#i also miss when lances family was speculative it was way more fun

[autisticlancemcclain]

i miss filipino lance and vietnamese keith :(

[numbah34]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[burger-licious]

Big Ol’ Plance Speculation

This is going to be realllly long. I don’t have the patience to separate stuff into multiple posts linking them all to one another, so I’ll just put it under a read more at a certain point. If you stay through the whole thing, you’re a champ! If you don’t that’s totally cool too. If you do read it all though, you won’t regret it! probably

Seriously though, this will be long. However I’ll mostly be talking about the moments I haven’t seen brought up before and how I believe they connect. I hope I’ll be able to bring up new, missed Plance moments that have gone unnoticed. So here we go!

S2E01 starts off right where season one left off. The wormhole they were traveling through to escape from Zarkon’s armada loses it’s integrity due to Haggar’s magic. The Paladins get separated and end up on different planets while Allura and Coran get stuck in a time loop in the temporal rift. Shiro and Keith wind up together, Lance and Hunk are together, and Pidge ends up by herself on what she calls a “trash nebula of some kind.” This is the first segment/situation out of the four groups we see before being cut back and forth between the others.

She talks to herself saying to stay calm and the best thing to do when you get lost in space is to stay put and wait for people to find you. It’ll be nice because she’ll get some “me” time.

She begins to contemplate that for a couple seconds before saying:

[Pidge]: “No-one to annoy me...” and then her expression changes.

She loses the highlight in her eyes and is basically looking into the camera. I think it’s pretty obvious with that line she’s mostly talking about Lance and Hunk(possibly Coran too). Not to mention the nebula she’s stuck on and this scene in particular have a green, blue, and yellow atmosphere in the background. So I definitely think it’s safe to say between her dialogue and the colors making up pretty much all the background shots indicate how much she’s grown fond of the two. She’d rather be with them albeit slightly annoyed sometimes, HECK it sounds like she actually likes it, than to be without them. She doesn’t actually like the idea of being by herself. She wants to be around them. They’re fun and she enjoys their company. I also think it’s interesting because at this point it hasn’t even been that long. They JUST got separated. It probably hadn’t even been five minutes at this point and she’s already like “welp I’m bored can’t stand this let’s start looking for a way to find them”. 

And it’s not because she’s scared or anything, either, because the very next time we cut back to her she’s openly exploring the nebula’s surface. The only time we see her remotely scared, and it’s more of a startled, is when she meets the little trash poofs. A reaction that’s pretty short lived at that.

All the little trash poofs come out and she greets them and EVEN APOLOGIZES to them for her rough landing. She’s talking to them with no hesitation or hint of fear they may be bad news. She then says, “I’m just waiting for my friends to find me.” Then the little poofs line up.

[Pidge]: “Yeah! Friends!”

This means Pidge not only understood what the poofs were trying to demonstrate but also means she genuinely feels the other paladins are/are becoming her friends. She could have chose any other wording such as “teammates”/”Other Paladins” etc but she didn’t. Pidge is the first one we see who outright refers to the others as such.

(keep the poofs’ positioning in mind, because it’ll come up later, I promise.)

I also think it’s pretty interesting the way she’s facing. It’s not front facing. You can tell by the position of her eyes and mouth she’s mostly looking toward the blue one. The pink and blue ones drift screen left and Pidge looks down while continuing to smile. On one hand I think it’s that she’s coming to terms and really reflecting on how she has people other than her family who mean something to her now, but on the other her face almost looks sad and this may be foreshadowing for the current Allurance we’ve seen in S7 and the possible Allurance to come along with S8. Whether she acknowledges it and takes action for herself to confess or quietly resigns now that she knows Allura is somewhat returning Lance’s feelings and that’s just how it is, who knows.

[This part will be a little bit of a segway, but also kind of not, so stay with me here] 

Continuing on to  S2E02, we get Lance and Hunk who end up in the underwater planet following Florona(?). At this point Lance hits us with this line:

[Lance]: “And... If I just happen to find the future Mrs. Blue Lion, well, then that is alright with me.” 

At first this could just be seen as a throwaway line. He’s Loverboy Lance, he’s got girls on the brain. 

But as we all later find out in S3E02, Allura becomes the Paladin of the Blue Lion. ie: Future Ms. Blue Lion. Now, if Lance’s previous line was purposefully meant to be foreshadowing, we can infer other conversations he has with himself/Blue to be foreshadowing as well.

Which brings us to this scene. Blue essentially locks him out, he can’t get in anymore. He tries telling it they have work to do, to stop goofing off, asking why she’s mad at him/if she hates him, flirting, and apologizing for wanting to fly the Black Lion and saying it was just a phase. He can’t figure out why this is happening and when Allura comes to check out what’s going on, Red calls out to Lance and Allura explains why Red is accepting him. After dealing with the setup Lotor planned, we see Lance back in the hangar talking to Blue.

[Lance]: “Well, ol’ Blue. We sure had some fun adventures, didn’t we? I wanted to stay with you, but sometimes what we want isn’t necessarily what we get. I’m gonna miss you, buddy.”

If this is foreshadowing as well, I think this is the biggest hint that Allurance will not be Lance’s endgame. Or at the very least, not his true endgame. If we hold to the metaphor of Blue=Allura, this means Allura will eventually reject/turn him down, just as the Blue Lion has effectively shut him out. Meanwhile, another lion waiting in silence opens up to him. I.e: Lance’s better/true fit. Lance has his doubts until Allura convinces him to go.

Interesting how this could be alluding to Allura not only turning him down in the coming season, but also quite literally leading/guiding him to the person who’s actually the right fit for him. Lance starts out with Blue, and his relationship with them is fine until a big event happens that forces a change(not only in the team as a whole, but Lance’s thinking as well) in the current dynamic. Lance heard the call but didn’t go to it until Allura pointed out it was calling for him specifically. And the reason was largely due in part to Lance accepting the situation as it was. Both with Keith being the more natural leader, and with Blue no longer connecting with him. He comes to terms with it and even essentially tells Blue goodbye. There’s a good chance this is how Lance’s relationships in S8 could play out as well. Essentially realizing what he said to Blue pertains to Allura as well and moving on. And while being turned down, Lance realizes who he actually likes.

Plus, in S2E04 we have a scene where Keith and Lance(moreso Lance) having and argument about the Blue Lion that could also possibly be pointing to Kallura, because he says:

[Lance:] “Hey, why are you asking about my Lion? How many Lions do you need?[...] You’ve had your eye on the Blue Lion from day one![...] The Blue Lion’s with me! And we’re very happy together. Very happy!” 

This line here is very much how we see Lance acting towards Allura. He’s very defensive and anytime we’ve seen another person so much as “flirt” with her, Lance gets moody. Matt and Lotor of course being the biggest examples of this. It makes even more sense if we assume, because of the conversation on the tarmac at the end of S7 between the two, will lead to the beginning of S8 having Allurance start out the season. If they do get together, Lance will probably at some point question how happy they both are, because this line almost sounds like he’s trying to convince himself, more than Keith and Coran, he and Blue are happy together rather than not. And if Lance has these same thoughts about his relationship, he would definitely be a bit stubborn accepting one/both of them aren’t happy, seeing as he’s been trying to court Allura from day one. 

The we immediately cut to a scene where the Green Lion is the most prominent object in view.

[getting back on track]

Now just prior to the previous line I mentioned in S2E02, Hunk says, “Lance, I know this mermaid thing is a dream of yours, but we really gotta go.” Lance replies with:

[Lance]: “We will, big guy, we will! But let’s meet this queen first. Besides, maybe she can help us.” 

So after the events of this episode, the Queen activates the energy beacon, and the very next image we see that’s not just the beam going off is:

Pidge in the Green Lion coming through a wormhole. THEN Lance says to Hunk:

[Lance]: “See Hunk? I told you they could help us.”

Now, the “they” in this line is referring to the merpeople, but overall? I think it’s referring to Pidge. Lance is the one to suggest following Florona(?) in the first place, while also stating that he may find the Future Mrs. Blue Lion(but in his character’s mind, means future partner) in the process. The episode opens with Lance saying that line and ends with Pidge being the only other Paladin whose voice we hear/Lion we see. And it’s right after we see Pidge coming to pick them up when Lance delivers the “I told you they could help us.” Which I think is really cool because his lines, as they’re said together are:

[Lance]: “We will, big guy, we will! But let’s meet this queen first. Besides, maybe she can help us. And... If I just happen to find the future Mrs. Blue Lion, well, then that is alright with me. [...] I told you they could help us.”

And who is the one, who, ultimately comes to their rescue? Everyone’s rescue? Pidge. Who is the one who got a satellite on a nearly abandoned trash nebula to work and send out the Green Lion’s energy, allowing Allura to lock onto it and escape the temporal rift/time loop? Pidge. Who’s the one to go get Shiro and Keith? Pidge. Who finds the Queen’s beacon? Pidge. And during both of the latter ones, Allura and Coran aren’t seen along with her. So not only is Pidge the one to help all of them, but you could also look at it like because of the beacon, Lance and Hunk were able to also *find* Pidge. 

Also it’s probably not meant as anything because I know he’s been animated with it before, but when Lance mentions finding the Future Mrs. Blue Lion he gets that sparkle on his teeth, which is also what the beacon looks like at distance to Pidge.

TLDR: Pidge initiated the effort with the satellite, they “found” Pidge with the energy beacon(and that was only able to happen because of Lance insisting they follow the mermaid in the first place), and then Pidge helps them regroup. All three points of Lance’s lines here happen exactly in the way they were ordered.

Other nifty things to note in this episode relate to the mermaid Plaxum. While Blumfump explains their strategy for taking down the Queen, Lance says:

[Lance, while using his own voice and a slighty higher voice for the imaginary lady]: “Then I’ll be a hero. Awww Lance. You’re so handsome -and- modest. Oh thank you for saving us. Can I kiss you? Maybe just a little.*knocks two rocks together while making kissy noises*” 

Just look at Plaxum’s face. She is giving a similar look to what we’ve seen Pidge give him before too. Plus. Y’all. She’s straight up colored with greens. At the end of the episode, Plaxum thanks Lance for helping save her people by giving him a smooch. Although this doesn’t exactly play into his previous fantasy, because she didn’t ask if she could kiss him. She just does it.

Afterward, she removes her jellyfish/mask and drops her cloak to reveal what she actually looks like. Of course Lance is now smitten. And now we can see she also has hints of orange in addition to her shell belt thing and right by her cheeks also kind of looks pretty close to Pidge’s haircut yeah? Intended parallel or not, who knows. Even if it weren’t, it’d make sense to make this connection. Not only are the colors similar enough, but Plaxum wearing her Jellyfish and cloak is akin to Pidge disguising herself in her current outfit to sneak into the garrison. Each of them used theirs as means to an end. Plaxum used the jellyfish because she had to in order to block the mind control. Pidge had to cut her hair and change her image because the Garrison already knew who she was and what she looked like. I think it’d be safe to say Plaxum removing her jellyfish will be mirrored later by Pidge returning to her original look, after they’re done with their main storyline/end of the series. Plaxum kept her jellyfish on until her mission was complete and Pidge is keeping her hair short until her mission is finished as well. Hopefully she’ll give Lance a smooch too but only time will tell.

Moving onto S2E04, Greening the Cube, the team goes to the planet Olkarion after picking up their distress signal and having a makeshift snowball fight. They go to the armory and try to activate the tree pod things with only Pidge succeeding. The team splits up into two groups. Lance and Hunk go with Pidge and Shiro and Keith go with Ryner to save King Lubos.

They could have had the team split up any way they wanted but they had the Garrison Trio together, right after Ryner says, “It means, you’re going to need to give your friends a ride!” Which, once again, shows that at least Pidge considers Lance and Hunk to be her friends. We don’t know for sure if Pidge chose them or if they called shotgun and jumped in, but still.

This also mirrors S1E01 except Pidge and Lance switch places. The Garrison Trio are in the foreground while Shiro and Keith take a backseat. The Blue Lion and the Pod were a first for both of them. Pidge was the only one to activate a Pod by having a connection with it, just as Lance was the only one to activate Blue in a similar way.

[Lance]: “WhOA! How’d you do that?”

While fighting the Cubes, Pidge gains a better connection with her Lion with a bit of help from Ryner and gains an ability where she can use veins. She uses this to destroy the cubes from the inside out. When Pidge first comes back and uses this power, Lance is the only one to comment/question how she learned to do that.

They defeat all the cubes and we get to the end of the episode where we see Pidge reflecting on what she learned while on Olkarion.

[Pidge]: “You know, it’s weird. I’ve always been a tech junkie. That’s how I connected with the world. But for the first time, I feel connected to everything. I guess it’s like Ryner said, “We’re all made up of the same cosmic dust.”

Notice where she’s looking. Up and to her left. And it looks left-left at that. And who’s standing there?

Not only does she look upwards to the left but she does so while emphasizing the “everything”. So I may be reaching but I think her saying this line means she’s feeling more connected to Lance than she might have before.

Moving onto S2E05, the team is once again trying to flee from Zarkon’s fleet. They succeed, but Coran finds the scaultrite lens stones are cracked. This is also the episode where the ship goes starts to go completely bonkers and tries to attack the Paladins. When they first realize something funky is going on, Zarkon catches up to them a second time and they try to wormhole again. This time a number of lenses completely break. Just before all the madness, Hunk was baking “cookies” that turned out to be the perfect temporary solution to allow them one more wormhole jump to last long enough to get away from Zarkon. The only catch is, all of the Paladins have to hold each lens in place while the beams are going off, and they have to stay completely still.

[Coran]: “Now, nobody move if you want to live.” 

[Lance]: “I think I moved! I think I moved!” 

[Coran]: “Well, then move back to where you think you were!” 

Lance is definitely the one freaking out the most.

As Allura is activating the Teleduv, Lance starts freaking out some more (understandably so) saying,  

[Lance]: “We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die!”

[Pidge]: “Hold tight, Lance!”

Pidge is the only one who tries to reassure him it will be fine, despite there being three other people who would have definitely also noticed Lance was on edge. You’d think the one reassuring him to stay strong would fit Shiro better, seeing as at the moment, Shiro is still the acting leader. He’s also usually the one encouraging the team on their missions, so it’d only make sense for him to do the same here. But he doesn’t.

In S2E06, the team realizes Zarkon has to be tracking them in some way. Shiro suggests that because they don’t know for sure how Zarkon is doing it, they should be the ones to go after him. Then we have Lance say:

[Lance]: “The hunter becomes the hunted hmmm? Awesome! That’s a tagline from like six of my favorite movies.”

We immediately hear Pidge’s voice after this line, while the screen pans over to her, saying:

[Pidge]: “As it happens, I took our list of recent Galra attacks and analyzed it for both commonalities and anomalies among the attack sites. I was hoping to create an algorithm that would, within a statistically acceptable margin of error, provide a list of target rich Galra environments. Color coded of course, because what are we, animals?”

[Lance]: “Cool. What is it again?”

[Hunk]: “It’s a Galra Finder?”

[Pidge]: “Well, Finder suggests that it locates the Galra, whereas it would be more accurate to say that my model predicts their likeliest -getting stares from everyone- Fine. It’s a Galra Finder.”     

Not only does this dialogue make sense for the plot, because Pidge revealing she essentially made a way to track them is literally the hunter (Zarkon/the Galra) becoming the hunted(by the Paladins). But it also has an undertone of a hint to Lance and Pidge’s relationship at the same time. Yes, Lance only mentions that hunter/hunted is a tagline from six of his favorite movies, but we can assume this means it’s one of his favorite lines overall as well. Even before the line of the hunter becoming the hunted, we know he’s into that because of the line I mentioned in S2E02! Remember?:

[Lance, while using his own voice and a slighty higher voice for the imaginary lady]: “Then I’ll be a hero. Awww Lance. You’re so handsome -and- modest. Oh thank you for saving us. Can I kiss you? Maybe just a little.*knocks two rocks together while making kissie noises*”

In his scenario, he saves the day but the girl is the one who makes the advances calling him handsome and asking if she can kiss him. Lance isn’t the one suggesting the action here. It’s whoever he’s talking to who initiates. Which would reverse the roles we see play out when Lance flirts. Lance is the one who makes first moves. He flirts and flatters, while the other person pretty much always rebuffs. He’s the hunter(a failing one, but hey). This means if someone were to say what Lance imagines in his fake scenario, then he becomes the hunted. So to have Pidge, who comes into focus immediately following hunter/hunted mentioning she DOES have a Galra Finder, makes me think there’s something more to that set of interactions than just the plot. I mean, right after Lance says that, Pidge doesn’t miss a beat with the “As it happens.” Almost sounding like, “As it happens, I *am* hunting you.”

They make their way to Taujeer and discover the planet is shedding it’s shell, while the residents are left stranded with only one working engine thanks to Morvak. Anybody into Plance most likely already knows about the blushing Lance does when Pidge says, “So the Galra were here. Lannnce?*smirks*”

But we have a scene that comes up later, when the Paladins are trying stop the planet from shedding. While coming up with a plan, Hunk suggests they can stop said shedding by sewing the planet back together.

[Hunk]: “That new Green Lion weapon causes vegetation to grow, right? Well, I was thinkin’ if you aim it at the cracks in the planet, the vines could act like stitches.”

[Shiro]: “Won’t the stitches get dissolved by the acid?”

[Pidge]: “The stitches might hold longer... if they’re frozen!” 

Not only is Pidge the one to suggest freezing the vines, but it directly requires Lance’s Lion as well. I may be wrong but I think this is really the only time in the series, at least up to this point, where two distinct Lion powers are combined for something other than just firing at enemies. And I just love thinking of it like a foreshadowing metaphor. The vines/Pidge are strong, but the ice/Lance help Pidge keep her composure/keep it together. A reach but I’d still like to think of it that way.

Skipping a few episodes, we come to S2E11, Stayin Alive. Most Plancers have probably seen this screencap numerous times as well. This is a scene shortly after they rescue Slav from Beta Traz. Allura calls to tell them the monster that was encased in crystal on the Balmera has broken free and needs the team back there. Then Lance says:

[Lance]: “You got it, Princess. Sharpshooter is on the way.”

[Pidge]: “Sharpshooter?”

[Lance]: “It’s my new nickname, that I gave myself. J-just pass it on.”

Keep in mind: In just the previous episode, after Lance shoots Slav free from The prison warden guy, Shiro said: “Nice, Lance! That’s why we bring our sharpshooter!”

 Then Lance strikes a similar pose as previously pictured:

Except here, he isn’t blushing or embarrassed. Nor is he when he’s talking directly to Allura while calling himself Sharpshooter.

It’s only after Pidge questions him that he blushes. We know later on, in S3E02 Lance took her questioning him here pretty hard as he thinks she doesn’t see him as a sharpshooter. And because he doesn’t see himself as the leader or anything else, believes she doesn’t as well. However, keep in mind prior to this, Pidge was being hit by Slav and screaming at the same time Shiro called Lance Sharpshooter. There’s a good chance because of those two things she didn’t hear him, therefore when Lance refers to himself that way, she’s probably wondering what he’s talking about.

Jumping through a few more episodes, this leads onto S3E02. With Shiro gone, they need to find a new Paladin for the Black Lion. Pidge brings up Allura was able to tell who would pilot what lion and then they all found and piloted them. Hunk then asks how she was able to do that, and if she could do it now. She says no and that she was able to immediately tell from their qualities which Lion would suit each of them best. Coran suggests Keith can become the new Paladin for the Black Lion due to piloting it when he needed to save Shiro. Lance interjects and then Pidge lists off what everyone's roles are:

[Pidge]: “Yeah, we all have our thing! Keith’s the loner, I’m the brain, Hunk’s the nice one, Allura’s the decision maker, Coran’s the wise old guy, and Lance is the goofball!”

To which Lance replies:

[Lance]: “Mhm yeah exactly totally right on. Wait a minute! I’m not a goofball! I’m like the cool, ninja sharpshooter.”

Now I’ve see some people try to say this is a main time where Pidge is mean to Lance. But is it really? We know in this episode he takes her calling him a goofball to heart, but I don’t think she meant it as a jab or insult. In fact, near the end of S2E11, there’s a scene where everyone is reflecting on the stuff that’s happened to them so far. At a point during the conversation, he lists off several things in a row.

 [Lance]: “We faced sentries, a haunted castle, giant robeasts, a mall security guard-”

Pidge pops up, looking very excited saying:

[Pidge]: “And don’t forget that cool cube thing!”

[Lance]: Yeah! And that awful cube thing.

In both of these instances, neither of them are being mean. Pidge knows from S2E11 that Lance calls himself Sharpshooter. There’s no way she would have forgotten about it. If we also include the thought she’s had a crush on him either while they were in the Garrison or shortly after going into space, then she really wouldn’t have forgotten it. Her tone also sounds like she’s just messing with him, in the same way Lance does in this scene. He knows Pidge thought the cube was really cool, and he’s seen her geek out over other technology they’ve encountered so far. He’s playing with her. Like how family members/close friends rag on other, but all in good fun. What Pidge said has an effect unbeknownst to her on Lance, but these conversations happen before Shiro disappears. Lance also never confides those insecurities with Pidge, but does so almost exclusively with Keith and Allura. If he had shared those feeling with Pidge she most likely wouldn’t have said that in the first place. We’ve seen Lance seem to look up to Pidge’s opinions on numerous occasions and this could make for a really good arc for the both of them in S8. Pidge somehow learns Lance has been feeling extremely insecure-and partly due to her-which in turn leads to them talking it out. But that’s just speculation. Who other than the writers know how it’ll actually go down?

After Pidge remarks everyone’s roles, they each present themselves to the Black Lion. While presenting themselves, Pidge is the second to try. We get a shot of her in the cockpit sitting on the chair using her helmet as a kind of booster seat.

Immediately following her is Lance. He takes a long time hoping he’ll be able to connect, but he doesn’t. The next shot we get is:

Lance. Also sitting on his helmet, pouting. Not exactly Plancey per se, but it is interesting they’re the only two to do this, right after one another.

Another scene we’ve seen a lot is this one:

On the first outing after switching lions, Pidge notices right away Lance isn’t with them. Keith being the newfound leader should have realized it first, or even Hunk. But Pidge is the one who points it out first.

[[[I’ve already touched on the biggest part of what I think is going on during s3E02 after this scene, in part two of this post, so I won’t be restating all that again here!]]]

Jumping all the way up to S4E03, after the reunion of Pidge and Matt, Pidge excitedly shows Matt around the ship. One of the things she thinks is important enough to show him is Kaltenecker.

[Pidge]: “This is our cow.”

The “our” here could most definitely mean Voltron as a whole. But technically “our” refers to Lance and Pidge, because they bought the game system together, and she came along with it. Therefore, Kaltenecker is “their” cow, since they both made the purchase. And y’all.

KALTENECKER HAS A BIG HEART ON HER BOOTY. A HEART. LOOK. It also kind of looks like there is: L, A/triangle, and a tree in the triangle mark. Plants, anyone? Anyhow.

Thanks to Matt’s data, Pidge is able to update the Galra Finder. Matt also has coded messages he couldn’t figure out. Thanks to Pidge and Hunk, they figure out how to decode the message. It’s a message from Zarkon for fleets to mobilize on a certain coordinate. By the end of the episode we hear another message, directly from Zarkkon this time, telling the Galra citizens to kill Lotor on sight.

According to their newly updated map, nothing is in that location. Shiro says they should be gathering intelligence before diving in, especially now that they know Zarkon is still alive. Pidge suggests they could go check it out. When Lance says he thinks they’d probably notice them, Pidge says they won’t if they’re cloaked.

[Matt]: “You have cloaking? Who are you?”

Lance looks up to Matt as he says this and then Lance smiles on the “who are you?” Pidge took it as a compliment, and that’s how Matt meant it. To see Lance smiling as soon as Pidge gets praised is so touching.

One of the bigger things I’d like to mention has to do with the next part of this scene:

[Pidge]: “I’m pretty sure I can upgrade Voltron with cloaking. We could all go.”

[Lance]: “Were you just waiting for your big brother to show up before you rolled that one out?”

Lance gives her an elbow/shoulder shove on her shoulder. An action we haven’t seen him do before in a casual way. We’ve seen an interaction near exact to this happen in the previous episode, S4E02, Reunion. Where did we see it? At the very end of the episode! Matt and Pidge are standing right outside the Garrison, and most likely the ship he’ll be leaving on, talking. Matt is super excited to go into space and Pidge is upset because she knows she’s going to miss him. The last scenes before the episode ends give us this:

[Matt]: “I’ll be back soon.”

[Pidge]: “You better, or I’m coming up to space *shoves* and getting you.”

Pidge did it as a sign of playful affection, albeit rough, and it’s likely Lance was doing it in a similar way as well. It may not be, but my brain was telling me this seemed like a pretty intended parallel. This is given because both the scenes with Pidge/Matt and Pidge/Lance happen within the total runtime of less than a single episode.

Buckle up because now we’re really going to jump! All the way to S7E02. This is the episode where the Paladins head back to Earth. For the road trip, Lance decides he’ll be the one to choose who rides with who.

As he’s saying this, The Green Lion is positioned right behind him and fairly prominently. It’s the only one of the five we see. At some point during the trip, the group comes to the realization they haven’t heard Pidge in a while, and she’s been all alone this whole time. Pidge being alone makes sense from the image above. The Green Lion is shown by itself, with Lance(who chose) in the foreground.

[Hunk]: “Hey, why haven’t we heard from Pidge?”

[Lance]: “Yeah. Wait. Who’s in her Lion again?”

[Keith]: “I don’t know. You’re the one that came up with this grouping.”

[Hunk]: “Well, she must have... no, they’re with Keith. Then the wolf is with Allura. I have the mice.”

[Allura]: “Is she all alone?”

I don’t believe for a second Lance didn’t know he left Pidge by herself or that he “just forgot”. His face here, although it could be from essentially being called dumb, looks like he’s almost annoyed everyone is starting to put the pieces together.

“Aw heck they freaking caught me. Sorry Pidge. Now they’re going to touch your stuff. She ends up with Coran, Romelle, the mice, and C/Kosmo.

While making a pitstop at a Blade of Marmora base they discover to be abandoned, a Galran fleet attacks them, and they get back in the Lions. During the fight, C/Kosmo teleport both Coran and Romelle to Keith and Allura’s Lions, respectively. This leaves Pidge with just C/Kosmo(maybe the mice too?), who she was originally supposed to take anyway. I find it interesting how she pretty much ends up alone again, thanks to a heavily blue colored character. 

Next up, we have a scene from S7E03, where we hear two Galra soldiers talking.

[Sentry #1]: “And then, I heard they was given away free Kalteneckers with every purchase!”

[Sentry #2]: “Wait, did you say free?”

This conversation seems a little out of place, right? We don’t usually see generic Galra soldiers having conversations that don’t have something to do with Zarkon/Lotor/their own goals/battle/etc. So why is it here? Why bring up Kaltenecker? Who would they have heard that from? Why now?

Shortly after this comes the “DON’T YOU TOUCH HER” moment and the Paladins/Axca fighting with Zethrid and Ezor. On the way to the hangar, they see two guards keeping watch on their bayards and helmets. At which point Lance asks:

[Lance]: “They have weapons, and we don’t. Any suggestions?”

Pidge starts sliding out from the left meaning either Lance was specifically asking her, or he was asking Keith but Pidge already had an idea, only to be interrupted by Coran.

[Coran]: “Unhand those bayards, ya scallywags!”

The first one seems more likely because right after he asks what they should do, Pidge comes into focus, and it looked like she was ready to say something. And if it is because of the first option, this is another example of Lance looking to Pidge because he values her input.

After kicking the guards’ butts and exiting through the hangar, they’re attacked by more soldiers.

The first shot we get is Lance and Pidge in the foreground with the others in the background almost looking like pairs. Those pairs being: Shiro/Allura, Hunk/Romelle, and Coran/Krolia. We see no soldiers.

A red beam fires from directly behind them and Lance and Pidge are the first to be shown noticing it.

When they turn around, we get this shot. We see the soldiers, but that’s odd right? Pidge and Lance seemed a good bit ahead of everyone else and we were shown they were in fact right behind them. The shot fired from directly behind them, so when Pidge and Lance turn around, why don’t we see any of the other six people with them? I guess you could argue this shot is zoomed in so we can just focus on the sentries who are coming out better? But still.

Then we see Pidge and Lance being the only ones to attack back against the soldiers before we switch back to Keith and Axca setting off an explosion and escaping themselves.

We have another scene in the very next episode, S7E04, that also seems kind of out place. It too, mentions Kaltenecker. After Lance is selected by Zarkon for the solo card we get what we can call an intermission, or commercial break. The commercial we see is for It’s Earth! The place where Pidge and Lance got their game console and Kaltenecker. This could just be a callback but that seems unlikely.

We know the Paladins wake up and realize they all basically had a shared dream. And it’s generally believed dreams are a way for our brains to make sense of what happened during the day/sorting through memories. Lance and Pidge were the only ones to go to It’s Earth, and the game system and Kaltenecker were the most emphasized part of his ad. So if this really IS a collective dream, this has be coming from either Lance/Pidge, or both.

Moving onto S7E06, the Paladins have pretty much no power for their Lions. Shrio explains they could try to re-power the Lions themselves, like they’ve done once before. After his motivational speech and an add-on from Lance, Keith asks Shiro: “After all you went through, how did you find the strength to lead Voltron?” Shiro answers: 

[Shiro]: “I had help. That’s why there are five of you. To lift each other up.”

Now this line coupled with this shot could have a few things going on in it. Allura and Hunk are both looking to Keith. We know Allura and Keith have had a couple heart to hearts. Her apologizing to Keith for how she acted when she learned he was Galra and also when they both separated themselves from the team when they thought Zarkon was locating Voltron through them. When it comes to Hunk, he and Keith have a heart to heart when Hunk gets back to Earth and he learns his family had been captured by the Galra. They talk it out and hug in both instances. But Lance and Pidge are looking directly at each other and the way it’s positioned, both their eye lines are over Keith’s and they’re making similar expressions in contrast to the other three. They haven’t had a heart to heart yet nor have either of them completely bonded with their Lions. Which means that could be something we’re heading for in S8, where they’ll somehow help each other complete that goal?

After the Paladins are hit by the unexplained energy pulse, they decide to tether the Lions together with zipline. While doing so, they get hit by another energy pulse and get separated from the Lions, but not from each other. This leads them all to link up by the arms. When they realize they have no kind of supplies on them, Keith explains:

[Keith]: Our suits will recycle enough moisture to keep us hydrated for a little while. We just need to hang tight. We have each other.”

And. Well. This one everyone already knows, but.

Pidge is sure as punch holding on tight. So basically this reads like: “The ones holding on tight have each other.” Meaning Lance and Pidge, since Pidge is the only one who seems like she’s really clutching onto somebody. This could also very well be a callback to when they were holding the lenses in place for the teleduv and Pidge tells Lance to “hang tight”.

Now, remember in the very first part of this post when I said to remember the trash poofs’ positions?

Something was bothering me about this episode, and I couldn’t put my finger on it until I saw screencaps a bunch of people were posting and noticed what seemed weird about it. When the Paladins first link together in a circle, they’re positioned like so: 

After experiencing their group hallucination with the space fish bird things, they regroup like this:

Hunk moves between Keith and Allura while they both switch sides, and Lance and Pidge switch too, but they’re still linked together. Pidge is the only one still holding onto the two people she was originally linked with. This also now matches the way the poofs are aligned. Starting with Pidge and working our way clockwise we have: green/Pidge, blue/Lance, pink/Allura, and yellow/Hunk. The only color poof we don’t have is a red one. Black doesn’t count because Shiro is no longer a Lion pilot. Maybe this means something about how Keith tried to go off on his own, or maybe it means at some point he’ll break away from Voltron again. Who can say. Keith has a hallucination that seems to only effect him, and then they regroup for a third time. This time, it looks like this:

Notice it? They go back to how they were grouped the first time. They break formation TWICE but Lance and Pidge still end up beside each other.

When they finally make it back to Earth, they find the Galra have already invaded and set up shop. They successfully take down the Zaiforge cannons with help from the MFEs and kill Sendak. Just when they think it’s over, they get attacked by a super powerful robeast. When it attacks, it directly hits the Green Lion with the Red Lion looking right at it. This one is pretty self explanatory and there isn’t too much to say say about it, but it’s still there.

Lastly, our biggest hint that Plance will most likely be endgame is in the formation of Voltron itself. When it happens, we get the same animation pretty much every single time. We see two Lions shoot upward and intertwine, every time, and *only* two do this. And those ones are:

The Red and Green Lions! With this, them linking arms, “to lift each other up” and everything else I’ve mentioned definitely seems like it’s going to build to something between Lance and Pidge. Whatever the outcome is, we’ll just have to wait and see! 

If none of these are actually parallels and it’s all coincidences and nothing matters then that’d sure suck. But this is how I interpreted these scenes and since I haven’t seen people really talking about most of the ones I mentioned(or I have something to add to the ones that have), I really wanted to put my thoughts out there on what I think the connections between them are. Anyway, let’s keep watering!

[storiesbeyondthestars]

Season 8 Predictions and Speculation

Buckle in boys and girls, because this ended up being over 7000 words long (with no pictures, sorry, I’m tired), and consists of wild speculation of many different theories and storylines, and how I see them playing out. There’s a huge focus on Allura, Keith, Lance, Lotor, Acxa, and Honerva over anyone else, but with explanations as to why. 

We have a combinations of theory, meta, and, well, most likely fanfiction ideas (also typos and me ignoring plot holes or things I can’t think of RIGHT NOW). I’m fine with that. This was fun to write. I really apologize to anyone if the link doesn’t work.

Also, yes. I am a klance shipper and that does colour things at one point, BUT I tried to leave it so where their relationship could largely still be seen as platonic too. Let’s do this!

I’ve said a few times that VLD, instead of being a straight-up adaptation of the 80s Voltron, is both adaptation and a sort-of prequel for it, as well as original twists and things thrown in. I think that this is a great way to make something new while still respecting the original material.

We’re seeing how Keith becomes the leader he was shown to be. We’re seeing how Lance becomes his best friend and right-hand man. We’re seeing how Allura became a Paladin. We’re seeing why their armour colours don’t match their lion colours (except for Hunk, since in the 80s he had orange armour, not yellow, and technically only Pidge matched).

In the 80s Voltron, the Galaxy Garrison was one of the main headquarters for the ‘Galaxy Alliance’. I think we’re seeing the Garrison building up to this, especially since aliens came to Earth and seem to be staying. Instead of the galaxy alliance though, we have the Voltron Coalition. It’s going to be like their headquarters.

The MFE fighters and Atlas, I think, are going to be like Vehicle Voltron, where they stay closer to Earth and defend things there while Voltron deals with farther away. (Edit: after writing this, I see that Fictional Crystals made a video saying something similar.) It should be noted that Atlas, in Greek mythology, holds the world on his shoulders.

So where does the story start in S8?

They’re working on cleaning up Earth, the coalition seems to be largely coming there as a home base. Things, all things considered, as probably very peaceful for the Paladins. Hell, they’re heroes there. They get Earth food. They get to be with their families. For most of them, they’re probably getting comfortable there again.

However, there is the fact that an Altean was found inside of the robot that tried to kill them. I don’t think she was just a power source. I think she was actively controlling it. I think she was still conscious when she activated the self-destruct in it.

That’s something that they should be very worried about. In fact, I think that this is going to be consuming Allura especially. Romelle, I think, will be used at first to identify who the Altean is and confirm that she was from the missing colony.

Sam mentions that they were looking for months though, so unless she was somehow in a stasis of sorts, the Altean should be dead. If she is, that’s going to leave a lot of wondering about what’s going on, and I think if she somehow is alive, they’re going to learn that Honerva sent her.

Fact: Romelle was the only Altean in the colony that knew what Lotor was up to. As far as anyone else knows, he just left and never once came back for them. The rest would still be loyal, nay, devout to him.

Theory: I think Honerva went to them and manipulated them. She’s presented herself as Lotor’s mother, and told them that Voltron killed Lotor. So now they’re loyal to her. In fact, Honerva may have told something similar to the Druids when she left, since the one Keith fought said that, “Haggar has forsaken us because of your treachery”, which, honestly, is an oddly specific thing to say and super strange.

Let’s focus on Allura first.

Taking a step back from that for a moment, I think at the beginning of the season, we’re going to see Allura and Lance already in a relationship. This is fine. This might even be healthy for both of them in the long run. However, I don’t think we’re going to see anything like a kiss or any super specific romantic stuff between them.

Time and time again, this show has gone with ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’, which isn’t great for a story in general, let alone an animated show. It’s not a writing practice I agree with, but I get it. They have to cut things in order to fit everything in. I believe one of the writers said that if they could have used all of the cut material, they might have been able to fill up another 26 episodes. We’ll never get to see those.

Anyway, with that in mind, they have 13 episodes left to wrap up everything with these characters. In fact, I’d dare say that we’ve largely seen the wrap up of the individual stories for Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro (In fact, you’ll notice I focus a lot less on them, because their personal stories are mostly done). So we need to see the wrap-up for Allura, Lance, and Keith (as well as everyone as a Team).

The reason I don’t think they’re going to show us any real romance between Allura and Lance, and just tell us that they’re together, is partially because they have 13 episodes left, and partially because it’s not a show about romance. The only reason that the romance will be included in a small way is for specific character arcs that were always going to end that way.

It’s why, after some thought, I’m sure they’re not shoehorning random ships in. The writers aren’t perfect and make decisions that I don’t completely agree with, but they do know what they’re doing. If they couldn’t write, no one would have been interested in the first place.

I think we’re going to be seeing the end of Allura and Lance’s relationship, and like I mentioned before going off on 100 tangents, I think this is going to be healthy for them both in the long run. There won’t be any wondering if they made the right choices in the long run, or any huge ‘what ifs’.

What’s going to lead to this tension very early on is the Altean. Allura is going to want to go to Haggar. She’s going to want to help the Alteans, to show them that Honerva is wrong about them and is using them.

I’ve said before that Allura’s story is not one about romantic love. Yes, she experienced it along the way, but it wasn’t the point. Allura’s identity has largely been tied to being ‘Princess Allura, daughter of King Alfor of Altea’. Think about it. Allura chose Pidge to leave because she and her family were the ones most likely to be able to complete her father’s work. Lotor grew up her so quickly, because he kept comparing her to her father, and clearly held him in high regards, and his more studious nature probably reminded Allura a lot of Alfor.

Shipping Sidenote

I think even her attraction to Lance is based on this in a sense. She genuinely liked Lotor. That was not a lie, and she didn’t get any kind of proper closure on that. Lance though, he’s been compared to Alfor a lot, including by Allura herself. I think she’s leaning more towards Lance not only because he’s a good friend, but because she seems some of her father in him, and she misplacing her admiration due to the heartbreak and hurt she’s feeling. Lance is her friend. Lance likes her already (thanks mice). Lance is a good person of her father and she sees other qualities that are the same that she always admired. Lance is safe.

I don’t at all mean this is a creepy way. Allura does not love her father that way. What I’m saying is that in her hurting, she’s misinterpreting her feelings for Lance. It’s why they came out of nowhere. Allura, before Lotor, has never had to seriously deal with romantic love as far as we know. Meaning she’s just as much as disaster as everyone else in that regard.

In S6, the castleship was destroyed, and in S7, Allura was treated less as a Princess and more as just another Paladin. This is shown by the fact that she’s very rarely referred to as a Princess, and the fact that she was wearing the same uniforms as the Paladins at the Garrison. If that’s not enough for you, she gave up her tiara to help Shiro (something she’s been shown to have almost all her life). This is the most stripped of her titles that she’s ever been. The most herself and not just a Princess.

Allura’s endgame is going to be all about building her own identity outside of her father. Not just that, but it’s going to be about surpassing him. Going from ‘Allura, daughter of the Alfor’ to ‘Alfor, father of the Allura’.

As I said before, Allura is going to want to go after the Alteans, and this is what’s going to be part of the end of her relationship with Lance. Why? Well…

Let’s take a look at Lance next.

Themes surrounding Lance can be largely boiled down to two things: self-worth, and romantic love.

People complain a lot about ‘they’re not addressing Lance’ or ‘he’s being overlooked’. Well, in this case, they actually do ‘show’ us instead of ‘tell’ us. There’s really no rhyme or reason to things like that.

Lance’s confidence is arguably at its highest in S7 in regards to his place on the team, and his usefulness. We don’t see him wavering like we did when Kuron was Black’s pilot. Lance knows how he fits into the team. Of course, there are still a few more things in regards to that that need to be addressed.  

I think those insecurities are largely going to involve Keith, which makes sense. We were introduced to Lance being compared to him pretty much out the gate. Keith has been both a huge source of motivation, inspiration, but also insecurities for Lance.

I think we’re going to see Acxa hanging around Keith a lot. I don’t think it’s going to actually be portrayed as romantic between them, but Lance is going to think it is, just like he questioned Allura and Keith’s relationship when they ran off together. It’s going to make him insecure despite his relationship with Allura, because she’s never been able to help him emotionally in quite the same way that he could help her.

Lance is going to become insecure again due to this, and he’s going to want to stay on Earth. I think that this is going to be the thing that finally leads him and Allura to separate from one another. I don’t mean ‘finally’ as in ‘thank god finally’, I mean as in they could both kind of see it coming. Allura never got her closure with Lotor. Lance has all those ‘what ifs’ involving Keith. She wants to go to space. He wants to stay on Earth.

I think we’ll see Hunk and Pidge wanting to stay on Earth with their families too.

Keith though, he’s going to agree with Allura. Though they have their differences, the two of them are a lot alike. They do things differently, but often times have the bigger picture in mind.

Of course Lance will be a bit hurt by Allura at the time, and vice versa, and I think he’ll lash out at Keith like he did in the past during moments of high stress. He’ll accuse Keith of wanting to run away again. Maybe Hunk tries to keep things calm like before, but this time, Keith is going to end up storming away from them.

It’s not like they’re in deep space. Nothing can happen this time, right?

Well, in space, they were tricked into thinking that a predator that wanted to eat them was the safety of Earth. This time around, the safety of a friend turns out to be not-so-safe.

Time to talk about Keith.

I genuinely think that Keith’s gay, and that he was coded that way on purpose. I do not think he has romantic feelings for Acxa, and I do not think she has romantic feelings for him either. Him going back to save her at the time makes sense, because Keith started as the person that would suggest leaving someone behind for the bigger picture (Allura in S1), then grow as a team player to the point where he’ll run back for others when he’s told not to (Regris in S4, to stop the bombs in S5), to someone who in theory understands the concept of leaving someone behind but only when that person is him (flying at the shield in S4, telling Krolia to leave him in S5, saying he understands why she left him for the mission in S6). Keith would have gone back anyone that was on their side as it was, let alone the person that keeps saving him or letting him go. (Sidenote: this should not be surprising, because look at Shiro. Shiro who would go back and fight for anyone else, but takes shit care of himself. You know, the dude that raised Keith in his teenage years? Yeah.)

I think that Acxa was looking for the Paladins, specifically Keith. Maybe it’s on a personal level where she thinks that he could be a good leader, sees a little bit of Lotor in him, and she wants to be his sort-of right hand in the way she was with Lotor. I don’t think so though. He already has a ‘right hand’ he trusts without hesitation (as shown time and time again in S7 alone).

I really don’t think this is where this is going though.

Keith has always been the ‘special snowflake’ of the bunch, but he’s written in a way that, unless you hate him anyway, it doesn’t make him a bad character. For every one thing that makes him ‘special’ he has a downside that balances it out.

It’s not even that he’s part-Galra that actually makes him ‘special’ though. There are plenty of part-Galra characters. It’s whatever he has going on with quintessence, which was shown in S1, then shoved aside for everything else, and brought back slightly in S6, and then in full-force in S7. That wasn’t a mistake. They’re taking his connection to quintessence somewhere.

Not just that. Thematically, it would have made more sense for Shiro to land the killing blow on Sendak. I thought that was where it was going to go. But instead they chose Keith to kill him on-screen in a way that is framed very similarly to Zarkon defeating Alfor.

Given that Keith’s the leader of Voltron, and that he killed Sendak, I think perhaps the blade is encouraging him to take up a leadership role with the Galra. Maybe others are too, and this is another factor about why he wants to go back to space.

Keith would not at all want to be an Emperor. I don’t think he’d want to be any kind of political leader. He can be more of a military one like with Voltron, in charge of a small team, but politics? Nah. He’s not going to want that, but he’s going to feel pressure from a lot of sides to do it.

After his fight with Lance, he goes to talk to Acxa, who he’s been close to lately. Maybe he decides to apologize to Lance, to tell him he’s not going to be this Galra leader, but as a team they need to go after Haggar.

Then Acxa is going to lure him into a trap.

I think that Acxa is still working with Honerva, but only as a means to an end. I think they have a common goal: they both want Lotor back.

Now time to talk more about Acxa and Honerva to show I’m not taking a female character and making her bad for the sake of a ship because, ew. Also, we’re going to talk a lot about Lotor too.

So yeah, the Lotor stuff first.

First and foremost, we’re not done with Lotor. One of the first things you should realize is, unless they’re actually shown as dead, assume they’re not dead. Sometimes they are (side-eyes Shiro), and sometimes they’re shown as dead and still come back, but you know what I mean.

The Paladins are assuming that Lotor could not survive in the rift. Keep in mind, both Allura and Keith wanted to go back and get him, to bring him back out, but then the other three said no, and Keith sided with the majority instead of fighting, so they left him.

Lotor is not a normal Galra. I don’t mean in the sense that he’s part Altean, or seemed to value intelligence over brute force. I’m talking about the fact that Honerva was pregnant with him when Lotor brought her into the void. Maybe part of the reason (not the whole reason), she became so obsessed with Quintessence and the rift was trying to find a way to save her sick unborn baby or something. Given that she had notes and stuff, Lotor would see that love towards him, and it would make him value her more.

Keep in mind, he hated Zarkon. He also knew who Haggar was all along, you can tell, he just separates them into two different people, because Haggar didn’t know who he was and was a witch and monster that probably worked against him time and time again, but Honerva was the mother that loved him and wanted to save him.

Lotor values loyalty almost above all else. That shit matters.

Anyway, Honerva was pregnant when she went into the rift, and those creatures took over both Zarkon and Honerva, twisting them into the corrupted form of Zarkon that lived for 10,000 years as a monster, and Haggar.

When Zarkon died, the black bayard changed back into the non-corrupted form, showing that, for that split second before he died, he was free of those monsters. He died as himself. Honerva went to Oriande, and I think that perhaps it expelled the creatures from her body, hence the shift even in the subtitles from the name Haggar to Honerva. Like Lotor, she too separates herself into two different people.  

My point is though, these rift creatures took over two adult minds. What do you think they did to an unborn child that’s essentially a blank slate? When Lotor used the black bayard, it was in its corrupted form, and I think that they showed us that to show that something isn’t right with him on that level.

That’s why Oriande didn’t ‘cure’ him like it did Haggar. That corruption is the reason he’s alive, it’s a part of him in a way like non-other. Or, perhaps, Haggar knew how to handle the white lion, and if Lotor would have done that properly, the creatures would have left him. Who knows?

We do know that there was something wrong with Lotor at birth. Zarkon asks if he can be saved. We also see little Lotor with glowing eyes. Yet, he’s been alive for 10,000 years and looks like a young adult.

Yeah, he can survive the rift for a long period of time. In fact, he’s probably the only thing that physically can.

What does all this have to do with Acxa though?

She has been loyal to him through everything. He killed Narti, and that had Ezor and Zethrid wanting to run for the hills. Acxa seemed to agree, but we later find out that she was playing everyone right alongside Lotor. He had to go on his own with the Paladins, and she was the oen that suggested going to Zarkon. Who do you think gave her that idea?

I don’t think she knew that Haggar would seek them out after Zarkon was gone, but she rolled with it, keeping eyes and ears with the Galra while Lotor did his thing.

I cannot stress that again. Lotor killed Narti, and she was still loyal to him. Unwaveringly loyal and willing to shoot Honerva for his sake. Lotor knew this. He trusted Acxa above all others.

Then she saw him unhinging during the fight with Voltron. She says ‘separate ties with Lotor for good’, but then she tries to plead with him later and looks genuinely heartbroken over what’s happening.

I think she’s still loyal to Lotor, and she wants to help get him out of the rift, which is exactly what Honerva’s planning on doing.

We know from interviews that Honerva actually does feel love towards Lotor. It’s what motivated her from being all ‘yes Zarkon kill the bitch’ to ‘ohfuckno activate babysitter-Kuron, give him black bayard’ probably knowing that Zarkon wasn’t going to come out of it alive.

Instant switch when she remembered. We have no idea what she wanted to use Sendak for. No idea what her plan was for capturing Lotor.

Neither Haggar nor Honerva are necessarily leaders. She has almost cult-like control over the druids, and now probably the Alteans, but she’s not an overall leader.

Honerva and Acxa are working together to bring Lotor back, and then they’re going to make him Emperor of a proper Empire this time. At first, Honerva wanted to use Sendak to bring together the Empire, and then probably off him for Lotor to take over (and proving some kind of loyalty).

I think that’s still her plan. Put her child in power, and be able to run her experiments and do as she pleases since she’s his mother and helped him.

Okay but what does this have to do with Keith?

I’ve said this in other posts, but it’s almost like a double-whammy. They need to get control over the factions of the Galra Empire for her plans to work. We know it’s in shambles with warlords running amok, and Haggar needs a new puppet.

Who is someone many people are likely going to follow? Perhaps a half-Galra that happens to be the current Black Paladin? The Black Lion seems to be almost a symbol towards the Galra too. Lotor presented himself as bringing Black back to the Galra, and Black showed Shiro Daizabaal as her home.

Not only that though. Lotor probably had the greatest collective forces in the shambles of the Galra Empire, and Keith just fucking shanked him. Came flying down from the heavens and delivered a holy ass whoopin’, skewering him in half. On screen.

The coalition, in this theory, already wants him as the leader, so she’s going to sink her claws into him and control him. Keith isn’t at all going to do this willingly. Perhaps this leads to some answers about Narti and Kova, since Narti’s the only character that was shown to be able to control minds directly of people that she didn’t create, and it’s still suspicious that she had Haggar’s fucking 10,000 year old cat as her seeing-eye animal (also, Haggar looking through Narti’s eyes in S4? Not to be insensitive, but she literally didn’t have eyes, so how was Haggar watching them? Oh, right. Through the fucking cat.)

(Kova is secretly the one that controls minds, Narti was just a puppet.)

She doesn’t want to keep Keith around permanently though.

NOTE: this Galra Emperor stuff might mean nothing at all. In fact, you can take that part out of the theory all together and it can still work as long as you just focus on getting Lotor back.

Honerva had zero interest in Keith as of S6. She wanted Kuron to get rid of him. However, I think she was also watching that fight through his eyes. Keith, if he would have been fighting as offensively and aggressively as he used to, would have beaten Shiro. We saw this in the fight, because the times he did go on the offensive, he was close to overpowering him (“There’s the Keith I remember”).

The only things that might have caught her attention were Keith’s strength (he did win in the end), summoning the black bayard from Shiro (which, yes, I do think is what happened despite some others not thinking so), and when his eyes changed.

Shapeshifting is not something associated with Galra. Not at all. We’ve seen half-Galra with strange abilities (Narti with mind control, and Ezor with turning herself invisible that was never really used properly again), but that doesn’t explain Keith’s eyes changing. Galra have never been shown to do that. It would have been easy to show. It wasn’t though, because it’s not a Galra trait.

Also, Galra haven’t been shown to have a connection to Quintessence.

Humans certainly don’t shapeshift. Humans don’t seem to have a stronger than normal connection to Quintessence, otherwise we would have seen more of the other Paladins doing stuff with it like Keith was shown to do in S7.

Originally, with him, it seemed more like a slight ability that may have been slightly watered down from human or Galra genetics over time. A part of me thinks that Krolia herself isn’t all Galra. A parent or grandparent could have been Altean, the only species shown to be shapeshifters at this point. Krolia doesn’t look like any other Galra we’ve seen, outside of Lotor and Acxa.

That might not at all be the case though. Or maybe someone even farther in the past wasn’t entirely Galra but far enough back where Krolia doesn’t even know about it. Genetics sometimes keep things around like that, and they randomly pop up every once and a while. Hell, maybe it’s just because he was born and grew up in his young years so close to Blue.

Doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that he then got doused with a vat of raw quintessence.

Honerva said a small amount of it could power things for a long period of time. She used it to keep Kova alive for over 10,000 years. Not just Kova, but Zarkon, herself, potentially Zarkon’s closest generals (Sendak seemed to imply that he was around when Altea fell), and then there’s Lotor, or course. Keith took a fucking shower in it.

It’s not like she has any way of knowing that, right? It’s not like someone loyal to her would have pointed it out, ri—

Oh.

Honerva went looking for answers, and the druid brought up what happened. I don’t think she knew about that beforehand though, because, again, she never seemed interested in Keith before.

Through all her observations, she knows Keith probably is a walking quintessence hotspot. It was Lotor’s idea to take the quintessence from the Alteans themselves, and she said that she was impressed with it. She definitely took it further, making a robot that can be powered by a single Altean that’s strong enough to technically defeat Voltron by sapping away it’s quintessence, and also doing a lot of other weird shit while fighting Atlas.

Honerva wants Keith for his Quintessence, most likely to open the rift to get Lotor back. This is exactly why Acxa’s working with her, because though she has a connection to Keith, Lotor means so much more to her.

Acxa was looking for Voltron, and Keith specifically. We literally have no idea where she went after she separated from Voltron, but she definitely didn’t tell the coalition that they were back. So where did she go?

I think she went back to Haggar and told them that Voltron was heading to Earth. That was how Haggar knew to watch Earth. She waited until Keith killed Sendak to make her move. She was absolutely keeping track of this somehow. Maybe she was already paying attention to Earth, but given everything else she seems to have been doing, she was probably tipped off about where they were going.

Also, I find it suspicious that Haggar was the one that gave the orders to target the Blade of Marmora, and then later all the Voltron Coalition.

Maybe other groups were hunting the Coalition down, but we know that Haggar gave the druids the job of hunting the Blade. The Blade, that also wasn’t on her radar until she was watching Keith through Kuron’s eyes, saw him dressed in that uniform, and introduced his Galra mother to Kuron as a part of the Blade of Marmora.

Yes, they were more out of the shadows since teaming up with Voltron, so she probably heard about them before, but that was the first time she’d shown true interest in the entire group specifically. I think she was trying to find Keith too.

That druid singled out Keith. Yes, Kosmo was the one that teleported Keith away, but still, the druid (who I know has a name but I’m lazy). Krolia was a higher ranking Blade with more experience. She’s arguably more dangerous than Keith. Then there was Allura, who is a walking power house. But he went for Keith.

This all leads up to…

Acxa gets close to Keith to trick him, and brings him to Haggar. Perhaps to use as a puppet for a while, but definitely to use to bring Lotor back (in this theory). Except, maybe she didn’t tell Acxa that Keith would most likely die doing this.

Loyal to Lotor or not, Acxa has a connection to Keith. She still wants Lotor back, but she doesn’t want him to die in the process.

So she’s going to go back to Voltron somehow to get their help. She’s a morally grey character, and that’s fine. It doesn’t make her demonic or anything like that. She’s allowed to make mistakes and be played herself.

Meanwhile on Earth…

The other Paladins do notice that Keith is gone. However, they think he left with the other Galra. Lance is probably going to be shown as the angriest about this, but also acting like he doesn’t care.

Then Keith’s mother and Kolivan show up and they’re all confused. Then Acxa shows up and tells them what’s up.

Side point

I don’t think that Atlas is made to replace the castleship, though there’s definitely the parallels of Shiro taking Allura’s place in that respect with it. I think that Atlas will be staying close to Earth to protect it and act as the new Vehicle Voltron. 

I think that they’re going to work on creating a second castleship that Voltron can use to get around. Maybe it won’t be a castle, but another ship at least so the lions can recharge. It’s why they brought the whole fucking Balmera at the end of S7. So Shay could come back, and so they can get a crystal to power it. Maybe the Alteans end up living there as the explorers and peacekeepers they always were in the end. (With Romelle flying it in Allura’s old position).

This is what prompts all of the Paladins into going after Keith. Perhaps Haggar tries to keep them busy on Earth by sending other Altean-robots to fight them. That’s where Atlas comes in. Atlas and the MFE fighters are going to protect Earth, keep it safe so that the Paladins don’t have to worry. I’m not entirely sure if Shiro’s going to go with them or not.

If there’s a replacement castleship by this point, I don’t think it’s done, so they have to take the lions.

They realize that they’re going to need Voltron for this. They can’t leave Black behind. So once again, they need a temporary Paladin.

At this point, they’re not going to do a permanent lion switch again.

Just like Keith didn’t want to go into Black, Lance isn’t going to want to either, because he’s going to be blaming himself. It’s what Lance does. I think this is where he’s going to have a one-on-one talk with Shiro about everything. Shiro’s going to be the one to urge him to try, to go save Keith. I could see him encouraging Lance to go after Keith, to not give up, because he’s still there (unlike Adam).

I think that Lance will be the one that Black accepts, because he’ll be the one that wants to get Keith back the most out of all the current Paladins.

As for who temporarily flies Red? There are two options and I’m open for either of them. One is Coran finally getting the chance he’s wanted since before. The other is Romelle, explaining why she was shown in with Lance in Red several times during S7. She’s familiar with Red.

I’m leaning a little more towards Romelle, because of how they need to get to Keith. Allura can create wormholes again, and we know that Coran knows how to open them as well as long as Allura powers the teleduv beforehand. Plus, Coran helps pilot Atlas, so he’d be more useful on Earth, and Romelle going with them helps too.

No matter if Keith is being used as a pawn, or just basically a sacrifice, Honerva is going to use him to fight the others. Maybe he’ll be in a weakened state that she can take over (OR THE CAT CAN CONTROL…yeah I’m done with that) while also opening the rift to get Lotor back. Kind of like the last bit of energy he has left.

Allura is going to face Honerva, Altean vs. Altean. Since she’s there in this theory, Romelle tries to get through to the Alteans, because she’s a familiar face. They know her. She’d pump up Allura and rip both Lotor and Honerva down.

I haven’t focused much on Hunk or Pidge, and it’s not because they’re not important. Like I said before, their personal arcs are pretty much over as of S7. Here, they’re going to function in much more a team aspect. Planning together, being the ones to break in and fight sentries and stuff like that.

Lance is going to be the one to face Keith alone. I’ve gone through this theory before, even used it in a writing prompt. It’ll be the last Black Paladin vs. Red Paladin fight. Corrupted Zarkon vs. Alfor. Clone Shiro vs. Keith. Mind controlled Keith vs. Lance.

This is a secondary reason Lance has been compared to Alfor before. Why he was given the sword. It’s not a fair fight gun to sword, and not interesting visually. Lance could snipe Keith without much trouble.

Sword fights though are close up and much more intimate. We saw this in the Shiro vs. Keith fight, which was probably the BEST and most intense fight of the series to me.

There’s a reason why it’s important that Lance and Keith left off on seemingly bad terms. Keith’s been putting walls up again when it comes to Lance, having been rejected and having had time to dwell on that.

Haggar is going to use this to help control Keith, to get in his head. In this theory, Keith has had feelings for Lance for a long time, but Lance was with Allura. Haggar’s going to use that too. Hell, she’s going to use the fact that everyone seems to be using him for their own agendas when he doesn’t want to be a Galra leader. It’s a strong way to break through his stubborn defenses (plus she’d be sapping the quintessence from him).

Normally in a sword fight, Keith would destroy Lance. That’s the truth. No matter how much Lance has been practicing, Keith has been doing it for years and it’s his specialty (along with hand-to-hand).

Keith being weaker, and maybe a part of him still fighting back against the control, will allow Lance to put up a bit more of a fight, but ultimately, it’s going to be his words that get through to Keith.

It’s like how we saw Kuron react to Keith saying he loves him, except this time, Keith’s going to react strongly enough to either break through the control, or give Lance the chance to knock him out. Alternatively, it’ll give Lance the chance to quickly change bayards and maybe shoot something close by that’s controlling him (if there’s someone like Narti around).

(IF IT’S THE CAT KOSMO TAKES IT OUT. HENCE WHY HE WAS INTRODUCED. OKAY THIS TIME I’M DONE WITH THE STUPID CAT THAT PROBABLy MEANS NOTHING BUT LET ME LIVE)

There’s not going to be a romantic, love confession here. Maybe friendship and love. Definitely more personal stuff.

Then we get Lance getting Keith out of there, and ideally, we get a flashback of the actual bonding moment, because it’s being mirrored here.

Meanwhile, Allura ends up defeating Honerva, but she says something like she’s too late, and the rift opens again. Romelle’s words and Allura’s actions prompted many of the Alteans to agree to go with them, so they’re all bailing out.

The creatures are coming back out, but in a few form, because the Lotor that went in is not going to be the Lotor that comes out.

The Sincline ships didn’t quite function like the lions. They were ships that could combine together, but showed no sentience of their own. That’s going to change now, because the rift creatures (which were shown as being quadrupeds like the lions) gave them sentience.

Maybe Lotor lets Honerva and Acxa pilot two of the ships now, maybe he doesn’t need to. Maybe he looks the same, maybe he’s completely different, I’m not entirely sure.

If Lotor doesn’t let Honerva help him, I think he’s going to be the one to kill her, just like he killed Zarkon. As for Acxa, either she helps Lotor and goes back to him, she was back on Earth the entire time, or she goes back with them. I don’t want her to die, though that’d definitely make it super obvious that this Lotor isn’t right.

The Lotor that went into the rift was misguided, had a bad moral compass, but he wasn’t pure evil. This Lotor though is exactly the monster that Allura claimed he was.

The Paladins are going to retreat. Probably back to Earth.

What now?

There are many ways this can go. If it’s a mid-season kind of thing (which is…a lot but this show has been going full-tilt for a while now), there’s time to plan, to show the destruction the rift creatures can cause, to perhaps come up with an idea to save Lotor like neither of his parents could be saved.

Allura needs to have closure with Lotor in some form. She needs that.

Like Romelle was a Princess in the original, I could see her becoming something of a Leader with the surviving Alteans. The one to guide them into this new world with both Coran and Allura helping. This leaves Allura open to continue being the Blue Paladin.

Allura, however, will focus on alchemy. Somehow, she’ll figure out a way to make the lions stronger, to give them an upgrade.

Both Allura and Lotor were following in the footsteps of a parent. For Lotor, it was Honerva. For Allura, it was Alfor. Lotor did improve on Honerva’s work and took it to places she couldn’t imagine (but then later used herself). Allura is going to surpass her father too by somehow improving the lions, making them stronger.

Allura’s future is going to involve a combination of being an alchemist, helping the Alteans, and being a Paladin of Voltron, and kicking ass at all of them as the strong, confident woman she truly is. Alteans definitely age differently than humans, so in the distant future, I could see her eventually being the Black Paladin. But we won’t see that in the show.  

There were some toys released a while ago with the lions looking different, perhaps that was done for a reason. Toys sometimes do spoil things amongst many franchises.

They all know Lotor’s going to come for them, so they’re getting ready for it. I don’t think the final fight will be by Earth though, they’ve already done that. The battle with Lotor technically took place by the ruins of Daizabaal were if I remember correctly (that’s where the rift originally was). Where would be a significant place though that we haven’t seen at all?

Who were the ‘bad guys’ during the first part of this season?

The fight with Lotor will be by the ruins of Altea, which we have yet to actually see. Allura said Altea and the entire star system was destroyed. Sendak said that Altea was the only world to fight back against the Galra, the only one to be completely destroyed.

We saw Daizabaal. We saw Earth. We have yet to actually see Altea, or what’s left of it. If there’s something left of Zarkon’s home that was destroyed first, there’s something left of that too.

Maybe Lotor offers them a challenge. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done something like that. It’d give him the upper hand luring them in. Maybe they go there first, knowing that there won’t be anyone else there that can get hurt in the process.

Of course, it depends on when this type of things happens and who’s on his side. There’s a lot that can happen in half a season. Either that, or this is going to be towards the very end and we’ll have a couple episodes with a single intense and emotionally draining battle in it.

Before they go, we’re going to see a lot of intensely emotional moments between characters and families. We’ll see Allura and Lance reconciling and agreeing to be friends. We’ll see Lance with his family. We’ll see Hunk with his. Pidge with hers. We’ll see Allura with Coran and Romelle, as well as the other Alteans.

Three important ones will happen though.

We’ll see Krolia with Keith. All of this happening doesn’t change the fact that the Galra need some kind of leader to get their shit together (even if it’s not an Empire). Everyone else will finally listen to Keith when he says he doesn’t want that. In fact, going off of him killing Sendak is just keeping those old ways alive. Instead, we’ll see Krolia as the leader (no, not Kolivan, Krolia). Maybe she needs to be an Empress for a bit before changing things. (Keith would be a pretty princess in this case, wouldn’t he, AJ?)

We’ll see Shiro with everyone else too. Some hugely emotional moments where they’re all talking about how far they’ve come.

We’ll see a moment between Lance and Keith too, where they get their shit together and are honest with one another. Keith is going to ask if Lance wants to fly Black, insisting he could go to Red (Romelle does NOT want a second time of that), but Lance is going to say no, because he’s confident in himself now. He knows where he belongs and that he’s good enough.

IF there’s any direct romantic implications, which I think there will be, this is where it’s going to be MOST obvious. We’ll see a hug no matter what, but if they want to do it, this is the right place to frame a kiss too where the judgemental assholes can still say ‘no they’re just HUGGING’ even though they’re definitely not.

Honestly, I’m not sure how whatever big final fight they have is going to pan out. I THINK it’s going to be with the rift creatures/Lotor, but there’s always the slightest chance it’ll involve Honerva as well, all things depending.

Of course they win in the end. Maybe people get scarred and injured, but no one is going to die from the main group.

Over 7000 words and I’m not even sure if they save Lotor to help him, or just defeat him. I’d like to think they help him this time around though. Or at least try to.  

What I do know is that a show called Voltron is going to end with an epic battle involving Voltron.

I also think that, at the end, everyone will have lives on Earth/with Alteans/other aliens, but our current team of Paladins will also be shown to be going back into space in the end. They’ll be excited, ready to go as a team, and they’ll go together and by their own choice. The Galra Empire did do a lot of damage, after all, and there are plenty of worlds that need help anyway.

And that is how the show will end.

Things I did not address: What’s going on with the MFE fighters? I genuinely don’t know. Their inclusion threw me off. It really felt like they were setting up a spin-off series with them, and S7 was used to introduce them. They’re defending Earth while Voltron is off in space I guess?

I didn’t really address Hunk and Pidge, because like I said, their personal story arcs are either finished or almost there. We even saw Hunk reuniting with Shay, which is something that tends to happen at the end of a story arc, especially since she, more than anything else, was what really started his growth as a person.

Pidge, as well, was shown surrounded by her family. Her mom was there. Her dad was there. Matt was there. Matt has a masked girlfriend. Hell, Beezer was there along with Nyma (though Rolo was suspiciously absent…which I don’t know what to make of that at all). The goals she set out to accomplish have been accomplished. She now has friends, is part of a team, is less selfish. Again, what prompted her to grow and change has largely been accomplished and shown.

Shiro is another character who has found his place and where he belongs now. He’s not a Paladin anymore, but that’s okay. Shiro has had the amazingly unique story of being both The Mentor and being an active character in his own right. That’s incredibly rare in stories, since the mentors are normally shrugged aside or killed (which…yeah…was supposed to happen). He’s found a place as a bridge between the Garrison and Voltron more than anyone else.

I didn’t talk about the rebels or coalition really, or the rest of the blade, or even Krolia for that matter, cause I’m not entirely sure where that fits in with this. That can be worked out later.

SO, this is some wild speculation mixed with meta, mixed with theories, mixed with fanfiction ideas. I just pretty much planned out an entire story here that I do not want to write myself.

Hit me up if you’re interested.

…Also if even ONE thing ends up happening, I’m going to lose my shit. And I accidentally predicted a ton of stuff that ended up going down in S6 once. Maybe I’ll get lucky again?

[nibielis]

Tea-ries time {Vld season 6 edition}

Okay it's 7 in the morning and I've been awake since five because my brain just decided it was FUN to just, I don't know, go wild?

So beware, from now on I'll talk about stuff happened in the season 6, you've been warned!

Ps. Please forgive my grammar mistakes~

Pps. This stuff is LONG. I am so sorry guys.

Tex-Mex aka The original Space Padre

I have this feeling he might still be alive, maybe he just faked his own death to find out where the hell Krolia went and that could maybe conclude Keith's family arc once they get back to Earth.

I'll exclude that Shiro and TexMex are related because why would young Keith demand to be brought back to the (foster) home if he had a relative?

Also, nice shot TexMex, you and Krolia are a powerCouple.

Ps. Who was baby Keith with the night you two reckless hotheads decided to blow up Galras?

Pps. They remind me of someone else, more of that later

Romelle is a babe aka everyone fears for their otp

I love her to death and I am so happy that they decided to bring her in the reboot of the show (she is one of the producer's favorite character from the original show) and I can't wait to have her be adopted by Krolia.

In regards to the title I have seen so many speculations about she and Lance ending up together (their ship name is Romance, okay? Okay.) but let me tell you why I wouldn't buy that: she is such an independent and strong woman who, literally, didn't trust a single word while her colony was brainwashed for generations. She is smart, she is strong and I believe love isn't in her focus. Maybe I am wrong but I wouldn't be disappointed if, for once, a girl is portrayed as happy and fulfilled even without a love interest.

As for Romelle and Keith...no guys. He checked Rolo with a sly smile, no reactions with allura, no reactions with any female alien. Nothing is set in stone but if something happens is with Lance.

I am a pretty little princess aka Shiro's back.

He is snow white, he was under the control of an evil witch, the team has a dwarf (Thanks M&M) and now he finally rests.

Also, he is now hired at the space Mall as a Santa Claus. Because they have Christmas in space. Full stop. (Thanks to @r-i-v-e-r for the best image ever)

Said that I believe that, once they get back to earth, the Holts will create a new arm for Shiro, I don't think he'll go to the Garrison to get it fixed.

It's gonna be something super cool infused with Altean magic to symbolize that he is now 100% out of the Galra's control

Klance is dead! (No, not really)

many and many words have been said about that already so I'll be quick. This season was around endings.

"This ends now" aka when Lotor completely shipwrecked his own ship (good job man, I thought you were smarter).

"You are my brother. I love you" aka when Keith finally stops being emotionally blocked.

And many more.

This season served to resolve loads of mess and 5 seasons of questions, you can't have rushed romance.

And, I love this ship, it's in my top 3 otp of all times, but this is a mecha show. I would love the romance but we can't expect Keith just going up to lance with a Shoujo Manga scene with blush, pink background and cherry flowers dancing in the wind (*cough*bondingmoment*cough*) we were in the middle of a mess, with Lotor literally committing a genocide. I bet he talked about Lance the whole time to his mother, he talked about the whole team, how they cried when he left. I am sure of that because he grew up. Those 2 years are not just "we are on a space time thing that makes time do weird stuff" but also a symbolic growth. He left as a boy who thought the only way to protect his family was to leave. He then found his mother, learned about his past and he understood. He grew up as a man that knows what he has, where his family is.

So I bet that once they are back on earth and s little bit more relaxed they'll have a proper group hug.

And, please, let's not forget what Lance said about Keith the second he saw him.

Also am I the only one that when saw TexMex and Krolia being so domestic thought "they look exactly like those aged up klance"

No? Just me? Okay

My Goldfish Space wolf is evil

okay hear me out, you remember when haggar just vanishes in thin air after Acxa shoots her?

And remember the comet/wolf crashing on the back of the space whale?

I don't want to say that Haggar is Keith's space puppy but it's Keith's space puppy.

Hunk is beautiful

Yeah, sorry, just needed to say that I love him. Plus team Punk goes strong.

And I want Shay back, can I have shay back?

Thanks

Conclusion

Said that this season was amazing, made me hold my breath, missed my boi Lance smile (well he smiled to Keithy boi eheh) and I wish his happiness arc comes soon~!

[ganymedesclock]

Okay so, I have two sibling cats. The boy can get very nervous, so he lays on top of the girl for comfort. CAN YOU IMAGINE BABY KEITH DOING THAT W BABY AXCA?! Just... them as babies.

Fun fact, I actually have a personal headcanon looking at Keith and Acxa as they are as teenagers/young adults that they were probably super dang clingy as kids.

Like... Acxa seems to have a pretty clear attitude that she takes care of people by sort of managing them- she’s much more field commander as an SiC than Keith is (and that’s not to say Keith isn’t) and so far the entirety of her sentiments towards Keith seem to be summed up in that she pointedly, irritably has his back. I would say “grudgingly” except literally nobody and nothing is forcing Acxa to do this, just, if the chips are down and Keith is in danger from something else, Acxa intervenes to protect him, and then gives him a displeased sort of look and leaves.

Keith, conversely? Is pretty clingy, actually. Since he’s a socially awkward introverted kind of person it doesn’t show up very obviously but he tends to linger around other people or follow them from place to place and his response to Acxa has so far been kind of yo-yoing between cautious hope that they are connected somehow, and anger/frustration that Acxa doesn’t seem to be reciprocating.

So I guess I have the funny idea of when they were little Acxa was determined to be the Mature Adult Caretaker even though I read them as twins and thus the same age- so Acxa’s older but by a matter of seconds and her posturing about how mature she is is an act of immaturity in herself. While Keith was a little shier back then, because in short, he could afford to be.

Keith is just plain a really sensitive person, especially about wanting to feel connected to others. Between what I speculate about Keith’s dad, what we know for a fact about Krolia, and knowing that Acxa as a person seems to tend to express any kind of caring by sticking close to people... this means that early in his life Keith would have been a pretty different person.

I think that little Keith was a very open crybaby- because at the point in his life when he had two attentive parents that really wanted to have him... he’d have no shortage of people to confide in. Anything going wrong, he had his choice of people to run crying to.

As an older person, we see that the people Keith gravitates towards interpersonally are confidants. He responds a lot more positively to Allura opening up to him in s2e6 and s2e12 than he does her much more distant and duty-bound sort of overture in s4e1. His relationship with Shiro seems heavily tilted towards the knowledge that Shiro will comfort him and offer him emotional support- twice now we’ve seen Keith in a worrying emotional place and getting a hug from Shiro.

And Keith defines this connection as “like a brother” which suggests even as long as Keith’s been separated from his family, Keith views family through the lens of, family is nurturing.

When does Keith start opening up to Lance?

When Lance, from Keith’s perspective unexpectedly, steps up to comfort him in Shiro’s absence and reassure him that they all feel as lonely and scared as he does, that it’s not that he alone misses Shiro and everyone else doesn’t care.

So Keith’s sense of sibling sensibilities, what’s ‘right’ about the relationship between siblings, is they should be close.

And the writers seem to be implying that Keith and Acxa, despite everything, are close. Even though they don’t realize their own connection more than a vague sense.

When they’re in the same scene it’s the most obvious, but their behavior syncs up heavily- to the point that Acxa and Keith have almost the same reaction to feeling uncomfortable and frustrated in a situation, which is to fold their arms and pout.

S2e9 featured, repeatedly and heavily, Keith and Acxa fighting back to back. This is narratively a big gun- it’s a pretty archetypal gesture of solidarity and teamwork between two people, and it’s broken out at a point where Keith knows nothing about Acxa- not who she works for, not her position, not even her name, face, and preferred pronouns.

This is why I lean towards the idea that Keith and Acxa are probably fraternal twins, is that visually, in terms of their motifs, they’re framed really strongly as two of a kind, far more directly and overtly than say, Shiro and Lotor, or Hunk and Zethrid.

With the others, you can see the parallels but also their differences, you have to kind of look to see the ways that they’re each others’ equal numbers. Hunk and Zethrid and Gyrgan all have that Yellow Lion archetype of personality but they’re all different people.

Keith and Acxa feel like they were conceptualized as a matched set of characters. And this is emphasized further the way, as always, VLD loves to use a characters’ signature weapon as an indication of identity.

Krolia fights with a gun in one hand and a sword in the other.

Keith and Acxa respectively wield an identical sword (by necessity, as it’s the same sword) and a nearly-identical gun. Krolia and Acxa conspicuously wield the only handguns we have seen within the empire and, at this point, within the cast- everything else is two-handed rifles. Again, matched set.

So honestly more than cute headcanons it’d make thematic sense given the implications of the show that Keith and Acxa were super close.