#prince lotor podcast

[voltronfandoms]

Highlights from AJ LoCascio on Let's Voltron Podcast

Has a YouTube from when he was in High School where he practiced his voices. Appreciates how talented and warm the fandom is. Loves Lotor memes and fan art (especially Prince the Singer AU). Almost exposed his role by tweeting "Yeunicorn" to Josh Keaton and Steven Yeun. His favorite color is purple. Has a dog named Ducky. Auditioned for Keith, Lance, and Shiro as well. His favorite character is Lance since he reminds him of when he was younger (although he likes all the characters for different reasons). Confirms that Lotor has Questionable Morals. Can't confirm where Lotor was prior to Season 3. Lotor doesn't see eye to eye with Zarkon and Haggar, but has a lot to prove to them. Can't confirm the other half of Lotor's race. Lotor's generals are comrades, but more is to come on them. AJ would like to see Lotor meet Pidge or Hunk (not cannon). And most importantly: Lotor uses plenty of conditioner to style his luscious hair.

[mocacheezy]

I'm going to post the rest of the ornaments on Waterfall, because I don't want to get this tmblr account deleted...

I Will add the link later, Just wanted to show this chill Sally Fisher first :3

______

Okay, on Waterfall, there are pics of a few characters from: The Penumbra Podcast(2) Voltron Legendary defender(2), The Dragon Prince(3), Spongebob(1), Rick&Morty(1), Sally Face (1 - the one up there) and KetchupXMustard UTxUF crossover (1)

THEY ARE ALL SUGGESTIVE (tbh, some are just nude drawings, but this is my first time sharing so *shrug* not sure what is ok and what not) OR IN POSES THAT ARE NOT KIDDY FRIENDLY

Whelp, click if you want, and if you don't, have Happy Holidays either way ;3

https://mocarela.waterfall.social/

[spaceelvez]

L’Toriel and Herbal Quintesence. Dead.

[ruesttt]

I stayed till 12 am just to work on this now I need some sleep

[thirstaidkitpodcast]

OK. 

Is this episode A Lot™? Yeah, a little bit! 

We sat down with our friend and cartoon smut-peddler Gena-mour Barrett of BuzzFeed UK to talk about, among other things, the allure of cartoon cats, what Lion King 2′s Kovu is probably like 👀, and a truly mind-boggling thesis of the habits of Winnie The Pooh. 

Also in this ep:

A properly filthy-sounding [REDACTED]

Thirst Sommelier, featuring a very sweet request

Fanfic Wars featuring a real throwback as well as a Disney prince!

So much laughter with Gena that listening to it may induce mild to severe hysteria

Thank you all so much for your wonderful reviews — we appreciate them so much. If you’d like to take part in Thirst Sommelier in a future episode, please call us and leave us a message on 765-8-THIRST which is 765-884-4778. Also, we LOVE fanmail! Send your inappropriate drabbles, odes to Cap’s beard and coconut oil to thirstaidkit@buzzfeed.com

You can follow us on Twitter @ThirstAidKit; Nichole is at @tnwhiskeywoman and Bim is at @bimadew. The lovely, fragrant, and hilariously filthy Gena-mour is @smilegena

Do not operate heavy machinery while listening to this, OK? OK.

[emmafreakecreations]

You call this fantasy!?

I have a likewise account, which you put in your favorite books, movies/TV, and podcasts and gives you suggestions based on that. Sometimes ppl make their own posts asking for suggestions and everytime I see a fantasy suggestion ACOTAR is always there. Like do you ppl ever read any other fantasy books?! I have been thinking lately about acotar as a fantasy series and comparing it to fantasy books I read when I was younger and books that I'm reading now like A Deal with the Elf King, A Dance with the Fae Prince, and the folk of the air series. Acotar falls so short. I can think of three books/series that I read when I was younger that were way better at empowering women- and two of them are written by men!

I apologize if I'm not great at describing some these books bc it has been years since I read them. Also nostalgia might be a factor.

Ranger's apprentice series (the og-haven't read the spin offs) by John Flanagan- very lotor vibes. While the series centers around a male protagonist in his journey in becoming a legendary apprentice, there is still powerful and intelligent women in the series. Lady Pauline is in charge of espionage at the fief that Will the MC grows up at, and she gets married to Will's mentor. Princess Cassandra, later Queen Cassandra (that's right she is the heir and becomes a ruler) is in disguise during a war in the series and can defend herself. She also helps Will when he is drugged and kidnapped. I always thought she was cool when I was little and she was my favorite. Alyss who is Lady Pauline's apprentice and Will's sweetheart, is marvelous at her espionage job (suck it Feyre). Princess Maddie-Cassandra's daughter- becomes the first female ranger. Jenny, who grew up with Will, trains to be a cook and becomes greater than her mentor and starts her own restaurant. Even if these women aren't warriors they still have power and influence and are actually good at their political jobs.

Cry of the ice Mark by Stuart Hill- mc Thrirrin is a warrior princess and the heir to her kingdom. When a nearby empire threatens to invade she has to rally nearby kingdoms who aren't friends with her kingdom. The kingdoms of werewolves, giant snow leopards, ghosts, and vampires. Also the snow leopard king and werewolf king become drinking buddies\bffs and its the BEST. At some point Thirrin's father dies so she becomes queen and has to lead her kingdom through war.

Igraine the brave by Cornelia funke (author of inkheart) - mc is born into a family of wizards but she doesn't have magic. Because her great grandfather was a knight, she is interested in fighting and military and her family is supportive of her. But when a evil dude wants to steal some magical books from her parent's castle she with some companions must save the day. This book is middle grade but its cute and short.

Princess of the silver woods by Jessica Day George- I honestly don't remember much about it but it's a retelling of twelve dancing princesses and there's a cute leader of a band of thieves that kidnaps the mc on accident. It had an interesting plot-can't remember what it is-but I liked it. That's about it......

Shadowhunter chronicles by Cassandra Clare ( I know the author and this series has it's own problems but I still enjoy most of it)- I feel like i don't have to explain this one. All I have to say is Clare gets mythology correct (from my understanding) and doesn't use it will nilly. She also portrays fae correctly bc everytime there is a plot with the fae involved I think "oh no here we go again this is going to be tough"

Four dead Queens by Astrid Scholte (this isn't a childhood book but it's good)- The world building in this book is so interesting, it reminds me of the worlds in the animated winx club. There is a kingdom giving off medival vibes, another gives off victorian england/oliver twist vibes, one has Venice during the renassiance vibes, and one gives off distopian sci-fi vibes. These kingdoms are ruled by queens who have a capital city- they rule together but are in charge of their respective kingdoms. the mc is a thief and steals important information from a palace messenger. She finds out the message is about killing the queens and so the messenger and the mc must stop the assassinations. The plot twist was interesting and you can easily piece together clues to figure it out yourself, or you could just be like me and see the clues and think "huh that's interesting" and move on then when the twist comes be like "you know I should have seen that coming."

I have lots more but this is getting long

[high-warlock-of-yorkshire]

Couldn’t stop thinking about Lotor doing one of those Herbal Essences adverts under a waterfall

The AJ Locascioi stream 

[dreamerwriternstargazer]

In Defence of Team Purple Lion

Voltron: Legendary Defender and its final season remains as one of the most poorly received children’s shows in the past decade. The show was a reboot from DreamWorks of the popular Voltron franchise owned by WEP LLC (World Event Productions) who were responsible for the first version of the show Voltron: Defender Of The Universe (1984), an adaptation of the anime show GoLion by Toei Animation. It initially started strong when released in 2016, with a premise that of a typical mech-centric kids’ show; 5 pilots of 5 robot lions coming together to form one big robot (Voltron) to fight against a big bad alien villain in space, however despite the formulaic appearance it proved to be a captivating watch with detailed and beautiful animation as well as surprisingly deep subject matter. The themes and messages of the show touched on darker topics such as racism and genocide with the backdrop of a complex portayal of war while still balancing it with the light-hearted and goofy dynamics of the diverse main characters, played by a diverse cast. Produced by Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos, both of whom had worked on the acclaimed Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend Of Korra, the story set up promised an equally deep and intricate story for VLD as had been the case for ATLA and LoK, as a result the show attracted a large and varied fan base beyond just children, many fans adults eager to see how the story and darker themes would be resolved as well as how the minority representations would be treated.

The final season released on Dec 14th 2018 came as a great shock to fans, not only were they intensely dissatisfied with the ending, virtually no one from any area or sub fandom was happy with the season as a whole and at the time of this article’s writing it has lower than a 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The show and its producers faced massive criticism over insensitive representations of minorities, an unsympathetic and condemning end for an abuse victim despite redemption for their abusers and a disempowering arc for the main woman of colour character in which she was sidelined and dismissed by her male counterparts up until her sacrifice. The core themes and messages of love, forgiveness and acceptance regardless of race were completely subverted, instead conveying to an impressionable Y-7 and above audience the opposite; heritage and race define a person rather than their own actions. As well as fans, many parents of kids who watched the show expressed unhappiness with the final season due to the toxic and regressive messages it sent. Soon after the season dropped a petition emerged to “free the original season 8 of Voltron” due to the belief that the final season was in fact an edited product of what the creators originally planned. This belief was sparked by visual inconsistencies in the season itself, the audio description not lining up with the action on screen (now fixed), one character not being played by her voice actor but her voice actually another character’s with the pitch turned up as well as comments from the cast and animators, now deleted. The strongest claims of edits were made by Tumblr user Leaking Hate in her initial meta Chasing The Ghosts Of Season 8 and the follow up, a more detailed breakdown, Seek Truth In Darkness in which she presented an alternative story that had been edited and cut down for reasons then unknown, with narrative and visual evidence from the season itself to support her argument. She and a few other fans officially came together in February 2019 to form Team Purple Lion, a team of analysts dedicated to finding the truth behind the disaster of the final season. However, since the fandom had had a poor history of harassing the show’s creators over ships (romantic relationships between characters) most attributed the poor story and resolve to an attempt to keep things neutral romantically between characters in a poor bid to please everyone. As a result the petition and campaign were merely linked to lack of shipping satisfaction for the fandom and dismissed as more toxic fandom behaviour that had been displayed previously by many fans.

Petitions and campaigns like these are not uncommon after a show or film’s ending, similar situations might be the HIMYM backlash in which fans were so unhappy with the ending of the show that there was a petition for an alternative ending, as well as the petition to Warner Bros regarding the Snyder Cut of Justice League. Both of these have actually succeeded with the Snyder cut of Justice League set to release in 2021 and the HIMYM DVD box sets containing the alternative ending, however what makes the Free VLD s8 campaign now led by Team Purple Lion unique is its claim that there’s an original finished product that the creators intended for release but was edited after completion to produce the poor final season that was released on Netflix. Often corporate meddling in creative works is common but it has not been documented before as a post production occurrence changing the finished work, it’s always taken place pre-production as was the case with Disney and Colin Trevorrow’s original script for ep. IX or during production, in the case of Justice League and Zak Snyder.

Since the start of the campaign in Dec 2018 there’s been continuous investigation and action taken by TPL to provide proof for their claims and the movement has evolved into a fight for creators’ rights, still active now a year and a half on. Their investigation early on resulted in discovering the IP holder (those who own the trademark) WEP as the ones with control over the show and therefore responsible for the released edited season 8. They’ve since defended DreamWorks and the showrunners from criticism in favour of requesting WEP and specifically President Robert Koplar, self proclaimed “steward of the property” for the original season 8 by the showrunners that was not released. There’s also been strong advocation from TPL to keep the protest against WEP’s interference with the creative team’s work peaceful to avoid dismissal and belittlement due to prior instances of the VLD fandom’s toxic behaviour that often included harassment of showrunners and toxic fan behaviour ranging from abusive remarks online to death threats, after the final season rumours were flying and the EPs faced abuse from upset fans so there was an active effort to stay civil on TPL’s part. 

TPL and the #FreeVLDS8 movement has continuously faced criticism and backlash since its start regardless, the response from fellow fans ranging from supportive to downright disbelief and even the showrunners stating publicly [March 28th 2019 Let’s Voltron podcast] that there’s no “alternate cut of Voltron” branding the idea as a “conspiracy theory”. Claims of harassment have been attributed to TPL and the legitimacy of their allegations questioned, one fan questioning the possibility of the edits’ execution as well as others categorizing them as fans creating a theory based on shipping fulfillment. The controversy and consistent campaign a year and a half on interested me greatly, therefore after being led back to the movement by the very comments discrediting them I approached Team Purple Lion for comment on the aforementioned claims as well as conducting my own research and investigation into them. 3 members of the team, Crystal Rebellion, Dragon Of Yang and Leaking Hate spoke to me openly about their campaign and my own research produced some interesting results as well. 

The basis of their argument is set on the show’s final season being an edited product, when I asked about what pushed her to this conclusion and writing her initial meta Leaking Hate explained that a mutual friend of Crystal and her’s drew their attention to it through the story saying: 

“It’s interesting, nearly ALL of the episodes had a moment or two in them where Lotor [male villain] COULD have reappeared, and didn’t. Do you think he was written in to be the savior all along, and it was the higher ups that said no, good boy Lance [one of the main characters]? It seems like, given the narrative, and even given this season, it should have been Lotura [Lotor and Allura ship name], and all that wasn’t just feels… off. And not as a Lotura stan, I mean in general.” 

“And YES I had. There was a narrative gap where Lotor should have fit, but for some reason wasn’t.” Hate said, “The initial conclusion we jumped to was that Lotor had been removed in the writing stage.” 

It wasn’t until another friend mentioned a key scene out of place in the story and she went back to view it that she started to suspect the season had been changed from its original state. The scene in question was one in which Lotor says “Follow me!” at the end of Allura’s dream sequence in s8 ep8 Clear Day, despite his death being established before and after this point in the story. “There was no reason for that Follow Me shot to be there,” Hate explained, “unless the action of the viewer following Lotor had been removed.” Having studied a Fine Art degree and therefore well versed in animation and visual art she was able to recognise scenes that had been edited unusually throughout the season once she actively searched for other visual evidence. The Follow Me scene as well as others she found are displayed in her Ghosts meta, all indicating a different story from the one told in the show, along with the evidence Leaking Hate presented some initial ideas on what the story was (a redemption arc for Lotor and several sub arcs for the main characters that resolved their stories and previously set up story beats).

[Image Description: A close up of Prince Lotor’s face from season 8 on Netflix, staring directly out of the picture at the viewer. There are subtitles showing his speech at the bottom of the image, saying “Follow me!” End ID]

After Team Purple Lion’s formation Leaking Hate went on to publish a part two to her initial Ghosts meta, a 21k word meta entitled Seek Truth In Darkness which contained all visual evidence of edits found in the season as well as an extrapolation of the initial story indicated by said edits. The original story appeared to resolve unfinished narratives and arcs that the released s8 dismissed and the treatment of the representations in the show better, from respect towards minorities to an empowering arc for Allura, the main female character. Despite the original season having a more positive story, negative feedback from fans has been more common than positive. When I questioned the team members on it Leaking Hate mentioned “most people who believe we’re wrong tend to think we’re wrong in our premise” Dragon of Yang confirming that “it’s usually the premise of “VLD was edited after completion” that people disagree with”. However the screenshots they present as visual evidence hint at some truth in their argument, the first screen cap shown below indicative of some poor edits made to the animation since 3 characters are essentially cropped out of the picture.

[Image description: A split-screen from season 8 on Netflix, featuring from left to right: an Altean pilot, Merla, Keith, Hunk’s shoulder, Pidge, the top half of Allura’s face, and the top half of Lance’s face. End ID]

Likewise this screen cap shows a split screen visually unbalanced with 2 characters at the bottom partially cropped out as well as the character on the left side with a much larger screen space than the other characters.

[Image description: A split screen from season 8 on Netflix, featuring from left to right: top left Shiro, below him is Keith in a larger section and Allura in a small triangular section below and to the right of Keith’s section. In the middle is a section showing Honerva’s mech stabbing the Voltron-Atlas mech with purple lightning shooting out. On the top right is Hunk, below him is Pidge, and below her the top half of Lance’s face. End ID]

Seasons prior to the final had always had visually balanced split screens with each character centred in their frames appropriately, indicating these and other s8 shots like them as an anomaly.

Hate reconstructed both screencaps based on what she believed they were originally:

[Image description: A split-screen from season 8 on Netflix, featuring from left to right: an Altean pilot, Merla, Keith, Hunk’s shoulder, Pidge, the top half of Allura’s face, and the top half of Lance’s face. On the top, right, and bottom of this screencap is dark pink background with the black lines of the split-screen extending to the edges of the colors, marking out where the rest of Hunk, Allura, and Lance should be visible if the view had not been cropped. With the lines extending out, Keith’s portion of the screen is also extended, leaving a completely removed section of the split-screen remaining, which is highlighted purple in this image. End ID]

[Image description: A split-screen from season 8 on Netflix, featuring from left to right: top left Shiro, below him is Keith, below and to the right of Keith is Allura in a small triangle section, the bottom of her face slightly cut off. In the middle is a section showing Honerva’s mech stabbing the Voltron-Atlas mech with purple lightning shooting out. On the top right is Hunk, below him is Pidge, and below her the top half of Lance’s face. On the left, right and bottom of the screencap is a dark pink background with the black lines of the split-screen extending to the edge of the colours, marking out where the rest of Lance and Allura should be visible if the view had not been cropped. Keith’s portion of the screen is smaller and a small dark pink section to the right separates his portion from the middle. Below him where his portion originally extended to is a section coloured dark purple that extends a little further to the left of Allura’s portion. End ID]

Other noticeable examples include scenes with the female lead Allura where her proportions do not match with any prior drawings of herself indicating that she was another character redrawn, Leaking Hate suggested Lotor as his proportions fit each instance. 

[Image description: 2 pictures of Allura in the Blue Lion from a front and centre angle side by side. On the left Allura has her eyes closed and her arms stretched out holding onto the controls, the entire cockpit is glowing blue. On the right Allura’s eyes are open with a determined look on her face, she’s slightly hunched with her arms gripping the controls, the cockpit is coloured normally. End ID]

The image on the left is of Allura from s8 ep13 and the one on the right from the same episode a few minutes later, scaled so the interiors (which are unchanging 3D models) are the same size. She is notably taller in the one on the right with her head reaching above the seat and her frame bigger, with wider shoulders and thighs.

These are just a few out of the many examples of edits made that Leaking Hate presents in her metas along with her reconstruction of the original season based on what each edit indicates. While the reconstruction is to some point subjective, the visual inconsistencies are clear and can be easily checked by watching the show at each point said to be edited.

The timeframe and possibility for the edits’ execution, called into question by a fan on a twitter thread (now deleted) stating “it’s not physically possible to make that many edits in 2 months and with leftover budget”, was also addressed by the team and their work. Leaking Hate clarified that “it wasn’t 2 months” that they took place in, “it was 6. The edits began in mid July”, a fact determined by voice actor Jeremy Shada mentioning in an interview released on July 23rd that he had gone in to record new lines at the time. Hate also said, “It’s less of a question of would they have time than it is, well. They did do it. It was nearly impossible. But the fact that it is done shows that they did.” She went on, “I think people misunderstand when we claim it was ‘edited’. They hear “it was reanimated”, but it wasn’t reanimated. There is NO new animation in the edited s8 at all. As far as I can tell, 99% of the edits are composed of tracing, clever cuts and sleight of hand.” This is backed up by all the visual evidence they present as well as their work, claiming absence of animation (making the story disjointed and incoherent in places) rather than new, additional animation changing it. 

Crystal Rebellion added, “One thing that strikes us (I feel pretty confident speaking for everyone in this case) is that Studio Mir [responsible for animating the show] is impeccably flawless with their work. Their previous work before Voltron: Legendary Defender, and even Seasons 1-6 and most of 7 are beautifully animated. Stunning. Season 8... is not. Studio Mir also had a viewing party for VLD: S8 - and they reported that they loved the final product; so the animators saw Season 8 after it was completed. The season, however, that aired, was really shoddy animation, rough transitions, music mistakes, and what appear to be alterations to still images - it isn't their usual quality of work, and moreover, the animators have stated that they don't recognize what aired. Often we've been asked something like 'Maybe they just didn't know what scenes they were animating' or 'Didn't know the intended finished product' but in this case, it is documented that they saw the final season and that it's different from what was aired. The poor workmanship in what we see from S8 - all the edits Hate goes through to find and explain, coupled with Mir's disbelief, is indicative that the animation studio had no idea this happened. That means it 1) Happened post-production and 2) It wasn't the Studio that changed anything. Dos Santos mentions in an interview [March 4th ABTV] that they were cut and pasting mouths and moving frames around - no time, no budget, and no staff left. It was all them, after it had been completed - after Mir had seen the original rendition and loved it, that all this happened. The parallel point to that to further support it is, had this been written in the script from the beginning, we would've seen a flawlessly animated season with a painful storyline. We don't see that.” 

Although Mir’s reaction to the season they viewed in October (before its official drop) has since been deleted, one animator’s response to the season 8 that was released on Netflix is still online, comparing the show to a house and stating that “every single brick of the last season is very upsetting” but “everything else is good” (translation can be found here), making it clear he was not pleased with the final product. Joaquim Dos Santos does also mention in the interview Crystal references that changes were made to season 8 after season 7 dropped, stating, “You can probably see it in the animation. If you really pay attention it’s like, it’s literally our editor cutting out mouths and puppeting different dialogue.” It’s documented that the epilogue was added to s8 late after s7 dropped however it does not have any dialogue, this statement paired with Shada’s about “still recording on Voltron” begs the question, what change was made besides the epilogue? Hate shows in her Darkness meta that Shada’s character Lance was used to replace Lotor as well as Allura in key scenes, if Shada was still recording lines (unusual since audio recording is done very early in animation production) then it would have been for these moments.

Not all criticism has been based on the editing premise however; the story they present as the original has garnered negative comments as well since it featured Lotor, a divisive character due to his moral ambiguity and previous condemnation as a killer, and predominantly focused on his redemption as well as relationship with Allura. The narrative makes it clear that Lance, the blue paladin and one of the main characters popular with fans, would not have been the focus as he was in the released season and would have been replaced by Lotor as Allura’s partner. When I brought up the claims of bias in their reconstruction Leaking Hate pondered on it. 

 “Do I love the story because it is Lotura, or do I love Lotura because the story makes me love it?” she mused, “I think it's all the same. I was able to pick out the original story because of my bias in favour of Lotor, Allura, and Lotura. Had I not been invested in those characters, and that ship, I would have had no reason to look. I am not reconstructing based on wish fulfillment, or what I want to see,” she asserted, “but the story I am finding happens to be a story that I love.” In regards to Lance and her analysis on him she stated bluntly, “I HATE Lance. Were I reconstructing based on wish fulfillment I would have him alone and miserable. But that is not a good story. The real story of OGS8 has Lance coming to love himself and to learn to accept Allura's friendship as equally worthy as her romantic affection. It has him grow into a good man, and it has him become Allura's right hand when he helps her save the man she loves. It is an uplifting and wholesome message for little boys and grown men alike. And I think it is equally important that we save S8 for Lance as it is that we save it for Lotor and Allura.” When I mentioned that some would find her dislike of Lance an argument against her she also added that “they are right to.”

“I would not trust someone claiming to have found the 'real' story if I knew they hated Lotor or Allura.” However she admitted, “I don't hate him all the time. I think, if the Lance we get in OGS8 is the Lance I believe is there, then I will find him tolerable, if irritating.”

While it’s true that Hate is critical of Lance and his character, the reconstructed story she presents in Seek Truth does reflect her words, giving him an empowering and sympathetic arc growing from his previous immature and womanising character into a selfless, respectful friend. The team have also put their efforts into creating and realising the story in their reconstruction of the original s8, Rise and Atone, and so far it has stayed true to what they’ve promised, addressing characters and their arcs, the only deviation made being a romance free conclusion in a bid to stay ship-neutral. Dragon of Yang explained the narrative decisions they made with R&A stating clearly, “If this was wish fulfillment, we would have stopped at one detail or another. Every character’s arc was halted and destroyed beyond reconciliation or catharsis. Every character deserves their story to be done justice, and open-endings give that catharsis VLD originally had while remaining respectful to everyone’s shipping preferences. VLD is a story of hope and growth, to deny that a character has grown since day 1 is to deny that there is a story there to be told, and that in turn denies a person out there - who likely identifies with that character - the feeling of being seen. The best thing we can do as scholars and as activists,” she concluded, “is try to recreate the vision the staff had originally made and do so with care and attention to the work they put into every line.”

As for the harassment claims attributed to Team Purple Lion by both fans and The Voltron Store on twitter, there’s not much to support them, and in fact a great deal to disprove them. The team has maintained a level of professionalism in both their work and in their conduct online, consistently citing sources and providing proof for claims as well as campaigning respectfully. Hate commented, “they seem to be conflating our protest with the general hatred being thrown around in the fandom. We've made a point to emphasize polite but firm protest and advocate reaching out through official channels.” While there is a lot of anger and hate from fans towards the show and the producers, none of it has been from Team Purple Lion. Their protest has continuously avoided and often defended the producers and voice actors, who have been regularly attacked by other fans during the show’s airing and since due to the poor conclusion, all of whom TPL have made clear are under NDAs and cannot comment freely (although it’s worth noting, they stopped actively promoting the show on their social media after the season 8 release). Instead their questioning has focused on WEP, the company who own the Voltron trademark, after discovering through a meta analysis of a VLD episode signs that they were meddling with the creators’ vision of the show and ordered them to change it against the producers’ wishes. While it was only a speculative piece, WEP’s quick reaction to the release of said meta by claiming through their Voltron Store twitter that they “do not have any influence over the creative direction of the show” despite ignoring fans for months after the season release suggests some truth to it. Twitter user Eros compiled all evidence of their involvement since then in a Twitter thread and the majority of it is damning, their denial directly contradicting statements from the voice actors and producers prior to and after s8 that confirmed they were the controlling party and had creative input, as well as the creators’ desire to tell a progressive and empowering story however not being able to because of “other controlling parties” outside of DreamWorks. WEP have also made contradictory statements to fans about the season, saying that “nothing was edited” yet agreeing with a fan that a lot was left out and a director’s cut would sell well, as well as mocking another who left a Facebook review (March 16th 2019) complaining of being hung up on, replying to them that an “imposter” answered their phones:

[Image description: A facebook review of The Voltron Store. Text from the top reads as: 

Reviewer (name coloured out) doesn’t recommend The Voltron Store. 

Review reads: Terrible customer service. They literally hung up on me mid sentence and it was clearly not a case of a call accidentally being dropped. Extremely disappointed by the lack of professionalism!

The Voltron Store’s reply to the reviewer: if you actually talked to us you would find we are very nice people! And we never hang up on anybody EVER - unless they make outrageous claims like Power Rangers is better than Voltron!

The reviewer’s reply: The Voltron Store I did speak to a woman who identified herself Stephanie briefly, but I will never speak to your company again. Thank you for the response but I don't appreciate being called a liar. Please see the attached screenshot for proof of my abruptly ended call back in January. I desire to have no further communication with your company now, I simply decided finally other people deserved to know my personal experience.

Below is a screenshot showing the reviewer called The Voltron Store’s number.

The Voltron Store replied: We do not have a Stephanie here. That must be the issue: you dealt with an imposter! We would review the security cam footage but it does not go back 2 months. End ID.]

In stark contrast to WEP, Team Purple Lion has responded to criticism and addressed it, as well as reaching out to media outlets to clarify and correct poorly sourced claims, however have been faced with no response. Their questioning of WEP and their requests for the original season 8 on social media have been civil; their replies to the Voltron Store posts on Twitter containing no insults or cruel remarks, the harshest only critiques on the company’s lack of tact promoting a show and its merchandise that many considered offensive and toxic due to the last season. “At no point did we set out as some kind of campaign to “attack WEP” or “demand a new season”,” Crystal Rebellion said. “We were a handful of people looking at what amounted to, to use a metaphor, a puzzle that had technically been assembled but most of the pieces didn’t match up properly. We eventually decided to take the pieces that didn’t line up and look at what the picture was supposed to be. There was no ulterior motive - we just wanted the truth. When we realised the truth and it became obvious early on that Mir had seen the original season, we became convinced there was an unedited s8, perhaps in Mir’s backup drives. People saw it, which means it was a completed product, so it became a campaign to ask for it, it’s what the fandom wants, it’s what is profitable.”

In the face of all the negative response and disbelief, Team Purple Lion have gathered an overwhelming amount of evidence to support their case, not only from the show itself but also corroborating statements from the production team and cast as well as WEP’s conduct in response to the campaign. As a result TPL have gained a great amount of support and followers from the Voltron fandom, and are still gaining more a year and a half later. “I gotta give a shout out to Cosmic Royalty,” Leaking Hate said, “a group of Russian fans who reached out to us asking if they could do translations of our work. We host their translations on our website now and there’s apparently a group 500 strong on the Russian social media site VK that supports the work we do together!” Violet Howler on Tumblr has also been a big supporter as well as new fans, recently revealing themselves in the wake of good news, the fight to get the original season seemingly won as Leaking Hate displayed in her most recent meta. In it Hate outlines evidence for the franchise’s ownership changing hands from WEP to DreamWorks and therefore the release of the original season, based on the recent repromotion of the show through articles, new merchandise from the store and the new store designs that all suggest the release, since there would be no other reason to promote a show that was a PR disaster, so universally hated. Regardless of all the opposition and discredit they have faced, confirmation of the truth of Voltron’s original season 8’s fate is expected this summer before the official art book is made available, in the form of the season’s release itself. Whether the fans will be happy with it is another story, however Leaking Hate emphasised firmly that fan satisfaction was not the point, or at least not entirely. “Nothing is perfect, and nothing will please everyone. Especially a show like VLD, with almost 35 years of legacy and fans behind it. There are people who will not like the original season, there are even some who will prefer the edited one - I’m sure the WEP executives are some of them. But it will be the season it was supposed to be, the one that was a labour of love. There is so much love and care poured into every frame of VLD, this was a story that the people working on it wanted to tell; it was more than just a job to them. It was created with love, and it was with love that we fought for it, and when it comes down to it that’s what VLD’s meta narrative was about: love.”

[artbykays]

undefined

Oops?? I swear a clean AND colored version will come.... just wait

[spiftynifty]

TeeVee Podcast’s Voltron s8 review

I’ve been waiting eagerly for TeeVee’s review of s8. If you recall, their s7 review was what gave us the man getting choked up about Shiro’s relationship. 

The link to the podcast is here but if you’d prefer a sort of transcript, here are some of the highlights for me. I didn’t always catch who was speaking but I wrote down initials where I could. S=Shanon, A=Antony, M=Moises, C=Chip D=Dan. The panel is divided on their feelings on the season. 2 of them seem to have hated it, one liked it, one thought it was fine, and one feels mixed about it. Anyway here we go, some great quotes ahead. 

Under the readmore cuz it’s long. 

S: "After 7 seasons of a show that was going to be one of the animated series of the decade, they not only did not stick the landing, they fell on their butts, rolled off the mat, off the lines, into the judge's table and their leotard popped open"

"A lot of the plot was callbacks to things from seasons ago that we really probably didn't need to see again." "I wasn't entirely sure that they weren't gaslighting me."

Man Shannon is calling out some great points. She's calling out the dropped druid plot thread, and wondering what the point was of showing Lotor's past when he's dead, and nothing can change in his present and his redemption can't really happen.

A: "endings are hard. I was disappointed with this season [...] it was let down by poor plotting and that final battle made me throw my hands up in despair most of the time. But I have enormous sympathy for the EPs. Maintaining a longform episodic story is hard. And to pull off an ending that satisfies even MOST of the audience is harder yet. and let's not forget they were always upfront that vt always had 'editorial interference' from up top. Toys, the fact that it's aimed at children, corp resistance to some of the more modern social issues that they've tried to tackle. THAT SAID, we don't know what happened on this production, who had the final say, what they argued over. and I say this cuz a lot of the fandom drama over it assumes a LOT over how media and entertainment like this is made that simple ARE. NOT. TRUE. Some of the stuff I've read has been ABSURDLY offbase, like that there were different writers rather than just 1 the whole way through which ignores how TV is made. And if you think these writers just go off and write a script without talking to anyone first and then they come back with something that must be filmed without any changes, THAT'S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS. [..]we don't know who made these decisions. The studio isn't always the bad guy. Sometimes they rescue things that would otherwise have been a horrible mess. And unless you were IN THE ROOM, you don't know, and neither do any of us. So let's all bear that in mind. [...]You can't lay the blame OR credit on any one person. For any of this." 

They're laughing & making so much fun of the final 3 episodes and how baffling they were. 

"Don't even get me started on Voltron merging with Atlas [and the crew disappearing] that was a bad, bad idea." 

"But that was the ONE time Shiro was back with the team!"

a couple dudes are relatively ok with the Allura death because we've never seen a WOC heroically sacrifice herself for the universe and usually it's the Shiro hero character D: They also point out that technically she wasn't fridged so.. yay?

Antony and Shannon vehemently disagree. 

A: "My problem with that ending was more just that it was... not. good." he makes a comparison to RotJ where Vader still dies and it's his SON, who lives, who 'redeems' him. "This was none of those things. It felt like a terrible lesson. You can be so evil that you kill literally billions of people for 10k yrs but if you say sorry just before you're about to be executed it's alright, dw about it, we'll put the universe back to rights. NO, that's a terrible lesson!!"

S:"They had the LIONS. That's my problem. Throughout this series we've had stakes going up but there has always been a trading of ideas, what can we do, what can we figure out, up to the point where they wind up sacrificing the castle, but they go through steps before that 'is there anything else we can do’. And here, there's not even... she didn't even get to say goodbye to Coran! This is the one character, WOC, and she has sacrificed throughout this entire series. She lost her planet. She lost the last connection she had to her father in the AI. She kept LOSING things over and over to the point where she sacrifices her crown to help Shiro. and the thanks she gets is that she has to turn around and say nope I've got to away and fix all of this and apparently never see you all again. It really, REALLY REALLY bothered me. All of my friends who have CHILDREN who watch this show, universally the kids were upset and angry and tearful and HATED that outcome. This did not feel like a triumph. Having to lose Allura like that robbed any kind of triumph in the success of saving all the universes. And I think that's one of the reasons that this last part of the season sits so poorly with me. I feel like it should have ended in a triumphant way. even if it meant losing a couple of the team members or the lions. Of course that takes away the toy aspect which is why that's not an option. We already had several tragedy arcs in this series. Zarkon, Honerva, and Lotor had tragedy arcs. Why does Allura have to have one too? We've had enough." 

Antony & Shanon KILLIN IT on this podcast y'all.

C: "This series relies so much on 'oh wait, there's a new upgrade', 'oh wait, there's this new thing'" A: "Well that was the entire final battle." C: "So there's this handwavy Allura has to sacrifice herself. The heavy lifting wasn't done to make this an earned moment."

S: "I do think, whether it was at the direction of DW or WEP (Vld IP), without those little epilogue cards, there is the potential opening that Allura might be able to return.[..]It was open to interpretation."

One guy likes the Shiro ending for the surprising progress aspect, even though he's not thrilled about how it was put together. also he isn't convinced the epilogue wasn't planned. He likes a lot of s8 but all the stuff he likes is tied to stuff that he really didn't like.

S:"The shiro card is the other reason that I think those things were shoved in. For me, that turns Shiro's entire character into a token when he wasn't before. When they introduced his sexuality, it was done BEAUTIFULLY. There was this conversation with his significant other a mature relationship that ran into its problems and therefore couldn't happen anymore. Adam could've been Adele, and nothing would have changed about that conversation. It was not the defining characteristic of Shiro. It was just something else about him."

S: "And then s8 happens and Shiro is divided from everybody on the team. There are so few interactions of any kind that aren't just barking orders. or making plans. Keith is the prime example. Their friendship had been a backbone of this series and suddenly they can't even stand more than feet 5ft from each other. 

A: “It’s barely evident, yeah.”

M:”And the same with the rest of the main cast. And if they had set that up at the end of s7, that he’s going to go into the background a bit, it wouldn’t have felt as weird.

S: “And they didn’t! S7 was miraculous in the fact that even though he’s no longer in a lion, he’s still got a vital part to play in the series. And s8 erased that. It pretty much neutered him! And the kind of message is once you've revealed this character to be gay, we've gotta keep him out of the way. And if they had not put those end cards in, again the fact that he's a gay man is just the fact that he's a gay man and it's not any bigger or smaller aspect of his character, but they did not EARN him marrying random bridge crew member #3."

A: "and RETIRING! A man who LEFT adam because he felt he had to go and fight."

A: "He left the guy he loved before because of his devotion to"

S:"To fighting to making things right"

A:”To being a soldier and doing the right thing.”

C:”Isn’t the whole point then that he achieves that?”

M:”The fighting’s over and he can leave that behind and he can actually be happy.”

S: “He wouldn’t’ve. I don’t see it.”

M: “I violently disagree.”

C: “I think it was a nice endcap for his character."

Moises also likes this because it’s not a BYG scenario and he gets retired. Shannon is extremely exasperated by these takes. 

S:”For me, it’s like Tangled. You go through Rapunzel and Flynn, going through their adventures, getting closer, getting to know each other, they save each other, things like that. And then she’s reunited with her parents and then we get and endcap that says ‘for political reasons her parents decided they needed to marry her off to the prince in the next county, sorry’. That would’ve had people RIOTING. Thats not how you do a story with characters that people care about. And to shove shiro off onto this random character that we--his name is never spoken!”

A:”No he had like 3 lines in the entire season.”

S:”He had 3 line sin the season, you don’t know his name unless you watched the subtitles, and in the audio narration for the visually impaired, they called him Adam in the endcap. They called him Adam! They fixed that now. It feels like a hugely clumsy attempt to grab the woke points for a character that didn’t need them.”

Moises then talks a little about Shiro and Keith and how he and Shannon both thought there was something there, and still do, but they can’t know what happened behind the scenes and to theorize on the intent of that relationship is “conspiracy theory land” and trying to decide what the writers were prevented from doing is like “reading tea leaves and chicken bones”. He references people extracting things from his own writing. 

M: “As much as I wanted to see that relationship flower and flourish, the fact that it didn’t, look, it’s one of a million times that’s happened for me, with fiction, where things didnt turn out the way I wanted to see them.”

S:”I’m talking about 2 different things, as far as Shiro’s character, vs shipping  issues. I feel Shiro’s character was done a disservice that if they were going to end him in a relationship with another man, they didn’t earn it by throwing that little endcap on.”

M:”Yeah, they could have brought back one less robeast or something.”

S:”The other thing is, I think there is enough out there as far as interviews with JDS and LM to show that at the very least I think they meant to leave it openended. Again  if you take out that endcap, the last shot includes a shot of just Shiro and Keith, together, same screen, looking up as the lions go away, without saying anything further. I know I pie in the sky hoped that they were gonna kiss this season when we did our s7 recap and yes that was the shipper in me talking. I truly did not expect that they would be able to go that far. What I did not expect was for them to tear it down. And I feel like that’s what they did. Between the complete absence of interactions in s8, and then throwing that epilogue in there.”

Dan doesn’t understand how that could be because he sees no reason for them to do that. Shannon patiently explains about DW’s history with LGBT characters but Dan insists that the creators told the story the way they wanted to and he’s fine with Shiro getting a marriage even if it’s a character they don’t know. 

Overall the panelists love the show still, and in most cases prefer to consider it in the realm of s1-6 with a weak final double season (7&8) or that the show ends after s7. They would all love to know how long the NDAs last, a making of perhaps, to know what the heck happened and what changed along the way. Big mood my dudes. Big mood.

[91939art]

Hello, dear anons!

TL DR: We’re still shipping Lotura, as strongly as ever, and are feeling fine about it (jic, no hatefuck or whatever; yes, Lotor now is mad and Allura feels herself used, but before they were fine, and after that they just might be OK).

To us it works like that: Lovers — Foils — Lovers (?)

Longer version is under cut.

Many people are in need of comfort after having witnessed the sixth season, tbh, we're as much. Like, it was horrendously intense. Frigg, we never expected the show to go that far. Stuff of nightmares were Kuron and Lotor…

1. AS TO LOTURA…

We're still totally on board with Lotura. Even if it won’t be an endgame and Lance still “gets the girl” out of her sudden recognition of how saaaad he is if she has another guy. Not to pick on Allurance here, ship all you want, we love you too, guys, but to choose a guy just because he turns sad when you don’t? Allura so far has shown clear preference: pointy ears, teeth, and claws, long hair… shared heritage?

Our take, though? We blame Allura. Stay with us, it’s not blind Allura-hate, we still love the character. We just think she’s wrong. Why? Lotor did what he did to secure future for surviving alteans, modern galra, AND rest of the universe by taking away the need for galra to go lengths for quintessence. He acknowledges it’s bad (but not wrong, because it isn’t) and he’s completely against unnecessary killing, might we add

She hit him with "You're like your father!" on purpose, she felt hurt and used. But then again, if Lotor were not genuine all this time, and it all was a play, he could’ve easily done all that without romantic tension added. Also, he’s not of trophy kind, he doesn’t even show-off with actual skill of masterful wielding of altean broadsword to an altean whom he might’ve tried to impress.

Also, now having Lotor disappeared (though executives stated during podcast that overexposure is no threat to Lotor, ‘cause he was affected by quintessence before he was born), what will Coalition do now with all generals who pledged loyalty to Lotor? After Voltron attacked him? New Kral Zera? Now with Sendak taking the throne and wallowing universe in blood in attempt to subdue it? He wouldn’t fight Voltron, he knows where it’s weak. He would kill whole planets.

Or Honerva, whose reasoning is not yet clear even? Though, she definitely isn’t interested in rule. Otherwise she’d already be Empress.

Anyway, bloodshed! Yaaaaay!

And now Voltron doesn’t have a candidate.

2. COULD LOTOR AND ALLURA BE STILL TOGETHER?

Well, it depends on two things.

1. Obviously, Lotor snaps out of his psycho mode (down our blog there's a marvelous explanation as to how he got this way). Not easy, yes. Now, how could he do that? Well, for example if Allura threw herself to protect comrade from Lotor’s attack (not to counterattack, though), our bet is, he’d recognize in himself father’s lust for altean blood he saw quite often from the side. And he hates even to be compared with his father.

2. Allura. DROPS. Her hate towards galra. Again, not easy, yes. And she needs to start to percept her own race as the one that, actually, came up with, you know, greatest weapon in the universe, having which first paladins wedged war spread peace across the universe … We mean, Altea wasn't "all-pure". People tend to forget that Altea was Empire, too.

And more than that, Alfor had shown his short-sightedness in regards to battle operations

So Lotor, who usually plots carefully was right to accuse him of being bad warlord.

Allura utterly discards her father’s mistakes, thinks alteans to have been right about everything all along, and so far time to time this her belief gets tested, most notably while retrieving the trans-reality comet.

While Lotor completely embraces his father’s mistakes and works on not being associated with Zarkon. But hence coming from both aggressor’s and victim’s side, he gets disregarded in both camps: one deem him weak, others — compare with Zarkon.

In fact, this conflict between Lotor and Allura might eventually resolve their personal issues now that we think about it. And when they do, who knows? Maybe the universe in both parts — galra and coalition — will be united again *suggestive brows-wiggling*

AS A CONCLUSION

In the end of the day, with these two done, Lotor still preserved altean culture and absolute majority of survived population, and heavily leant towards peace; and Allura still helped prince Lotor to become an Emperor.

Can you imagine, dear anons, how strong their bond could get and how protective of each other they could get, if they grew past this conflict? They still have a very strong common ground :> :>

[thealteapodcast]

Episode #2 - Zines

Introduction: 0:00-0:29

Zines (Red & Modding): 00:29-8:25

What are zines?

Zine credibility

Extensions

How samples are judged

Zines (Nick & Contributing): 8:25-15:48

Staying on top of deadlines

Advice on how to approach your piece

Acceptance emails

Rejection emails

Other events

Tropes: 15:48-27:45

Soulmate AU

Langst

Chat!fics

Broganes

Klangst

Avatar AU

Hogwarts AU

Percy Jackson AU

Voltron’s color coordination: 27:45-30:08

Closing: 30:08-30:44

Links

Soundcloud: x

Youtube: [to be added]

Notes

Icon credits to @pastelpaladins : x

Mentioned zines (in order) :

@klanceandfriendszine  

@tinyadventureszine

@voltronlookbook

@voltron-magazine

Zine accountability list on @quiznakchronicle (also a good source for Voltron events) : x 

Better audio quality for Red around 15:48 & Volume warning for the end

Thank you for joining us on our second podcast! We had a lot of fun, and it was interesting to see the different points of view concerning contributing or modding a zine. Remember to follow and turn on notifications to see new episodes and updates!

DISCLAIMER: We are in no way associated with Dreamworks or the official Voltron franchise. We’re just two fans having some fun and goofing around. We’d also like to say that we are no professionals, so the highest of quality isn’t present - but each and every second is genuine. Both Red and Nick are aware that they sometimes say some harsh things but it’s all in good nature - no offense was intended and their words should not be taken too seriously.

See y’all next week!

Red and Nick

[nightstepth]

uh

is it just me or does Lotor from Voltron give off serious Loki vibes?? like the ideal anti-hero/villain is suddenly space princes with long hair, smooth, slightly-british accents and daddy issues EDIT: I SAW THE PODCAST WHERE THEY JOKED ABOUT IT THAT’S AMAZING MY CROPS ARE GROWING MY SKIN IS CLEAR

[robot-lion-pyramid]

Lotor does Debbie’s barbie bit from Addams Family Values, because Voltron voice actors appearing on podcasts are a gift that keeps on giving. 

Taken from the Let’s Voltron podcast. Go here to listen to the full interview, it’s well worth your time.

[point5podcast-blog]

If you want to refresh yourself on all the theories before season 4, here are a bunch of links. Also check out our podcast for more on the theories here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqgZW4j9tlg&t=4s

[kxlance]

So could u help me out? Where can I watch the Voltron podcasts and can u explain where all this prince lotor stuff is coming from?? Thxx :)))

i feel like i’m one of those soap opera announcers that gives you all the hot news happened in the previous 546 episodes. anyways here’s what you missed on glee:

the interview is not on the podcast it’s here

jeremy is a guest. warning: immediate cringe

about lotor,….

well as you know he will be a thing in season 3 [SPOILER ALERT] and people have already started shipping him with the paladins which is…meh. he was terrible in the original and it’s bad bad bad why would u do this.

that’s basically it we don’t know shit about lotor and people already glorify him...

if you wanna ship lance with a galra keith is right there js