#vld s3

[dietcokecryptid]

oh lion swap.... the way you agonize me....

[skysmadness]

i love co-leaders klance

(og post)

[breeberrypies]

cough RIGHT

drawing lance almost made me quit drawing forever :3

they should just KISS ALREADY

[markanddebbie-protectionprogram]

oh the flashbacks the word "buddy" triggered in me when i laid eyes on a blue and red coded pairing

my live reaction:

[daffsforstag]

I will make everything crossover with Yellowjackets. Mark my words.

[nervouswhizkid]

alright, u know what time it is. i've finished season 3 of voltron, so here's a whole dump of all my thoughts :o]

it was so weird starting out this season with no shiro. i felt so bad for keith, he was struggling so much without him and you could tell. it did throw me off that everyone was acting semi-normal even though shiro was missing?? like lance was so Lance (especially in the first episode) if that makes sense (which, like, if i think about it that's pretty on brand for him. i feel like he's the type to hide behind that flirty easygoing attitude when shit's going down.) i was freaking out when the lion swap happened ohmygod. i still have mixed feelings about it?? like i can kinda get used to keith in the black lion, but lance being in the red is so strange to me. they're just so red & blue coded, it's weird to put them in lions that don't match that. my heart was breaking when lance was begging black to let him be the new leader, you can tell he wants to prove himself so bad. and when blue wouldn't let lance in and he was having a mental crisis over it, i was genuinely in tears. he's got so much insecurity hidden behind that carefree mask and it makes me so sad i just wanna hug him😭 even though i'm not entirely on board with the lion swap, i did like the way it was executed. everyone gets in their lions to go fight, except oh wait! lance isn't following, where is he?? his lion is refusing him?? what! (i'll be completely honest though, i feel like i've read fics that have had something like this play out and they STILL did it better than the show did LMAO)

i also loved that it was LANCE out of all the paladins that became the new red pilot. he was worthy enough to be keith's right hand🥹 i feel like there was such a big emphasis on klance this season, there were so many important moments for their development.

key moment one:

the way EVERYONE was looking at lance to comfort keith??? and lance wasn't even thrown by it, didn't even seem to notice them staring at him. he was only focused on keith. he doubts himself in so many other areas, but when it comes to being there for keith there was no hesitation. he would have done it whether the others were there or not.

key moment two:

when keith came out of the black lion clearly upset and tried turning down the leadership position. again, everyone is chiming in and telling him that black has chosen him, he's their new leader, he has to do this. but he brushes them off, he's adamant in his decison. only when lance steps forward and tells him that he accepts his new authority, keith was willing to give it a shot. what if i scream

key moment THREE:

when lotor lured team voltron to planet thayserix and keith went a little cuckoo trying to catch him, he and lance end up having a moment where keith admits he's taken it too far, putting the team in jeopardy in his rush to capture lotor. and in perfect lance fashion, he agrees with keith. and then he supports him and says let's go fix it together.

this doesn't mean anything, he's just so prettyboy in this scene i had to add

moving on. lotor's character has me conflicted. his introduction had me thinking he was different from his father, and then it swaps to him talking shit with this inner group and sounding like he IS just like his father, he just presents a different front to the general public. but then a few episodes later, his plans are conflicting with what the witch (sorry i literally cannot ever remember her name) wants, and she's supposedly zarkon's right hand, so by that logic lotor is going against his father's plans?? and i think it's in episode 5 where he says "i am the leader! but i am not my father." so what is it really huh. i can't figure this guy out, i don't know whether to root for him or not

i'll tell you who i'm not rooting for though. lotor's group of misfits, that's who. i literally cannot stand them for some reason. that creepy blind person with the cat ANNOYS ME. they're so op it's actually crazy. i definitely dislike the lot of them because they're capable adversaries, which i know is the whole point, but also i just love these characters so much and i want them to be happy and win 😾 is that too much to ask???

i'm also a little bit of an allura hater...i'm still unaware of how that opinion is received in the fandom, so pls don't crucify me. i still have a bad taste in my mouth from her treatment of keith when the team found out he was galra, okay? i'm sure someday i'll get over it. or maybe i won't. we'll see. it was also frustrating to watch her try and pilot the blue lion. you're telling me this girl's dad is the creator of voltron, she was the one who instructed the paladins on how to connect with their lions, stressed the importance of teamwork, and she STILL thought she could boss blue around?? i'm sure it was purely to provide conflict for the story and deliver that payoff when she finally figures out how to work with her lion, but imo it was a little unrealistic for her character. yes, she's royalty and most people defer to her authority, but i just feel like she would have known better, especially considering most of the time she seems uncomfortable by people worshipping her. and episode 4?? her weak spot seems to be anything connecting back to her altean heritage, because she almost let the totalitarian alternate universe versions of her people into their universe simply because they were altean. yes, she quickly realized what was going on and switched sides, but i can't get over how easily she trusts anything altean, meanwhile she's skeptical of everything else. i know that's how bias works, but i can't standdddd hypocrisy it gets on my nerves like nothing else!!

episode 5 was wild. i don't know what they did to shiro, but it's got me so nervous for him and the team. the galra clearly let him escape, it was just too easy. him waking up alone, no guards or anyone to intercept him leaving his chambers? walking around, no sentries anywhere? he witnesses ANOTHER(?) shiro being experimented on before making his way to a pod and zipping away?? and most notably, the "notify command headquarters. operation kuron stage three is underway." to me, there's only one reason why a prisoner would be allowed to return to their group. sabotage. is he some kind of sleeper agent? but like, unknowingly?? and what about the memory that popped up while he was looking at the other shiro? and HOW is there another shiro? this is so fucking confusing. but, and this could also just be a change in artstyle, he looks different to me? why does his face look so weird🧍‍♀️

LOOK AT THIS MAN. THAT IS NOT SHIRO

not to mention, shiro's return causes some issues within the team. for one, there's not enough lions for everyone. i didn't think that was a huge deal, but obviously it's a little strange for someone like shiro to not be doing anything. and if he did get black back, what does that mean for keith? or lance? or allura? they've all been displaced. on top of that, there's now a conflicting power dynamic between shiro and keith since shiro is used to doling out orders, even though keith is the one leading them now.

special mention for another klance moment:

even with all the leadership confusion, i think it's important that lance chose keith to talk to about his concerns for the team. he views keith as their leader, which is insane(!) given that shiro is his personal hero/idol. also the fact that keith has been his rival up to this point, and here lance is offering to step down from the team (which he's obviously fought so hard to be a part of and holds a lot of pride for!!) and better yet, keith thinks this is CRAZY. "what are you talking about?" the inflection in his voice?? he literally can't believe lance would step down. voltron without lance? it's unthinkable. i think it's obvious that lance is still doubtful, so keith connects with him the only way he knows how: by getting on lance's level. "leave the math to pidge."

AND THEN THEY BOTH SMILE AT EACH OTHERBKANJKCLFJLWA

for cohesiveness sake, i'll be referring to honerva as haggar, considering that's what she goes by now.

the finale for this season really surprised me! i wasn't expecting to get a comprehensive history on alfor's era, but i'm not complaining. i can't believe that zarkon and haggar (the witch, that's her name!!) are MARRIED?? that's freaking crazy. and they didn't even remember???

what i found interesting is how their experimentation with quintessence affected them, both after they "died" and came back to life, and even before that. by the second half of the episode, the toll haggar's work had on her was obvious. she was clearly going crazy, suffering from malnutrition, and passed out after alfor argued with them and left. i could be looking into it too much, but i'm wondering if it had been affecting haggar for longer than that. when zarkon first met her, she seemed kind, almost sweet. definitely capable and incredibly smart, but she had a soft disposition. years later, when alfor has allura and zarkon and haggar are married, she's lost any sign of a smile and doesn't seem to care for pleasantries or idle chitchat. her responses are clipped and noncommittal, unless it's pertaining to her work. i think that was the first sign. the whole situation is just so horrific.

i'm also just realizing, does this mean lotor is the son of haggar and zarkon?? IS HE HALF ALTEAN???

another small detail i wanted to mention before i finish this off:

is this the same cat?? it's either the same species or it's the actual same cat from alfor's era. i just thought it was interesting that he was included and, if it is the same cat, he's really fucking old LMFAO

[autisticlancemcclain]

Lance takes the long way there, now.

He doesn’t have to. Technically, the way their rooms are set up, he’s barely any farther from the hanger he needs to be in come battle time. From the very beginning, it was he and Keith in the left wing by Blue and Red’s hangars, Hunk and Pidge in the right by Yellow and Green, and Shiro by the royal ring with Black. Shortest distance to their lions, most prepared for battle. It would probably make sense, logistically, for some room switching to happen, or at least for Keith to take Shiro’s room, but that’s…it’s not happening.

Lance has had the castle fully mapped out since his first month in space. Pidge may have reigned queen in the vents, but it was Lance who carefully marked down every tile that when stepped on opened a stairwell, every divot in the walls that cracked open a pathway. It was Lance to walk the six hours from the highest point of the castle’s peak to the lowest pitch of its bowels and boiler rooms. It was Lance who walked the echoing servant’s passages, brushing dust from his jacket when he made it back to a regular hallway only to realise that there wasn’t any, in a castle sealed for ten thousand years, not even a cobweb. (It was Lance, too, to discover the bunker rooms and hidden staircases of the Garrison. He most certainly didn’t sneak out every other night by merit alone. And further still it was Lance to knock on the wall behind his childhood bed and realise it was hollow, and find the tiniest of little holes, right where the wallpaper met the floorboards, just barely wide enough for narrow fingers to poke through and tug. Lance has always been good at finding small, hidden places, at poking and prodding until secrets are revealed to him. Lance has always been ineffably nosy, he’s just quieter about it.)

To get to Red’s hangar, you have to pass Blue’s. That’s how the rooms are set up. Blue’s zipline reaches out first, and twenty-two steps later is Red’s. On the first day after Lance had crawled on his hands and knees to beg by the barrier between him and his Lion, on yet another mission called to them in the night, Lance had swung down into Blue’s hangar by habit, and when his feet hit the floor he choked, realising, and had barely managed to sprint back up the way before Allura questioned why the zipline wasn’t at the beginning. He’d ducked into Red’s reluctant embrace with lungs that wouldn’t fully inhale and a throat that was closing.

He knew better than to try the passages, easier as they would be.

He avoided passing Blue’s hangar entirely, now. He already felt her absence, the gaping hole of her abandonment, all the way in his room, in the bridge, in the dining hall, in space. He felt the sharpness of it awake and in sleep. He felt it when he lay under his bed, knees pressed to his chest, eyes blank and head empty. He felt it when he felt nothing else. He couldn’t escape the hollow pain of her rejection, but he most certainly couldn’t stand to walk down the same paths he used to run, beam pulling at the muscles in his cheeks, heart galloping in his chest, sparks lighting up his head. The emptiness of her and of himself lingered there, in her spaces, and Lance couldn’t face them.

He goes around.

———

Lance knows it’s stupid and torturous. But he makes his way to the training room anyway, in the dead of night, once he hears Keith’s breathing finally slow through the thin wall separating their beds. It must take him an hour just to creep out of his bed and down the hall, socked feet soundless on the cool polymer floors, breath caught in his lungs, paranoid that someone is going to pop out behind him and ask him what the hell he’s doing (as if anyone has paid him that much scrutiny and attention in his life, except maybe Iverson).

Half of his hesitance is trepidation, but he refuses to acknowledge it.

The knowledge that this is a bad idea rings in his head for the entirety of the walk, but he banishes it the second he walks through the training room doors, locking them behind him, walking brashly in and throwing open the cabinet in the farthest corner. He snatches a headset before he can talk himself out of it, forcing his hands steady as he sticks the electrodes on his temple and under his hair at the back of his neck, like Coran did all those months ago. It feels far more daunting without the brush of the advisor’s gloves on his skin to accompany them.

He’s grateful at least that the headset doesn’t make him click through his own memories, search for particular snapshots the way he might search for sad songs when he’s already upset. It’s the same premise regardless, and he knows the only thing he’s going to do is devastate himself, but at least he’ll be devastated. At least that will be something.

The first memory to play must be early space, the first few days of the Voltron mission. There’s no death in his eyes yet. They look bright and brown and sparkling, the way they do in family photos, matching his mother and brothers and sisters. He watches as he crows, whooping to no one as he pushes Blue’s throttles as fast as they will go, whipping himself around in barrel rolls. There is no audio, but he can feel the team’s yelling in his head, the shouts to stay on task, but he remembers the way he felt like he was floating, like Blue’s energy was billowing around him, carrying him throw the air. He remembers feeling like his belly had bottomed out, like he was doing exactly what he was made to do.

The memory loops, same thirty seconds on repeat again and again and again and again and again and again and again and he lets it and he doesn’t cry and he doesn’t feel pain or sadness or loneliness or anything but the same bottomed out feeling, only now he knows he’s not floating, he’s falling, and every time he hits the ground it gives out from under him and he gets lower and lower and lower.

———

He ends up in Blue’s hangar by necessity. He knows Allura’s head injury is worse than she is letting on, and he’s simply closer to her.

He doesn’t let himself think as he sprints to her. He doesn’t let himself take in his surroundings (the deep blue accents the faint smell of the ocean the pinned up drawings from kids he’s gotten over the weeks and months the blankets and pillows he kept in the corner for rough nights the gigantic bottle of nail polish he had Coran synthesize for him to paint Blue’s claws the the the the the), keeping his eyes firmly on Blue’s, telling himself he’s not looking at her but through her, to his friend, who is hurt, who needs his help. By the time he makes it to Allura, by the time he helps her out of her seat and down the ramp, Coran has already come rushing in with his armful of medical supplies, whisking her away to a pod. He hears the rest of the team talking at the other end of the zipline, waiting for them, and he wills himself to follow them, for his feet to move, for his legs to function, and they don’t, and his knees stay locked, and suddenly he is a butterfly pinned through the chest, stuck in a glass box.

One by one, starting from the outer lights and making their way to the centre of the hangar where he stands, the overhead lights flick off, plunging him into flickering darkness except for the faint blue emergency lights, and the glow of Blue’s particle barrier up between them, and the deep yellow of Blue’s headlights. His eyes begin to lose focus, with the lighting change, until he is not staring through the particular barrier but at it, at his own reflection, at the way it lines up perfectly with the Blue Lion.

His legs give out from under him.

He’s not sure he feels it when he hits the ground. He’s lucky he doesn’t hit his head, although that’s in part because he cannot tear his eyes away, as if they are tied on a string to the Blue Lion. He feels stuck, and his mouth feels glued.

“You left me,” he manages, voice smaller than it’s ever been. He doesn’t feel her prodding at his mind in response, not like he should, but unless it is wishful thinking there’s a sharpness in the air now, the stunning smell of regret and of pain.

He wants to sink into it. He wants to let it envelop him, wants to let himself feel it in full, but he can’t, he doesn’t know how to let it seep into his pores. He tried to strain his ears, his mind, anything, to hear her, hear her apologise or excuse herself or anything, even tell him straight that she is done with him.

He thinks of how his best friend has been pulling away from him for weeks, how he chased after the taxi that drove his sister to the airport when she left for school, how he used to leave a space for his father’s boots every single day by the door long after everyone else had given up, how he would duck away from the first of his mother’s kisses when she picked him up from preschool, sniffling. There is a toddler in his head, feet planted on the floor, hands clenched at his side, tears and snot screaming down his face, cheeks bright red in rage, screaming at the top of his lungs YOU LEFT ME! YOU LEFT ME BEHIND! YOU DON’T WANT ME ANYMORE! YOU LEFT ME AND I WILL NEVER EVER FORGIVE YOU! and the voice is loud and echoing and the only thing he can hear and he has heard it all his life and he has never learned how to block it out, how to make it go away, and it will never go away and never grow up.

“I hate you,” he chokes out, and the lie is bitter on its way out of his throat, and he doesn’t regret it at all.

He drags his legs upright and steady with his hands and flees.

———

pt 2

[cricket-toast]

thought about space too much now im rewatching voltron again :///

[jonathanbyersphd]

And the thing is I think the metaphor of industrialization to represent growth and change that gets destroyed by past trauma is VERY GOOD. And tying that to the nostalgia of the mall? Excellent work.

My entire issue is with the secret Russian base mall being built in 6 months

[localfanbaselurker]

YOURE TELLING ME HE SAYS THAT?????

[askmeanjudge]

[skysmadness]

like a wise man once said: "we did it. we are a good team."

[coolauntlilith]

Every now and then I replay the first episode of VLD and I wonder why I thought it be a good show lol

[autisticlancemcclain]

“That was bad,” Lance murmurs.

The last team member has just left the room, footsteps slowly fading down the hallway. Left is only the red and black paladins, sat at the head of the table, one with his elbows resting on the table, head in his hands, and the other tipped back in the chair, looking blankly up at the ceiling.

“Yeah,” Keith agrees, eyes crossed and unfocused. He sighs, tipping forward and straightening his neck. “It was.”

It’s not unusual for Voltron to fail. They’re fighting a force so huge and ancient and convoluted that they can’t possibly be truly, entirely victorious; the lions are powerful, and Voltron moreso, but they can only be in so many places at once. There is only so much information they can have. And they are all so young, besides, inexperienced and fumbling in their own confusion.

The fail frequently.

But rarely so ardently, and so congruently.

“I didn’t get all the details,” Lance says softly. He picks his head up; brown eyes still tired and downcast but pen prepped for notes. “The rest of them…this briefing didn’t get anywhere. I need the story from you.”

It’s true. The last half hour was almost completely silent. No one had looked up from their laps, faces streaked with tears or carefully neutral, defeat lining postures and pulling down frowns. Any questions Keith or Lance had asked to try and spark discussion, get notes for later improvements, went nowhere. No one could summon their voices to speak, to vocalize their disappointment and pain.

“Let’s not,” Keith begs. At Lance’s hesitant face, he bulldozes forward, pleading hand on Lance’s arm. “I can’t now, Lance. I honestly don’t think I could make myself go through it, not yet. I just want to — ignore it. Just for tonight.”

Lance scrutinizes him carefully, holding his gaze, trying to read right through him. It’s not like Keith to beg for a break, to insist on taking a breather. He’s usually the one to convince them to get up again and keep going.

But they’ve all been going for so long. They’re tired. The team’s tired. Keith’s tired. Lance is tired.

They can’t keep running on empty.

“Alright,” Lance whispers. He slides his arm back a tad, flipping his hand to grab Keith’s and squeeze. “Let’s take a breather.”

He pushes his chair back and stands, pulling Keith up with him. Keith doesn’t fight it, simply follows behind him. Lance leads him out of the briefing room and down the hall, ducking into the kitchen and flipping on the lights.

“Hang on,” he says. He squeezes Keith’s hand once, shooting him a small grin, and then makes his way to a largely unused set of shelves and cabinets on the back. He climbs up onto the counter, then opens the cabinets by his feet, using the doors as footholds.

Keith snorts to himself. Spider boy.

He finally manages to find what he’s looking for and scrambles back down to the floor, holding out a bottle of something.

“Shiro’s stash?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“Coran’s,” Lance says with a grin. “The nastiest nunvil in the galaxy.”

Keith makes to grab a couple glasses, but then stills, getting an idea.

“Keith?”

“Come with me.”

Keith dashes out the hallway, not waiting for Lance — he’s got long legs, he’ll follow.

He speeds past their rooms, past the royal wing where Allura sleeps, past the rest of the paladin rooms. He slides his boots past the training room, Lance’s whooping laughter behind him. He dashes all the way to the very edge of the castle, the forgotten corner, with the giant windows showcasing beautiful and dark empty space — and the pool.

Lance grins at him. Some of the tiredness faces from his dark eyes, replaced with something alive, excited. “You know, sometimes your brain actually pumps out a decent thought or two, Kogane.”

“Oh, piss off.”

They duck into the room, walking up the side walls like Coran showed them all those years ago, feeling the swoop in their bellies as the gravity changes. Keith barely even pauses to strip down to his boxers before diving into the pool. The cool water is like a balm to his heated, sweaty skin and tired brain. He inhales deeply when he finally comes up for air, and the relief settles like heavy snow in his bones.

“God, that feels good.”

He keeps his eyes closed for a moment, waiting for the telltale signs of Lance cannonballing in, but all he hears is the sound of rustling fabric, then a soft grunt and gentle waves. He turns around to see Lance, down to his boxers like Keith, but sat in the edge of the pool, legs swishing in the water. He still holds the bottle of nunvil in one well-manicured hand.

“You’re not coming in?” Keith questions, swimming over to the side of the pool and hooking his arms over the ledge. Lance scoots back slightly, lifting one leg out from the pool and tucking it under the other so he can face Keith better. He pops the cork — narrowly missing Keith’s eye, which makes him laugh and Keith curse at him — and takes a deep swig, hacking up a lung when he comes up for air. He passes the bottle off the Keith as he wipes his mouth.

“God, that shit is disgusting.”

Keith coughs as the bitter taste coats his mouth. “Yep.”

He hands the bottle back to Lance, who takes only a sip before setting it resolutely down behind him. “Nasty.”

Keith hums. He pushes back slightly from the ledge, tipping his head back as he treads water. He says nothing for a while, sensing that Lance is sitting on something, turning it over in his mind.

“Was it really a total ambush?” Lance asks eventually. His voice is quiet; small almost.

Keith sighs, heavy and pained. “Yeah. Just —” he sighs again, tilting his head back in the water until it covers his ears and mutes all the ambient sound, softens the sound of Lance’s feet kicking slowly through the water. “Just a total ambush. No chance of our victory. Me and Hunk and Pidge, watching everything go to shit.”

He imagines he can hear Lance’s heartbeat, his even breaths. He matches them to the swish of the water, to his own steady heart pounding.

“I’m sorry,” Lance offers. Keith lifts his head so his voice doesn’t sound so far away, meets his soft brown eyes head-on.

“It happens,” Keith dismisses. They’ll have to talk about it later, the entire team, but the slight buzz of the nunvil makes everything soft and fuzzy and easier to handle, so for now he doesn’t worry about it. “How’d it fail with the diplomatic mission, though? You and Allura are usually do good at those.”

To his surprise, a light flush dusts Lance’s cheeks. Keith places his feet in the floor, leaning forward in intrigue.

“No particular reason,” Lance says, obviously lying. “Just a rough one. Happens.”

“Try again,” Keith says, smiling teasingly. “I know that look. Something embarrassing happened to you.”

Keith isn’t honestly expecting him to fess up. Keith probably wouldn’t, in his shoes. But for whatever reason, despite his obvious embarrassment, Lance averts his eyes slightly and mutters something.

“Huh?”

“She wanted to kiss me,” he repeats, way too loud. He clears his throat, flush deepening on his cheekbones. “The, uh, the president’s daughter? Said it was some sort of custom, and that I needed to kiss her to seal the contract. I wouldn’t do it and Allura wouldn’t let them force me, so they walked away.”

Keith frowns slightly at the tinge of self-doubt clouding the Cuban’s voice.

“Good for Allura,” he says emphatically. He holds Lance’s gaze until he’s sure his right hand understands, until he knows that he knows that they made the right choice, even if it was a hard one. “I’m a little surprised, though, Loverboy. Gone are the days where you would have jumped for a chance of that, huh?”

He’s only joking, playing at the way Lance used to brag about all the princes and princesses he’d score with his paladin status, but to his surprise Lance looks slightly uncomfortable, like he’s caught in a lie. Keith narrows his eyes.

“I’ve never actually kissed anyone,” Lance admits, so quietly Keith has to strain to hear, and it takes him a second to process. His eyes widen comically when he does, jaw dropping in shock. “No way. You? Loverboy Lance? You’ve never been kissed.”

Face flaming, Lance ignores him, reaching back for the bottle of nunvil and chugging until he literally can’t stand the taste anymore and gags.

“Hey, hey, slow down! Pass that over.”

Dutifully Lance does, still averting his gaze. Keith takes a quick swig — blegh — before swimming over to place the bottle on the other end of the pool, out of Lance’s reach.

“Cant believe you’ve never been kissed,” Keith mutters, half to himself. It really is a shock. He’s always known that Lance plays up his playboy status, that he plays a bit of a part, but he’s assumed that Lance had no shortage of suitors to sort through. There’s no way a boy walks around with legs that long and a face that pretty and isn’t at least a little aware that he’s gorgeous.

Lance shrugs slightly, eyes trained on a very specific area of the pool, pointedly away from Keith. “Just want it to be special, is all.”

For the briefest, barest second, Lance glances at Keith, before hastily looking back away. His fingers start tapping rapidly on his knee.

Something clicks in Keith’s head.

Oh.

He smirks, widely, tilting his head back and looking at his right hand with cocky, half-lidded eyes.

“Aw, you’ve never been kissed,” he teases, voice a touch condescending, making it clear that Keith had definitely been kissed, and it’s cute that Lance hasn’t.

Lance scowls, refusing to rise to the bait. Keith smiles wider, letting some of his blatant fondness bleed through the playfully. He lifts his arm from the water, splashing getting Lance attention, and crooks his finger, beckoning. His heart pounds, but he refuses to bow to any nerves.

“C’mere.”

His voice is so quiet that he’s almost convinced that Lance can’t hear him, but slowly he pushes off the ledge, sliding into the water and making his way to where Keith stands, water up to his chest. He comes all the way close, stopping only inches away. Keith reaches over, water dripping rapidly from his arm, and cups his hand around Lance’s cheek. It burns, but Lance doesn’t move, rigid in Keith’s hold, breaths stuttered and short.

Slowly, giving Lance time to move if he likes, he leans in. He keeps his eyes open as long as he can, so he can watch Lance’s flutter closed, watch him sigh, watch him lean close, watch his fingers curl around Keith’s arm, watch the freckles over his nose and the water droplets of the pool dotting his brown skin. He keeps his eyes open until his lips finally touch Lance’s, gently, softly, reverently.

This kiss is not long. Barely lasts two seconds. But Keith’s belly is flip flopping, and his heart is pounding, and when he pulls away he stays, for a moment, an inch from Lance’s face, just to watch his eyes flutter back open, hazy, dark.

“Hope that was special enough,” he murmurs, trailing his hand down Lance’s bare ribs, down his waist, resting on his hip for just a moment. Lance shudders.

“Yeah,” he whispers, glancing at Keith’s lips like he’s longing to press them to his again. “Yeah, it was.”

———

based on this post

[lolabearwrites]

I almost wanna rewatch Voltron just for the first 2 seasons so I can experience fond memories of Voltron again. Like, ah yes, this is why I'm brain rotting about this series.

but I know I'll get sucked in again and I'll end up rewatching the whole show, just to end up right back here.

[njararna]

whoever thought the ‘what if the species that was genocided were actually the bad guys in an alternate reality and committed lobotomies on entire species’ episode was a good idea needs to be handled. i know they were in the writers’ room rubbing their hands together gleefully like they thought they cooked something Profound…💀 any ‘what if the oppressed were the oppressor’ storyline is absolute dogshit and i really wish ppl would stop using it