#lotor discourse

[transasahi]

vId fr brings out the worst in me i am just going through the notes of the lawlight v kIance poll and just. blocking people. instead of enjoying my saturday like a fucking normal person

[punkeropercyjackson]

I hate that Hobie Brown age discourse exists.I hate that every time we get an abusive and fascistic white boy character-Draco Malfoy aka the og and his ressurection in 'fanon' Regulus Black,Kylo Ren,Prince Lotor,Luke Castellan and so many more-they get excuses and turned into softboys who couldn't have known better despite either actively relishing in hurting other kids who were minorities or being GROWN but Hobie who's so sweet-looking and clearly just a boy to anyone who knows what it's like to be a troubled kid and not even necessarily a black one specifically because so many nonblack minors i've seen in the fandom have expressed frustration and discomfort over it like me but has a backbone of steel he was forced to make as a trauma survival response and has so much love and anger in him he chanels in violence against people like those same men i talked about and giving help to other children like him gets called an adult and sexualized and his trans coding erased for the sake of conforming to traditional masculinity and made out to be MEAN when he's as sweet as the desserts i discovered at his age and only teases his friends on things he knows they're okay with because he's not some demonic white altie who'd bullied them 'because it's normal to'.I hate that Hobie lost his childhood and Atsv fans won't let him be in love with his own heavily hinted at girlfriend who's canon trans or have an adorable puppycrush on his male best friend because he can only be their brother and never their boyfriend despite claiming to want everything to be lgbt while in the same breath pinkwashing and infantalizing actual male adults because they refuse to unlearn their internalized biases even though Hobie literally encouraged not just the cast but us the audience to.I hate 'fandom isn't activism' in response to disgusting potrayals of minority characters instead of fandom mommies and daddies and parenties growing the fuck up and calling themselves antifas because they get off to kiddy porn and racism

[rist-ix]

The sparxshipping teasing from Iginio got me wondering.... if we ever did get canon sparxshipping explored, whether in a reboot or new adaptation, how would you like it for it to be done?

I'm gonna try to answer both of these in one post cause they overlap a little, but first of all thank you!

Buckle up fellas I'm bringing discourse.

This is gonna be a bit of an unpopular opinion I think, and it’s that I don’t want sparxshipping to be canon at all.

Feel free to get the pitchforks, but until then imma talk. I have villainships that I think not only add something to the overall plot, they kind of define it too. Reylo for examples, with its themes of redemption, masks and compassion, or Darklina and how important their relationship is to the war and Grisha oppression, or Lotor and Allura with its symbolism of breaking the cycle of abuse, making peace, reclaiming a heritage thought lost and so on.

To put it very briskly: an established Sparxshipping relationship adds nothing to the plot. It would have to be a plot of its own, and while there are tons of fascinating plot threads you could weave back into Domino, Bloom's family and the war before the Fall, it is simply, plainly, and rightfully so not the story Winx Club is telling.

Winx Club, at its core, is about the girls and their friendship. That is the show I love, and that is the show I am invested in. Fanfiction is a separate thing, I’ll get into that later. But canon, commercially produced and globally aired Winx Club is what we are talking about now. And the one defining truth of Winx Club is that it’s about the Winx. Their boyfriends are the side note, the Kens to their Barbies, to cement them as the cool popular teenagers younger kids are supposed to see them as. If Bloom and Valtor had a lasting serious relationship, Valtor would inevitably have to be shoved into that category as well, and that would ruin the entire appeal of him.

To boil it down even more: if sparxshipping were canon, either Winx Club would have to shift away from its intrinsic premise and formula, or Valtor would have to be diminished beyond recognition. So my longstanding opinion has always been: don’t make sparxshipping canon. Just don’t.

What I, personally, would do if I were ever to gain access to the mythical and likely overcrowded writing room at Rainbow SpA, is this:

Tease the fuck out of it.

Lean into their fucked up little hate-obsession. Every time they share the screen they have to be radiating unresolved sexual tension. Their chemistry has to be so off-the-charts it sparks a million fanfics before the season even ends. If there aren’t so many crappy amv's set to angsty Taylor swift songs it brings down the YouTube servers by midnight you have failed. Because canon is bound to certain limits, but fanfiction is NOT. The goal of any show should be to create something that will awaken an inescapable need to build on it, to continue where it left off, or to wonder but-what-if? To make people text incoherent keysmashes to their fandom buddies with shaky hands in the middle of the night and be unable to sleep until they’ve confirmed their buddy has seen it too.

I would want to see Bloom go fully I-have-lost-sight-of-everything-but-revenge until her friends manage to pull her back, I would want them to fight so vehemently the structures around them collapse and they don’t even notice. They should be in situations where they are UNDENIABLY going to die if they fight on and they still do it, they literally CANNOT stop, they don’t care to. To the point that everyone around them is seriously concerned and talking about their terrifying obsession with each other, more or less out in the open. And after a season full of epic fight scenes, high stake conflicts and frankly obscene tension between them, I would want Bloom to kill him.

Straight up.

Give her that moment of calm self assurance, at peace and perfectly in control, while Valtor tries to gaslight-gatekeep-girlboss his way out of this, contrasting the way her support network and genuine, unconditional friendships strengthen her while Valtor, who is always sabotaging everyone around him, is forced to confront his own powerlessness in the face of the power that created him. His manipulation attempts have nothing to latch on to. They have one last exchange where Valtor is visibly furious at her denial of him / his own failure — to really drive home that this is Bloom's triumph — but the last words they exchange are cordial. Maybe a comment at her growth, or a warning about his mothers, or another way to foreshadow future threats — if he couldn’t defeat her, no one should. He ends on a high note, but he does end, and it’s at Bloom's hands. She retakes the corrupted spark into the Flame she is guarding, and that is that.

And then, and this is important. He fucking haunts her for the entire next story arc. The next season, the next two seasons maybe, because she has learned a fuck ton of things from him and it is really, really difficult to move on knowing everything she does, knowing everything he implied or hinted at, or simply knowing so many really, really cruel ways to get her way now, which isn’t who she wants to be, but it would be easy, quick and effective for the greater good, right?

Boom, character conflict for the next season established, lots of potential for future flashbacks or visions, Valtor stays on his high horse of forever-the-juiciest-fucking-villain-of-the-franchise and the story can move on.

The End

Cue three decades of mind-blowing fanfiction. We all say Thank you Rainbow and cry ourselves to sleep thinking about what could have been.

[astralscrivener]

✨ fic directory ✨

i’ve created a post to keep all of my fics in one place. all fics can be found on ao3. (last updated may 4th, 2024)

major ongoing works

STEALING OUR OWN PLACE IN THE SUN

- voltron: legendary defender: a rewrite of vld seasons 4-8. - team focus, broganes, klance, adashi, romellura - rated M, graphic depictions of violence + other warnings in author notes - 22/45 chapters, 251k words (december 25th, 2022) - last posted: chapter 22: season 7, episode 3: elliptical orbit

AT SKYFALL

- voltron: legendary defender: canon-divergent au in which keith and shiro are captured by the galra at a coalition gala. things become more complicated when the team’s search for shiro turns up someone else: adam, shiro’s fiancé.  - broganes, klance, adashi - rated M, graphic depictions of violence + other warnings in author notes - 8/? chapters, 25k words (september 2nd, 2023) - last posted: chapter 8: division and discord

ABCS OF KLANCE

- voltron: legendary defender: oneshots, one prompt for each letter of the alphabet, focused on keith and lance’s relationship - variety of aus, some overlap with squad up (2017-19 modern au), mostly established relationship klance - 18 works, 87k words (may 4th, 2024) - a: artistry • b: brutality • c: comfort • d: defeat • e: elegance • f: faithfulness • g: grief • h: homelessness • i: information • j: jealousy • k: knell • l: loyalty • m: mercy • n: need • o: opportunity • p: pain • q: quest • r: rumor • s: sleep • t: trust • u: uncertainty • v: victory • w: worry • x: xenon • y: yearning • z: zero - last posted: lightning in a bottle (y: yearning)

other ongoing works

THESE 20S ARE RAWRING AND THESE DUNGEONS ARE DRAGONING

- voltron: legendary defender: modern au + d&d series started in 2020 as a stress response to quarantine - team focus, klance, adashi, romellua, hunay

• main work: the rawring 20s XD - chatfic that only updates if i think it will be funny - rated M, no archive warnings apply + other warnings in author notes - 5/5 chapters, 17k words - last posted: chapter 5: there is no easter bunny, there is no tooth fairy, (september 8th, 2022)

- other works include klance-centric oneshots + snippets of the group’s ongoing d&d campaign - 5 works, 37k words - last posted: midnight into morning coffee (february 7th, 2024)

VLD FIC REQUESTS

- voltron: legendary defender: oneshots across a variety of aus written in response to prompts from friends and followers - variety of ships, but mainly klance and adashi - some overlap with squad up  - 15 works, 92k words (july 8th, 2023) - last posted: distraction

major completed works

DECEIT SO NATURAL

- voltron: legendary defender: canon-divergent trilogy in which lance and keith fool their way behind enemy lines and onto lotor’s ship to steal vital information on the galra empire—only for lotor to become far more dangerous than anyone anticipated. - mainly klance, extremely one-sided lancelot - written before gay shiro reveal + age discourse, contains side shallura - 3 works, 315k words - completed june 15th, 2018

• WHERE PEOPLE GO TO DIE - lotor mistakenly believes that lance is a galra soldier spying on the paladins, and invites him to return home. keith follows him undercover as a prisoner, and quickly draws lotor’s ire as things spiral rapidly out of control. - rated M, graphic depictions of violence - 14/14 chapters, 49k words - completed july 9th, 2017

• DYNASTY DECAPITATED - lotor becomes vindictive after having been played for a fool by team voltron, and the team struggles to hold the voltron alliance together while fending off his rapid advances. meanwhile, keith and lance explore a new stage of their relationship and learn exactly what the other means to them. - rated M, graphic depictions of violence - 18/18 chapters, 67k words - completed august 7th, 2017

• STARS GO DOWN - lotor has captured lance and sentenced keith to death halfway across the universe. lance struggles to hold onto himself as he plays the role of an amnesiac, while keith attempts to fight his way back to the team, alone. meanwhile, the team, down two lions and two paladins, scrambles to bring keith and lance home amidst betrayals and tumult in the voltron alliance. - rated M, graphic depictions of violence, temporary major character death + other warnings in author notes - 37/37 chapters, 198k words - completed june 15th, 2018

SQUAD UP

- voltron: legendary defender: modern au written from 2017-19 to cope with the horrors of being in high school and the transition into college - written before gay shiro reveal + age discourse, contains side shallura and shiro/allura/matt - 25 works, 561k words - completed may 10th, 2019

• main work: squad up - chatfic chronicling the gang’s last year of high school - rated M, no archive warnings apply + other warnings in author note - 140/140 chapters, 327k words - completed june 15th, 2018

• main work: a midsummer night’s meme - chatfic chronicling the gang’s last summer before college - rated M, no archive warnings apply + other warnings in author note - 27/27 chapters, 79k words - completed august 31st, 2018

• main work: because guys like us are cool in college - series of oneshots/snippets following keith and lance’s freshman year of college - rated M, no archive warnings apply + other warnings in author note - 84/84 chapters, 83k words - completed may 10th, 2019

LIGHT UP THE PATH (THROUGH A SKY FULL OF STARS)

- voltron: legendary defender: 28 oneshots completed for klance au month february 2019. - klance - variety of aus, including but not limited to modern au, canon-divergent/other paladinsverse, fantasy au, and more - rated M, creator chose not to use archive warnings + other warnings in author note - 28/28 chapters, 49k words - completed february 28th, 2019

additional oneshots not mentioned here can be found on archive of our own ✨ other writing (including drabbles, snippets, and prompts from tumblr ask games) can be found in my writing tag ✨

happy reading!

[matt0044]

So... “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is a bop, right?

It’s firmly supplanted “Let It Go” as Disney’s latest ear-worm until the next one comes along but it’s more than just a catchy ballard. It spells out how the Family Madrigal view him as a blight on their family name, especially when they’ve been a pillar of their community.

It also describes how rather than dealing with his problem and maybe helping him through it, they opted to just let him retreat into his room never to be seen again. Better to sweep it under the rug. However, this also proves to be a root in while the house is coming undone.

The message is clear: a family can’t stay as one so long as they can’t talk about their problems with each other. It’s why Mirabel doesn’t get a gift so she can be the outsider looking in.

Where is this going? Well... somebody just finished Voltron: Legendary Defender... and enjoyed it.

Here me out before you scroll away.

I had finished up to Season 7 along with Teen Titans three days before Season 8 dropped. I knew that fandom discourse would be a bear and opted to let the season simmer before I viewed it for myself a few Watch Lists down the road.

What I couldn’t have known was this overwhelming hate for Season 8. I was on Twitter where handles were being altered to include #FuckVoltron and the like. I glimpsed spoilers of what happened in the finale without getting into the dirty details.

Thus I decided to put it off until the heat died down. A whole half decade at that. With Fandom Drama down to near non-existent, I decided to return and engage with Voltron on its own terms from the start. No shipping drama, no expectations for how it should go, no accusations of problematic behavior and no Purple Lion conspiracies.

And... I liked it. I highly encourage those scared off by the drama or felt Season 8 did it dirty to give it a(nother) shot. It deserves a full on renaissance the way Twilight got.

Why? (spoilers ahead).

I was sold on Allura and Lance’s relationship. I loved how he went from being a flirt to genuinely admiring Allura as a leader and Paladin, encouraging her in the season 4 finale without trying to get anything out of it.

I liked the tonal shift around Season 7 where the ultimate Golion homage is made with the Space Explorers coming home to a war ravaged Earth.

I liked how human Lotor and Honerva were as villains coming after Zarkon. I can see why there’s a whole ass conspiracy framed around him actually being in Season 8. Also them taking that “Your mother was an Altean bitch” like and running with it for Hagger was brilliant.

Keith becoming the Black Paladin after Kuron’s reveal was well done and felt weirdly natural in retrospect. He feels like he can’t measure up to Shiro and learns more discipline from

Allura sacrificing herself to restore all realities felt a lot better with the knowledge of spoilers. It helps that the ending went with a more noble feel than angsty, showing how the Paladins strove make sure that her actions set an example for years to come.

I love that they got creative with the multiple alien species and kept the Alteans from being just humans in space like in the original. It really took inspiration from Vehicle Voltron with more aliens in the mix.

Shiro the Hero, as Crazy Coran put it. What can I say except that he’s the kind of character you call a Mary Sue if he wasn’t a guy. Always calm, always perservering, putting the mission first and being a pillar the team can lean on. He even creates his own Voltron out of the Atlas

Honestly, the whole Adam thing isn’t something I fully blame the writers given the producers pushing back. Mind you, I feel like Keith would’ve made a good endgame pairing with him if they had even out their ages when they first meet, both as teenage proteges.

Studio Mir was amazing, especially with the space battles. Honestly, if Robotech managed to make a comeback, I could totally see them being tapped to match the classic Anime style.

So... yeah. Voltron good actually.

[themattress]

Fire Emblem Observation

Rhea, leader of the Church of Serios.

Edelgard, leader of the Adrestrian Empire.

Dimitri, leader of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.

Claude, leader of the Leicester Alliance.

They're all different, but they share one very unique thing in common.

They all add up to one Prince Lotor.

Seriously, I know @ultraericthered made the comparison with Edelgard before, but when you think about it, it's all of them! Rhea is over a thousand years old and believes that unlocking the secret to some great power is the key to ensuring everlasting peace is her conflict-prone setting. Edelgard is a white-haired imperialist who arrogantly thinks she alone has what it takes to change things for the better and will use almost every trick in the book to do so regardless of morality (and is also a huge nerd deep down). Dimitri is a charming, eloquent, handsome prince who has been through some serious trauma and then ultimately snaps, becoming a feral, murderous beast of a man yelling about how he will kill the white-haired girl he once loved. And Claude is a deceptive schemer whose default is not really opening up and trusting others with his ambitions and secrets, and in Three Hopes can become outright devious in the pursuit of the greater good he desires. And the fan discourse surrounding all of these characters often shuns nuance for black-and-white thinking! It's fucking Prince Lotor!

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

Ultimate Vriska Showdown Round 2 Masterpost

Info on the polls

Links to all the polls for round 2 are listed below. Sorry for the delay:

Alador Blight Vs. Catra - Winner: Catra (78.6%)

Grace Monroe Vs. Asuka Langley Soryu - Winner: Asuka Langley Soryu (53%)

Azula Vs. Edelgard Von Hresvelg - Winner: Azula (69.8%)

Dahlia Hawthorne Vs. Katsuki Bakugou - Winner: Dahlia Hawthorne (60%)

Vriska Serket Vs. Nanami Kiryuu - Winner: Nanami Kiryuu (lmao) (53.5%)

Rose Quartz Vs. Prince Lotor - Winner: Rose Quartz (71.6%)

Princess Bubblegum Vs. Ianthe Tridentarius - Winner: Princess Bubblegum (61.2%)

Homura Akemi Vs. C!Dream - Winner: Homura Akemi (35.1%)

Some thoughts below:

I am considering taking C!Dream off of this poll. This isn't because I have any opinions on the character. This is mainly because, from what I've seen, the controversy surrounding C!Dream only partially stems from things in his story. A larger part of the controversy is surrounding Dream the real-life Youtuber, which I don't want to get involved in.

The other characters on this list are known outside of their fandoms because of discourse surrounding the characters themselves. Meanwhile, people who aren't into MCYT are only aware of Dream the character because of the controversies surrounding Dream the creator. While discourse on other characters on the poll may spread to their creators, the majority of discourse I've seen on C!Dream was spread to him from his creator. This, in my opinion, doesn't fit with the other characters and isn't something I want on my poll.

Additionally, some people regarding C!Dream have been overstepping boundaries and otherwise making me uncomfortable, both privately and in the tags and replies of polls. When I said I wanted to learn about discourse surrounding the characters of this poll, I didn't want discourse about the creator to overshadow discourse about the character. I especially didn't want to be pressured to make a judgment call on discourse in a fandom I wasn't a part of.

Right now, the way to take C!Dream off the poll would be to have Homura automatically go to round 3, whether she gets the majority vote or not. Another option would be to replace C!Dream with another character (I'm considering Iroha Nijiue from Super Danganronpa Another 2), and have them go up against Mabel. The winner from that poll would go against Homura. In this case, I would be making a single post on the 24th with three polls: Mabel vs. the replacement, Mabel vs. Homura, and the replacement vs. Homura.

Whoever wins the first poll, I'll be taking the winner from their poll against Homura and having that character move to round 3. This is to save time. I will be making the final decision on whether to take C!Dream off tomorrow. Unless a significant number of people want the second option, I will just move Homura up to round 3 automatically.

Me taking C!Dream off is not an indictment of either side of C!Dream or Dream discourse. It's just that I don't think this character is a good fit for the Vriska poll. If you disagree, I invite you to make your own poll with C!Dream. Maybe you'll have other characters that could count as Vriskas that I didn't even think of. Good luck.

Pandora

[maiz-of-light]

Title Page, Because I Said So

I’ve done Meet the Artist, but that only allows so much space to elaborate. So here’s a lengthier description of this blog and what it stands for.

Hello!

‘Maiz’ or ‘Maizie’ are my preferred aliases. Pronouns are they/she 🖤🩶🩷🤍🩷🩶🖤, andro/non-binary/demigirl 💛🤍💜🖤, and pansexual 🩷💛💙in the sense that I don’t really have a ‘type’ and that I Like What I Like When I Like It.

This individual supports human rights and does not tolerate bigotry of any kind. If I see any conservatives, anti-choice rhetoric, or any other type of troublemakers lurking around here they will be promptly blocked. That said, the focus of this blog is not in any way political, and I prefer not to have that kind of discourse here.

Nothing I say in public posts is directed at anyone personally. But if the shoe fits, well, you can guess what to do.

Fandoms I follow ~

The Legend of Zelda

- Skyward Sword

- Twilight Princess

- Ocarina of Time / Majora’s Mask

- Breath of the Wild / Tears of the Kingdom (the latter tagged "totk spoilers")

- Wind Waker

Voltron

Mostly Legendary Defender, some Defender of the Universe. I know the former ended a long time ago, but I recently got the brain rot and, well, I have… feelings.

- Lotor/Allura/Lotura

- shipping aside, we love Lancey Lance here

Hazbin Hotel

- Yes, I ship RadioApple (Lucifer/Alastor). No, this is not ace erasure.

- RadioSilence (one-sided Alastor/Vox on Vox’s part)? Sure. RadioStatic (any other form of Alastor/Vox)? No thank you, sir.

- I don’t care how many people Alastor has killed or how mean or conniving he is, he is gold in my eyes and may have my soul on a silver platter.

^ also applies to Lucifer, my silly goofy angel man.

The Handmaid’s Tale

- I try to tag my THT posts accordingly, so if this series is upsetting to you, either block the tag or unfollow me.

- if you’re here because of my THT posts, welcome! A few things ~

1) I do not ship Osblaine. I do not dislike Osblaine. I just don’t care. The same goes for Luke/June.

2) I do ship Serena/June. Again, if this is a problem, block the tag or get out. Do not @ me about how horrible or unhealthy you think it is.

3) This should go without saying but, We love and support Janine around here.

LoZ pairings I ship ~

Midzel

OoT Malink

Zelgroose/Grooselda

Ghiralink

⚔️💎”LinkGhira” submissive broodmare Ghirahim is not allowed here.💎⚔️

🌼💠Purity Police can leave right now. If you’re offended, no you’re not. Shut up.💠🌼

💗💟Seriously though, picking fights or asking for censorship will get you blocked.💟💗

📻🍎You don’t have to agree with me. You do have to agree to disagree.🍎📻

Welcome to hell ~

[imjustheretoseetheprivateblogs]

How about Sailor Moon and Voltron for the Send me a Fandom meme?

Sailor Moon

The first character I first fell in love with: I think I’m gonna say Makoto Kino

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: probably the shitennou. I never expected to enjoy the characters, but fandom and fanworks really helped to open my eyes to them.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t: uuuhmmm… I guess I’m not a huge fan of Chibichibi *shrugs*

The character I love that everyone else hates: can’t say there necessarily is one of those

The character I used to love but don’t any longer: I don’t think I have one of these either

The character I would totally smooch: Imma play it safe and say Sailor Pluto (IDK if aging up characters counts)

The character I’d want to be like: Mamoru. Guy’s really underrated

The character I’d slap: probably Wiseman/Death Phantom.

A pairing that I love: Senshi x Shitennou and I never expected to

A pairing that I despise: Usagi x Seiya. I wouldn’t say I *despise* it per say, but something about it that doesn’t sit right with me

VLD

The first character I first fell in love with: I guess Shiro

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: Shiro I guess

The character everyone else loves that I don’t: I’d say Lance is my least favorite character but I don’t really hate him. I more just think if I met these characters in real life, he’d be the one I’d avoid.

The character I love that everyone else hates: ummmm… I feel pretty evenly about Keith, even though I know he wore out his welcome with some fandom factions.

The character I used to love but don’t any longer: ummm… Lotor, I suppose

The character I would totally smooch: with the amount of age discourse in the fandom, Think I’ll pass on this one

The character I’d want to be like: Coran. If I had that level of energy I’d be unstoppable.

The character I’d slap: the writers probably those dudes who tried to hijack them on the asteroid

A pairing that I love: Shallura, I guess

A pairing that I despise: Probably Klance

SEND ME A FANDOM

[noirsongbird]

I don't know enough about Voltron to go into detail but like, apparently that Lotor guy was being set up to go down a Zuko-esque redemption arc and then the writers were like 'lol no'. and now I'm like all the fanfix writers go do your thing.

oh yeah no that’s just My Brand at this point, we were absolutely robbed of Lotor’s redemption arc and I understand that the writers made a decision wrt him being irredeemably evil but given that it’s a stupid ass decision predicated on a wacky underexplained out-of-nowhere reveal, I’ve elected to ignore it.

[nomadicism]

Another day, another asshole trying to bait fans of Lotor with garbage takes and rude posts about/towards fans in the tags. A decent person would tag better, or put the hate and rude comments under a cut...or I dunno, not misuse the word “genocide” to begin with.

[poesababe]

Villains can be evil and despicable but I draw the line at them being mean

[the-ferocious-kittyrose]

Rewriting Haggar/Honerva’s redemption arc

One of the many things that bothered me about VLD S8 is Honerva’s redemption arc. While I was never fully against the idea of Honerva getting a redemption arc, I just didn’t want VLD to do it because I knew that they would fuck it up if they tried. And low and behold, I was right!

But yeah, I wasn’t against the idea of her being redeemed. And I don’t mean “redeemed” as in “all is forgiven and she’s just a good guy now,” but more like a Darth Vader, “the things she did were inexcusable and she would never be able to right all her wrongs but she goes out on one good act to show that there was still good in her deep down and she at least had the potential to change.”

I know a lot of people don’t like the whole, “redemption=death” thing, which I understand, but I personally never had a problem with it.

Ok, so why didn’t Honerva’s redemption work? Well there are a few reasons but the one that baffles me the most is that, instead of trying to make her more sympathetic, season 8 seemed to go out of its way to show her being more evil and vile than ever.

And because I have nothing better to do, I’m gonna go through Honerva’s story in VLD and explain what I would change to make her redemption more believable.

(Keep in mind I am not a writer, this is just me ranting about my favorite character and how I personally would’ve written her.)

1. Realizing she’s Altean

I always thought it’s was weird that when Allura said “you’re...Altean!?” In the S2 finale, Haggar didn’t seem to react at all, she just kept attacking. It’s as if she didn’t care or already knew, which doesn’t make sense considering in the S3 finale and S8E2 it’s established that Haggar has no memory of who she was before she died. And in S4E3 she seems shocked by her Altean face (which also doesn’t make sense because her blue skin isn’t camouflage that’s just how she looks after the rift) so it seems like she didn’t know.

Wouldn’t it have made more sence if after Allura said “you’re...Altean!?” Honerva looked confused/shocked? If she became defensive and said Allura was lying/trying to insult her? There’s def anti-Altean propaganda in the empire so it would be considered an insult.

After that she starts questioning Zarkon. And when she looks into his mind, it’s out of genuine curiosity and desire to know the truth, not because, “the empire needs him” or whatever that meant.

And isn’t it a bit odd that she doesn’t seem betrayed at all when she finds out Zarkon has been keeping all this from her? She’s just like, “oh, you’re my husband? Cool.” Wtf???

2. Her past relationship with Zarkon

Okay, I love Zonerva, but if we’re being honest, Zarkon was not the best husband. He enabled the shit out of Honerva, even when it was obvious that the rift was doing serious damage to her physical and mental health. To me, it seems like Zarkon was so blinded by the power the rift gave him that he didn’t realize/ignored the negative effect it was having on Honerva. In the same way he downplayed the negative impact the rift had on the planet.

I think that should’ve been explored more. Maybe Honerva notices that she’s been acting differently and is worried somethings wrong (think S5 Kuron). And Honerva tries to tell Zarkon that she feels strange and Zarkon just brushes it off.

And later, when Alfor visits Diaibazaal years later. Things are pretty much the same except when we sees Honerva, she is very obviously pregnant and Alfor’s there when Honerva falls and goes into labor (instead of a random quintessence seizure). Alfor and many Galran doctors try their best to save her and the baby but she dies in childbirth.

Zarkon goes ballistic. He’s yelling, throwing doctors across the room, and Alfor turns to the doctor holding Lotor and tells them to get the baby to safely, fearing Zarkon will take his grief out on the baby.

Zarkon turns on Alfor, blaming him for Honerva’s death and accusing him of letting her die so that he could get his way and close the rift. He lunges Alfor and roars at him to leave.

He spends the rest of the night grieving at Honerva’s bedside, when Kova jumps on the bed and starts gnawing on her finger trying to wake her up. This is what gives him the idea to bring her back with quintessence.

3. Her current relationship with Zarkon

I think it’s pretty safe to say that they’re relationship didn’t get better after the war began. Zarkon hid her identity and her child from her for 10,000 years and essentially used her as a tool of war. It’s pretty fucked up.

I know it’s pretty well established that Zarkon treats Haggar with more respect than his other underlings, but I feel like it would be interesting to see that change overtime. We see that after Voltron comes back, Zarkon becomes very obsessed with Voltron/Black, and he and Haggar start disagreeing more and more.

Remember the moment where one of Haggar’s druids told Zarkon Haggar said he needed to rest and Zarkon hit them with his bayard and told them, “remember who your master is”? What if, instead of a random druid, it was Haggar who he hit?

I feel like that would be a good way to show Haggar and the audience just how much Zarkon’s obsession with Voltron is affecting him, and make the audience feel a tiny bit bad for her.

Then later in season 4, when Zarkon wakes up from his coma and finds out Haggar brought Lotor back to take his place he gets pissed. He puts a price on Lotor’s head and has Haggar arrested for treason. She steals a ship, escapes, and later on meets up with Lotor’s generals.

Her and Zarkon are officially broken up and her quest to reclaim her identity and get her son back begins.

4. Oriande

I never liked the concept of chosen/sacred Alteans. The idea that some Alteans are just born more powerful than others just feels iffy. My idea of Oriande is that it’s an Altean holly land, any Altean can enter it just depends on whether or not you can pass the White Lion’s trial. Passing the trial proves that your intentions are pure and and the White Lion will bless you with power.

I didn’t like how Honerva seemed to force her way into Oriande, I think it would be more effective if she had gone through normally because, at this point, her intentions were pure. She was going there to purge herself of the dark magic corrupting her and reclaim her memories so she could go get her son back.

I also like the idea that Oriande is a sorta link to the Altean after life, and you can speak with people you’ve lost. Allura gets to speak with Alfor, and Honerva speaks with her mother.

You could also have her be confronted by the spirits of the Alteans she helped destroy. Have the weight of her past actions bear down on her. An important part of any redemption arc is acknowledging the terrible shit you’ve done in the past, and that was severely lacking in Honerva’s arc.

Another interesting thing you could do is have Honerva talk to her younger self. The one that died 10,000 years ago. This kinda thing actually happened in 80s Voltron, young Haggar appearing in Haggar’s head trying to convince her to be good again.

5. Her relationship with Lotor

Now this is where the redemption arc really falls apart. I forget who, but one of the writers said after S5 that Haggar/Honerva was motivated purely by love for her son, but man did they do a bad job of showing that.

And it would’ve been so easy to fix that problem, just have her not be horrible to him. Have them have actual civil conversations, have her protect and defend him. Don’t have her reject him as a fucking baby!

Imagine if, after Zarkon destroys Lotor’s planet, instead of immediately deciding to

exile him, Zarkon says that this is the final straw and he’s going to have Lotor executed. But Haggar speaks up to defend Him. There’s actually a scene in DOTU where Zarkon tries to kill Lotor and Haggar gets on her knees and begs for him to be spared. (Though the scene was mostly played for laughs.)

she asks for mercy and justifies it by saying it would be unwise to kill his only heir. It’s a weak argument, Lotor’s a half breed and couldn’t realistically take the throne, but Zarkon does concede, he still loves her after all, and has Lotor exiled.

And Haggar isn’t spying on him because she doesn’t trust him, but because she’s concerned for him. When Lotor confronts Haggar about sending her cronies after him, she says she knows he’s hiding something. Lotor asks if she’s threatening him, thinking she’s going to rat him out, but she says no, she’s not threatening him, she’s just trying to warn him against doing anything stupid because, with Zarkon seemingly on his death bed, the empire needs Lotor’s leadership.

At this point in the story, Haggar is questioning her loyalty to Zarkon, so I feel like it would make sense for her to be silently supporting Lotor from the shadows.

Then at the Kral Zera in season 5, It was weird to me how she was helping Lotor through Kuron while also telling him he couldn’t be emperor and trying to put Sendak on the throne. I feel like it would’ve made more sense for Sendak to just show up on his own without Haggar.

Haggar wouldn’t even be at the Kral Zera, she would just watch through Kuron.

And then we get to S6 when she actually reveals to Lotor that she’s his mom. This scene was just so poorly done. She never actually apologizes to him, she’s just like “yeah I forgot you were my kid and I never loved you, but were cool now right?” I remember when I saw S8E2 and it shows her after Lotor rejects her and she looks like she’s about to cry, I was just thinking, “this would be very emotional and sad IF she had actually apologized and made it clear that she genuinely loved him.” But she didn’t and I don’t know why!

And then we get to season 8, and of course everything in S8 is bad but Honerva’s story is particularly bad. She’s supposed to be motivated by love for Lotor yet she doesn’t act like she actually cares about him at all.

She manipulates his corpse and when she sees his gross melted body, she doesn’t even react that much. When a mother sees her child’s mutilated corpse, how do you think she reacts? Screaming? Crying?? Hurling??? But no. She’s just like, “...”

And then when she goes to the alternate reality and meets baby Lotor and he rejects her, her reaction isn’t disappointment or sadness, it’s anger and entitlement. She immediately decides, “ok, fuck this kid. Let’s destroy this reality.”

It just doesn’t make sense! This is the season you’re trying to REDEEM her! Why are you going out of your way to make her so vile?

6. Her S7-S8 plan

(Keep in mind I haven’t watched S7/S8 since they came out and barely even watched S8 to begin with, so I don’t remember some things and I can’t be bothered to rewatch them.)

Okay, starting with S7, she’s not in this season at all but in “The Ruins” the druid dude says that her final order was to hunt and destroy the Blade of Marmora. I guess it makes a certain amount of sense because she saw that it was Keith who brought Lotor’s actions to light, but that whole plot was really pointless in my opinion. (Was anybody really hoping for a rematch between Keith and that one random druid?)

If you want us to forgive Honerva for her crimes, you really shouldn’t keep adding more unnecessary crimes. It’s established that there were a lot of Galra war lords vying for power and pirates looking for money, just have it be that Kolivan got kidnapped by one of them.

Then you have her season 8 plan and I’m gonna be real with y’all, I have no idea how to fix this mess.

I feel like the basics of her plan could work. She tries to get Lotor and Sincline out of the rift but when she gets him he’s a melted corpse so the plan then becomes to use sincline to go to another reality to find a living Lotor, but opening all these rifts causes problems and the paladins have to stop her.

But all the shit with manipulating the colony Alteans, killing the White Lion, desecrating Oriande, and destroying Olkarion and entire realities, it was all so unnecessary.

Personally I would cut the colony Alteans from the story all together, there are other ways for Lotor to betray the team. It was a lazy way of making Lotor 100% evil and having Honerva manipulate them is unnecessarily cruel, especially in the season you’re trying to redeem her.

Here’s a very basic outline of how I would do this plot.

If we’re going by season 8’s logic that she needs a sacrifice to bring back Sincline, I would’ve had the Galra she killed at the Kral Zera be the sacrifice, not the White Lion. She stands on the pyramid and talks about how the empire stole her life from her and she wants revenge as she absorbs their quintessence into herself and then uses that to bring back Sincline.

Then when she finds Lotor dead she takes Sincline and uses it to go to another reality where she can be with her family.

The danger comes when she opens rifts to the other realities and rift creatures start coming out and causing damage. The paladins fight them and follow her into the rift to stop whatever evil plan she may have. Because the paladins don’t know that Haggar is now Honerva and all this is just to get Lotor back. They think this is all some plan for multiverse domination or some shit.

Meanwhile Honerva has just been rejected by little Lotor and seeing Voltron show up pushes her over the edge and they fight.

But when they find out the real reason she’s doing all this they start trying to appeal to her and convince her to give up and close the rift peacefully. And similarly to how the paladins had to sacrifice the castle to close the rifts created by the fight with Lotor, Honerva has to sacrifice herself to close the rifts.

In the end, I feel like a Honerva redemption arc could’ve worked if the writers were actually competent and actually made an effort to have her be sympathetic, but In canon, her reasoning, “If I can’t indulge in the simple joys of life, why should anybody else?” just doesn’t cut it.

It’s disappointing. VLD had so much potential. I’m thinking of just rewriting the entire series from the beginning. Hopefully putting all my thoughts out into the universe will help me move on.

[mezaliil]

Lotor 🥺💜💜

[fandomthesickness]

AIGHT LISTEN UP

WHOEVER INVOKED THIS COME FORWARD. OUT OF ALL THE THINGS THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED IN 2021, WHY THE EVER LOVING FUCK IS VLD TRENDING. NO ONE ASKED FOR THIS. SOMEONE BETTER EXPLAIN WHAT IS GOING ON CUZ IM SCARED.

[jiisoooo]

why did I get into voltron all those years ago what a waste of time 😕