#voltron s3

[skysmadness]

i love co-leaders klance

(og post)

[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:

[depressedlochnessmess]

ok yeah yeah voltron in 2023 what else is new

[kanwalcreations]

i love co-leaders klance

[imminent-danger-came]

There is a distinct difference between "something good with flaws" and "something bad that's almost good" me thinks

[j1gsawz]

nandermo is making me crash out I CANT DO THIS ANYMOREEEEE

[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

[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

[thegrimcroissant]

One of my biggest issues with The Bad Batch s3 was how despite the season’s supposed main theme being about redemption arcs and 2nd chances, the show refuses to acknowledge the Commandos or even the clone assassins as victims of the Empire, and instead they’re treated arguably even worse than stormtroopers.

The season would rather have characters like Rampart look sympathetic before the commandos or CXs could get any kind of pity from our main cast.

The only character who showed even an ounce of sympathy for the CXs was Rex.

"You’re still one of us. You’re still our brother."

I thought this was foreshadowing at least one CX getting saved and rehabilitated. So then Rex’s efforts in "Infiltration" wouldn’t have gone to waste. But nope, the CXs’ only purpose was to be the cartoonishly evil versions of the Bad Batch (seriously though, the idea of Hemlock creating the Evil Batch just makes me take him less seriously as a villain).

Only one commando was given some sort of redemption arc, but that was only because Wolffe commanded him not to do anything to Rex or his clone network. And then we never see him or Wolffe again.

[hollow-dweller]

you can tell voltron is having something of a renaissance because allura's tag is full of klance posts that have nothing to do with her and complaints that her canonical relationship with lance, which was built up over 6 of the show's 8 seasons, was "rushed"

[skysmadness]

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

[cricket-toast]

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

[stilessderek]

I love how Keith refuses to give up on Shiro! I love how refuses to accept that Shiro is gone and that for him Shiro is the Black Paladin. I hate how the others doesn't seem to care about Shiro being gone and only care about forming Voltron again. People honestly didn't care enough about of the best characters ever created. I miss him so much.

[holysheithyall]

have not posted here in so long but netflix is removing voltron and i am in shambles rn

[judahlux]

I honestly gotta forgot that karate orgy from my mind, my eyes and my soul.

I'm forgetting the whole s6 but not my lawrusso content.

The only stuff that I know are fanfiction where THE WHOLE GANG GOES TO THERAPY AND LIVE THEIR LIVES WITHOUT KARATE WARS.

MY GOD EVEN MY MOM HATED IT. I'M SORRY GUYS, BUT NOW I DON'T KNOW WHAT FINAL SUCKS MORE: VOLTRON S7 AND S8 OR COBRA KAI S6.

SORRY, I'M DONE.

MY LAWRUSSO FANFICTION ABOUT SOULMATES IS ON AO3 IF YOU WANNA READ IT.

[radiates-confusion]

Getting back into Voltron has been a *wild* time.

First of all, Voltron is a fascinating show, because you have a space empire, and super advanced technology, but also, for some reason, there's no issue with people from different worlds, who *shouldn't know each others languages*, talking to each other, and that's both fun and annoying to watch. Plus, you get really interesting relationship dynamics among the team, which can be super awesome to explore!

But then we get to the arrival of one smug bastard (Lotor) and now I'm painfully aware of how much that show influenced my life and mindset, because despite not having seen it for years, my first/current/main DnD character.... Its uncanny. They're not totally like him, but it's close enough.

And to top it all off, I'm finding out I do actually have a favourite ship, which is wild cause I spent most of my time in fanfiction space floating between ships as that made it easier to find really cool fics!

In conclusion, Voltron has no right to have influenced my life to the extent it has, but also I'm pretty happy being sucked back into it's sphere, I just need to sprinkle it into my Dash too