#it’s ignored because it involves a poc or fat character

[thank-you-for-the-vampire-money]

Y’all crave cannon queer characters but shove lesbians and sapphic folk aside just for your non canon white boy ships…

[musical-chick-13]

Regarding the whole "Fandom Is An Escape, so why should I have to care this much about misogyny/racism/ableism/transphobia/etc." thing. Idk about the rest of you, but it gets kind of hard for me to "escape" when I keep seeing people say the same vile things about characters who share aspects of my identity that I hear all the time in real life.

[herenemycherylblossom]

I think this is important, so here is a list of things El oasis/ Vis a Vis did to us:

(Feel free to correct me or add more)

- Queerbaiting: Being ambiguous and teasing about them being a married couple, making it obvious but never confirming it. Also giving us the drugged sex so we shut up but at the same time the homophobes didn't get mad.

- Erase of some sexualities: Them implying Maca had been with a woman just because she was in prison "She isn't even a lesbian, she doesn't love you, she's just with you because of the circumstances" And I was like sis please there are other sexualities besides lesbian😭 Not once has it been mentioned the word bisexual.

- Bury your gays trope: This one doesn't have to be explained 🤡🤡🤡 Even if they were very ambiguous about it, Zulema and Maca were attracted to girls (and each other) , we know it.

- Transphobia: As a cis girl this is not really my place, but didn't Tere make a really transphobic comment and they just let it hanging instead of correcting it at some point??

- Racism: Again this is not my place because I'm white. But I think el oasis was kinda cultural appropriation. With the Mexican wedding and all... And as far as I know there wasn't any latinx involved in the writing of the season?? Also, Iván gave an interview and he said they chose the Mexican scenario because of the colors and music and something like that, and I was like, sis you didn't just say that 👁️👄👁️

(Addition from someone on Twitter) Castillo’s “nicknames” for his Mexican and Chinese partners were horrible. The things they used to say to La Rizos/Curly were equally cringey. The whole storyline with Altagracia in VaV was very anti-Mexican so the Mexican wedding with the daughter of a cartel leader in Oasis, to me, is very in line with how this show treats Mexican characters and stories.

Also in Cruz del Norte when they didn't stop calling Akame and her group "The Chinese" and I was like wtf sis you know the girl has a name right?? It was horrible.

(pls if you're a poc and see this correct me if I'm wrong)

- Sexism: AND I WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT THIS. El oasis (and VaV in general) was literally an all female leads show, and yet, only two women took part on the writing and directing of it, but FOUR men.

- Body shaming: I lost count of how many times they referred to Anabel and Goya as 'Fat/Fatty' and made very horrible comments about their weight.

In conclusion, there is a lot of ignorance coming from the writers and they should educate themselves. Our characters deserved better, we deserve better.

Please share this. When we watch a show it's our responsibility to call out and be vocal about the ignorance and oppression on it.

[sagesilentfire]

I'm looking for a trans sensitivity reader (for Marcie) and possibly a poc sensitivity reader (for the monsters vs mewmans plot), so if you're available, please tell me, and we'll figure something out.

Forgive my inability to draw humans, please.

I know this is a big departure from my usual content, so I'd like to make sure you know that watching SVTFOE is not necessary to enjoy this AU, as everything needed to understand the plot is explained in-story. In fact, I'd love to have someone who's never even heard of a svftoe to read it so I can make sure it makes its own logical sense.

Anyways... 

(putting this under a read more for your scrolling purposes)

Hi. I'm Sage, and I would like to talk about a show I really liked. The past tense being the operative, as it used to be good, but...

I started watching SVTFOE after watching the great Steven Universe, which meant I had high expectations for it. And it met those expectations! From the beginning I was hooked. It was a good show. But as the seasons went on, it started to... rot.

Now, something to know about me is that I do not invest myself wisely. I love the things I love deeply and with passion. I get attached easily, and I love to theorize about the things I love. So I was heartbroken when SVTFOE ended the way it did, with none of my questions answered.

And when my theories were better than canon, well, that meant I had a new project: a complete rewrite of Star vs. the Forces of Evil. This AU will start similar to canon, but gradually diverge from it until it's something completely new. It will also have five separate "seasons".

So here's my AU: Star and Marcie and The Forces Of Evil (aka samatfoe). This AU will tear apart the scraps of lore that we got from SVTFOE and expand on it and make new lore, all narrated by my lovely OC, Sílthéy. And I promise I will get to as much as possible. If you're worried, check the titles of all of the chapters, which will hopefully reassure you that, yes, I will get to everything (or at least everything I've thought of ;)).

Dramatis Personae:

Star: Star will mostly stay the same in the first few seasons, but I'll try to have her actually grow and mature while staying a good person in the later seasons. She'll also be a bit more fire-aligned, because I wanted to be able to tell my Star and the canon Star apart easily. (She also doesn't get those wings until Mewberty.)

Marcie: is a trans girl. The entire second "episode" will be about her being trans. And I will, again, try to not have her act like a jerk in later seasons. She also won't be an adult trapped in a teenager's body, as that was waaay too weird for me. Instead she won't age in the Neverzone, period, and there will be an episode dedicated to her re-adjusting to Earth and discussing what the whole "spent a decade and a half in eight minutes" thing means for her. And, of course, she'll be more involved with the Mewni plot, as she will be interested in learning the lore behind Mewni from the beginning and push Star to find out more about Mewni.

Ludo: Ludo's story will not effectively end with the Battle for Mewni. He will get a redemption arc, with all the pitfalls and trip-ups that come with that. And all of his flaws and issues will be brought up, now just forgiving him for everything he did because he had bad parents. And Dennis will continue to be a cinnamon roll. Some things never change.

Buff Frog/Yvgeny: will not change. He is good lad.

Toffee: This is the big one. Where to start, and how to start it without spoiling everything I have planned? Well, let me tell you this: Toffee is getting a complete overhaul. For one thing, I now made them agender for various complicated reasons that will be revealed in-story, eventually. And for another thing, they will get an actual backstory and personality! Isn't that a novel idea! And they will not die abruptly and nonsensically in Battle for Mewni, so don't worry about that.

Jackie: Oh, Jackie. You poor dear. Jackie will not be delegated to the role of "one-time love interest who just skateboards out of the plot". First of all, Marcie will only have a squish (a platonic crush) on her, because I don't trust my aro/ace self with the weird things people in romantic love do to get together, but I do know what it's like to desperately want to be friends with someone. Secondly, while she will be out of the spotlight in later seasons, it'll be because she's on an exchange trip to France, not because we're abandoning her character and her world for no good reason.

Janna: never changes. Pretty sure she's the one constant of the multiverse.

Tom: will have his redemption arc earlier in the story so I can use him for things, but other than that will not change much.

Moon: First of all, she will not betray everything her daughter stands for by siding with Mina this time. There are plenty of other ways Mina could rise to power, so there's no need to ruin her character by making her do a stupid, illogical thing that even a five-year-old would see was stupid. I mean, she's still going to be kind of racist, but she's well-established to be level-headed and even a little clever, so she will not do something that would so obviously blow up in her face. Secondly, she will be a bad ruler, hence why Mewni is a total mess, but she will learn and become better and help Star's efforts to improve Mewni.

Glossaryck: is... changing. He won't "lose" his sanity for season three, but he will also not be in a totally heroic role. It's a complicated thing and a bit of a spoiler, so I'll leave it at that. Also, he's a dragon now Because Reasons (no, seriously, I have a reason for it. It's also a spoiler).

River: River will be goofy, like usual, but he won't be plot-destroyingly stupid. I'll try my best to not make you question why he's even king while still making him a foil to Moon. It's the tightrope I must walk.

Angie and Raphael: Will not completely disappear from the plot in later seasons, but will instead be like a second family to Star and will be a refuge when her overbearing Butterfly side gets too much.

Kelly: Will not be involved in a stupid romantic subplot with Marcie. Sorry. Other than that, Kelly will remain pretty much the same, aside from now being tiny, because that's just how she came out in my art. She's pretty cool.

Miss Heinous: Will not be Meteora this time around. I disliked how Heinous hurt so many people and was a horrible person, but as soon as her Tragic Backstory™ was revealed, all that pain and suffering she caused was ignored in favor of making her Super Duper Tragic™. So I'm separating the characters. Don't worry, though, she'll get the backstory and character arc she deserves.

Saint Olga: Saint Olga will be the main motivator for Miss Heinous's actions, as she is desperate to please the robot. Other than that, Saint Olga won't actually get much character. She's a bad guy, pure and simple.

Meteora: will not turn into a baby. She will deal with the consequences of her actions like a mature, responsible sixteen-year-old. But because she's sixteen, things won't be too harsh when she does snap. She'll still have her mother and father to help her and guide her.

Eclipsa: Regarding Eclipsa's design, I tried to make her fat, but... I don't know if it translates well in my art. I'm just not that good at art yet. But aside from that, making her cheekmarks dark gray (spades are a black card, not a red card! That bugged me so unreasonably much), and giving her as much of a connection to Toffee as the show implied, I'm not changing much about her. She was one of the good characters.

Globgor: Will have fought against mewmans in the past, but not have eaten them (what were the writers thinking?! Making your metaphorical poc eat people is... not good). And it will be more of a case of Star and Eclipsa knowing he is good and should be released from the crystal, but the general mewman populace not accepting it, until Cornonation, where he proves he's a good guy.

Shinjai: Is a new character I am thrilled to introduce to you all! She came from me thinking that for someone who supposedly wants to end mewman-monster racism, Star sure doesn't have any monster friends (Buff Frog doesn't count. He's an adult, and they don't really hang out so much). So here's Shinjai! She's a septarian, and is introduced instead of Princess Smooshy in Sleep Spells. She's a very minor minor monster noble, and her family has about as much political power as your average worm on a sidewalk after it rains, but all noble monsters must go to Saint Olga's Reform School for Wayward Royalty, so she runs away and gets help from Star and Marcie. She's mostly made to replace Pony Head: she's spunky and... uh, actually she's nothing like Pony Head. She's also unafraid of asking difficult questions and knows more about the plot than she lets on.

Rasticore: is very different from his canon counterpart: he only allies with Heinous and Saint Olga to keep an eye on them for ~someone~, and thoroughly dislikes them, despite agreeing to their mission. He also can regenerate as quickly as Toffee, he just chooses not to for ~reasons~. He also has a mysterious partner, but we all know it's – *gets clubbed over the head by Síthéy*

Mina: Making fun of mental illnesses isn't funny kids. Therefore, Mina is the only neurotypical member of the cast. She does boring neurotypical things like... I dunno, cleaning? And she's still a threat: bigotry and hatred are not exclusive to people with mental illnesses, after all.

Lilacia: Now, Lilacia Pegasus, the horse formerly known as Pony Head, will... exist. She won't be as overwhelmingly annoying, hopefully, as she is in canon. And to make sure she feels consequences for her actions, there will be a subplot in season two about her and Star growing apart as Star grows and leaves Lilacia's annoying party girl antics behind. Lilacia will have to realize that her immature actions are making Star leave her behind, and she'll have to grow as a person because of it.

Then there's a mysterious character who is very mysterious and does mysterious things and has a mysterious personality and is generally mysterious... mysterious. She'll be introduced in the second season and will be as mysterious as promised, I swear.

And finally, of course, it will be narrated by Sílthéy. She will tell this story, and her part in it, for all to hear. Or read? It's a bit of a strange medium, storytelling on paper. Or on a screen, whatever.

Now, of course, by now you must be wondering: What about the shipping? The shipping's the most important part, right? Well, here is my answer: There will be no ship wars. There will be no love dodecahedrons. There will be no cheating, no lies, no throwing other characters under the bus for stupid romantic drama. Why? BECAUSE STAR AND MARCIE ARE BOTH ARO/ACE. Suck on that, Starco! I am the last person to trust romantic drama with, so all of the romantic relationships in this bandwagon will be established, healthy relationships that have decades of chosen love and appreciation for one another behind them. And past!Tomstar and brief, schoolchild-crush-esque Star/Oskar but that doesn't count.

So, I believe that about wraps things up for this post. I'll start posting chapters soon, and will post two chapters every other week, and I'll release the descriptions of them two weeks before I post them. If you have any questions, please ask them! I want to work on my drawing skills, so I might even draw something for them!

Description for next episodes:

Star's Birthday: Star is a young, wild princess who is about to receive her family's most precious heirlooms.

Trouble in Diazland: Star is put under the care of the Diaz family, but can't quite seem to connect with their son, Marco.

And, finally, I have thank yous! These are mostly people I watched but haven't really interacted with yet, so if you get tagged know that you don't know me, I just followed you for svtfoe content. And for, you know, your personality.

Thanks to ankle-beez for being hilarious and reminding me why I made this AU when you relentlessly drag svtfoe. Thank you to @full-moon-phoenix, @dappercritter, and the lizard squad for my regular dose of Toffee. Thank you morningmark and @jess-the-vampire for keeping me invested in svtfoe as a whole. Thanks to svtfoe-critical and @twinklecupcake for good ideas. Thank you to TBlofeld on AO3 for your amazing AU, Monsters, Mewmans, Magic, that, while we took things and ran in completely opposite directions, still inspired me to complete mine. And thank you to Blue Order, whose deeply hilarious and deeply accurate video "How Star Vs the Forces of Evil Fell From Grace" inspired me to create this story in the first place. And, of course, thank you to whoever on the svtfoe wiki writes down the transcripts to every episode. You've helped me so much. I admit that I didn't follow all of your guys' advice, but you did help me get here, every one of you. So thank you.

[alluratron]

What’s wrong with VLD?

This is gonna be a two-parter post expressing all my various frustrations with VLD, and highlighting exactly where I think it went wrong (all of them. yep). I’m going to keep it ship-neutral because ship discourse has a tendency to blind people and make them belligerent (myself included, I can admit that) however I will be discussing the canon relationships. This isn’t ship hate by any means - in fact I like all the canon relationships (or at least I like what they could’ve been) - but I think it’s pretty undeniable that VLD did not do them justice, and in fact took the worst possible route with them.

That said, let’s dive in.

(sorry to those on mobile, this is RIDICULOUSLY long.)

“Voltron: legendary defender” is a show that began with a whole lot of promise. Off the back of the (widely regarded as) almost faultless storytelling in A:TLA and the much celebrated queer ending of LOK (which resulted in a lot of writing issues being brushed under the rug but I digress), VLD was heavily anticipated, tapping into these shows loyal fanbase(s) - as a show produced by their alumni - as well as the market of older viewers, nostalgic for the Defenders Of The Universe cartoon they grew up with. It always had a lot to live up to, and when it dropped in summer 2016, it seemed to live up to the hype.

I personally didn’t join the voltron bandwagon immediately. In fact, I wasn’t even aware of it until around November of 2016. I was late to the LOK and A:TLA hype (very late actually. I first watched LOK around October 2016 and then doubled back to watch A:TLA) but got deeply invested and quickly followed several blogs with these interests. Through following these blogs, I kept happening upon the word “voltron” but didn’t pay it much mind.

Until I came across a post titled “HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH VOLTRON.”

I decided to give it a read. The 4 key points of this post were:

A diverse main cast, with 3/5 of the main characters being confirmed POC, and a dark-skinned princess.

Focus on character and team dynamics, reminiscent of the A:TLA found family spirit.

Possibility of queer representation as suggested by the EPs, whom both worked on LOK, as well as the freedom of the Netflix platform.

Beautiful animation thanks to Studio Mir.

(Only one of those things ended up delivering in a convincing, satisfying manner. Hint: it’s the animation.)

These 4 points were enough to pique my interest enough to delve into the show and, after watching the first season in late November 2016, I was won over. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters, burgeoning dynamics and light hearted tone interspersed with deeper moments. Was it perfect? No. It was a little goofy. But that was ok, it had time to grow and settle. I joined the fandom and excitedly awaited the release of season 2, which came in January 2017.

This is where it started to go bad.

I will admit that, with the benefit of hindsight, season 2 is not as bad as I initially felt it to be. It struggles with pacing and balancing of the 7-character core cast, with several characters reduced to more one-note figures (namely Pidge, Hunk and Lance, although Pidge’s note as a genius is more flattering than the latter two). But story-wise, it is a solid season. The biggest problem of the season comes from the poor handling of the conflict between Allura and Keith over his galra heritage.

Allegories for racial discrimination are always tricky, especially in children’s media. They’re storylines that should only be tackled upon input from people that have experienced such discrimination, so that they may be handled with tact and grace. VLD season 2 did not do this.

What we got was several scenes designed to frame Keith as the victim of Allura’s aggression and intolerant nature. Bear in mind that Allura is a genocide survivor, whose entire race was (at the time of the season) believed to have been eradicated by Zarkon and the galra, whom had previously been her allies. Her emotional response is entirely justifiable and yet, through the framing of the conflict, the narrative was able to manipulate viewers into seeing her as the offending party, with many fans taking to social media to call out her “racism”.

To add to this, Allura is, in design, a black woman. Black women are often portrayed as harsh and aggressive, and VLD played into this to further sway support to Keith’s side of the conflict. He - a light-skinned boy of unspecified ethnicity - was often seen looking hopefully at Allura or looking down dejectedly. Allura, however, was shown glaring, ignoring and turning away from him. We are given an episode (Belly of the Weblum, S2E9) in which Keith talks to Hunk about Allura’s “hatred” for him, but we never see Allura expressing her hurt to a companion (ideally Coran as a fellow genocide survivor) or even lamenting alone. In fact, the only time we hear Allura’s side of things is when she is apologising to Keith (Best Laid Plans, S2E12).

More still, the entirety of BotW has Keith on the receiving end of several microagressions from Hunk. Microaggressions are “slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership”. Hunk’s prodding about Keith’s heritage, initial discomfort about being alone with him and joking remarks (e.g. “do you guys all know each other?”) are strongly reminiscent of microagressions that POC (myself included) encounter on a daily basis. Except, voltron decided to flip the script. This time, the microagressions are directed at Keith for being part galra. Remember that the Galra are the perpetrators of oppression, colonisation and imperial rule, making them allegories for several White endeavours in human history (space nazis, so to speak). And yet, voltron has the fat, dark-skinned boy (who would ordinarily be on the receiving end of such microaggressions in our world) be the perpetrator of these microagressions against the slim, light-skinned, space-white boy.

To sum up, their handling of the arc of Keith’s discovery of his heritage was extremely tasteless at best, and insidious at worst.

And the issues surrounding the writing of the Galra don’t stop there. Though Allura was treated as in the wrong for distrusting the Galra as a whole, the story makes you question whether this should have even been the case. Throughout the length of the show, the Galra are continuously portrayed as a violent and warmongering race. Their history involves conquering all the other races that called Daibazaal home and their most prevalent salute, “Vrepit Sa”, is revealed to mean “the killing thrust” (Omega Shield, S6E1). Proponents of the Empire will often declare “victory or death”, while their counterparts in the Blade of Marmora have a mantra of “knowledge or death”. Even more pertinently, Keith is a character with anger management issues, prone to aggressive outbursts. Instead of these being treated as a character trait, something that he has to work through, it’s chalked up to his “galra side” by the EPs. When he faces Clone Shiro (The Black Paladins, S6E5) he occasionally fights with more aggression, with the clone’s remark of “that’s the Keith I remember” implying that this aggression is a trait that has been present in Keith for a long time. This comes with the animation of Keith with tinted yellow sclera, narrowed pupils, purplish skin and fangs. All of these are traits associated with his “galra side” and all of these only make an appearance when he’s fighting with more aggression.

So how is it that the narrative repeatedly shows us that the Galra are an inherently aggressive and violent race (which is such a problematic concept anyway: they’re not wild animals, they should have agency and self-control), yet also tells us that Allura was wrong for not trusting them?

It’s because the narrative was dead set on punishing Allura.

Throughout the length of the show, we see Allura put through emotional punishment time and time and time again. She is portrayed as wrong for her behaviour towards Keith in season 2 (as detailed above). In season 3, she is explicitly stated to be the “decision maker” (The Red Paladin, S3E2) then is swiftly demoted from that position (and yes, it’s a demotion, but more on that later).

In the same season, the team enters an alternate reality (Hole in the Sky, S3E4) where they find alteans, alive and well. This is especially exciting for Allura (which genocide survivor wouldn’t be thrilled to find their people alive and thriving?), but her joy is short lived when, after she helps the alternate alteans, they are soon revealed to be evil, arguably moreso than the galra in the main reality as they use technology to enslave races that oppose them by taking away their free will entirely. The comet ore that they manage to keep out of the Alteans hands to prevent them from making a second voltron is quickly snatched from them by Lotor when they return to their own reality. Allura laments that she “finally understands” why her father, King Alfor, scattered the lions: it was to prevent this reality. However, in the pilot episode (The Rise Of Voltron, S1E1) Allura spoke with King Alfor’s AI, complete with all his memories. The AI told her that she had in fact been right to want to keep voltron and fight the Galra, and he had been wrong to send them away. If he had sent them away to “prevent this reality” why didn’t the AI say that? HitS retcons Allura’s rightness in that call, further devaluing her judgment. How would Alfor have sent the lions away to prevent the reality where Lotor gets the comet ore, when Lotor wasn’t even born when Alfor died?

This tendency to punish Allura continues with Allura’s relationship with Lotor. When Lotor is first taken prisoner by team voltron (The Prisoner, S5E1) Allura doesn’t trust him at all. He asks her to see past his Galra race and, following her arc in season 2 of not seeing galra as an evil monolith, Allura eventually does. She works alongside Lotor even before discovering that he has Altean heritage. Eventually, they fall for each other and Allura is on cloud nine for a while as the war seems to be over and she is spending more and more time with Lotor, who encourages her, praises her and helps her connect more to Altea. So, of course, this doesn’t last for long. Lotor is revealed to have been manipulating Allura (and the others) all this time, using her to upgrade his Sincline ships while secretly using Alteans he found in the diaspora as batteries.

(Pictured: Lotor holding Allura’s hand in Bloodlines, S5E5. She agrees to help him search Haggar’s den and during this search, learns of his Altean blood.)

So, what was the need of this relationship? She was punished for not trusting the Galra, and then punished for...trusting the Galra. She clearly could not win. And why was it necessary to have Allura fall for Lotor, only for it to end on such a terrible note? Why did their relationship have to be romantic? Was it simply so Allura would feel the pain of his “betrayal” that much more? Because it sure comes off that way.

There are so many scenes of Allura breaking down in tears - Crystal Venom, The Red Paladin, that one episode in s8 that I can’t remember that has her crying bc Sincline was about to kill Lance, probably more - and she is constantly giving up pieces of herself and her heritage. In the very first season, she heals the balmera (Rebirth, S1E8) at expense to her own health. Through the length of the show, Allura continues to risk her life to protect others. She desperately wants to maintain connections to Altea (hence her joy at the alternate alteans, as well as her close bond with Lotor) yet she is constantly losing every connection she has. She has to destroy her father’s AI, the alteans turn out to be evil, Lotor turns out to be evil, they blow up the castle to save all of existence, she gives up the jewel from her crown (which she never took off) to save shiro, and then ultimately, she dies to save all realities (because...reasons). One would have thought that her arc would involve being less self-sacrificing, but no. Allura is tortured emotionally, loses everything she cares about and then dies.

On a similar note, while Allura was constantly put through emotional torture, Shiro was constantly put through physical torture. There are several pieces out there by people far more eloquent than myself that detail the constant use of Shiro for torture porn throughout the show so I won’t rehash them. I will say that, like Allura, his torture does not culminate in a satisfying ending that made all his suffering “worth it”. Throughout the first and second seasons, we see Shiro bond closely with the black lion. He battles Zarkon for control (Space Mall, S2E7) and almost fails, until he realises that “nobody controls the black lion” and this galvanises the lion to take action and save him, severing zarkon’s bond. In the final episode of the season (Blackout, S2E13) Shiro and the black lion connect more deeply than ever before and we are shown a montage of all their bonding moments, leading up to Shiro unlocking the black lion’s wings, which enable them to phase through Zarkon and collect the black bayard, a plot point introduced in the very first episode. After seeing Shiro work so hard to earn the black lion’s trust, forge a bond stronger than the one that lasted 10 thousand years, and triumphantly collect the bayard, his fans would be understandably excited to see him use it. But he never does. After all that hard work, Shiro never sits in the black lion’s cockpit again. His clone does for a while, but Shiro himself does not, and he never touches the bayard again. This is a huge disappointment to his fans, after 24 (technically 26) episodes of buildup to that moment.

And to add insult to injury, it’s never explained why he doesn’t. The EPs said in an interview that when Allura unmerged Shiro’s quintessence from the black lion, she also broke their bond. But this explanation comes with a number of issues. Firstly, this is never stated in canon. Viewers should not have to rely on extra-canonical material to get a full story. Extra-canonical material should be supplementary, an opportunity for eager fans to learn more about the universe and the characters. It shouldn’t be a requisite to understand the story. And, believe me, this information was. When I was watching season 7 with my (at the time) 10 year old brother, he turned to me and asked me why Shiro wasn’t flying the black lion now he was back. I shrugged and told him I didn’t know. I, in fact, did know the EPs explanation, but I wasn’t going to do their job for them. Secondly, the explanation falls apart upon the slightest examination. Say Allura did remove Shiro’s bond with the black lion (somehow...because that doesn’t even make sense). In the pilot, Allura says that “the quintessence of the pilot is mirrored in his lion” and this is why they can bond and fly together. Well, Shiro’s quintessence hasn’t changed, as Allura simply extracted and transferred it. The black lion’s quintessence hasn’t changed since nothing happened to make it change. When they first met, Shiro and the black lion didn’t have a bond. They formed and strengthened that bond upon flying together. So, why can’t they do that again? What is stopping Shiro from simply sitting in the cockpit and restoring their bond?

Short answer: Keith.

Long answer: the EPs desperate desire to have Keith in the black lion at all cost.

Keith was the leader of voltron in DOTU. This isn’t news, we all know this. Keith has also been the leader in every iteration since. This means that Keith has always flown the black lion. VLD following this trend makes sense, right?

Well, no.

Other iterations of voltron always begin with Keith in the black lion. They don’t shuffle him there later, they start with him there. Keith is always the strong, sensible, heroic figure that makes him perfect to lead the team, so he does. VLD strayed from that, and that makes all the difference. In VLD, Keith is introduced as a loner with a temper. He’s closed off from the team, only displaying affection for Shiro. This makes him unsuitable for the leadership position at the time of inception. Does that mean he can never lead? No. He can absolutely grow into leadership. But the problem is, the show already presents us with a valid position for him: the red lion. In the red lion, Keith’s fiery nature, intuitiveness and fast pace are positives. He’s allowed to stretch his legs, flying in the fastest lion and doing cool stunts, then returning to the team when necessary. He doesn’t have to change the core of who he is. Additionally, he is shown to have abandonment issues, hence why he clings to Shiro so tightly. It seems fitting then, that the lion he is matched with is the only one that comes to save their paladin so often, retrieving Keith on five different occasions (S1E1, S2E6, S2E8, S2E11 and S2E12) and even across several galaxies.

In previous iterations, the lions are not given personalities, nor do they demand unique traits/quintessence from their pilots. They’re just ships. But in VLD, Allura tells us in the pilot that the lions are meant to be piloted by these five alone. Their quintessence is mirrored in the paladins as she assigns them. They are perfect matches, just like with red and Keith. Hunk is fearful and Yellow has superior armour. Pidge is brilliant and Green is inquisitive. Lance is insecure (especially in relation to Keith) and Blue is nurturing, but more importantly, chose Lance out of all 5 pilots available (Keith visited the cave several times but blue didn’t take him. She waited for Lance). And Shiro and Black are both strong leaders that suffered from trauma and struggled for control over themselves.

Naturally, when you begin a story with a perfect fit, you want to shake things up because conflict begets growth. However, shaking things up shouldn’t cause them to end up in a worse place than they began because the question becomes: well, why don’t they just go back to where they were before? And that’s the big question in vld. Why didn’t they go back?

So, ok yeah. I think the lion swap is trash.

(Pictured: splitscreen of the paladins minus Shiro in All Good Things, S6E6. They form voltron with Keith in the black lion, Lance in the red lion and Allura in the blue lion.)

Now, like I said, you want to shake things up because conflict begets growth. And for that reason, I don’t think the lion swap was a bad concept. Putting Keith in the black lion forces him to learn to work with his teammates instead of remaining a lone wolf. Putting Allura in the blue (or any) lion brings her closer to the paladins. Lance and the red lion could have easily been the most interesting switch. In the pilot, the first major thing we learn about Lance is that he only got a spot as a fighter pilot because the best pilot of their generation had a discipline issue and flunked out. This student happens to be Keith, and Lance has a lot of insecurities about the guy, instigating a rivalry with him (mostly one-sided but Keith shoots back with his own barbs too). Coming back to the lion swap, the red lion is Keith’s old lion. There was a wide open opportunity to explore Lance’s insecurities here, as he would once again be stepping into the pilot role that Keith left behind. Lance could have felt that he would yet again be in Keith’s shadow (as Keith has now levelled up to leader) and this could’ve caused some major conflict. But nothing was done with it. Lance simply makes a comment about how Keith “probably trained it to bite my head off” and that’s the end of that. Lance then has no qualms about flying red and his Keith related insecurities (and indeed, all his insecurities that aren’t about romance) are brushed under the rug and he props Keith up as “team leader”.

Personally, I think each of the characters affected by the swap should’ve had a mini-hero’s journey. The characters start in their original lions (the castle for Allura). In their original position, they have whatever issues it is they need to tackle (Keith’s lone wolf tendencies, Allura’s self sacrificial nature, Shiro’s trauma and sense of worth, and Lance’s insecurities). When the swap happens, they struggle with their new positions, but are forced to grow. They then take this growth with them when they return to their original positions as wiser individuals (Shiro knows he isn’t a monster, Allura learns that the weight of the war against the galra isn’t entirely on her shoulders, Keith comes to trust and open up to the team and not only Shiro, Lance realises that he isn’t a discount Keith and he has his own strengths).

But the wasted opportunities aren’t the only problem with the lion swap. Arguably a bigger problem is the hierarchy it suddenly establishes. The concept of voltron is five equals coming together to form something that is greater than the sum of its parts. They cannot form voltron if even one of the lions is indisposed. So, by definition, all of the lions should be equally important. The black lion being the leader shouldn’t make it the most important, it should just be because every team needs someone to organise them and black happens to be that for the lions, just as Shiro was for the paladins. After all, of what damn use is voltron with only a head and torso? No, all lions should be equal.

But they aren’t. When Keith moves to the black lion, Lance moving into the red lion is framed as a promotion. Allura says that it is because Lance put his need for glory aside when accepting Keith as leader and this somehow passed the red lion’s test, but what about the others? Did they put their needs for glory first? Did Allura? Why was she unable to fly the red lion? The EPs said in interviews that the blue lion is the nurturing lion and is like a mother bird that pushes her baby out of the nest when the baby is ready to fly, suggesting that she pushed Lance to red because he didn’t need her anymore. They also refer to the blue lion as the “training wheels lion”, implying that those who fly the blue lion are not yet ready to fly a real lion. What does this say about Blaytz, the previous blue paladin? He was the leader of his planet, yet he spent his entire time in voltron in the training wheels lion? And, more pertinently, what does this say about Allura? It completely infantilizes her and is absolutely insulting.

Ultimately, the downgrading of the blue lion to a training wheels lion and the sudden insistence on the red lion being the right hand man to the leader establishes a hierarchy of Black > Red > Green/Yellow > Blue. Allura used to be the decision maker. In the pilot, Shiro says “Princess Allura, these are your lions, you've dealt with the Galra empire before. You know what we're facing better than any of us. What do you think is the best course of action?” From the very first episode, Shiro (who is already the leader of the paladins) defers to Allura. She was their commander, calling all the shots, superior to even the black paladin. But once she steps into the blue lion, she loses that rank. She falls to the bottom of the totem pole. Taking a dark-skinned woman and putting her in a powerful position, only to strip her of that and relegate her to the bottom (mind you, it only becomes the bottom when she gets there), is either the height of ignorance or deliberate malicious intent.

In fact, the lion swap leaves us with a very uncomfortable set up. With the establishment of the hierarchy, we know that the head is superior to the arms, which are superior to the legs. Well, the head happens to be the space white (arguably earth white too - his ethnicity was never revealed, possibly because they knew they would lose support if they countered the popular Asian Keith headcanon) male character. The arms are the white female character and the brown (but lighter brown) male character. The legs are the darkest-skinned characters.

At the end of the day, VLD was racist. Plain and simple. The characters of colour that remained in voltron were short-changed terribly, and Shiro was shuffled off onto the atlas because they weren’t allowed to kill him.

I mentioned how pretty much all of Lance’s insecurities were brushed under the rug, save for one: romance. From the very first episode, Lance displayed a crush on Allura. He flirted with her incessantly, to constant rebuffs but remained undeterred. In the 3rd season, he suddenly stopped flirting. He and Allura developed a friendly and mutually encouraging rapport. It was sweet. They were sweet. But then everything changed when the fire nation attacked Lotor arrived. Despite Allura and Lance’s continued sweet moments, Allura fell for Lotor. She didn’t shun Lance or anything, and she certainly still valued and cared for him greatly, risking her life to save him (Omega Shield, S6E1). But she didn’t see him romantically. How do we know this? Because when the mice inform her of the depths of Lance’s feelings for her (Timey Wimey ep, sorry idk the name, S6E2) she is initially surprised, but then sad.

(Pictured: Allura’s face after the initial surprise of the mice recounting what Lance told them about his feelings for her in S6E2. This episode comes before the one where she and Lotor share a kiss.)

It can be argued that she’s “conflicted” and not sad, but I personally don’t see that. I just see sad. But even if she was conflicted. Even if she did have romantic feelings for Lance by this point, her feelings for Lotor were stronger. We don’t see her torn between the two men. We see her consistently choose to spend time with Lotor and kissing him despite knowing how Lance feels about her. Whatever potential romantic feelings she may have for Lance, they weren’t enough to deter her from choosing Lotor. That is inarguable.

So after totally ignoring all other aspects of Lance’s insecurities, the narrative then validates the only one left by confirming that, yeah, he is the second choice. And I know people love to argue that just because he isn’t Allura’s first kiss doesn’t mean their relationship isn’t valid and obviously this is true. I’m not saying Allura can’t kiss more than one man in her life or she’s some sort of impure slut. Of course not. What I am saying, is that we know that Lance has insecurities pertaining to being second choice. He is insecure because he’s been told that he only made fighter pilot because Keith messed up. Well, guess what? He only became Allura’s boyfriend because Lotor messed up. He’s in the same situation all over again. Allura knew her options and made her choice. When that choice was no longer viable, she went for the other option. The narrative confirms Lance’s inferiority. There are so many other ways this could’ve been handled. For example, if Allura and Lotor had been spending a lot of time together working on the ship, and it only looked like they were dating, that would’ve been fine. Finding out about the colony would still have been heartbreaking for Allura because she trusted him. As another example, if Allura had feelings for both men but chose Lotor because she felt it was almost her duty, to secure a stronger alliance with the empire, that would’ve made the ultimate endgame with Lance more believable. Or, if the mice simply never told her how Lance felt and she didn’t know he was still into her. Or if they even had one moment after the colony reveal (The Colony, S6E4) where Lance did or said something and Allura was shown to be considering him romantically, before she walks up to him in season 7 all blushy and stammering (I don’t know s7 episode names but it’s there, I think it might be s7E10). That moment seems to come out of nowhere because all of Allura and Lance’s scenes that can be interpreted as romantic on her part occur before she kisses Lotor (and no, Lance comforting her in S6E5 doesn’t count because she’s literally crying on his shoulder over another guy. That’s not romantic. Her comforting him in S6E7 doesn’t count either because it’s essentially the same day as the colony reveal and there is no way she’s believably gotten over it that fast. Also he’s literally crying over their dead friend’s body. Nothing says romance like a corpse, amirite?) so we’re left wondering: when? When did she start liking him back? Which is a shame, because a relationship built on mutual support is a wonderful thing to show. VLD just didn’t show it well.

The buildup to relationship fails Allura just as much as it does Lance, because it appears as though she is being punished (yet again!) for making the wrong choice. She had the options of Lotor or Lance and she chose Lotor. And her reward for choosing Lotor is discovering that he neglected to mention the tiny fact that her people are not eradicated and he’s been using them as batteries all this time. A lot of heartbreak would’ve been avoided if, upon finding out about Lance’s feelings, she’d just chosen him directly instead of going through the Lotor thing first. Because she learnt nothing from that experience that required that she kiss him. There was no need for her to have romantic feelings for Lotor; after all, he needed her magical abilities so it’s not like they wouldn’t have gone to Oriande anyway. So what was the need to put her through that heartbreak When her romantic endgame was already available, willing and able? It ends up just feeling like someone working on VLD once had a crush on a girl who chose a suave bad-boy type over him, and he’s reliving it through this cartoon by showing how the bad boy type is actually just using her and she should actually have chosen him (my guess is JDS but that’s just me).

Continuing on the topic of romance, Shiro’s relationships are a mess. From the whole ordeal with Adam, his death and the 5 seconds of mourning Shiro was allowed, to Curtis’ name only coming up in captions and he and Shiro never actually having a conversation before getting married, it’s pretty clear how little effort was put into queer representation. The EPs knew how desperate the fans were to see queer rep and they played on this in interviews and at panels, stringing fans along with hope to see at least one queer main character and couple. But they never intended on fulfilling that. Several sources reveal conflicting information on how and when Shiro being queer was decided, with some sources saying it was Bex Taylor Klaus that asked for it, some saying it was a recent development and some saying they’d been sitting on it for a long time. In fact, the EPs themselves claim they’ve been sitting on the knowledge for a while, but with their awareness of the “Bury Your Gays” trope, they considered making somebody else The Rep™️ (because y’know. They wanted to kill Shiro. They have been very vocal about wanting to kill Shiro. Also The Rep™️ because heaven forbid you have representation for marginalised people in more than one character, right? Can you imagine having TWO WHOLE QUEERS? Scandalous!) but when their higher ups informed them that they were not to kill Shiro, they decided to make him The Rep™️ again. If this is true (and that’s a big if) one must ask: if they were aware of the “Bury Your Gays” trope, why did they do it anyway? And TWICE for that matter (thrice if you include Shiro’s death and resurrection. That’s right, shiro is Jesus).

They killed Adam supposedly to show the casualties of war, but we’ve only ever seen Adam once and it was during his and Shiro’s breakup scene. Of what emotional value is he to us? To show the emotional stakes, killing Sam would’ve made more sense because we’ve at least met the guy and we’ve seen how much Pidge loves her dad. Adam was barely a character. In fact, my brother didn’t even know we had ever seen the guy before when I paused during his death scene and asked him who that was (he said it was just some random pilot we’d never seen and had no idea what I was on about when I said it was the guy shiro was arguing with in the first episode). So frankly, I don’t care that Adam died. I only care that Shiro is yet again on the receiving end of the VLD stick of pain, and that a queer character was killed for no good reason. And Ezor is only alive because of the backlash after season 7 (sidenote: well done y’all. Making your voices HEARD and getting change is a beautiful thing). Yet another queer character would’ve been killed off unceremoniously if the EPs had their way.

I could go on forever about how much this show fucked up but I’m actually getting tired of thinking about it so I’m gonna summarise the next few issues in another post.

PART 2

[captaindoubled]

Me, the person that spent the last years at college studying and researching evaluation conditioning in the media and how it affects people's feelings towards different races irl: Even though media is getting better, folks are still falling into harmful tropes that only harm the message they are trying to get across and it helping.

I love Akande in overwatch but he is still a hulking black villain and that only reinforces the black hulking stereotype. Evaluative condition g is quick and instant and on a subconscious level for the most part so when folks look at him, they make connections with the racist stereotype of a big black man even if his character is far from it.

Dream Daddy has trans representation but has had their name tacked on to transphobic gamers and regardless of their involvement, that association is there. Gay men will be played as a joke because viewers of these gamers will be primed to think of gay men as a joke and not nuisanced people.

VLD relies so heavily on character tropes that genuine moments of character growth are lost because viewers are only going to see them through those tropes. Example- Characters like Hunk have moments where he shines through as an individual in the show are lost because the viewers have already been told multiple times that he's a fat food guy coward and because this trope is old and connections are strong in people's head that this trope is easily recognizable, moments where he's brave, math clever and just kind are overshadowed even if those moments are even with his food moments.

Steven Universe is another show that I had a lot of hope for but ultimately i had to step back from entirely because they constantly did nothing about their anti black biases and continued to demonize or other black coded characters within the show. Black woman characters being mules for the feelings of other characters, even when they were given moments to deal with those problems were turned to moments to lift up another character in the end (When Pearl used Garnet to fuse to feel powerful but only ended up being a character development moment for Pearl when that story arch should have centered around Garnet carrying the burden of the team). The creators have refused to do better with the POC coded gems or POC characters in the town and have mostly focused on white coded or thin characters. This is an example of people trying to be progressive so much so that they don't stop to check themselves or allow themselves to be criticized which is a shame. It's hard to see the progress in media when half the time it's one step forward two steps back.

Also me, but an optimistic person who just wants to have a good time and have faith in folks: I still enjoy the characters of Overwatch and other actually diverse big name pieces of media and even with its flaws it's a step in the right direction. The flaws will help them learn and if it doesn't, the spite will fuel other people to do better with their own IPs. I've seen plenty of folk get on their grind from bad media just as much as good media. And within the full context of the story, Akande is more than just a big black man and if fans and folks don't see the humanity in him, that's their problem. It is the job of the creators to do what they can to not promote harmful stereotypes but if fans can not see humanity in black characters than there is little that can be done.

Example- Lució is a good man, a musician and a hero to his people but people either Demonize his character by saying his a criminal for stealing from an oppressive force or dehumanizing him because he's one of the shortest characters on canon and because they don't see him as a "threatening" black man, they find ways to make him even less threatening, almost infant like as a counter stereotype which is just as harmful to black people.

I will bring up Dream Daddy again because other than small moments that are iffy, the game is actually very tame and very well made and not the fetish fuel that the fans have made it out to be. Most of the dates are just friends hanging out and only on the third date do you lock in a romantic interaction. Some of those last dates don't even become romantic until the last minute. Even Joseph's story which doesn't have a "good ending" is balanced for in the fact that not every gay has to have a good end when the majority of them in the story do. Only positive stuff doesn't make people see gay men as complex human people and the idea that just because it's a dating sim, huh can't always get what you want is nice and treats him like a human man with his own issues and not just fan fuel. I can see this being a stepping stone for folks to take the dating sim genre more seriously because both them and visual novels are easier to program and create than fps,third person games, or side scroller and so more indie folks can create bigger and better representation without being tacked on to the Game Grumps.

VLD has been an odd show from the jump and has done a lot better than previous versions of the show. It's far more diverse and the stereotypes are annoying but not as bad as they were in the past. I prefer to watch the show outside of the fandom and I don't interact with the fans because again, it becomes a situation where the fans own biases have soiled the entire experience and made the show something that it isn't. It could be better but nothing is perfect and I'll critique it because that's my job as a viewer but I'm still proud of the work it's done so far even if it's not super good all the time.

Also also me, an exhausted person: Just do better. Both shows and fans. People make these shows and pieces of media and people aren't perfect. It's both the job of the creator to do better and to apologize when implicit biases, which are very hard to change unless you actively go out of the way to fix them and recondition yourself, are present in characters or they just fuck up on something.

But it's also the job of the fans to educate themselves on what's right and how to interact with folk. This isn't a reasonably, be nice thing. It's a, maybe don't send really weird messages to folks about your ship unless the creator has made it know that they like to engage in that talk. Even if you are angry, actually say what's wrong with sources instead of working off hear-say. If you don't know what's wrong with a show, ask and do your own research or only form your opinions from folks that actually did the research and not a random post with literally no sources but lots of outrage. Also accept that sometimes your opinion on stuff is wrong. Cis women who only interact with a show for the gay ships are fundamentally wrong?? And annoying and you hounding a creators for gay content is actually very gross when you can support shows when canon can characters.

BUT as fans you do have a right to critique a show for stuff going on and creators have to have thicker skin when it comes to critique. They have every choice to listen to it or ignore it but fans have every right to critique the media. It's how things change. Again, a point back to Steven Universe. Both with the fans and the creators didn't want anything bad said about the show. Just because it was progressive for one group, doesn't mean it's progressive for other folk.

There were good moments that children and adults needed to hear but nothing is perfect and if a show can't be critiqued nothing will get better and the deeper in your craw you get about a problem, folks tend to double down on them (I have a theory that racist/sexist/ist thoughts and actions tend to get worst when you tell folks to stop because they can be learned through conditioning and so go through a thing called an extinction burst ((an extinction burst is when you try and stop a trained behavior by not reinforcing it any longer the thing doing the behavior does it a lot more out of frustration because they aren't frying their treat anymore)) so they do racist shit more because they aren't getting rewarded for their behavior) the worst you'll get.

The rise of social media and creators wanting to connect with the fans have created a situation where folks have easy access to one another and there is a lack or respect for folks space. This was a problem with Bryke and members of the ATLA crew entering in spaces meant for the fans and being upset with how overwhelming the close interactions were and got defensive about critique of any kind. This is a problem with folks on the VLD fandom holding pieces of media hostage to get what they want, ignoring the real world consequences of those actions. The closeness allows for direct responses with problems but also the same way texts are, people expect and answer immediately when people behind contracts and are representing their content and everyone who's worked on it has to put the message out fast but same time it has to follow rules probably set out by their company. Both sides just need to do better.