#i have a half written essay post about this episode somewhere and i should really finish that

[bikananjarrus]

and what if i said the call was my fave episode of rebels period. what then

[nikibogwater]

A Needlessly Intense Analysis of Claire Nuñez

As I find myself with nothing to do on a dreary Monday afternoon, my mind has returned, not for the first time, to something that has irked, bewildered, and befuddled me ever since I first watched season 1 of Trollhunters back in early 2017. And that thing is the character of Claire Nuñez. 

Now this probably goes without saying, but the following rant/essay is going to include criticisms of how Claire was written throughout the entirety of Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia. If you’re someone who absolutely loves Claire as a character and are easily upset by people disliking or criticizing the way she was written, then please by all means just scroll on past--I’m writing this simply to air out some of my own long-dormant thoughts, pass some time, and perhaps spark a friendly discussion with those who are interested in such a thing. I’m not doing this with the intent of attacking or shaming anybody who likes Claire, or causing any unnecessary stress. Kapish? 

Good. 

With that out of the way, I’ll put the short version of everything right here for those of you who don’t want to read the mile-long essay under the post: In terms of writing, Claire Nuñez is a bizarre mish-mash of contradicting elements. On the one hand, certain aspects of her character and her arc in Trollhunters are very solid examples of Good Character Writing, and she has the potential to be a great secondary protagonist. And yet half the time, she also comes across as the most very poorly-conceived character in the entire franchise. In all my time in the fandom, I’ve observed these two most common reactions to Claire as a character: fans either adore her (mostly because of her relationship with Jim), or they are thoroughly disinterested in her--even greatly annoyed by her in some cases. In my own experience, I’ve swung from absolutely loathing her, to thinking she’s great, to landing somewhere in the middle. But anyways, that’s the jist of my analysis. The more detailed, slightly ranty version is under the cut.

I think the most telling thing about Claire as a character is that I honestly struggle to list more than one or two personality traits that she displays with any sort of consistency. When she’s introduced to us in Trollhunters, she’s Cute and Sweet, and not much else. A few episodes in, she suddenly swings around into Petty and Self-Centered with no warning. Then suddenly her defining character traits become Angry and Badass. Now there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a character changing/evolving over time--actually, that’s what we call a character arc, and it’s pretty much always something you want to have in a story. And all those traits and the way they change into something else over time are the ingredients of a really good character arc. The problem with Claire’s arc is that it’s less of an arc and more of just several loosely connected dots. And in order for a character to feel grounded in reality, they do need to have at least a few core personality traits that they never fully lose, no matter where they are on their emotional journey. For example, although Jim’s arc involves overcoming his timidity and becoming confident in his new role as a hero, he never loses that sense of compassion and self-sacrifice that he exhibits within the first few minutes of his character introduction. Jim changes and grows, but he remains kind, because kindness is one of his core character traits. Claire only has one core character trait that remains consistent throughout the entire show, and it is the one core character trait that you should absolutely NEVER give to a character if it is to be their only core character trait:

Extreme Competence. 

I’ve heard the phrase Mary-Sue used to describe Claire a lot, and while I don’t think it’s an entirely accurate summation of her character, I understand why it comes to many people’s minds. The one thing about Claire that remains consistent is the fact that she is prodigiously good at pretty much everything she tries. Even things that she logically should not have any prior knowledge or experience with. The audience is constantly being bashed over the head with just how Cool and Capable Claire is, how much Better she is than everyone else. And without any clearly-defined flaws to counteract this, Claire comes across as the one type of character absolutely no one can relate to.

Now, when I say “clearly-defined flaws,” what I mean are moral/logistical failings in her personality/behavior that have very real negative consequences that the audience can clearly see. There was a seemingly half-hearted attempt at giving her a character flaw when she snuck out to the Papa Skull concert, but this ultimately failed for me because she is never called out for her behavior and doesn’t suffer any visible negative consequences. Worse still, Jim and Toby act like what she did was totally fine, and that she’s completely justified in her anger at Jim after the house gets trashed. Even though the normal human response to this would be “Hey wait a second, you’re at least partially to blame for that too!” 

Now, there are two moments in the entire Tales of Arcadia series where it’s briefly insinuated that Claire feels bad about abandoning Enrique like she did, and one of them isn’t even in Trollhunters. There is never any substantial attention drawn to this, and never a moment where we can clearly see her acknowledging her fault and making an effort to be better. Now I’m all for hiding little details and bits of subtext here and there in a story, but when it comes to something as big as one of your major characters going through a character arc, I believe that you need to communicate that stuff clearly. You’re not being clever by glossing over it and hoping astute audiences will be able to sniff it out. You’re being lazy. It is not your audience’s job to make the character for you. Like, imagine if the writers of Avatar: The Last Airbender had skipped all of Zuko’s internal struggles, and then one episode he just shows up going “I’m going to teach the Avatar Firebending because I’m good now!” I don’t think that character would’ve been as beloved as he is had they only insinuated his growth happening off-screen. Just so in Claire’s case, skipping over her process of growth and maturing makes any future changes to her character feel spontaneous and unearned. Add in that problem of her only core character trait being the absolute WORST one they could have picked, and you have a perfect caricature of a nine-year-old’s fanfiction OC--which you probably don’t want to have in your multi-million-dollar tv series helmed by one of the most prolific storytellers in cinema. 

And the most frustrating part about all of this is that Claire’s character could be fixed so easily. As I stated above, the raw elements of her character and her arc are the perfect ingredients for creating a truly good character in a remarkably short amount of time. Claire is brilliant in theory, just not in practice. So then how should these elements have been put into practice? Well, there’s a host of different methods, but here’s the first one I’ve thought of that would require the least amount of change to the show:

Step One: If one of Claire’s core traits is being Good at Everything, then you need to explain why that is. Have Jim mention early on that she’s always busy, always involved in even the most niche of extracurricular activities at school. This will also have the added bonus of making your audience curious about her--why exactly does she feel the need to do all these different things? Because I’ll be honest here, Claire’s canon introduction did absolutely nothing to make me want to learn more about her. 

Step Two: Focus more on her love of acting. Acting is the only interest/hobby that canon Claire has apart from maybe rock music(?), and it’s barely given any time or explanation. We don’t know why she enjoys it, and once the Romeo and Juliet play is finished, this interest of hers is basically never brought up again. So during that Iconic Audition Scene, let her and Jim have a little conversation. Doesn’t need to be long, just enough so we can hear Claire say something to the effect of “Acting is my only real escape.” There. Now we know why she enjoys acting, and now we have even more questions about her: what exactly does she need to escape from? And if acting is the only thing she enjoys, why is she doing all these other activities after school? 

Step Three: EMBRACE. CLAIRE’S. FLAWS. Don’t ignore them, don’t gloss over them because “Well she’s the female love-interest and if she’s anything less than Perfect that’ll be sexist or smth.” Flaws are extremely important in Claire’s case because you’ve already established that she knows a heck ton about a heck ton of different things and has amassed a huge array of crazy skills. So lean into her pettiness, her self-centeredness, her pride--and don’t excuse it. Have the other characters actually be bothered by the way she treats Jim after the babysitting incident. Have her be called out for her behavior. And most importantly, show us how she overcomes these flaws. Again, don’t jump from one point in a character’s arc to another and expect the audience to fill in the blanks. That moment when Claire realizes her brother’s been replaced by a Changeling? That would be the perfect time to show her having that painful realization: that she was so intent on being Perfect all the time, so intent on getting her way, that she lost sight of what was truly important. As it is, her grief over losing Enrique feels very unearned in canon, since there’s no attention drawn to the guilt that she should also be feeling over it. 

Step Four: Reveal how she got here in the first place. Let her have a serious talk with Jim. Again, doesn’t even need to be that long. She could start by apologizing to him for how she treated him, and then explain herself. The reason she feels the need to do everything, and to do it perfectly, is because she is the daughter of a councilwoman. She needs to be exceptional because her behavior directly reflects Councilwoman Nuñez’s parenting. And if she’s anything less, not only will Councilwoman Nuñez look like a failure as a parent, Claire will be a failure as a daughter. That’s why acting was always Claire’s great escape--because she could become someone who didn’t need to live up to that standard, even if it was just for a little while. But sometimes she gets sick of it--she breaks. She wants to do something for herself, and nobody else. That’s why she snuck out to the Papa Skull concert that night. But in the end, none of that mattered. All her studying, all her practice, all her achievements at school, this obsession with being perfect--it cost her the one thing that did truly matter. And with that, she has acquired some new character traits: loyalty and protectiveness. She will do anything to get Enrique back, and is determined to never take her loved ones for granted again. Also get rid of her pestering and guilt-tripping Jim into going into the Darklands because my goodness, was that unnecessary and completely destroyed what little investment I had in their relationship beforehand. If you absolutely HAVE to have it in there, then again, have someone call her out for this. Please don’t teach kids that there are no consequences to treating people like this, the world already has enough self-entitled jerks as it is.

Step Five: I don’t think there even needs to be a step five. My only other suggestion would be to maybe keep bringing up Claire’s interest in acting from time to time, much like how the writers frequently bring up Jim’s interest in cooking. Maybe there could be a plot thread where the Trollhunters actually use her acting skills for infiltration or the like? Or perhaps any time there’s a lull in the action, she can be seen reading a script or a Shakespeare play in the background. 

Now probably the biggest question anybody has after all of this is “Niki, why the heck does any of this even matter? This is a show for children.” To which I will reply with “Children deserve to have good stories too.” And in the case of Trollhunters, I’m of the opinion that it is a good story, in pretty much every aspect, except for Claire. I think that’s why I’m so fascinated with her, and also why I’m so frustrated. It’s actually very similar to my feelings regarding Rise of the Titans. I’m morbidly fascinated with how a series as consistently good as Tales of Arcadia could have suddenly and inexplicably produced such a steaming pile of dumpster fire right at the very end. And likewise, I can’t stop wondering why, in a show with otherwise fantastic and well-written characters, it’s only Claire Nuñez who is so polarizing. 

As for the essay you’ve just suffered through, well, yeah, that didn’t matter very much, it just felt good to write. But I hope at least one or two of you enjoyed hearing me rant. Again if you have any additional thoughts or want to politely counter one of my points, feel free to share. I’d love it if this turned into a bit of a discussion.

[veliseraptor]

2019 Fanfiction Round-Up

I’ve done one of these every year since 2016, so here we are again. At this point I’d feel weird if I didn’t do it, even if it takes a long ass time to do.

Total Year-Long Wordcount: Here as of 8:20 PM, 421,602 words - which includes some essays and original fiction but is, by and large, mostly fic. 

If you’re curious, that’s 35,133.5 average words per month, and 1,155 words per day. The month I wrote most was 48,006 words (January) and the least was 21,550 (October). I may go into more stats later to compare to my 2017/2018 spreadsheet, because that’s the kind of loser I am.

This year I wrote and posted: This isn’t exact, because it includes chapters of things I wrote as separate fics, but probably something around 60 fics. 

Overall Thoughts

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted? 

Less, by a substantial margin. There are a lot of potential reasons for this (a new job that takes a lot more energy and time, me making a concerted effort to socialize more, taking on more difficult projects that require more time/work/effort, a two month horrendous depressive episode) but I’m trying to tell myself that it doesn’t matter why, and it’s totally fine that my total amount written doesn’t match recent years’. Over 400,000 words is still a lot of writing.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? 

This was a hard year, so I’m going to be self-indulgent and pick a few. I remain really, really proud of the fact that I wrote gather frankincense at all, and pretty proud of how it turned out also. good lord turned his back on me was one that I wrote basically all in one go, and I was really pleased with the Natasha POV and getting to write in her voice - I do that shockingly rarely, and haven’t in a while. I really liked both writing that fic and the arc of it - what it did as a story. 

Finally, continuing with the trend of “small fandom fic” which...I wrote a substantial amount of small-fandom fic this year, which pleases me - how this grace thing works. It was in the works for a long, long time and finally was finished this year - it’s the (for lack of a better word) softest Doctrine of Labyrinths fic I’ve written, and quite possibly ever will write. 

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

I wrote in two different fandoms that I hadn’t written in before or hadn’t written for years. Okay, in fairness I did some Doctrine of Labyrinths writing last year, but this year was really the bulk of the recent writing I’ve done for it. Writing for Lymond was a substantially bigger risk. Glad I did it, and I learned that I could do it, but...

I wrote a fic for someone else in second person, which was certainly a risk in a different way.

Overall...I learned that while I can write in first person still, I deeply prefer both third and second person overall. One of those isn’t surprising; the fact that I’ve come to actually really like second person sometimes is more so. 

From my past year of writing, what was….

My most popular story of this year: 

As usual, excluding my multichapter stuff because that skews results a lot - by hits it was how the dead walk; by kudos it was Seams and Scars, and by both comment threads and bookmarks it was Mirror, Mirror. All interesting! Seams and Scars is the most surprising to me, but also pleasing considering how goddamn long that fic took me to write (I’m so glad I finally finished it this year).

Most fun story to write: 

Five Hundred Ways to Discorporate a Demon. Aka the most light-hearted “repetitive character death” fic I’ve ever written. It was just...writing Good Omens fic this year in general was a lot of fun. It’s a departure from my usual voice, and my usual wheelhouse, but probably because of that was really enjoyable to explore. Though in a weird way good lord turned his back on me was also a lot of fun, in the sense of...it was one of those fics that was easy for me to write. It came out smooth and in a way that I liked basically right off the bat, which is rare and a great feeling when it happens.

Story with the single sexiest moment: 

This was kind of a challenging one, actually, because what I find sexy sort of fluctuates based on what I’m in the mood for at the time, but I might go with the sex scene in The Waxing Moon, partly because, as I discovered writing both that fic and An Ever Expanding Circle, I apparently find cocky Thor really sexy. I sort of resent this. (So does Loki.)

Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story: 

Yeah, I’m going to go with no good doing what I’m told, aka the one where I had a bunch of existential angst about “is this too much? am I going too far?” which...yeah, is always a sign of something considering how high my bar for myself has gotten.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: 

I have a hard time with this question every year. In some way, every story I write shifts my understanding of the characters, or at least deepens it. I guess maybe After the Fire - I dug into Curufin’s head more there than I have in a long time, and since I last did my understanding of him has changed generally. This fic developed more of that changing understanding.

Hardest story to write: 

The Compassion of the Wicked. Even more than gather frankincense, that fic fought me, to the mat, and almost won a number of times. Writing the sex in it was an adventure - I think I noted when I finished it that this is possibly the least explicit fic with explicit sex that I’ve written. Also possibly required the most research, and by “required” I mean “I chose this.” And writing Joleta was...it took me some doing to figure out how to write her, which surprised me a little. 

Anyway, the whole thing was just. A whole barrel of struggle. I’m pretty pleased with the end result, but yeesh.

Biggest Disappointment: 

As usual, in myself, for not working more on my WIPs and not finishing we live until we die. I wanted that to happen this year, I really did, and while I suppose it’s not surprising it didn’t (there was a lot of planning that needed to happen, and continued to need to happen), I’m still disappointed. 

Biggest Surprise: 

Other than “the fact that I wrote Lymond fic at all” and “the fact that people actually read the Lymond fic I wrote”? Probably the continued and aggressive expansion of the Where the Devil Don’t Go verse. I thought it was over after I wrote drown my woes in a lake of fire but then it turned out that there were (checks) five more installments I was going to write, and two more in the works, and one other that is on Tumblr but not cross-posted. 

I did not see that coming at all.

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: 

I never really know how to answer this question. I guess sometimes there is an obvious one, usually meaning “Jesus, Lise, how fucked up can you get” and in that sense it would definitely be no good doing what I’m told, but...I actually think in some ways it might be how the dead walk. It isn’t...exactly the same as my issues, but there are some ways in which it aligns with them in ways that are different from the ones I usually work with when I’m writing Loki.

Favorite Opening Line(s):

1. The first thing that Felix noticed about Malkar was his hands. (The Anvil and the Chain)

2. The moment he was left alone, Maeglin stumbled to his feet, untethered the nearest horse, and set off back toward the smoke and flame still visible on the horizon. (how should I begin)

3. For the first month and a half after Rocket’s friends arrived on Midgard, along with the remains of Asgard’s population, Loki avoided Gamora with the skill and determination of a mouse evading a fox. (came through the jaws of Death)

4. In the summer of the Year of Our Lord 1000, there was a false alarm, brought about by millennial fever both Up and Downstairs, that the Apocalypse was imminent. (Mercy)

5. A long while ago Loki had read, in a book that was now ash, about the formation of storms. (we haven’t slept in years)

Favorite Line(s) from Anywhere:

1. I was lying on my stomach with shackles on my wrists and ankles and the water was rising. Someone, somewhere, was crying. It might have been a ghost. It might have been me. (As I breathe, he burns my lungs like fever)

2. Like my fear of water, fear of Malkar ran in my blood, and was as much a part of me. (The Road to Mourning)

3. “I am not in the mood for indulgence. Is there a purpose to this pageantry, o my Pasha?”

“Save that it is my pleasure?” Gabriel regarded him with a touch of amusement. “You would rather I tied you to a whipping post and had you flogged?”

“You would gain marks for consistency,” Lymond said. (gather frankincense)

4. “Because you are the flaw. You are the fault along which the stone splits. You are what is wrong.” (Mirror, Mirror)

5. “Would you rather I were?” Loki said, and there was something soft and vicious in his voice even with the lingering rasp that made the hair on the back of Clint’s neck all stand on end. “I think not. I am aware that you do not want me here. No doubt you would rather have Thor. That is fine; I would rather you had Thor, too. Don’t think I am not aware of the long and manifold list of my failures. That does not mean I want them enumerated to me by you.” (the enemy of my enemy)

6. “I am too beautiful to die,” Celegorm said with confidence.

But you are going to, Curufin thought. We all are. Condemned as surely as if we were Secondborn. Maybe not now, but... He held his tongue and simply said, “oh, naturally.” Celegorm wheezed a laugh and closed his eyes again. (After the Fire)

7. And yet he misses Thor. No, that is wrong: saying he misses Thor is as inadequate as it would be to say that he misses breathing. He is that central, that vital, that involuntary.

If anyone asked, Loki thinks he would tell them that was why he was running. To prove that he can. (These Vagabond Shoes)

8. The smile, when it came, was sharp. “O Castitas,” Lymond said, “Mater et Virgo, extingue carnales concupiscentias! But enough. For whom this mummer’s show? Do we not know each other better now? For certainly I have known flesh of your flesh, blood of your blood... and she drew mine.” (The Compassion of the Wicked)

9. There was a way Thor had of saying things that made them inarguable. Loki had no idea how he did it - it was as though he spoke the words and it just was, like the world bent itself to suit what he said, only it bent itself so it was as though it had always been true. Loki had always found it maddening. (Speak every man the truth)

10. Everyone got a bit twitchy in the 1300s. People started getting suspicious of the dark glasses. They seemed to think Crowley was hiding something, which he was, but that wasn’t any of their business. (Five Hundred Ways to Discorporate a Demon)

11. This was what the Grandmaster did. He showed you a door, or what looked like a door, and then yanked you back just when it seemed to be in reach. Or proved that it had never been there at all, and what had you been thinking to try to get away, anyway, after everything he’d done for you? (preacher man won’t cut no slack)

12. “You can’t help me,” Loki said, breathless. “There is nothing left to help.”

“That isn’t true,” Thor said weakly. “You are here, aren’t you?”

“Here,” Loki said. “Yes. But I am - I am not myself. I am a cobbled together patchwork of Odin’s making and the Grandmaster’s making and the making of the Void. And yours.” All the feeling had gone from his voice. “You want your brother back. But that person doesn’t exist. If he ever did.” (where I make my home)

Top 5 Scenes from Anywhere You Would Choose to Have Illustrated:

There are a lot of pieces from Mirror, Mirror that I would love to see, but maybe especially the one where Loki is looking at his reflection and notices how sick he appears, when the shadow appears behind him.

Gabriel making Lymond kneel in gather frankincense. Look, I am who I am.

Thor sitting next to ghost!Loki from it slips between my fingers now.

Curufin kneeling (SHUT UP) in front of Finrod with wounded Celegorm in his arms from After the Fire. It could be very Pieta. There’s a lot going on there. I just want it.

Steve and Loki at the top of the waterfall from into the light of a dark black night, just before Loki dives over.

Fic-writing goals for 2020:

Finish we live until we die. This is probably the biggest, most concrete one on my list. 

Write! More! Lymond fic! I have three ideas and I really like all of them - I just need to stop having staring contests and psyching myself out and actually do the writing.

Whittle that WIP list down to at least under 70. Under 65 would be even better.

That’s really all. I’m keeping them modest. Also here is “try to chill out, a little, about your pathological productivity problem” but that’s an ongoing project that maybe doesn’t count for the spirit of this question.

[icravestrawberryflavoureddeath]

Okay here it is

I was gon wait but I feel like I need to get my thoughts on EVERYTHING out before it gets too complicated.

Honerva

Alright, I was totally on board for honerva, not gonna lie. We saw her history, how she fought through it all, what I’m curious about is, it’s not really clear HOW she exactly remembered she’s honerva and not the witch haggar.

I like how we saw how she got her name but there’s so much regarding timelines and ages that just,,, fuck me up? But I mean, sometimes u have to forgive those

But the main thing was, I feel like she was the most developed character in the entire season. I almost wanted to know more about her and what she was thinking. Honestly, all and all, I wish the season was longer or more well,,, organized (something I’ll get into later).

She could step on me. She’s earned the right. Also,,, she’s kind of a snack not gon lie.

Allura

I was gon wait, BUT ITS BOTHERING ME SO MUCH.

I am in love with allura I love her I would fight for her and everything, but this season? Even I was like “okay okay, can we plz hurry up?” She was,, annoying almost? She reminded me of Veronica lodge from Riverdale if that tells you anything.

I understand that there was some sort of whining needed, but,,, it felt,,, uhhhh... yeah.

anD OKAY! Maybe she suddenly liked Lance. I’ll believe that, cuz yes, he grew up so much (something I’ll also get to) but,,, like,,, if I told allura I was in love with her, would she kiss me?? Cuz that’s what it seems like. Anyone tells her they like and she’s like “frickin spunky u tiny man” and kisses them.

She didn’t even want to go with lance originally in the epsiode, romelle, hunk, and lance had to convince her. And it was meant as a “hey my family is making dinner u wanna come?”

Here’s my thing, if they would have written some of the klance moments (yes I’m finally going there) from the past seasons, I would have been all on board!! But as a lance Stan and someone who wants nothing but lance to be happy, this season,,, hurt. Allura was hurting and she wanted to take action, but she was portrayed as,,, whinny, almost selfish(?) and I didn’t like it. Because I LIKE ALLURA! She’s a great character but was not properly used. I didn’t want the entire tension to come down to her dating life. I wanted her to heal, and not have that being her needing a relationship.

And that brings me to my next part, she was hurting. Allura just had everything she thought she knew tangled into a mess and her first reaction? Date Lance. I would have been happy with this if it wasn’t done,,, like it was. And they made their relationship,,, seem,,, I don’t know how to describe it other than,,, forced? I don’t like using that word cuz of what it has meant for this ship but,,, idk I just wish it wasn’t her trying to heal that lead her to it. I wanted her to realize that voltron was her family without having to date lance. Idk I just wanted more

Lance

Now for my boi. I love this man, he’s grown so much, I want nothing more then his happiness, but this season? He wasn’t lance. He was “alluras boyfriend” and that bothered me. Every conversation that wasn’t about the war was about allura. And I get it. U “love” ur girlfriend (of like??? 1-2 months? Max (this well come back to. Again)) but he’s more then that and I don’t think they knew how to write him as a full character on his own.

I had more hopes for lance and it kind of let me down.

He talked with friends?? Allura. He wanted to go somewhere?? Allura. He wanted to- allura. He wasn’t lance, he was alluras boyfriend.

And don’t get me started in the paladins of old “my daughter” bull shit. I rolled my eyes so hard at that.

They wanted to makeup for seasons of rudeness within one season. And it was messy

Also,, WHY IS HE NOW ALTEAN?????? I’m sorry but it’s really strange.

Keith

I would talk about Keith but HE WAS JIST SHOUTING FORM VOLTRON AND THE. YEETING OUT. WTF

Like honestly, there was a lot I wanted to be covered, shit like the Bayard thing with lance, opening up more, more about his time with his mom but what did we get?? Just one note Keith (until lance which we’ll get to. I say that a lot).

Also someone get that boy a haircut

Speaking of haircuts - Matt and Pidge

This is a small list so their gonna be together.

HEWWO?? pidges hair in the beginning and her as the 80s pidge?? I loved that!! She honestly was one of my favourites this season.

Also MATHMATICS HOLT WTF U DOIN WITH THAT HAIR??! U cut off the locks of peRFECTION!

No but seriously, I wish there was more Mathew but that family picture and small scenes were amazing, I was just so happy with everything with pidge and Matt and I cry

Kinkade and the others

I say others cuz it’s background characters. But kinkade and his video? I cried the entire time for no reason other then I love that man.

Acxa was amazingly perfect to join the rag tag group of background characters. Veronica and acxa? Gay. Veronica has strong bi energy like lance and I wanted her and acxa to just get together.

James and kinkade? Gay. That’s it

LESBEENS!!!

Ships

U knew it was comin! I’ll make separate posts about the ships all together later (if I do) but seriously, voltron was like “fuck you and your grandma. Shut the fuck up” and then through a brick at us.

Also, they straight up said (multiple times) that lance allura and Keith were a love triangle. Like bitch???

And while allurance was kind of shitty and very in your face, she still kind of spoke down to him??

And like, the only two times lance and Keith spoke it was so soft and wholesome and,,, that’s why I ship klance???

He helped him with alluras death and DAMN they really did that huh?

I had a theory that klance was supposed to happen, but somewhere along the line they said “yeah, no” and had to rewrite it and allurance was the only way to go and that would explain a lot. It wasn’t a ship planned. It was thrown together like a collage students essay two hours before the deadline. U can tell they tried, just not enough.

Shiros man btw was is clear day date and that’s some cute shit

Plot

I wish they would have converted the honerva story line in the previous seasons so it wasn’t so,,, jumbled.

There were parts were I would zone out for a second and get so lost on the plot and who everyone was

Also thicc voltron/atlas was kinda,,, strange,, but I mean, when you meant to kill shiro and now u have him for the last season, u just hot glue that bitch to the final season script.

It was everywhere and no where at once. I felt like I was about to start watching fucking twilight in space at that point.

They called back a lot of old plot points but some had me going “whomest the fuck is u?” And some made me happy.

I wanted lowhore to come back officially not gon lie.

I WANTED THE BIG LANCE AND KEITH FIGHT SO BAD AND I WAS ROBBED

there’s so many problems with this season that would have been fixed with proper editing and timing

Conclusion

It felt like they started a story and knew what they wanted. But got half way and realized it wouldn’t work. They had to try and create a different ending with what they had made and this was the result. Messy, strange, and kind of hard to follow. There were times when animation fell flat ( that one screen shot of Veronica’s face real close up when her and acxa spoke) and times when, it felt like fan service (for who? Who knows). It would have been better if the show was episodic and not every four months a new season came out. It was rushed for released and it showed in the quality.

I wish it would have been better, everything we wanted, but that never was on option and we should have been prepared for that. But what can u do.