saying that she's going to do it out of instinct. She will not do it on purpose.... I feel it will be also a mutual decision to them...

I'm open for surprises, remember please, this is just a theory, it's not a definite, I ship also Sheith, Klance, Hance, Shance, Allurance (Fem&Hetero). Hidge, Hunnay and many others, this is just my joke/Klance page. I'm sorry if I made it seem like I was Demonizing Allura, but I wasn't... I love my baby girl and I'm so sad for her right now...

And please, I think we need to just stop believing what Lauren tells us, until the season is out and she analyzes her writing. She's lied to us to keep surprises before, the VAs seem to be the only one's hinting at things correctly.

I just want my boys to be happy, and possibly together... Klance doesn't have to be the end game, this is just what I believe.

#allurance #vld lance #vld keith #season 6 #voltron #voltron season 6 #spoilers #voltron allura #princess allura #vld allura #klance #keith x lance #season 6 theories #lauren montgomery #lance x keith #voltron legendary defender #vld

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rachello344 · 6 years ago

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Anti Blog Spotter’s Guide

I’ve been thinking about making this post for a while, so let’s get this started. An incomplete list of the (many) ways I identify antis. A brief note before we begin: Many of the traits on their own are totally harmless, but more than three or so marks a pattern. Most of the time, they self identify, which is helpful, but anti ideology is rampant these days. You can never be too careful.

A secondary note, I advocate for blocking antis, but if any of them change their mind, if they leave the ideology behind, I am all for welcoming them with open arms. We all make mistakes, and we’re only human.

All under the cut for length

They call themselves an Anti, or in some cases an Anti Anti (Anti Antis are typically against antis in cases where they’re affected, but they might actually be an anti in a different fandom. i.e. someone who ships Sheith, but is anti-BakuDeku might identify as an Anti-Anti even though they are themselves an Anti )

Pastel Icon or a character with a particular pride flag overlaid (this one is obviously not always the case, but should be seen in conjunction with other things like username and content)

Character-Against-Thing (Thing = Pedophilia, Incest, Rape, etc.)

“It’s called having morals”

“Why can’t you freaks be normal”

All things they hate in fiction directly tie in to sex and sexuality and romance. No outrage against regular violence (except “abuse” which is a very broad category when wielded by an anti)

“Kink Critical”

No redemption for any bad characters

You must classify your interest in anything problematic or else you condone said problematic thing

Thinks Ao3 condones and promotes Bad Fictional Content, but still uses Ao3 on the regular

“X relationship is abusive and will always only be abusive”

“X version of the relationship is BAD, I only support the healthier version, Y”

“ya nasties”

“Do not follow/interact” lists; seriously do not interact is like a huge flag for me, no matter who they’re apparently against interacting with them

“X is just another word for Y” (usually X being some Ao3 tag and Y being abuse, rape, incest, or some other word they can use to shut down the argument)

“Queer is a slur”

“straight people are wild” or “all men are X” (X being abusers or something else negative; this is actually recycled exclusionist/radfem rhetoric, but none of them seem to notice that since they’re all “woke” and would never exclude anyone, except “nasty” people who deserve harassment and bullying)

“fujoshit” “fujoshis are fetishizing mlm”

Fetishize, romanticize, and normalize used all the time

“soft sapphic” “pure” “wholesome”

“it’s not censorship, it’s common sense” (It’s definitely censorship)

“you can write your gross shit in some journal instead of exposing the rest of us to it”

“bad content can be used by abusers/predators to GROOM MINORS”

“think of the children!”

"[Why do you/Just say you] hate [lesbians/gay men]"

Responds to any and all arguments in the same way as all other antis, parroting their lines word for word. Also, shuts down arguments with insults or pithy one liners. (Largely performative outrage and virtue signaling.)

“it’s not bullying, it’s justifiable criticism.”

“if you write/draw gross shit, you should be held accountable” but they never go after the mainstream

“fiction affects reality” used as some kind of catchall

“block me if” instead of blocking on their own and curating their blogging experience

An apparent inability to use a tag blocker or exclude tags from the search results on Ao3. Even knowing the Bad Content is there is apparently too much.

Generally 13-25 years old, genders and sexualities vary, although I’ve never seen an anti ID as queer. If someone has, I’d actually be interested to hear that.

The two most common ships I’ve seen have been KL and KRBK but I’m sure there are others.

People who dropped Voltron for Dragon Prince and SheRa are almost all invariably antis.

People who think that there are no antis in My Hero Academia

In Voltron specifically: ships Klance, ships "Leakira", ships Shadam, and/or Broganes Only. frequently self-labeled as anti Pidge/other Paladins, anti Shiro/other Paladins, anti Shallura, anti Kallura, anti Lotura, anti Shidge, anti Sheith, and/or hates Allurance, Keith/Axca, or any of the above. Hated Season 7. Wanted to replace Voltron with their “reboot” (”Leakira” etc.).

#fandom meta #my meta #Anti Blog Spotter's Guide

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voltron-ish · 6 years ago

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Like Two Weeks??

I forgot season 7 was released only like two weeks ago and so much has happened? Literally feels like a month went by lmao.

I’ve aged 5 years. Here is a list of things I sorta remember but everything kind of blurs together?

•all hell breaks loose

•Hunk stans are Living™️

•Lance stans are Dying™️

•Keith stans are ??? confused

•People claim queerbaits

•People call them snowflakes

•(actual dialogue i read on twitter)

•”voltron didn’t queerbait you, you queerbaited yourselves”

•this person whipped the longest list of conspiracies, interactions and promises made in interviews with DIRECT quotes and pictures and i jusT sat there laughing my ass off

•Cus like ;; both these people could’ve contributed to the fandom is some positive way but they argued online KNOWING the other person wouldnt change their perspective

•Suddenly people overly praise the season (like chill Sharon) or they’re pure assholes about it

•Some of the tweets were funny though don’t lie to yourself

•(tbh i try to stay neutral bc i see both sides and I’m sick of being sad)

•Neutral party simutaneously combusts

•First shiro cosplayers had to change their wig colors now they gotta figure out how to work his new arm lmao

•Kinkade can step on us all

•So can Matt

•Where did all this heterosexuality come from?

•LOOK i’m a slut for Allurance (or any Lance ship) but it came out of nowhere.

•Do it right if you’re going to do it at all?

• A x C a ? !’x ?

• the lesbians are diddly dead

•There’s a positivity week thing going on and I appreciate whoever started it

•Leakira rises

•”It’s a reboot”

•”You can’t reboot cus copyright”

•”It’s an AU you know we can’t really afford to reboot anything lmao”

•??? Somehow people made it negative?

• Klance conspiracy theories still make sense even tho Klance is dead af

•Like six feet under dead

•asdeadasadam

•Sheith shippers ;; that ship has been shot in the head twice, put in a bag and thrown in a river but ya’ll still stand

•Respek to all of you

•Hunay is canon

• I Love Romelle

•The entire holt family basically owns the show, they had more screentime than half of the paladins good god

•I really didn’t see anyone using the DOT to harass the creators (not saying there wasn’t people doing it bc this fandom has assholes in it) but there were more individuals upset over the creation than those using it to be rude or mean

•But go oFF i guess

•All of you are in your feelings bc Shaladins and Klancers is still a thing

•both sides suck??

• i reblogged klance and this person asked me to unreblog because im a shaladin (i like shance shut up)

• but i tell certain shaladins i like klance and they automatically assume the worse like lmao

•imma just reblog what i like and be happy

•Never saw a fandom literally divide itself like this- I’D RATHER BE A FURRY THAN JOIN ANOTHER FANDOM LIKE VLD

•All the concept art was cute tho (for DOT)

•Adam vine on loop (i actually still cry ((seriously)) but death jokes and vines help me cope)

•James is still a rude boi and if he wasn’t attractive half of you would hate him

• But I totally understand because I’m in love with Lotor

• VLD taken off the LGBT+ list on Netflix

•Apologies from LM and JS.

•MFE spin off?

•I will throw hands if they get a spin off before Lance even gets some proper flash backs

•I know Keef’s the main character but I will literally take 1 (one) minute of Lonce development

• idk how klance is still top in the fandometrics but at least Lance is #1 somewhere bc it’ll never be in VLD

•im bitter bc i love him and ur lying if u think he really got all he deserved during this shows two years of airing

Comment what I missed because there’s a ton but I’m too tired to keep going

Edits:

•How could I forget JEITH and KINKANCE

•Veronica! Veronica! Veronicaaaa (to the tune of that Heather song)

• “DON’T YOU TOUCH HER” our heroic son protecting pidge is my kink

•Dirty Laundry is now Dirty Launbee and im sad but i just cant not laugh at that

•The Marks We Make is also gone ?? Like all the klannce fics are going one by one lmao

• The Klible is gone :)

•We got shieth shirts. Not sheith. S h i e t h.

• now we have klance shirts and apparenlty lance was white washed

•how is dreamworks/vld gonna profit off of lgbt ships but not make any canon?? Que??

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theevershipping · 6 years ago

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Most Sensible Voltron End Game Ships:

Note: this doesn't mean I don't LIKE other ships, but logically, given that Voltron is a CHILDREN'S CARTOON, these ones make the most sense story-telling wise. Here's why.

Hunk/Romelle:

I start here because I think this will likely be the least controversial. They set up in the first ep of S7 that Romelle and Hunk clearly think alike. They also set up that even though Lance is attracted to Romelle initially, she soon actually annoys him. On the other hand Hunk finds Romelle's thought processes to be so like his own that he acts she's like his own personal God-send ("It's like, I think it, you say it!") Likewise, Romelle seems to rather enjoy her interactions with Hunk, and the way he supports her curiousity. For once Hunk gets to be the one "in the know", and Romelle likes and appreciates the way that he interacts with her.

I know there's a lot of talk about doing right by an LGBTQ+ rep character, but I think the "Nice guy who's really smart and awesome but happens to not be conventionally attractive" rep deserves to get an attractive girl who he really does genuinely like and connect with and who genuinely likes, connects with, and respects him.

Lance/Pidge:

Although we are all understandably wary of trusting anything the writers say at this point, they have pretty much said that they do have an end game for Lance and it's not Allura. While I'd personally love to see a Klance ending, it seems pretty clear that Lance and Keith are both being set up to be straight--Lance shows attraction to basically every conventionally attractive female, and Keith/Acxa is a thing (and a reasonable thing, which I will get to next). So..

Lance and Pidge: first off, Pidge constantly points out and makes fun of Lance's crush on Allura, and at times even seems annoyed by it. She definitely doesn't show any sign of caring about the romantic interests of any of the other characters. Although it's been subtle, as Pidge's priorities have clearly, and rightly, been elsewhere, there's been some hints from the beginning that she's certainly paying attention to Lance's love interests, and is maybe jealous and just covering it up by making fun of him--which is pretty age appropriate, and typical of girls with older brothers: She's more comfortable approaching him on guy level and expressing her annoyances (unconscious jealously) through teasing him and, in the process, attempting to dissuade him from said romantic pursuits.

The writer's stated that Lance would get what he NEEDS in a relationship, not what he WANTS. Pidge is not girly/feminine in an aesthetic sense (what Lance thinks he WANTS), but she's perfectly pretty--it's not like Lance wouldn't be attracted to her once he gets passed his old-school markers of attraction based purely on conventional outer symbols of femininity (I.e. If he saw Pidge a few years older and in a dress, he'd almost certainly have a different reaction to her). Pidge does have an abundance of qualities that Lance NEEDS in a partner.

Pidge and Lance balance and trust each other. They have from the very first episode of Voltron. If you think of the first episode as establishing our main and most relatable characters, we really enter the story through the trio of Lance, Pidge and Hunk. Keith and Shiro--who they are and how they're involved in what's happening--are mostly mysteries to us in the first ep. In the typical trio story set up you have the main male character, who represents ego, in story structure, and you have his two best friends, who represent his ID and Super-ego. Often the Super-Ego character is female, and the ID male. The function of the super-ego is to check, regulate and correct the impulses of the ego, which the ID often supports/supplies. The super-ego, basically, is the one who thinks things through, when the ego doesn't want to, and the ID can't. Pidge is the super-ego.

What Lance NEEDS is someone who he both implicitly trusts and who can be the things he isn't in such a way that it helps him to grow, while still having his partner see him as an equal and having respect for the qualities and strengths he has as an individual and that he contributes to the balance of the relationship.

Allurance shippers will say "Allura can be those things too!" But she can't, because she is not and never will be his equal. She is a 10,000 year old Princess from a race of people that are vastly more evolved than humans. She was raised to rule a planet and take on the burden of the universe. No matter how much she might LIKE Lance and trusts him as an ally and a friend, that quality of equality and challenge that actually attracts confident and capable women to men does not exist between Allura and Lance--which is why she was attracted to Lotor.

The contrast between how Allura reacts to Lotor and how she reacts to Lance is a great representation of what creates actual romantic attraction vs. friendship compatibility: Lotor is her equal in his own right and can challenge her to see and grow beyond her pre-conceived notions, while having enough similarities that he understands and fits into the world she comes from and will return to (that of Galatic leadership and responsibility). Allura and Lance do not have that kind of shared reality and the ability to build together as equals that comes with it.

Pidge and Lance, on the other hand, start from the same place--they're kids who were smart and capable and followed a dream, and who have taken on the unanticipated responsibilities and adventures that came as a consequence of following that dream. They constantly demonstrate that their gut instincts are aligned. They do not have fundemental differences in terms of values and unconscious life expectations, and those things matter when you're talking endgame, because endgame means when two people are grown ups and they have kids and grow old together--that real life stuff.

Allura and Lance might have a minor romantic arch, in fact I suspect they will, because they will need to in order for all both Allura and Lance to fully realize they're not compatible. This will also force Pidge to become conscious of her feelings for Lance. From there we can from there spring board into Pidge/Lance and back into...

Lotor/Allura:

So, I'm not at all surprised we didn't see Lotor or Haggar in Season 7. It would have been too easy. We needed the stakes to be much higher, and the only way to do that was to bring the Galra threat to Earth, which couldn't have happened with Lotor as Emporer, or even with Haggar in charge--she's a much bigger schemer than just blindly chasing those lions across the galaxy like all those dumb male Galra meatheads want to do. Also, it gives her time to realisticly retrieve Lotor, fix him physically, and in the process develop some sort of relationship that would lead to them trusting each other enough to come back (allegedly) on the same side in S8.

I don't want to speculate on the plot of S8, and I won't. But I think that plot stuff aside, Lotor has to come back for the sake of Allura's character development.

ALLURA IS A RACIST. She is not malicious (just like most racists aren't malicious). But she seriously discriminates against the Galra just for them being Galra. She has a reason, no one can deny that--Just like someone who gets beat up by a gang of white guys has a reason to be wary of groups of white men, and they might take the trauma of the experience to the degree that they unconsciously start to demonize white men as a group... The trauma creates predudice because the brain is looking for a way to protect you from the trauma that just occurred. So it notes visual markers associated with the trauma, and when it later sees those markers it gets triggered into a state of flight/fight in order to (ideally) prevent you from reexperiencing the trauma associated with those physical markers. It's an evolutionary imperative--it's why we all jump across the room when we see a spider. But this primal imperative does lead to discrimination against groups of people. In my example, being fearful of groups of white men after being the victim of a gang beating is understandable, but is still a PREJUDICE based on their physical likeness to individuals who committed terrible acts, when in reality those physical traits have nothing to do with the terrible act.

It seemed like Allura was making progress with her predudices because of her relationship with Lotor, but Lotor is half Altean. He had to prove to her several times that he was "civilized" and even more knowledgeable about aspects of Altea than her. She fell in love with the Altean part of him. The literal second that she was given reason (by an ALTEAN stranger) to believe that he'd done something terrible and “GALRAN”, she instantly jumped to betraying him without even listening to his side of the story. This act proves that she didn't ever actually consciously see and acknowledge her predjudice and the irrational assumptions it causes her to make, she just was able to temporarily over look the Galran in Lotor for the Altean. So, Allura still has some major self realization to do in this department.

Next, the rash actions of the Paladins destroyed what could have been peace in the universe. Lotor gave them the option pretty much up until the end to stop and think things through even after they betrayed and attacked him. But at the end of S6 it's pretty clear it's Allura calling the shots on whether or not the team listens to Lotor or fights him. And we all know what happens:

She lets her emotions win. She prioritizes her anger--at herself for trusting a Galra--and she completely fails to care about (and likely think through) the bigger picture. Rather than realizing that the new emperor of a civilization that has been systematically enslaving the Galaxy for 10,000 years is trying to give agency back to planets, to create peace, harmony and a universe that works together to fulfill the needs of the whole, she doesn't even listen to him, she just attacks. With Lotor gone, of course the empire will fall and divide to the various generals of power. If Team Voltron had stopped and thought for 5 seconds about that they maybe would have realized that leaving Lotor in that rift was the most selfish and childish thing they ever could have done, humanitarian principles aside even. How many more worlds besides Earth suffered and will suffer for ALLURA'S emotional reactions that stem most deeply from PREJUDICE?

To be clear:

ALLURA believed the word of an ALTEAN she did not know, over the HALF-GALRAN she had fallen in love with, all because she FEARED she was wrong to trust someone with GALRAN blood: "You're more like Zarkon than I could ever have imagined," she tells Lotor. NOT "You're more like Honerva (AN ALTEAN) who began this whole mess by experimenting on quintessence and what happened when one combines it with their own life force and then became so addicted to it that she went crazy and enabled terrible things to happen to innocent peoples and planets." Nope. Even though in all honesty that comparison would have been more accurate, it didn't occur to Allura to accuse Lotor of being corrupt like his ALTEAN mother. What she says to him is essentially, "You're corrupt (and thus more) like your GALRAN father."

So, in order for Allura to grow into someone who is actually mature and responsible enough to lead the Voltron Colition and bring peace to the Galaxy, she's going to have to see the serious error in her actions, and the root prejudice that actually lead to them. And Lotor will be the one to make her see it.

From the moment the Paladins take Lotor prisoner he points out that Allura is discriminating against him based on species and parentage. It's pretty clear that this is set up to be their arch--Both of them are deeply flawed and magnificently gifted individuals who were born and raised to rule worlds, if not whole galaxies. They both have let their personal fears and flaws get in the way of what they could achieve together. In Allura's case the fatal flaw is predudice. In Lotor's it is lack of trust. He should have told her about the Altean colonies, but, rationally feared that he couldn't trust her to hear him out--irony being, if he'd brought it up privately and volunteered the info she probably would have reacted differently. However, Lotor has never had anyone he's trusted or who has trusted him, so he doesn't know that is how trust works. 😢

These two are designed to point out each other's flaws, and help them to correct them (not to make up for them, but to truly help each other change as people by, essentially, calling each other on their shit.) When they do that--Allura facing her racism; Lotor facing his lack of knowing how to actually trust someone fully--then the fatal flaws that lead to the ending of S6 (and the subsequent inter-galactic crisis that the simultaneous betrayal of these two baby-rulers, has caused) will be obliterated, the fatal flaws cured. Allura and Lotor will then be capable of resuming creating the new era of peace they were attempting before, but this time they will succeed because they will have learned to have real transparency/trust, rather than letting their unconscious fears be reasons to mistrust each other when they need to trust each other the most.

Lotura is a ship that is about real equality combined with real consciousness of self and other in relationships. Neither will be able to mature as characters until they see the flaws in Self that their initial (immature) love brought out in each other; the completion of the circle is then conscious change from seeing these flaws, and then forgiving themselves and each other for them. Only then can they can move into a mature love, which will allow them to bring out the best in each other without being blind to the flaws in each other and themselves.

Real love is seeing and dealing with both the good and bad, not ignoring one in favor of the other (this always backfires, as Lotura's first arch demonstrates). And that is a super valuable relationship lesson, that, in a show for kids, is profound and important. Love is seeing and accepting all of your partner and working together to change the things that need to be changed--not getting mad at each other, refusing to listen to what your partner has to say, deflecting with things like "your just like your dad," and subsequent retaliations that take the couple further away from the real issue, like Lotor does when Allura finally hits his weak spot and his basic response is "oh yeah, well your dad sucked too!" And from there it's all just them both being so hurt that reason is lost. That is the state of immature love.

Lotor and Allura are the only two characters who are each other's equals. They are the only two who can call each other on their shit effectively and who can help the other to change and grow. Their arch is about learning how to do that consciously and maturely. How to trust instead of doubt. How to see through the limitations of ego fears (Allura's prejudice, Lotor's not knowing how to trust) and to consciously choose loyalty to each other and to a fully shared vision. Without doing so, neither of these characters can transform from being in their immature Prince/Princess state to being ready for the mature King/Queen state.

Okay, Next...

Keith/Acxa:

I keep seeing posts where people are saying that this came out of nowhere... frankly, you all need to go back and rewatch the series. Keith and Acxa first meet in season 2 inside the guts of a Weblum. Even though it's clear to them from the start that they're on opposite sides of a war (thank you space suits) they still work together to survive and don't abandon each other even when it might benefit them to do so--they demonstrate immediately that they have a similar honor code/value system.

Every time these two encounter each other, despite remaining on opposite sides, they always help each other in this way that shows they both are in wonder about it--they don't know why, but something, some sort of "I owe you" that can't ever seem to be repaid no matter how often they help each other, is just in affect between them. Obviously, this continues to mount in S7.

So, why can't they just be friends? Well maybe they can, but I don't think that's where this is going...

For one thing, Keith is clearly drawn to his Galran side. He wants to be with the Blades of Mamora more than Team Voltron for a long stretch of time. Then he meets his Galran mom. Keith never got along well with other humans, as is established all over S7. He does get along with all these Galrans.

Those of you who know psychology know, we pretty much always marry some variation of our parents. Keith has a Galran mom who he likes and loves a lot. Acxa fits his mommy archetype. And, she's a half-breed like him--she knows what it's like to not fully belong to any one people.

Plus, as stated and well established in canon, these two just can't help but constantly save each other. I think more than ANY ship possibility, this one is obvious, and would totally make end-game sense.

So...

Shiro/???:

On the one hand, I'd love to see everyone all happy and paired up living happily ever after, but think it completely fits all of Shiro's character development to end up alone.

S7 firmly establishes that as a person, Shiro's ambitions/dreams matter more to him than the emotional needs of his partner, Adam. That's okay, there's nothing wrong with that, but, as a personality trait, it's not going to make for a happy long term relationship. In relationships you need to be willing to sacrifice things for your partner--not everything, not all the time--but you don't have the right to make serious decisions that affect you both without giving weight to the other person's needs. Shiro makes it clear that Adam's feelings don't matter to his decision to go on the Kerberos mission. That's not good partnering.

Adam, on the other hand, demonstrates a much more partner-oriented approach. He knows this is Shiro's dream, and because he loves him, he put his own wants/fears aside to support Shiro going on his first mission. He doesn't want to stop Shiro from being happy, but, when he tells Shiro that if Shiro goes AGAIN, Adam won't be here when he gets back, he's realizing that he's got to let Shiro understand that he can't be the only one in their relationship caring about the other's feelings. Adam needs a partner who will give the relationship serious weight in serious life decisions. Shiro demonstrates through his actions that he does not value the relationship more than his ambitions.

Shiro is a great team leader, but that doesn't necessarily make him a good life partner.

So, if Shiro ends up realizing this about himself and choosing to not have a romantic partnership, there is a really valuable lesson and story line there:

In American culture there is a lot of pressure to pair up. We are taught from childhood that real happiness hinges upon being partnered--at the end of every Disney movie the princess and prince finally get to be together forever and this is how we know they will "live happily every after". But not everyone is suited to relationships--and that has nothing to do with sexuality.

Shiro is gay, but that doesn't make him intrinsically more suited to long-term relationships than being straight makes anyone suited to long term relationships.

The LGBTQ+ community seems to be offended that Shiro isn't being represented in a relationship, but honestly I think they're being done a great service--Shiro is being understood as human rather than as his sexuality. His sexuality doesn't make him who he is. Being honest with himself about whether or not long-term relationships are actually something he is built for, is important for everyone to think about, and it's maybe especially important for LGBTQ+ kids to have a role model who does think about this.

One of the dangers of being LGBTQ+ is that people unconsciously reduce you to being a label--and you are so so much more than that label. Your sexuality is just one facet of Self, just like being straight is just one facet of Self for straight people. The pressure to be in a relationship as "proof" of your "identity" is very real for young LGBTQ+ kids, and the fear of leaving a relationship once you find one is far more intense because you fear your options are limited and you might not find someone else of your sexuality/who accepts your sexual-identity. So, LGBTQ+ kids are more vulnerable to staying in relationships that they've outgrown as a result of semi-conscious societal pressure to both pair up and to "prove" their "identity", and to fear that they might not ever find another relationship.

Shiro being the rep for the LBGTQ+ community teaches kids that you can be any sexuality/sexual-identity, and it doesn't change anything else about you--it doesn't change that you're smart and skilled and capable of being a space pilot, it doesn't change that it's perfectly possible and okay for a relationship (or even long term relationships in general) to not be right for you, it doesn't change your ability to be a good team leader... it doesn't change or mean anything else about you any more than a straight person being straight does. It's a facet of Self, to be weighed against many many other facets of Self.

...All that said, if they do somehow make it canon that Adam miraculously survived and he and Shiro are end game, that could be a great character development arch too, as long as it involves Shiro acknowledging that if he's going to resume being in a relationship with Adam he has to make decisions WITH Adam, and respect that Adam's emotions and needs matter equally to his own. If Shiro isn't willing to chose the truly rational emotional well-being of his partner (I mean Adam was reasonably scared that Shiro would die in space) over his own ambitions, he's not compatible with Adam. And that's okay too.

And, lastly:

Zethrid/Ezor:

Here's another rep for the LGBTQ+ community. In contrast to Shiro's story line, which may end up with him consciously deciding that committed relationships aren't as important to him as other parts of life and is happy being alone, we are now being introduced to a relationship in which two women who have worked together for a long time are discovering happiness through exploring their romantic connection. From what we've seen in S7, it looks like Zethrid and Ezor are experiencing a deeper trust and intimacy as a result of their new relationship.

I think it's great for two characters who are largely portrayed as villains/secondary shades-of-gray characters to demonstrate to people how relationships can change your priorities. Zethrid and Ezor seem to have made each other the first priority, rather than the ever-convoluted mission. They're still in the middle of this war, but now they care most about looking out for each other, rather than prioritizing the Galra Empire or Lotor. They are finding meaning in what they've fought for through their love for each other. I think they will be taken on an arch that is the opposite of Shiro's, in which they increasingly discover that their relationship and love for each other matters more to them than the military ambitions that may have once fueled them as individuals. ❤️

In conclusion:

While I think this is clear, in case it isn't, I am not bashing on ANY ship in this post, I'm just explaining why I think these ships are the logical end game ships for good story telling.

If you are so inclined, I'd love to hear your thoughts presented in a respectful and legible manner. ❤️

Thanks for reading, I know it's a long one. 😅

#voltron ships #voltron legendary defender #vld #lotura #plance #kexa #hunk/romelle #vld shiro #vld s7 #vld s6 #voltron #shiro #takashi shirogane #keith/acxa #pidgance

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langst-wins · 6 years ago

Text

the last thing i'm gonna say about voltron, unintentional queerbaiting, and major s8 plotholes, and then imma shut up and let y'all be free from my long bitch ass s8 posts so we can get back to regularly scheduled klance fanfics & fanarts

yes, they queerbaited us with shiro as rep. not in the sense that he wasn't queer but in the sense that they hyped us up for his relationship with adam, made us think we were gonna see an adashi reunion, and we ended up getting like 90 seconds top of LGBT content over the entire series.

no, I highly doubt they did it intentionally. yes, they did admit they fucked up and apologized several times. yes, I appreciate the apology and I understand that they're human beings and people make mistakes and overlook things sometimes. like they said, they never meant to make anyone feel baited. they really thought they were going to get a good response. lauren called voltron a "learning experience" in the open letter to the fandom after s7. I think she meant learning experience in general ofc but I think she also meant they've learned how to and how not to do LGBT rep in a show.

but I will absolutely be taking any promises of LGBT rep from lm and jds with a grain of salt. i will absolutely be watching their future works from afar and not getting myself too invested until the series ends and I can watch it as a whole while knowing what to expect.

I dont think they MEANT harm but y'all...they fucked up. they know it, and they apologized. it shows maturity that they apologized in that open letter after s7 and at the final nycc panel, and again, I appreciate that.

but I would rather they have not said anything about LGBT rep, ever, and just let gay shiro be a nice surprise. then, the minimal rep we received would have been wonderful and a nice warm surprise instead of a huge disappointment. it was only a disappointment because it didn't live up to the hype they made for it. and I know the hype was partially due to marketing they had no control over, but it was absolutely partially them, too.

they didn't promise LGBT content in LoK and canon korrassami ended up being a nice surprise even though it was minimal. that was how they SHOULD have done shiro's sexuality if they knew it was going to be a small thing. I would rather they have kept their lips zipped about LGBT, not announced gay shiro ahead of time, and just it be what it was when seasons 7 and 8 came out.

again, I dont think the bait was intentional, but it was bait all the same.

you are not crazy or too sensitive if your feelings are hurt/you feel baited by this show. you are not a shitty person if you just dont trust them right now. dont let people tell you otherwise. it's okay to take a step back from their work and wait to see how their next show plays out before you get involved.

i really do love voltron, even though s8 was confusing af, seasons 1-7 were LIT. I enjoy bits and pieces of s8 but mostly it was a let down. not only because of rep, just because a lot of things didn't make sense to me and a lot of the problem solving just felt way too convenient.

like I feel like every conflict in the plot was resolved way too easily and/or in ways that didnt make sense. and I feel like most of the characters' futures in the credits didnt really match up to those characters personalities. specifically lance, hunk, and keith.

lance staying on earth with his family, spreading allura's message to carry on her legacy? makes perfect sense, valid af. lance becoming a farmer? not so much. I feel like he would have been better suited as teaching classes as a pilot instructor at the garrison or smth similar. altean lance still gave me whiplash and left me confused af but he looks so damn 👌👌👀👀🙌🙌😭 with his cute ass altean marks that I'm just gonna let that one go for the sake of aesthetic.

hunk becoming a chef? not ooc necessarily but I feel like he would have been better suited as a diplomat. y'know. ambassador to earth sort of thing.

keith aiding in recovery efforts and being a humanitarian (...alien-itarian...? idk). okay let's be real we all knew this edgy boi has a soft ass heart. I think hes just mature enough now to let his walls come down and not be afraid of caring ig. which is sweet and nice and all. but I feel like he wouldnt...JUST be doing that. like he would still want the battle and the adrenaline and the badass mf fight sequences. that's kinda his Thing.

shiro marrying a rando? I would have preferred adam to not die and them end up getting back together once shiro returned to earth. i just feel like there was no reason to kill off adam? shiro has already suffered so much, what was the point? but i'm not gonna hate on curtis bc we dont know jackshit about him and for all we know he could be a bombass dude. shiro looked happy tho and it's better than him being forever alone so I can hesitantly accept that ig. but on one condition and one condition only: their ship name must be shirts. if their ship name is not shirts then I dont want it

allura's death was pointless. i havent seen anyone disagree with this one so far. her life was full of suffering and then she died. like can we all just agree she was done dirty and it was entirely unnecessary.

dont come @ me with "you just dont like s8 bc your ship wasnt canon"

that's not it at all.

they could have made this season so amazing and still not have made klance canon. they could have left me disappointed in no klance but still happy because the finale made my heart go dynamite BOOM. I could have ended the last episode with no canon klance and still been smiling because the plot was bitchin' and the characters were all alive and happy.

but they didnt, so I wasnt. it just...wasnt a good season. it had good aspects, yes, but as a whole? meh.

season 8 was poorly handled. it really was. it had so much potential to end with EVERY character having a positive ending and still have an actual satisfying conclusion to the war. I know they wanted to show how heavy and serious and heartbreaking the war actually was, but you can make an emotional, heavy finale without killing off a main character and leaving her main character love interest lonely and grieving. like im sorry killing allura and leaving lance sad and lonely was not necessary at all to the plot it just flat out wasnt. they did those characters dirty and they did allurance shippers even dirtier.

allurancers cheered seeing their ship canon then had it ripped out from under them and my heart honestly grieves worse for my allurance and allura stan fam than my klance fam. they did y'all so wrong and i'm sorry it had to go down like that.

sheith shippers got fucked over when all that development and relationship and growth culminated into basically nothing in the final season. like as a broganes stan even i was taken aback by the sudden radio silence between them so I cant imagine how let down actual sheith shippers feel.

us adashi shippers? obvious. adam's death was not necessary. and dont tell me it was to show the heaviness and realness of death in war because vld does NOT have a track record of dead characters staying dead. they could have at least gave us some mild development with shirts (lmfao im so sorry but shirts) and let us see more of curtis as a character. like...literally just two 60 second scenes would have been nice. they could have easily fit that in.

us klancers got fucked over by unnecessary parallels to canon ships. they could have made it a cute platonic friendship in s8 and let us enjoy it and proceed to enjoy fanon klance without all those blatant parallels to shay/hunk that just left us confused. and the parallels in earlier seasons. like why did you have to make so many parallels to romantic moments and romantic tropes if it was platonic. why did you have to go and do that. what was the point.

s8 could have ended in such a way that shippers of every ship in the fandom were satisfied with the finale because their faves were treated right and the plot was fire. it had so much potential in the first half and could have been so damn good.

it wasnt though. the entire thing was so confusing and nothing about it felt like vld. It feels like a spin off or a reboot. I dont like s8 as a whole and I doubt I ever will. it might grow on me in time but I'll never fully like it, y'know. everything about it felt so tilted and off and just wrong.

but it really just be like that sometimes ig.

#i wont be responding to comments on this #feel free to send an ask w your thoughts #but no promise i'll answer it #klance #voltron #sheith #allurance #adashi #vld

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