#who maybe didn’t understand the impact of allura’s death. i don’t know

[vldkeith]

to be quite honest klance with altean marks lance is actually 10000x worse than allurance. it’s like the purest distillation of “yeah allura was there and she mattered but only as she relates to klance.” at least with allurance she’s an actual character & an active agent in the story (albeit an ooc one, in my opinion). you people drawing your post season 8 old man happily married klances where lance has the mark of his dead girlfriend—a mark he literally only got bc allura was killed off by the writers in a truly astonishing act of misogynynoir—is like…laughably obtuse. i’m not saying it is racist or immoral to do this but i am saying that the combination of factors surrounding it should make you kind of uncomfortable and embarrassed and you could simply choose to. Not.

[the-ferocious-kittyrose]

Rewriting Haggar/Honerva’s redemption arc

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Realizing she’s Altean

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

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

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

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

2. Her past relationship with Zarkon

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Her current relationship with Zarkon

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Oriande

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

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

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

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

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

5. Her relationship with Lotor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6. Her S7-S8 plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[sideofwritingsandramblings]

Day 20: Numb

For @sheithmonth prev / on ao3 / next July 20th - Whispers

Keith felt numb as he walked into his room on the castleship. He had been searching endlessly for who knows how long, but there was still no sign of Shiro among the wreckage. He had completely disappeared.

Again.

The others knew better than to try talking to him right now. They had simply told him to go to bed and that Lance and Hunk would continue the search for Shiro while he slept. Keith doubted he’d get any sleep at all but, he supposes, at the very least he can rest his eyes and try to think about anywhere else he could search.

His heart dropped as he recognized one of Shiro’s jackets resting on his desk chair. They had been hanging out in Keith’s room only last night, just talking and hanging out like usual. Mentally preparing themselves for the battle at hand. Shiro must have forgotten the jacket here before going back to his room. Keith resisted the urge to pick it up and hold it to his chest.

He can’t lose him again. He can’t .

He flopped down onto his bed, feeling his eyes burn as he forced the tears back. He can’t cry, because Shiro’s not gone. He’ll find him. He has to.

Keith. If I don’t make it out of here-

“Shiro don’t...” Keith whispered.

I want you to lead Voltron.

“Not without you.”

-

When Shiro returned Keith still felt numb and he couldn’t understand why. Shiro felt… different. Wrong. But maybe Keith was just being selfish. Keith had finally accepted his role as Black Paladin and now he and Shiro were disagreeing on what to do. He just- He thought Shiro would support his decisions more. He was unused to Shiro snapping at him and ignoring him. But that didn’t mean Shiro was wrong.

Keith pulled back. Voltron didn’t need six paladins and they didn’t need him to be leader. They needed Shiro. Even if Black wouldn’t accept him at first. Even if Shiro was acting differently around him. Even if there were times he looked into Shiro’s eyes and he couldn’t find his best friend. If Voltron-and Shiro- didn’t need him, then he would go where he is needed. With the Blades.

Yet Keith still felt the whispers of something wrong on Naxzela. His comms had been on and he’d heard the paladins argue. He’d heard Shiro make the wrong call and doubt started worming its way into Keith’s heart again.

And as he faced down Haggar’s ship with only his own ship as a weapon, he was sickened by the sudden thought in his head. As he closed his eyes and braced for an impact that luckily never came, he had wished he could have been with his Shiro again. The Shiro who had gone hoverbike riding with him in the desert. The Shiro who had always been by his side, never giving up on him. The Shiro who would come to his room in the middle of the night on the castleship and just talk to him.

When Lotor ultimately saved him, Keith didn’t bring up his near death experience to Shiro. And he made Matt promise not to tell Shiro as well. He’ll tell Shiro when he’s ready. He’ll tell Shiro when he feels like his best friend again.

-

As Keith sat beside Shiro’s clone’s body, hindsight really was a bitch. Keith had known. He had known that Shiro was different and wrong. But he had been so relieved to have Shiro back that he had ignored the obvious. That it wasn’t actually Shiro.

I died Keith.

Keith shook his head, once again willing himself not to cry. Shiro’s soul had been saved by the Black Lion, he was still in there! He could still be saved, right?

Keith could hardly listen as Lance cried his regret. Instead he focused on cradling Shiro’s head in his hand. Focused on the fact that his best friend wasn’t moving. Wasn’t hardly breathing.

Allura suddenly stood and Keith’s attention was torn from Shiro’s body to instead watch as Allura put her hands upon the Black Lion.

“Please,” Keith whispered under his breath.

Allura began to glow as the energy from the Black Lion transferred to her. And as she turned to face them once again, Keith was hit by the way he could seehim. He could see Shiro in Allura’s stance. She had found him. She walked back over and placed her fingers to Shiro’s head. Keith held his breath as the energy entered the limp body and Shiro’s hair began to turn white.

Allura finished transferring energy and seconds later Shiro sat up, gasping for air. Keith hardly had time to react before Shiro was falling back into his arms and Keith’s relief was palpable.

Shiro was really back this time.

“You found me.”.

“We’re glad you’re back Shiro,” Keith replied, and before he could second guess himself he pressed a kiss to Shiro’s forehead.

Shiro smiled and passed out.

“I’m going to protect you this time,” Keith whispered, “I promise.”

[ptw30]

Hey op, tell me about Sendak and Shiro

I wrote a theory way, way back in the days of old - or prior to Season 3 - that said Sendak was the key to Shiro’s past.

A recap is that - Sendak ordered Pidge’s death in “Fall of the Castle of Lions” without blinking a glowing monocle, but Shiro gets a -

Also, neither Sendak nor Shiro give a killing blow in the castle later, in their first dance - I mean, fight! - of the series. 

Coupled with the fact that the paladins find the Red Lion on Sendak’s ship, Shiro said he’d been on Sendak’s ship, and Ulaz released Shiro after the Galra located the Blue Lion on Earth - well, one can assume that Shiro “helped” the Galra find the lions. One can also make the leap to say Sendak and Shiro found the Red Lion together. 

Thus - Sendak and Shiro have a history. 

Ah, the beginning of a rarepair. 

We could go a bit farther to say that Sendak might have even helped Shiro learn to use his arm, considering Sendak, too, is missing an arm - but that’s a leap. 

And perhaps another leap is this - 

- why would Haggar ask if Sendak can be trusted? Because he just failed his mission - or for some other reason, like Sendak having a soft spot for one of the paladins?

Going into later seasons, this line is very telling. 

“New master?” When has Voltron ever had a master? Furthermore, “new” master seems to indicate Voltron had a different master at one point, but maybe Sendak was not talking about Voltron. Maybe one of the paladins did, and that master seemingly was specifically Sendak. 

And who is the only paladin to ever be in the empire and perhaps was a subordinate to Sendak? 

Before we venture into headcanon territory, Sendak and Shiro have the most emotionally gripping scene in the entire show, in “Crystal Venom.” Say what you want about “The Black Paladins,” but we all knew Shiro or the clone didn’t believe those things he said to Keith. Those were Haggar-influenced.

The closest scene is Honerva and Allura’s argument in “Clear Day,” but Allura never really has a “Honerva is right. I’m going to the dark side” moment. It’s more, “Don’t go into the basement, Allura!” moment.  

In the conversation between Shiro and Sendak, we don’t know that Shiro isn’t worthy of being a paladin. We don’t know how the empire “defeated” him, and we don’t know if Shiro can defeat Zarkon. These are legitimate questions that continue Shiro’s internal struggle, introduced in “Return of the Gladiator.” 

Now it’s a hard scene to watch because it didn’t age well. Shiro isn’t a paladin by the end of the series or even a character. He’s a plot device, and Sendak goes all “pure Galra” and ends up dying by Keith’s hand, not by Shiro’s. In fact, Shiro doesn’t win either his internal and external struggle, as Lotor delivers the killing blow to Zarkon. 

(I really, really hate what the series did to Shiro.) 

Re-focusing - in “Crystal Venom,” Sendak has one message to Shiro and one message only - “You are part of the Galra Empire. Come home.”

If that isn’t rarepair material, dude, I don’t know what is. 

I also want to add one more thing here. Prior to Season 6, Sendak isn’t shown to care about being all Galra. After all, he left the empire after Shiro ejected him. He only resurfaced because Lotor’s generals went looking for him. Plus, Sendak was the only commander in the Galra Empire to show he valued his subordinates. 

That means - Shiro wouldn’t be just a soldier to Sendak. He’d be a cherished subordinate, if not more. 

Moving into headcanon territory - 

We know both Keith and Shiro were in prison, Keith in Juvie, Shiro in a Galra prison. So I assumed how Shiro sprung Keith from prison, perhaps Sendak sprung Shiro. 

Thus - Sendak was to Shiro, what Shiro was to Keith. 

And Sendak was also poised to be the “Strickler” of Voltron - the subordinate to the Big Evil who sees the error of his ways and turns sides. To do that, Sendak would need someone to turn for, someone to be a positive impact, and that person would be someone who knew Sendak before the story began. 

That person would be Shiro. 

Final thoughts - 

Shiro and Sendak are on even footing, with Shiro being Allura’s commander and Sendak being Zarkon’s. I also think Sendak could support Shiro, like he supported the previous Black Paladin, and Sendak would understand the issues Shiro had in the Galra Empire. Perhaps he’d be the only one on the castle-ship who would or could.

TL;DR: Shiro & Sendak - MFEO

See how I came to like Shendak here. 

[kcwcommentary]

VLD5x03 – “Postmortem”

5x03 – “Postmortem”

(A note in advance: this is a long one.)

We’re back on Olkarion, again. At least this time, the show has Ryner return. With how much time was spent on Olkarion last season, it was odd to not have any Olkari characters involved in the story then. Ryner expositions that Olkarion is serving as the capital of the Voltron Coalition now. If information like that had been provided last season, it wouldn’t have felt as strange for the show to have spent so much time on Olkarion then.

“So much has changed so fast,” Sam says. I don’t understand the purpose of his comment. This is his first time on Olkarion, so he has no past here to be speaking of any of the changes the Olkari are making to their cities. He even can’t mean anything about knowing about aliens and space travel since he’s been captured by the Galra for over a year. I get annoyed by empty dialog like this that postures as if it’s saying something significant. It’s not.

“I fear tumultuous times are upon us,” Ryner says. This is more empty dialog. It’s written and performed as if it’s some unnerving portent, but the Coalition just fought a huge, multi-front assault on the Galra Empire at the end of last season. The tumultuous times have been here for a while already.

A Galra commander, with confirmation that Zarkon is dead and having intelligence that Voltron is on Olkarion, orders his ship to go there.

Allura and Lotor speak alone. She is initially polite, bordering on formal, asking him if he’s alright, but she’s starting to cross into being less formal and more conversational with Lotor. She can sense that he, like anyone would be, is going through something significant with his having killed his father. She tells him, “What you did was for the greater good, and for many of us, proof of your intentions for peace.” As much as the earlier dialog was empty, this line is not. This line of dialog uses a double-voice, the first retaining Allura’s formality, but the second voice is her personally speaking. By “for many of us,” we know she specifically is saying for herself.

The rest of Team Voltron arrives. Lance seems jealous, still, and his jealousy is still uninteresting. Lotor informs them that with the death of Zarkon, the “most formidable Galra” are going to come together for the Kral Zera to determine who’ll lead the Empire next. If he’s going to be able to influence the Galra Empire, he’ll have to attend too.

Shiro points out that this is what they’ve been discussing doing with Lotor, and Pidge responds, “Yeah, but no one told us that would involve flying into a war zone.” Team Voltron is fighting against the Galra Empire, pretty much everything is a war zone for them and has been from the beginning of the show, yet Pidge is acting like they’re not in one. I can only assume she has not been paying attention (or is just being badly written here).

Allura says they don’t have enough time to plan, Lance agrees. Shiro is not wrong when he tells them that they don’t have a choice. Intraparty conflict can be really interesting in a story, but the sides of the argument all have to seem equally reasonable. Arguing that they can’t do anything to get Lotor to the Kral Zera because of how soon it will take place doesn’t make any sense since the whole point of them working with Lotor is so that he can assume control of the Galra Empire and serve as a check on the Empire’s normal brutality. Not helping him with the Kral Zera would be abandoning the whole goal they have been working for the past couple of episodes.

Pidge and Coran agree with Allura. This makes most of the characters’ motivation inconsistent. If they’re so willing to abandon this goal now, there was no point in the show spending the past couple episodes with them wrestling with the decision to ally with Lotor. This makes the story feel like it’s drifting back to the strange casualness that it had in season four.

The show has Shiro very definitively here say that he’s the leader of Voltron, and thus he’s making the decision. So Allura begins to rant about how Shiro “armed Lotor with [his] bayard without consulting the rest of [them].” This tells us something: Everyone except Shiro last episode wanted to give Lotor over to be executed by Zarkon. None of them had a plan, so the entire time they were watching as the Lotor/Sam exchange was happening, they were doing so with the full expectation that Lotor would become Zarkon’s prisoner. Shiro and Lotor are the only ones who actually operated with the understanding that Zarkon would trick them and that they had to have some plan in place to deal with it.

This makes all of the rest of our supposed heroes complicit and guilty because they were explicitly giving into Zarkon’s demand with no other plan. They were handing Lotor over to be executed, and the only reason that didn’t happen is because Shiro acted behind their back. I find the lack of heroism in most of our supposed heroes to be seriously disturbing.

Allura yells at Shiro, “You put the entire operation in jeopardy.” What operation? She had no plan, she was just giving Lotor to Zarkon assuming that Zarkon would give them Sam in return. Why were Shiro and Lotor the only ones who understood that Zarkon would trick them? I don’t understand why this show has decided to write these characters as being so oblivious.

Lotor interjects some truth: If he doesn’t take the throne, there is a good possibility somebody as bad as Zarkon will.

Because the scene indicates most of the characters abandoned both logic and morality last episode and continue to argue without regard to logic now, the scene feels like a distortion, hollow, and the conflict in it manufactured. This scene does not leave me with a good opinion on most of the characters in this show.

Speaking of low opinions of characters, Haggar continues to stand weirdly in the middle of a room. We see that she’s watching Lotor. Because we’ve seen her do this in 4x03 “Black Site” through Narti, we know she’s doing it through one of the people in the room with Lotor. It’s not hard to then put that with last episode’s initiating Stage Four of Operation Kuron to conclude she’s using Shiro.

Like last episode, Haggar again clichédly says, “My son,” like she cares about him. As I’ve said before, I do not like this retcon the show is doing with her character. Some Galra then attack Haggar, but she teleports away, laughs like a cliché villain, and then jumps down on them. She possesses one of the attackers and uses them to kill the Galra commander who sent them.

Ezor, Axca, and Zethrid are being held in a cell. Haggar frees them.

Meanwhile, the Galra who wants to attack Olkarion arrives at the planet and sends some “payload,” which he references the Olkari as being involved with, crashing into the surface of the planet. Ryner contacts the Castle Ship and says that they’re detecting an “unknown toxin” from the impact; how she knows it’s a toxin if it’s unknown is not explained. Purple mist floats around the trees, causing lines in the trees to start glowing purple and move toward the impact site.

Haggar has returned to her middle of the room, this time with Axca, Ezor, and Zethrid with her. Haggar says she is not planning to seize power of the Empire, specifically stating that “the Empire will only accept a ruler with Galra blood.” This continues to make her seem like she’s all about wanting a puppet on the throne, the same as her pushing for Lotor to take Zarkon’s place on the throne in season three. She says they need “a natural born leader.” I’ve commented on this idea before in a commentary way earlier in the show: There is no such thing as a natural born leader. No one is born as a leader. Leadership is a set of skills, and like all skills, it is something that has to be developed. Any time I see someone talk as if leadership is an inherent quality, I have to assume that that person fundamentally does not understand leadership. Maybe that’s why this show has had so much difficulty with the part of its story dealing with characters being leaders. Most of the work on crafting the show’s story comes from perspectives that don’t understand what they’re writing about.

Haggar wants someone “with an iron will to match his iron fist.” She tells the three to “bring him to me.” I get that the show is trying to be cryptic, set up yet preserve what it wants to be a surprise about whom Haggar is speaking, but leaving him unidentified in this scene doesn’t work for me. It feels too blatant that something is being purposefully omitted in the scene. Sometimes I just don’t like being able to so easily see the decision-making process behind some writing choices like I do here. It makes the supposed suspense of whom she’s talking feel artificial.

Meanwhile, Lance is getting in target practice. I don’t think we’ve gotten any sort of normal activity scene like this in a long time. I like having a scene of a Paladin practicing; it makes the story world feel realistic, like this character could be an actual person doing actual-person things.

That Lance’s bayard turns into a sword though and the resulting conversation he has with Allura is not as nice. The sword is not Lance’s established natural weapon. That doesn’t mean that he can’t ever use a sword, but it still feels a little off. Allura says the sword is like the one her father used.

I try to avoid the psychoanalytic mode of literary criticism because that mode creeps me out to no end, but it’s kind of unavoidable here. Since the show is moving Allura and Lance toward a relationship, and Lance has always been into Allura since the first instant he saw her, the show focuses on Allura changing from being bothered by Lance into liking him. I would much rather have her end up liking him because he realized his flirtatiousness was excessive and he grew out of that, and in so doing opened himself up in a way that Allura could then see something appealing in him. But instead, the show gives us moments like this for Allura to compare Lance to her father. This makes any attraction she eventually has for Lance not about her desires but about what she lost with her father’s death. I’m just not a fan of the idea of a guy being romantically appealing to a woman because he makes her think of her father.

With Lauren Montgomery having said in an interview that she considered having the show end with Allura being reincarnated as an infant – literally infantilizing Allura – and having Lance raise Allura, the boyfriend-father juxtaposition of this scene feels even creepier.

Their conversation drifts to Shiro. Allura says, “Shiro has been quite difficult lately.” I know the show wants us to agree with Allura since it’s beginning to advance some of the clone plotline, but it doesn’t work for me because Shiro is the only one of Team Voltron that speaks sense.

“Thank you, Lance. Speaking with you has actually made me feel better,” Allura says. “What do you mean, ‘Actually?’” he says. They laugh. Apparently, that was supposed to be a joke. I wonder if literally anyone who’s watched this scene laughed at that.

The show switches to the Holt family. It seems like Sam has been thinking that Pidge and Matt are going with him to Earth, but Pidge says that they have more work to do with Voltron and the rebels, respectively. Sam seems surprised, but I don’t really know why.

We’ve had three scenes, two of which were very casual, between this next one and the last time this episode was dealing with what’s supposed to be the main plot of the episode: the thing that crashed into Olkarion and is messing with the plants. I had kind of forgotten that this plant thing main plot was even happening because of the intervening scenes. That makes the tension and threat feel nonexistent, which is not a good thing for the main plot of a story.

The plants have been infected with what the Galra are calling a virus. It’s turned the plants into a giant cannon, which starts shooting at the Black Lion as Shiro’s trying to get a look at what’s going on in the forest. A shot of the Galra cruiser advancing on Olkarion makes Olkarion look like a moon around a gas giant planet. Maybe I missed this when Olkarion was shown in the past; has it always been in orbit around this gas giant? And if so, why is that gas giant never depicted in the Olkarion sky? You would be able to see it. The plants overtake the city, and everyone freaks out.

Matt and Sam run onto the bridge where Coran is monitoring the situation. Sam asks, “Where are the Lions?” like he’s been part of Team Voltron longer than the few hours that he’s been there. It feels so unnatural for him to make this comment.

The giant plant cannon has a giant mouth. Ryner’s reaction feels so artificial. “I don’t understand. That monster resembles one of our tree-mechs. It’s as if the forest is being corrupted,” she says. Having a character speak words of bafflement like this only works if we viewers don’t already that is the result of a virus. Since we already know that “the forest is being corrupted,” her line here has no weight.

It’s sad that as I’m watching the form-Voltron animation repeat yet again, I’m thinking, well, at least with this animation taking up time, I don’t have to watch some other absurd scene. That I don’t trust this show to give me a decent scene that I’m welcoming the form-Voltron animation wasting time in the episode does not reflect well on the quality of story in this episode.

I’ve gotten so used to Shiro ordering, “Form Shield,” that it feels weird hearing him order, “Shield Up.” Voltron ends up landing on the ground and the plants wrap around Voltron. Allura suggests separating into Lions, which they can’t do because the plants fully cover Voltron. The plant-covered-Voltron-mass starts floating in the air like a balloon, and I have no idea why. The plant monster moves on toward the city.

Shiro asks Ryner about the Olkarion city’s new cannon that looks like a donut. She says it’s not operational but might could shoot once. Ryner charges the cannon, targets the monster, gets right to the point of shooting before the new cannon fails. Despite the donut-cannon being covered in purple-glowing vines, she’s baffled at first why the cannon fails, but then her whole building is covered in vines. “All of our systems, they’ve been compromised,” she says. For being from a culture that’s prominently made up of really knowledgeable and skilled engineers, Ryner’s inability to know what’s going on feels unnatural.

Matt communicates with Pidge, saying that the vines seem like they’re infected with a computer virus. This might would function as a revelation if we hadn’t had the Galra commander refer to it as such a lot earlier in the episode. “It’s like a computer and a virus rolled into one,” Pidge says. I couldn’t help but to laugh. I kind of feel like the episode is going to start explaining to me what a telephone modem is or something.

Sam suggests they can hack the plasma-mass that’s infecting the plants and shut it down. Matt says they’d have to figure out a way to interface with it first. Since the plants are shutting down Voltron and shutting down Olkarion systems, it would seem to me that the interface is already existing.

Pidge says, “This virus is affecting Voltron on a submolecular level.” Now it seems the episode is conflating a biological virus with a computer virus. A computer virus, which is what Matt said this was, is just data. It’s not physical, so it can’t do anything on a submolecular level. This plot feels like a mess. “To drive it out, we have to tap into the quantum energy that bonds us all to Voltron,” Pidge concludes. Great, the problem is going to be solved by the characters literally doing nothing.

Allura declares something that I don’t remember ever being said before: “The bayards […] amplify each Paladin’s life force.” I guess, whatever.

The Galra cruiser has arrived and is using a tractor beam to pull the cocooned Voltron in. Coran watches it happening on a monitor. How the Galra got that close to the situation and he didn’t react until now, I don’t know. He says, “It’s the Galra. This is all their doing.” His statement is supposed to be dramatic, but since we’ve known this is the Galra for a long time, his dialog creates no tension. It actually has the opposite effect: it’s making the lack of tension in the episode more prominent.

Somehow, despite the infected plants covering the city, Matt and Sam are able to exit the Castle Ship, walk through the Castle Ship’s shield, despite the fact that the show has established that no one can do that, make their way through the infected plants unharmed and uncaptured, and into the building where Ryner is. The fact that their journey would not be possible is ignored by having them just show up in the room with Ryner after our having last seen them standing on the bridge of the Castle Ship.

Ryner tells Matt and Sam, “I’m trying to interface with the vines to stop their growth, but I can’t communicate with the nanocellulose.” That sounds nonsensical since this is supposed to be a computer virus, but whatever. This is just part of the problem with the show trying to conflate plants and technology. But then comes a big problem for me.

Matt responds, “We don’t need to stop it. We just need to reroute it.” Ryner, leader of the Olkarion, people of genius-level engineers, replies to Matt, “Grab a headpiece. Show me.”

Matt and Sam have never used Olkarion headpieces before. They do not have a lifetime of working with Olkarion plant-technology the way Ryner has. But Matt and Sam, white men, know better than an Olkarion how to use Olkarion technology. This is more offensive pro-colonialist thought being written into the show. Ugh!

Matt and Sam put on the headpieces, touch a nearby piece of plant, which start to glow green instead of purple. I’m so tired of this show solving problems by having characters touch something until it glows.

The Paladins slam their bayards simultaneously into their Lions. Everything glows white until the Paladins then find themselves standing in some stream of energy. Lance, Allura, Hunk, and Pidge are there, but not Shiro. This is foreshadowing that Shiro isn’t actually Shiro but a clone. The four of them yell Shiro’s name repeatedly. He eventually halfway appears, though his face remains cloaked in shadow. There’s some increased meaningless glowing, and the Paladins each disappear until only Lance and Shiro remain.

Shiro calls out Lance’s name, saying “Listen to me.” Lance yells, “What?” as he disappears, unable to hear Shiro. I guess this was supposed to have been the real Shiro who’s being held in the Black Lion’s psychic space since dying at the end of season two?

Voltron’s eyes glow and it breaks free of the plants. The Olkarion cannon blows up the Galra cruiser. Matt and Sam are no longer wearing the headpieces. I don’t know how “rerouting” the computer virus-infected plants’ growth results in the cannon being able to be fired. I doubt anyone working on this episode has even the slightest ability to explain it either.

Voltron, which had been just a bit above the ground with the Galra cruiser, comes diving in as if coming from space to intercept a blast from the plant-monster in the Olkarion city. The logistics of this is a mess. Voltron slams into the plant-monster and pushes it to the edge of the city. It wraps plants around Voltron again. Pidge says, “The virus, it’s trying to absorb Voltron.” Is this different than when it had wrapped around Voltron the first time? It looks the exact same.

Red is the only Lion not grappled by the plant-monster, so Lance screams for an absurdly long period of time, maneuvers Red to be within the mouth of the plant-monster, and then blasts Red’s main cannon. That the plant-monster can be destroyed by just one blast from a Lion’s main cannon makes it seem like they should have been able to take this thing out a lot more easily that they have. But, whatever. The plant-monster explodes.

There’s some narratively unearned group sunset gazing scene. We’re supposed to feel some relief and poignancy, but the plot wasn’t significant enough to earn this.

Sam says, “Kids, I need to talk to you again about returning to Earth.” Matt responds with a sharp, “Dad,” as if no one can see coming Sam saying he understands Pidge and Matt needing to do the work they’re doing. It’s cliché. “I understand now,” Sam says. How Pidge and Matt fighting to rescue him didn’t result in him already understanding, what he learned from this attack on Olkarion that he didn’t already know, the show does not explain. (Because there is nothing new for him to have learned from it.)

Sam says he has to inform the Galaxy Garrison about what’s going on in the universe. “There’s a war coming,” he says. Another cliché. Also, not news. The war isn’t coming, the war’s been going on for the entire show, so saying one’s coming here in the fifth season makes it seem like the show itself hasn’t been paying attention to its own story.

Lance asks Shiro about what he was trying to tell him in the void. Shiro says that he doesn’t know, that things went dark for him for a moment during it. The camera lingers on Shiro staring into the distance, trying to make us feel ominous about Shiro.

Haggar continues to stand in the middle of her room doing nothing. Her mindless lurking in the middle of her room is laughable at this point, but I think the show thinks that it’s appropriately creepy or something. Ezor, Zethrid, and Axca return with Sendak, revealing who Haggar asked them to get for her earlier in the episode. I guess his return is supposed to be dramatic and ominous, but it’s been so long since he was last in the story – if I remember correctly, the last time we saw him was in 1x11 “Crystal Venom” as he was jettisoned out into space – that it doesn’t have the weight that the show wants it to have.

This episode is, as I said multiple times in this commentary, a mess. The intraparty conflict between Shiro and the rest of the Paladins is annoying because the specifics of the Lotor/Sam exchange situation in this and last episode make Shiro right, and the other Paladins look absurd for trusting Zarkon and immoral for turning a prisoner over to be executed. The pacing of this episode is jarring. There’s too much cliché dialog. The plant-plot is uninteresting. The threat is poorly defined, and the solution is amorphous.

It’s amazing (in a bad way) that Zarkon was this show’s main villain for two seasons. He was killed last episode. And this episode spends only one scene talking about it, having characters reflect on it. Very little of the emotion that should accompany Zarkon’s death actually does in this show. How am I expected to care about the plot development if the show doesn’t have the characters caring about it? This makes the plot have no weight.

There are some points that are technically existent in the episode that would be expected in an episode following Zarkon’s death: Team Voltron has their one scene briefly talking about the power vacuum that is left in the Galra Empire because of Zarkon’s death, and that is mirrored with the Galra commander attacking Olkarion and Haggar seemingly to become Emperor (and become her puppet). But despite being an important part of the on-going arc for the show, they don’t feel prominent enough in this episode. The episode ends up feeling like it only halfway is attending to the show’s story.

[zuspacey]

Hi Zuzu, I hope Im not bothering you with this question but, I want to write a fix-it fic where Shiro and Keith (or potentially the whole team) adresse this amongst other things and you’ve always been vocal about Naxzela. I was wondering your perspective on it and who would initiate this conversation. I understand if you wouldn’t want to answer it and thats fine and just letting you know that you’ve contributed amazing things in this fandom as well as a personal level for me 😊

oh man, sorry for the late reply. I actually saw this ask a few days ago but I wanted to think about this because Naxzela really shook me so much and I have STRONG feeling about it, and I didn’t want to ramble.

I really hoped s8 would acknowledge Keith’s Naxzela in any way. They said they would, at an interview, that Naxzela wouldn’t be glossed over. (disappointed emoji) It was a huge thing for Keith, and I am so sad that Keith was put in a position where he had to make that decision, or rather, that he felt like he had to make that decision. Especially after The Black Paladin ep, where Keith willingly fell to his death with Shiro, if you look at Keith’s face there, it’s painful but at peace. Meanwhile at Naxzela ep, Keith’s face is so strained. It’s so painful and he does not want to do this at all. He’s waiting for impact, for death, for pain. It just breaks my heart and I could never go back to rewatch Naxzela ep because of that.

I’m not sure how they would’ve tackled Naxzela in canon. I certainly don’t see Keith bringing it up himself first. It’s much more likely Matt would, maybe on purpose or maybe by a slip of tongue. I think Keith would’ve asked Matt to keep quite about it. For Keith, by the time of s8, Naxzela would be an old wound. Certainly not healed, but put away for the time being because of all the other things he had to worry about first, and eventually neglected.

If they address it after canon s8, then it’d be more hurtful for the paladins, in the light of Allura’s sacrifice. Keith was apparently going for the exact same thing. Sacrifice of one for the good of the others. They’d be down two friends and not one. It didn’t happen, but it was a very close thing.

I’d love to know YOUR perspective on this, of course!

[azeher]

On Queerbaiting, Bad Voltron Bad, and Adashi

I finally found the time and patience to bring you this post. Take it however you want. Unfollow me, love me, fall in love with Ryan Renolds... Just take your pick.

The only disclaimer I’ll make is that the Voltron crew and the marketing team of DreamWorks are very capable of queerbaiting. I’ve accused them of doing exactly that before, but I was just getting ahead of myself. I just don’t think they’re queerbaiting us after all, not on purpose (the voltron crew at least. The marketing team can go eat a spoiled banana). But at the end this is like the Schrödinger’s Cat, we won’t know until we get to see the very last episode of the final season. I mean, korrasami was queerbait until the very last seconds before the credits rolled.

BUT, the crew has made quite the mistakes along the years, and I’m gonna make a list of them:

1- Opening their mouths. Just really, they should have stayed quiet, taken the initial praising and shown gratitude and that’s it. The very first and biggest mistake they made was thinking it was a good idea to talk about the show to the fandom. Not only they never knew how to handle it, sometimes they forced themselves to lie. By creating such an narrow relationship with the fandom they allowed them to ask them for things they wanted into the show. They allowed them to ask them questions they didn’t know how to answer and sometimes they had to be purposely misleading to avoid spoilers.

2- Believing their own misleading answers. And this is how I know they’re not queerbaiting on purpose. Because they tend to get passionate when promoting the show, they’ve said things in ways that could be misinterpreted by the audience. They think they’re saying something harmless, that the small difference between what they say would happen and what actually happens will translate well, but it’s never the case.

3- Not trying to know their fandom. This isn’t entirely their fault. It’s obvious the fandom they got wasn’t the fandom they were supposed to get. I.e., the fandom should be made up of grown ups that loved the 80s Voltron and came back out of nostalgia, and of little kids looking for cool space battles, and of teens that like action and humor mixed together. Because that was their target audience. Rather they got a fandom pertaining to an entirely different genre. They got people who don’t really care for the plot (don’t even try to argue with this. The hundreds of posts I’ve seen the last three years claiming smt along the lines of “Voltron would have to pay me to watch the show for the plot” prove me right) because it bores them, and are only focused on the one thing the show openly isn’t about: Romance.

4- The writing. Legend of Korra didn’t have perfect writing. Voltron doesn’t either. This studio puts all of its effort and talent out there, you can tell, but they still have a long way to go. Still, what they do is not bad, despite what spiteful people want to make others believe. This studio has some of the most beautiful animation out there and their strengths rely on art, humor, fight sequences, music and very dramatic scenes. Those are the five things they’ve mastered. But their writing and character focus are lacking. This is not something they can’t fix. Instead of trying to drag them down and boycott these amazing and talented artists and writers who are also human beings, we could give them the support they need to improve and keep delivering stories and characters we can fall in love with. I mean, we fell in love with these characters even when the writing wasn’t perfect. This season, whether some of you want to admit it or not, had the best writing they’ve offered so far but to dissect this statement would mean making yet another long post and just no.

5- The characters’ arcs. We’ve already established they don’t know how to write characters or romance. They’re good with other sorts of relationships but romance is the thing they’re worst at. And they also suck at being constant with characters’ arcs. The biggest proof? I didn’t know the fucking protagonist of Voltron was indeed Keith until like season 4, and I only found out cuz I watched some episodes of 80’s Voltron around that time and was struck with the realization. It was impossible to tell because so far all the focus of the story had gone back and forth between Shiro and Pidge. Then Keith and eventually Allura got their own arcs. So, how about Pidge makes that math cuz it doesn’t add up? How was acceptable for them to be unclear about who the central figure in the show was? Keith was introduced as the fourth character. And they even formatted the first half of the first episode so it looked like Lance was the protagonist. The second half they were already giving up on him and turning him into a joke and Shiro finally emerged as the central figure.

6- Romance. So they completely suck at romance and they made a good decision about leaving it out. But did they really? Cuz the show says yes, but the crew’s comments and awkward writing say otherwise. And this is what takes us to the next and saddest mistake:

7- ADASHI. I know you all read this far only to get to this point. I’m gonna include Ezor and Zethrid here as well because they’re also consequence from the previous point. Shiro is an amazing character and him being gay IS indeed a big triumph. We will forever know such a great and important Asian character is canonly gay. But the writers made all the rookie mistakes they could make surrounding his sexuality, AND Ezor and Zethrid’s relationship. Don’t get me wrong, I for once don’t mind these lesbians being on the dark side because they were still pretty badass and cool even though they were villains, but they took their ambiguous villainess too far, which wouldn’t have been a bad thing wasn’t it because they were the only lesbian couple in the show. So rookie mistake number one: Picking the wrong characters to be your representation when you’re gonna be so limited with representation. They also killed them off, which, well, they kinda deserved, but again, they were the ONLY lesbian couple, so how about give them the chance to redeem themselves (and your own writers)?

They introduced Adam and established he and Shiro simply didn’t work together but then killed off Adam without allowing us to get to know him, and without allowing him and Shiro to get some kinda closure. But the crew, again, didn’t know how to handle the way to go about hyping the show, and were yet again misleading by letting us believe we’d spend some time with Adam. They genuinely thought there was nothing wrong with killing him because he was no longer part of Shiro’s life and because war’s like that. So rookie mistake number two: Not being honest about the fate of one of the two confirmed queer characters in the show. When you have so few queer characters, and you really think you had to kill one of them, don’t treat it like a spoiler, BE honest, so the public knows what to expect. Soften the blow. Maybe they could have said he wouldn’t be in the show too long, and we would have made our guesses. Rookie mistake number three: Pick him as one of the casualties. I understand the intention of this was to make Shiro lose someone because of the war, but did it really need to happen? Did Shiro really need to lose someone? I’m sure no big plot point in the story would have changed if Adam had lived. Rookie mistake number four: Kill him before we got to know him and before he talked to Shiro again. If the purpose of his death was to impact Shiro or us, it would have had a much bigger effect if they had had time to interact again.

Now, could Voltron as a whole fix all of these mistakes? Yes. Yes they could. For starters, they should start talking with the truth. That would actually help to heal the fandom a lot. At this point, being quiet won’t serve of any purpose. Now it’s their real time to talk, but honestly.

Second, it all depends on how they wrap season eight. If they’re really planning on making a healthy queer relationship canon and explicit, that could be their salvation. They’d have to do it right, and it is possible, but fairly hard, especially with romance not being their strength.

Third. Adashi. Yes. Again Adashi. Remember when I said I had complicated feelings about what they did to it? Well, aside from what I already said, there’s this extra bit. And it is that they truly could have had a good reason to kill off Adam. I know that it makes you angry, but this is a possibility. Maybe the point is to let Shiro move on, find love again. He’s healthy now, not fearing about dying anytime soon and he’s matured. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes. And there are not reasons to believe Adam won’t be featured in another future flashback that could deliver that sense of closure we and Shiro need. So, in short, the reason I’m not as angry as I should be, is because this can still be addressed in the show.

It’s easy to be pessimistic and not to trust the ending. For all we know, eighth season might be just 13 episodes of quiznak writing and the mice founding their own theme park, but until the box gets opened we won’t know if the cat is dead.

[rhiamimi0310]

Voltron Season 8 (Spoilers)

Wow... just finished watching the final season of Voltron and I've got some mixed emotions. First off, Lance and Allura. I did actually enjoy watching these two together on screen. They were adorable. Most reviews I've read all agree that their relationship was beautiful and blossomed at the perfect time. They also said it felt so natural and expected for the two characters and I would agree, if it weren't for Lotor. Allura had feelings for Lotor before season 7, and was aware of Lance's before she shared a kiss with Lotor. Then, what felt like a week after Lotor's true intentions were revealed, suddenly Allura is making goo-goo eyes at Lance. It feels to much like a rebound to me. If the romantic feelings between Allura and Lotor didn't exist, then I'd believe the relationship. Even Allura finding out Lance's feelings from the mice and her conflict would have been enjoyable because we could watch her reflect on their relationship and realise she felt differently about him compared to the other Paladins. However, thanks to season 5 & 6 I was never able to invest in their relationship fully. Allura's death. Unfortunately, I ended up preparing for her inevitable demise from episode one of the new season. During her date with Lance, she mentioned how she didn't know what she would do once peace was brought to the universe and Voltron would no longer be needed. While Lance was offering her a place in his home and family, I was busy thinking "I wonder how she will die..." This trope of uncertainty of one's future when everything settles always appears in characters who die during a climax. It's an unfortunate cliche that I've seen dozens of times, so I subconsciously distanced myself from Allura this season. That may be why she annoyed me a little this time. However, I actually thought she was going to succumb to darkness and voltron would maybe have to kill her. Imagine how heartbreaking that would be, forcing her Voltron family to defeat her or worse, forcing Lance to be the one who takes the final shot. Thankfully, she got a death fitting of her character. And she stayed dead. Most shows with characters as popular as Allura would find a way to bring her back (which is what I thought was happening when the lions flew away) but they kept her dead, which I admire because then the death has more impact and weight when we know she isn't coming back. But evil Allura would have been fascinating to watch, at least in my opinion. But the show had some good aspects. The other relationships turned out well. While I am a huge Klance shipper, I loved how their friendship came out in this one. It went from brash and chaotic to a deep, respectful connection that was mutual. Pidge and her family had so much fun with their dynamics (Matt wasn't really around but Katie and her parents got a lot of attention). I also love how Hunk's cooking got a better feature. I could watch a show just of Hunk cooking. But it's always pushed to the side because it doesn't seem as important. There's even a moment during "Day Fourty-Seven" where it is dismissed because it's not exciting, yet it becomes the one thing that encourages the Alteans to co-operate. Why? Because we forget that Hunk understands beings. Remember back in season one where he didn't trust Rolo and Nima? He could sense their intentions, but we forget because it's not mentioned a lot and turns back into a loveable idiot. So, I'm glad he's shown as an amazing diplomat due to his understanding of how we react around food. And... we got a gay kiss! It may not have been between the two I wanted to kiss (Klance all the way) but I thought it was sweet. But I was annoyed that I didn't get my Zethrid Ezor kiss. Their lesbian relationship was laid down heavy this season, with the appearance of Ezor turning rage and vengeance filled Zethrid into a soft puppy. There is so much more to talk about but this was really it off the top of my head. There's still some mysteries left, such as where the Olkari are (and if Ryner is dead but I think it was insinuated)? Overall, I don't think I could ever say that this was my favourite series or that enjoyed it completely, but its bittersweet ending feels fitting, some way. However, I will always believe that there are certain things that could always be done better. Such as the speech given as they leave Earth, where Shiro talks about loss and how they won't die in vain. It was the perfect time to flash up Adam's name, giving a sutble nod to their relationship (they even cut to the memorial wall) but instead they show the general who sold Voltron out then saved them before dying an unimpactful death (I think that word doesn't exist but oh well). In the end, I still love Votron just as much as I did before, which is all that matters in my opinion. (I apologise for the scattered format and probable switching between tenses but I wrote this at 3:30 in the morning after binging the season) I totally forgot. Remember how Lance unlocked Alfor's sword? Yeah well that's never resolved or mentioned again. Even Keith activates a new weapon which looks like Lance's but shoots like Hunk's. And he uses it in at least two episodes. The only reason I can think of for them having this upgrade for Lance was just for him to bond with Allura so that their relationship had substance and a base.

[fandomseverywhereassemble]

Heyyyy, it's back!!! This is my first BTHB of 2019, so I hope y'all like it. Today it's Outnumbered in a Fight with Keith, and a Major Character Death warning.

In other news, I made a Patreon! So, if for whatever reason, you like seeing my stuff, and you want to see it early (2 days early), then check me out!

Anyway, here we have some Keith Angst!

---

Honestly, Keith needed to stop getting himself into situations like this.

The Galra occupying this planet had spent no time in surrounding the lone paladin who was grounded when his Lion was shot down. Fire from their guns decimated the ground around him, sending up clouds of dust, making him cough. Taking cover behind a boulder, he lowered his visor so that he could see the rest of the field. There were 12… 13… 15 bodies spread around the field.

Seeing no way out of this situation other than through the chaos, Keith readied his bayard. “Anyone out there who can hear me?” He spoke into his comms, hoping that there was at least one other person who would hear him.

His answer came in incomprehensible static that sounded like Shiro; he took it as a yes. “Alright then. I don’t know if you can understand me, but I’m pinned down here, and it looks like they’re starting to close in on my location.” He paused for a moment to recover his thoughts which were going over thousands of strategies on how to escape.

He sighed heavily. “I’m going to try my best, but… there’s quite a lot of them, and only one of me.” He chuckled softly to himself. “I’m literally bringing a knife to a gun fight.”

There was silence on the other end; maybe that was a good thing then, they wouldn’t have to listen to him probably dying. Struck by instinct, he tapped a few buttons on his arm panel to open a private channel with the black paladin.

“Hey, Shiro?” He spoke quietly, maybe hoping that Shiro wouldn’t hear him, maybe hoping he would. “I just… I wanted to say, that if you’re hearing this, I’m sorry.” Something exploded near his head, causing dust and debris to fall on him. “I think I bit off more than I could chew as you would say. I want you to know that-” He cut himself off as the Black Lion flew overhead, darkening the field for the briefest of seconds and causing a lull in the gunfire.

“Save the rest until we’re back at the Castle, Keith.” His voice came in through the comms. It took all of Keith’s willpower not to jump from where he was now.

Black landed on the other side of the field, shaking the ground with the force of the impact. There was a split second of silence across everything, no one moved or shot as the Galra turned towards their new adversary.

Keith took that as his time to move. He ran to the nearest soldier, the heat signature evident on his visor, and thrust his sword into its back, severing the spine. He already had another dead by the time they realized they had to pay attention to the rogue figure.

Shiro had taken out one of his own, but he was quickly overrun by six more soldiers that made their way to block the two paladins from each other. “How are you doing, Keith?” He asked over their private comm link. “I’ve got a few guys on me, but I can’t see you.”

“I’m doing good. I’ve also got a few guys on me, but nothing I can’t handle.” He brought his sword in a wide arc around him, slicing through the chest plate of one and letting the Galra blood flow free. “I’ve even taken out three guys on my own.”

“Too slow, I’ve got four out by now.” Keith could practically hear the smile in his voice.

“Are we going to count now?” Keith teased, ducking low under a blast from a vantage point he couldn’t see.

“I don’t know, all I know is that I’ve got five and I don’t think you’ve improved much.”

Keith rolled his eyes and turned to face a soldier behind him, sprinting to take it by surprise.

Mistake.

The soldier from a vantage point he couldn’t see had made its second move.

Keith found himself being pushed forward like he had been hit with a large hammer. It caused him to stumble, but when he somersaulted backward to set up a defensive position, he left a bloody imprint where his back had hit the ground. “Shiro,” he breathed heavily into his mic. “I… I think something’s wrong.”

He raised his shield against another blast from the same point, the energy sending a jolt down his arms. He grit his teeth as a similar impact hit his right shoulder.

Panic was evident in Shiro’s voice. “What sort of wrong? Are you okay?”

“For now.”

The words didn’t exactly inspire confidence in either of them, but Keith continued to fight the soldiers until they were literally surrounding him. Were there more? He had only counted 15, and he had killed at least five.

Or was it six?

Four?

One of the soldiers got too close, and Keith swung his sword, expecting to feel the catch of the blade as it bit into flesh or armor or something, but there was nothing. He… he missed.

His head was pounding, but he couldn’t drop his sword or his shield. He allowed himself a slight reprieve by closing his eyes, but when they opened again, not all of the darkness left his vision.

Damn.

He blinked away the spots, but he couldn’t get them to leave. There was something else too, some tiredness that sunk into his bones and made his bayard feel heavy in his arms.

Blood loss. He thought to himself unhelpfully.

“Maybe not so good now.” He spoke, and as something tickled the back of his throat, he coughed wetly, splattering the inside of his helmet with red. “Think, I’ve…” He trailed off, losing his train of thought for a moment. “Think I’ve got a… a problem.”

“Can you hold out for another dobosh or two?” Shiro asked, a strain in his own voice as he took care of soldiers on his own end.

“Try.” Keith coughed again, letting his bayard revert to its resting form before hefting his shield in front of him. The sword would do him no use now. He pushed himself into a somewhat sheltered corner, placing the shield in front of him, and hoping that Shiro could get there faster.

He could see the rest of the Galra coalescing through the blue tint. Then they started firing. The first ten blasts didn’t do much; then it started to flicker. The last defense for his life was flickering in front of his eyes.

The first blast to break through hit his chest, the force of it knocking the air from his lungs. The second blast hit his arm, ensuring that he couldn’t lift his shield again, even if he had the strength. The third blast his shin with enough force to shatter the bone.

The fourth blast hit, and he stopped caring.

---

Shiro found him after.

After he had cut his way through the ranks of soldiers.

After he was bloodied with far more than just his own blood.

After it was over.

He found the alcove that the red paladin had attempted to hide himself in, and he found the red paladin.

If it hadn’t been for the trademark white paladin armor standing out against the sandy planet, he never would have found the other.

“Shiro?” Allura’s voice echoed in his head. That was funny; it was like she was speaking to him from the end of a long hallway. “Shiro, do you copy?”

“Yeah.” He answered, but his voice didn’t sound like his own. It sounded like a different man who wasn’t staring at the broken body of someone he loved more than the universe. It sounded like a different man who still had his life ahead of him.

“Did you find him?”

“Yeah.” Again, it was so much like his voice, but it wasn’t; it couldn’t be.

“We’ll send a healing pod down to you immediately, relay your coordinates.”

“There’s no need.”

“Shiro, relay your coordinates.”

“There’s no point.” Shiro shut his comms off immediately after as he fell to his knees before Keith’s broken body.

“There’s nothing left.” He said to no one.

Of either of us.

[thatgryffinwhore]

My Personal Voltron Season 7 Review

Okay, so I’m seeing a lot of S7 hate and love on here, and I have some opinions of my own, so let’s talk…

(Just so you know, none of my opinions are influenced by which ships did or didn’t get their moment.)

THE BADS:

• First off, I hated the game show episode. Hated it. The only part I liked was the end where they all voted for who should get to leave and gave reasons for it, but then they just cut through a good moment with Keith’s reasoning for picking Lance. Like, totally threw his character development out the window for a jab at Lance, which, ha ha, makes an audience of ten-year-olds laugh I guess. But for older and long-time fans of the show, it just fell short of anything good. The whole episode was full of Lance jabs, too. And Lance has been developing as a character, so I don’t think that was very fair. Here, it’s like the one-sided rivalry all the way back from S1 is back, but this time Keith, the leader, is the petty one. I just really didn’t like that episode. Overall, they were barely in character, character development was completely ignored, and it did not move the plot along What So Ever. Filler episodes were cute in earlier seasons, but this season is the penultimate. There’s sooo many more filler options that could’ve maintained the tone of the season while still being funny and light-hearted.

• Too many new characters. I feel like the writers are digging themselves in a hole here. Don’t get me wrong, I like Romelle, but she’s just… there. In the background. The only scenes where she’s given any screen time are comedic ones, which is great, but she’s just tagging along and the loss of hER ENTIRE CIVILIZATION AND HER BROTHER DYING IN HER ARMS Is never acknowledged. I would’ve liked to have seen a bonding moment between Allura and Romelle, maybe even with Coran. Hell, they could’ve made THAT the filler episode. Aside from Romelle, I feel like they did a good job with Krolia’s character and her bond with Keith, but they haven’t really given us a reason as to why she’s there. What’s her purpose? Too much screen time with too little impact on the plot, in my opinion. Don’t get me started on Acxa. No point. Literally no point. I seriously hope that the writers have plans for her in S8 other than Keith’s love interest. Characters don’t have to fall in love to get closure, but it seems like that might be the “closure” route they’re heading to with Keith and it scares me. It’s such a forced relationship. I don’t mind Keith getting with a girl but shit, at least put him with someone the audience can connect with. A blade member that he fought side-by-side with or something, not “I’m so sorry for being on an evil team, I’m different now” and “don’t you remember how she never wanted to kill him uwu” ugh. Please stop. And I like Griffin’s team, a lot, but I’m not sure what the purpose is of introducing a group of characters with main-character potential with only one season left. Maybe it’s a surprise, or maybe they just did it so the audience could be better invested in the flashbacks about what happened to Earth.

• The??? Fucking getting lost in space??? How? Like, I sort of understand the purpose: Keith’s been separated from the team for a while, and they need to re-establish their bond. However, it seems like Keith’s character development has been ignored again, and he’s reverted back to S1 Keith, which is really annoying. I was rolling my eyes the whole time. Like, I get it, they’re going a little space-crazy, and they’re gonna turn on each other a bit. But it’s like the writers forgot that they aren’t in S1 and S2 anymore, or at least that’s how it felt to me. Angsty Keith, *yawn* been there, done that. He’s an adult now. And their leader. They could’ve gone about re-forging the paladins’ bonds another way. Not to mention, the time-lighting thing was never explained, never made any sense. Oh! And guess what else was ignored? The characters figured out a long freakin time ago that they could call out to their lions for help, did they just forget?

• Shiro and Keith practically don’t interact throughout the entire season, besides ep 1. Again, I kind of get it. They dedicated an entire episode to their bond, last season and this one. I’m not looking for more proof of their bond, but they need to talk about Shiro being dead, Keith fighting his clone, and Keith willingly falling to his death with Shiro. They’ve both got to be traumatized on some level, and it’s not even acknowledged. Like, what are the writers afraid of? Are they afraid that the Sheith shippers will get their hopes up? Are they afraid Klance shippers will get mad? Are they afraid people will get bored of Shiro and Keith interacting? Did they just not have enough time to address it (*cough* game show episode *cough*)? Like, regardless of the reasoning, a lot of shit happened between the two that needs to be talked about. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter if the writers intend for them to be like brothers or best friends or something more, that kind of stuff needs closure. Shiro probably has nightmares about dying/being dead and trying to kill his team. Keith probably has flashbacks of the first person other than his dead father to care about him trying to murder him and saying he should’ve abandoned him. Writers, please, even a thirty second conversation would suffice if it’s done well. They at least need a

“I’m sorry I tried to kill you, Keith.”

“It wasn’t you, Shiro. I’m sorry I didn’t know you were dead.”

“It’s okay, you saved me from that darkness. I thought I was going to be there forever.”

Then they hug and go on their ways. That’s it! That’s the bare minimum. That would’ve sufficed. Shiro’s obviously got some heavy inner monologue, why push it off to S8 or ignore it completely?

• And for my last bad, we have: killing Adam. This isn’t about shipping; I really didn’t care if Shiro and Adam got back together or not. But they deserved closure. Shiro deserves closure. I know Shiro’s the “stoic leader” but he has feelings, and the writers just keep making bad shit happen to him and never address how it’s affected him. Listen, Shiro is an LGBT+ rep regardless of whether he’s in a relationship, as long as he isn’t killed off. But give him some depth. The closest thing to that we’ve gotten so far is knowing that he (used to have?) muscular dystrophy, and seeing his memories of Keith. Other than that, where’s his backstory? His reason for joining the Garrison? His family? How his adventures have affected him mentally? Adam could’ve been the window to all of that, but they killed off an opportunity. If they wanted to highlight the loss of war, they could’ve killed one of Lance’s many family members, or one of Hunk’s; but Adam, as far as we know, was all Shiro had to come back to. He was the only way that they could’ve taken Shiro and made him into a more complex character. Besides that, I don’t think it’s right that they had us anticipating meeting this queer character for nearly an entire season before revealing he’d died. It’s not as bad as when some shows kill off queers, but still… I hope they give Shiro a romantic interest in someone else; queer representation includes healthy queer relationships and happy endings.

Overall for the bads, in my opinion, this is the gist of it: Character development was ignored at times. Some of the writing was lazy. Too many characters/plot point, too little time. Not addressing major issues with characters. And… queerbaiting. You don’t have to agree, but this is my opinion on queerbaiting: it isn’t black and white. Sometimes it’s terrible, sometimes it’s just a little annoying. Voltron killed off a queer character, but he wasn’t a main, and he wasn’t the only queer, and we didn’t know him. On the other hand, he was the only other (confirmed) queer character’s love interest. On a queerbaiting scale of 1-10, I’d call it a 5. Like I said, it’s partly redeemable if they give Shiro another male love interest.

THE GOODS:

• Shiro’s flashbacks of Keith. We’ve been seeing since S1 how much Keith cares about Shiro, and now we finally get a glimpse of Shiro caring about Keith. The “we saved each other” line. The flashbacks paired with Keith’s desperation really cemented that bond that they started showing us in S6, and little Keith was adorable. It was also important to get a little more background on Keith, it tied up all the loose ends from Keith and Krolia’s time in the quantum abyss. Also in ep 1, the humor was top-notch. The writers managed to make comedy out of a dire situation for the paladins, and Romelle seemed to fit in very well! And I find it impressive that shifting back and forth between the funny, light-hearted adventure of the others and the solemn, tense situation in the Black Lion didn’t kill the mood of either plot line. It will come as no surprise to you that ep 1 was my favorite of the season; probably one of my favorites in the series.

• Having Krolia separate from the team. Don’t get me wrong, I love Krolia. She’s a great mom and her relationship with Keith was written perfectly; it checked all the boxes for my hopes when Keith finally met his mother. But she was older and more mature than the paladins; she didn’t fit in. In her heart, she’s a member of the Blade, and she knows she’s more useful to the cause as a spy and fighting alongside Kolivan. I’m glad that they didn’t undercut my love for Krolia by having her awkwardly tagging along. And the writers kicked fragile masculinity’s ass with the goodbye scene between Keith and Krolia. The soft smiles, the “I love you”s, the hugs, and KeiTH GIVING HER HIS BLADE THAT HES HAD SINCE HE WAS A BABY BECAUSE HE KNEW HED SEE HER AGAin those were all wonderful. Everything about the mother/son relationship between Keith and Krolia, from the moment they met to the moment they said goodbye, was perfectly executed. They took their time with it. Kudos to the writers for that.

• Character development. Barring everything I said in the ‘BADS’ because I don’t want to be repetitive, the character development in S7 was phenomenal. We have Lance taking on more leadership responsibilities, stepping up, protecting people he cares about at the risk of his own life, and respecting Keith as the team leader. In this season, I’ve grown to respect Lance a lot (ha) more. And we finally get some background on Hunk, we see him missing his family and home, we see him crying, being frustrated about it. We see him opening up to Keith. Keith, of all people (maybe Keith was the only one who asked). Either way, I love the depth they gave Hunk, and I love the acknowledgement of Keith and Hunk’s friendship, especially after that lost in space scene. And Keith’s character development, omg. It was the best. He was a leader before, but now, he could give Shiro a run for his money. Maybe he already did. The team respects him unhesitatingly. He leads them out of every life-or-death situation on top. He helps them forge a closer bond with their lions than they’ve ever had before, on more than one occasion. And he does something that’s really hard for him, which is asking someone else (Hunk) to open up to him. He offers to listen to his teammate’s worries. His fighting (mostly hand-to-hand combat) skills are clearly the best we’ve seen in the show, right on the same level with Shiro. When he killed that Druid without seeing him I was like 😯, and when hE LAUNCHED OUT AN AIRBORNE LION AND SLICED THROUGH SENDAK LIKE HE WAS NOTHING BECAUSE SHIRO WAS IN DANGER I Was like 😲!!!

• The animation was outstanding. I know the poor animators were busting their asses, especially during those last few episodes. It’s got to be the best animation I’ve seen in the show so far (besides the ‘The Black Paladins’ animation in S6, it sent me into another dimension). In fact, VLD has some of the best animation I’ve ever seen in shows of its kind, and that’s saying something. Those fight scenes get you so immersed, and they’re like a visual orgasm.

• This one is more opinion than anything else, so I’ll keep it short, but I love how they showed the fighting spirit of Earth. How humanity never gives in. I think that’s part of why everyone enjoyed those flashback episodes of Earth so much; the audience felt they could relate to those people, and they felt proud to call themselves human. In the show, while interrogating Sendak’s memories, they asked, “What do you do if a planet refuses to give up?” (Referring to Earth). And Sendak basically says, “We destroy it, but the only planet who’s ever refused to give up is Altea.” And I. Love. That. Time and time again, we’ve been shown how smart and powerful the Alteans were, and now we’re being compared to them. I love the overall way that the writers handled the paladins’ return to Earth. I love the paladins’ interactions with Griffin’s team, I love the Alteans integrating easily with humans, I love humanity’s resilience being showcased, I love the reunions, I love Keith’s interaction with Iverson, and, most of all (some people won’t agree with me on this), I love that humans already knew about aliens and the Galra when Voltron returned. I would have dreaded them having to go through quarantine, and being called crazy, and having to fight against the Garrison, and whatnot. I just love how most of the last few episodes were handled; it was mostly the middle of the season that I had issues with.

Overall for the goods: I liked getting a little insight into how much Shiro cares for Keith. I liked ep 1 a lot. I liked how well they handled everything about Krolia. I liked the character development and background that we FINALLY get throughout the season. The amazing animation. Enough said. And the way the writers wrote Earth, in the flashbacks and in the present.

Overall for the season: I don’t think it completely tanked. I think too much of people’s opinions are based on ships, but I agree that this was not the best season, and it fell short in a lot of areas. It was a little disappointing, but not un-redeemable, and I think everyone who’s saying “fuck Voltron” and swearing to never watch it again is a bit ridiculous and childish, tbh. Disagree if you want, but that’s my opinion and last I checked, I was allowed to have one.

Alright, let me know if I left anything out! Feel free to add anything or share your opinion, even if it’s negative, I want to know your thoughts!

[beanymachine]

Voltron Season 6 Review

Hello, welcome to my Review! I hope what I say makes you think and see a different perspective on the show. If you want to say what you think I’d love to hear it! 

Anyways I’m going to list a lot of stuff I thought was well executed. The episodes did a good progression of an eerie feeling grow more and more. The first episode helps start this tone with Shiro getting headaches from Haggar, Lance dying and being revived, and Hunk learning more about the Galra’s history and culture. This and other parts of the episode help set up some important stuff throughout the season:

-What’s up with Shiro?

-Lance and Allura’s relationship and well as Allura and Lotor

-Culture

-And power (quintencess or however you spell it)

The second episode of the series then talks about Keith and his past, to start finishing the development of his character and the problems he had. Keith’s journey is also important as it leads to Lotor’s backstory and motives. Another thing the episode does is bring in a major theme of the season: Love.

Throughout the season we see how Lance deals with the fact that he IS in love with Allura and how Allura and Lotor are getting closer and closer. And we see how love can hurt when it doesn’t work out between two people, or when it isn’t reciprocated.

You know, like how Allura called out Lotor and made him flip his lid.

But we also deal with familial love. In Keith’s past we see how he was when he had a whole family and how they all loved each other (Keith was a baby so he’s really just goo goo ga ga). And how Krolia loves Keith and at one point hugged him to try to shield him from a wave of whatever.

There is also the very big and impactful scene where Keith and Shiro are battling and he tells Shiro to please stop because he’s his brother and that he loves him. It made the Possessed Clone Shiro twitch and hesitate, and then tried telling Keith to give up on him. And Keith even decides to die with him because he won’t leave him alone or give up on him, just like he did for Keith. And luckily the original Shiro and Keith are able to reunite.

Back to the tone of dread, the season does well building up to multiple climax points, like how Lotor’s dirty secret is found out, Clone Shiro being discovered as a clone and him and Keith fighting, the big battle with Voltron vs Lotor and how Lotor losing his mind, and him eventually being left to supposedly die in the quintencess realm.

The Animation was stellar (Haha get it? I’ll go now) with the fight scene of Clone Shiro vs. Keith, Lotor going mad, and the big Voltron fight.

Also it was a good choice to put Monsters and Mana for a breather episode right before things start going downhill.

Lotor’s fall into madness was excellent too along with his animation and expressions.

I’m also glad Hunk got a bit of spotlight. I know people say he doesn’t get much of a chance to rise and shine, but honestly do you really want to see him go through possibly a lot of emotional or physical pain? Plus it seemed like he was developed basically in the first season and pretty much fully developed I think. I can understand if people want more chances for him to shine. He did use his canon a lot in the last battle of this season so hopefully that will be enough for some. It’s enough for me at least.

With this being said, I’m now going to point out some things that I think could’ve been improved.

1. Keith’s abandonment issues and the two year timeskip, as well as the message sends.

Keith I’m sure is almost done developing and is almost whole like Pidge and Hunk. But the way it was done was good but left some stuff out.

First, the last season left off Keith’s relationship with his mom to be a startling new one that most would expect to be in anger and why Krolia left and the demand for answers. And we get that at the beginning of Razor’s Edge. However Keith doesn’t freak out as much as I’d suspect he would when he sees visions of his past. But what I do not like most is the two year time skip.

Keith apparently spends two years with Krolia on that space whale. That leaves many questions as to how he and Krolia talked about Keith’s issues. How did he deal with his fear that he’ll be abandoned or he’s not wanted, or that he thinks he has to prove himself useful and fast in fear of not being wanted? How did Krolia react and try to parent Keith in their strained relationship? Was their relationship even strained for long? If I found my space mom I never met before and she left me as a baby, and didn’t tell me immediately why she left, I’d be really upset and demand answers as fast as I could get it.

Also in this time Keith matured and grew. He became less hasty and when he case back to the team he immediately took the Black Lion without being scared of being a good leader or replacing Shiro. He grew that much! He went from point A to point B, but we never saw it. It’s a vital thing to see how he learned and healed from whatever he was dealing with, not just for viewers, but to perhaps reflect real life as well. I think we should’ve seen it in case anyone was dealing with the same problems as Keith and understood him as well as his thinking from the help of his mom to grow, live, and move on.

Instead we get a timeskip and miss out two years of Keith’s life. And we STILL don’t know his relationship with his mom! Are the cool now? Does he understand and forgive her? Is he at least comfortable being around her or are they at least friendly? Or are they on good terms and on the path to having a good mother and son relationship?

Also, WHAT’S THE DOG’S NAME??? Keith basically took a two year vacation with his mom and had a dog of his own. Like he got to live a little bit of the childhood that he lost without his mother. And I think that’s pretty important. It is a nice thought of how Keith got to be happy, heal, and relax with a dog he got to have and probably loves, while spending time with his mom. But we don’t know if it’s really that or he just was stuck on a whale with his unknown mom and his dog as his closest thing to a friend in a very awkward situation.

Not only that but there’s another message I don’t like as well. Maybe I interpreted wrong. It also may be a situation where one message can be sent or the other and both are equally important.

The idea that you need to know your past, who was in it, to find out who you are. Sure, the past crafts us into the person we are today, and anyone who is an orphan has the right to find out their past. But what you do in the present, and how you move on from you or others’ past mistakes to move forward is what makes you who you are. If you are trying to become a better person from mistakes you made, then you’ll slowly change into the person that you want to be.

It is good to know what runs in your blood and what race you are- Galra or Altean. But it matters to you as a living being what you do, what you want to do, how you need to get there, and if you are going to change or need to.

I thought Keith would learn about his past and see that his real family was with Shiro and the Voltron team. They were with him in a lot of life and death battles. I thought he was going to see more of how important they are to him. But it’s also the fact that no one stopped him or mentioned they missed Keith. I mean I’m sure they did but no one vocalized. Either meaning that they thought it was something they thought that wasn’t needed to be said, or that he wasn’t that important. Which is a lie since many of them hug him goodbye and some tear up when Keith is leaving for the Blade of Momora.

Hopefully they’ll tell us what he did during the two year timeskip for Keith in the next season or in the future and this is all part of their plan for the show. If not... I don’t know what to say yet.

2. The Altean Lady

The Altean Lady, or Romelle is the one that tells us of what Lotor did for the remaining Alteans and what he did with them. I would be fine if she was just introduced to bring his backstory and not be another in depth side character. But the thing is, I’m not sure if the writers were trying to chracterize her by giving her her side of the past or not.

Romelle is supposed to be a survivor and tell the crew what’s up with Lotor. She does this while telling of how her brother was caught up in it and how she reacted to it. And if this is her backstory or another one then it’s fine. But the way Keith introduced her to team Voltron made me think she was going to be a kinda important or at least a vocalized side character for the rest of the season. She takes the light for one episode, but then is just in the background later on. She reacts the same with the paladins when Shiro is on the ground in the last episode, but they way she is shown makes it seem like she is reacting strongly. Why should she? She doesn’t know these people. And yes I’d be sad or upset at seeing someone die, but it made her seem like she knew him when she didn’t.

And she’s still in the background and looks a bit plain but has enough detail on her for you to think “oh, her design makes her seem like she’ll be important this season as not just a reason for Lotor’s motivation and crimes, but as a person too) but that doesn’t happen. Maybe I’m confused on all this and maybe they’ll do something with her next season and characterize her. I hope they don’t think by giving her backstory will be enough characterization.

3. I want friendship darn it!

I wanted to see more friendship between Keith and Lance. I honestly thought these two would reunite and join together to somehow find the real Shiro. Maybe this is my own fault.

It’s just there were that red and blue star in the astral plane and I thought “oh hey, it’s foreshadowing that they are the only two that will be able to save Shiro”. I also thought that because they were both having issues about their place on the team and whether they think they are valued as not just teammates but as people and friends too. I thought the two would become closer as friends and be there to support each other and figure the puzzle pieces out as to why Shiro is acting weird and be the main characters or this season. That’s what I predicted anyway.

Also maybe I interpreted the trailer for Season 6 wrong because it made it seem like Keith and Lance’s reunion would be significant to the plot of the season. And maybe the trailer was going for that. Either way I don’t think it would’ve been the writers and animators fault but maybe the people who edited the trailer instead. But it’s not a big deal.

But now after this season, perhaps the red and blue star forshadowed the candidates closest to contacting Shiro and finding out about the Clone stuff. Or maybe it was foreshadowing Allura and Lances relationship to possible become romantic since they pilot the Red and Blue lions (I saw someone say something about this, I don’t know who said it but if you know please tell me. Just know I didn’t think that up myself or got inspired from it!)

But the stars appeared during season 2 right? So maybe it was referencing the red and blue lion switching pilots. Or the thing it’s foreshadowing still hasn’t come yet and it’s still possibly about Keith and Lance since those are their basic trademark colors.

To add to this I wish I could’ve seen more on how Pidge and Hunk reacted when they saw Keith’s return and change, as well as his family and some random Altean. It seemed only Lance really noticed which now makES ME FURTHER THINK THEIR RELATIONSHIP WILL DEVELOP MORE! ARE THEY FRIENDS OR WHAT?! SEASON 3 MADE IT SEEM LIKE THEY WERE BECOMING CLOSE FRIENDS AT LEAST AND NOT DUMB CLICHÉ RIVALRY!!!

I don’t know we’ll have to wait and see... again.

One last subject I want to note is how people are fearing Lance will be a rebound to Allura’s fast relationship and breakup with Lotor.

I know I don’t discuss ships on here, but if it’s strongly implied one character loves another one, then I’ll probably talk about it or do art on it.

Anyways, there’s no evidence Lance will be used like that from Allura of the creators yet. Allura knows Lance loves her, and knew he really, really does (or maybe did?). Not a crush but a love that can blossom into a romantic relationship. She knows this but still goes after Lotor. And I’m okay with that.

She chose Lotor because she had stronger feelings for him at that time. She didn’t feel the same way about Lance, but during Monsters and Mana, I think she saw Lance in a different light. And she didn’t really try to create feelings just because she knew Lance has some for her since those wouldn’t be true feelings and just pity, at least that’s how I saw it. After the whole thing with Lotor, perhaps she’ll think more about what to do about the two of them later.

The thing is now there are two paths. Down one, Allura deals with her breakup at a normal time and moves on, so that if she does have a romantic relationship with Lance, it will have a hopefully healthy start and actually grow to be a strong healthy one.

One another path, is the one where she tries to get over Lotor immediately and some time passes and grows to fall for Lance, but it can possibly lead to issues as to whether or not she does love Lance or had strong feelings for him, or is still confused and not completely over Lotor, or has some feelings for Lance but it hasn’t let them grown enough yet to let her possibly be in love with him and they try to date but it ends when the her feelings haven’t grown strong enough and the chances of them being together die out.

Or, there’s the third out-of-no where path where it’s nothing we guessed and we are all wrong and it’s something maybe we should’ve seen coming, or it’s an out of no where development.

Either way, we’ll probably know next season if Lance and Allura’s relationship will be endgame or stay friends, or happen but won’t work out and hopefully stay as friends.

Well, that’s my review of the season. It was my first time waiting for a new season of the show, and I guess now I’m more attached to the characters and the show. At first I really wanted to watch it just to know what’s going on and see people’s reaction to the season. It’s still that and I’m happy and laughing at some reactions because they resonate a bit with me and let me feed on their emotion (mwahahaha) but it’s also that I wanted to see if I would like the show more when getting hyped about it or people’s reactions and the payoff it would give. And I’d say it was pretty good!

So, uh... yeah! Thanks for reading! If you want to talk about stuff you can comment on this post! I’d love to hear what you have to say about the season and what you think is in store or what to expect.

Well now I hope we get the release date for the next season soon! But that’s probably wishful thinking. I just heard that they did that after the last season was realeased immediately. But that’s okay. The crew deserves a break after their hard work. And there’s so much art, comics, memes, and more we can make from this new season, so we’ll live for now. Heheh.

Thanks for reading! Bye! Have a nice day!

[exasperatedfey]

Til’ Death Do Us Part

For @anxiousboitm, you said you wanted this.

Warnings: Some violence, major character death. RatedT

Lance was fidgeting with the cuffs of his borrowed Altean regalia when Hunk knocked on his door. He was dressed in similar clothing, but in yellow rather than blue. “We’re ready to start when you are Lance.”

“Thanks. I’ll be down in a minute.”

Hunk was quiet for a moment as he assessed Lance. He could practically feel Hunk zeroing in on his bloodshot eyes and the dark circles that rested beneath them. “Everyone will understand if you get cold feet. This a big deal,” he said finally.

Lance waved his hand dismissively. “No, I’m fine dude. Do you have the rings?”

“Yeah.” Hunk pulled them out of his pocket. Lance nodded and Hunk handed them over to him. Lance slipped on the one with wave patterns carved in a stone that when moved, appeared to be on fire. He put the other, a blue one with fire patterns carved into it, in his pocket. They had been a gift from a grateful planet Voltron had saved.

“You go on ahead. I need a moment.”

Hunk shot his friend a concerned look, but did as he asked.

Lance took a shaky breath as he took a look at he and Keith’s shared room. There hadn’t been enough time for it to change. Keith’s gloves were still on the bedside table, along with his knife. His spare pair of shoes was still in the corner. Even his belt was still draped over a chair.

  Part of Lance was tempted to see if the pillow still smelled like him. But he pushed that notion aside. There would be plenty of time for that later. If he laid down Lance wasn’t sure he’d get up in time for the ceremony.

 So Lance steeled his nerves and picked up a bouquet of flowers that somewhat resembled lilies. Lance smiled faintly. Keith had pointed them out in the middle of battle. Come to think of it, doing things during a battle was a habit of Keith’s. Take, for example, their first kiss.

Things were not looking good for team Voltron. The Galra had somehow found out about their plans to raid the nearest Galra jail and had sent a pretty hefty fighting force. Lance was perched in a balcony firing at anyone who came close to the team. Keith was nowhere to be seen, which worried Lance more than he wanted to admit. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind. No time to think about now. He’d look for Keith after the fighting was over.

Suddenly he heard a war cry come from behind him. Lance stayed where he was, firing at another soldier that got too close to Pidge. He braced himself for impact until he heard the unmistakable sound of a sword tearing through armor and flesh. “Nice of you to join the party,” quipped Lance.  

He could hear the grin in Keith’s voice and had he not been focused on not dying, Lance probably would have had a mini heart-attack. “Glad to be here.” There was a pause, broken by Keith cursing under his breath.

“What is it?” asked Lance, not taking his eyes of the battle. BAM. Another Galra soldier dropped dead mid-fight with Shiro.

“We’ve got company.”

“How much?”

“A lot.”

“Think you can hold them off? The corridor is narrow enough to give you the advantage.”

“Definitely. It’s what I’m here for.” Lance cursed his heartbeat for speeding up. This boy was going to be the death of him one day.

“Thanks man.” Another soldier trying to sneak up behind Hunk fell with a satisfying thud.They quickly fell into a rhythm, Lance shooting and Keith slashing. Gradually, Lance noticed some of the Galra were moving back inside the building.

“Lance! We got all the prisoners out so we’re going to blow the place soon. Get out of there!” ordered Shiro over the comms.

 “Got it. Keith!”

 “I heard. Just one problem, we’re still under fire.”

 Lance looked over his shoulder to find that there was a line of Galra in the corridor. He looked at the ceiling of the corridor. It was barely holding on. “Keith, duck!”

 Keith dropped to the ground and Lance fired at the soldier he had been fighting, then at the ceiling. It fell apart just like he had planned. Unlike how Lance had planned, the balcony started to crumble as well.

 “Fuck. We’re going to have to jump,” he called.

 Keith nodded and grabbed his hand (Lance filed the moment away in his brain to overanalyze when they were back on the ship and flying away from this darned planet). They launched themselves off the railing and free-fell for a few stories before their jetpacks kicked in. It was not a pretty landing but both boys were able to pick themselves up again and start running to the ship. Out of the corner of his eye, Lance saw a Galra sentry take aim at Keith. Oh no. Not on his watch. Without even thinking Lance turned around and fired.

 “Lance what the-!” Keith’s eyes widened when he saw the fallen sentry. His face clouded over in a thousand different emotions, each passing far too quickly for Lance to decipher until he settled on determination. “Fuck it” he said said before pulling Lance into a kiss.

 It was rough and messy. But Lance couldn’t complain. There was so much energy he could swear he felt something explode. Until he realised that something was the building behind them. They may never have pulled away if Pidge hadn’t cut in on the comms. “While I’m glad you two have finally gotten it together, you are kind of in a war zone. Please get back to the ship.”

 “Yeah, got it. Thanks Pidge.” Lance grabbed Keith’s hand again and the two paladins made a break for the ship.

  Lance touched his lips absently. He swore he could feel the tingle of electricity from that kiss, and all the kisses that had followed it. He tried to take his time walking to the Castle’s ballroom. Since it was the fanciest, Allura had deemed it the most appropriate to hold the event. Lance would normally agree, but it was too large for such a small gathering.  Anywhere but there would have been fine. Anywhere that didn’t feel so empty.

 He he rounded the corner and heard a clang followed by a familiar voice muttering “Quiznack”.

 “Hi Pidge.”

 She looked up from tinkering with her robot and gave a small smile. “Hi Lance.”

 “You ready?”

 “Almost. Lassie’s circuit malfunctioned last minute. It’s arm won’t hold the flowers.”

 “Want some help?” Lance offered.

 “No thanks. I’ve just about got it.” A wire fizzled and Lassie’s lights dimmed. “Quiznack. Alright, maybe not ‘just about’, but I’ll get there.”

 “Take your time. It’s not like me or Keith are going anywhere.”

 Pidge paused. “I guess not. But still, Lassie will be ready to carry those flowers in just a few ticks.”

 “Like I said, there’s no rush. Mind if I hang out with you until you’re done with repairs?”

 “Be my guest.”

 “Thanks”.

 Pidge hummed in assent and went back to her work. There was silence between the two friends leaving Lance’s thoughts time to wander. Now that he really thought about it a lot of the big milestones in his and Keith’s relationships happened in the middle of a battle. Like them officially getting together.

 It had been a few weeks after the kiss and something had changed between Lance and Keith. Neither of them had gotten the chance to talk about it due to being in the middle of the war, but it was definitely something. At least lance knew that Keith shared some of his feelings and he could stop pining from afar. So there was that.

 But they were currently embroiled in a particularly gnarly battle with the Galra, so those thoughts would have to wait.

 Lance shot another hover chariot’s gas tank and dropped to the ground as it exploded overhead. He shot a pair of enemy feet and then again in the chest.

 “Thanks Lance,” called Keith.

 “No problem. Duck.”

 Keith dove to the ground and sliced a pair of enemy feet off while Lance took the shot. Keith jumped back up and stabbed the soldier through the chest.

 “Are you copying me mullet?” Lance asked with a wink.

 “Maybe.” A sentry fell to the ground missing it’s head.

 “Well you know what they say, imitation is the highest form of flattery.” the Galra soldier that had been charging at them collapsed sporting a brand-new hole through its throat. “Are you trying to flirt with me Keith?”

 He snorted. God he had a cute snort. A cute everything actually. “I think I’ll leave that to you. Flirting is more your forte.” He dodged a shot and feinted to a soldier’s right, slashing them open at the last minute.

 “I’m glad we can agree on that.” Lance took aim at a Galra drone and fired. It exploded and set off a chain reaction of all the smaller drones it had been controlling.

 “But while we’re on the subject….” Keith jumped onto a sentry’s back and beheaded it from behind. His face reddened, but that may have been from the heat of battle. “If we get out of this alive, do you want to go steady with me?”

 Now Lance’s face matched Keith’s. He shot a sentry without looking behind him. It fell with a CLANG. “Sorry, could you run that by me again?”

 “Do you want to make this, whatever this is between us, a thing? Like, a real thing? Not something where we just flirt during training occasionally and maybe steal a kiss once in awhile? A real thing.” Keith took out his nervousness by beheading 10 sentries in one fell swoop.

 Lance was so surprised by the question he almost missed his next target. Almost.

 “If you don’t want to, that’s fine. Forget I asked-” Keith brought down a sentry by kicking it in the chest and slicing it in half.

 “YES!” Lance shouted.

 “I shouldn’t have bothered-wait, what?”

 “Yes! I’ll go out with you!” Lance was so happy he could have flew all the way back to Earth. He settled for blowing a Galra soldier’s brains out. “If we survive this, let’s start with a date on the bridge. Just the two of us.”

 “I’d like that”. Keith smile was so big it was in danger of breaking his face, and Lance’s was the same.

 “Congrats you guys,” chimed Hunk over the comms. “Now can we please go back to fighting? Can’t go on that date if you’re dead.”

 “You got it big guy,” Lance responded. The two fell back into their usual rhythm, but smiled the entire time they fought.

 “I’m done,” announced Pidge, breaking Lance out of his trip down memory lane.

 “Awesome.”

 She packed up her stuff and dusted her own fancy outfit as she rose.”You coming?”

 “Yeah, I’ll catch up. You go on ahead.”

 Pidge pursed her lips but made her way to the ballroom with Lassie in tow. Lance stayed where he was for a while before following, although at a slower pace. He traced the carvings on the wall as he went, wondering not for the first time what they meant.

 He paused for a moment in front of one particularly interesting one when Coran came around the corner. “Lance m’boy! How are you?”

 “A little nervous I guess, but fine.” Lie. Lance doubted anybody was feeling “fine” today.

 “It’s the big day today.”

 “Yeah.”

 Coran’s smile was replaced with a more concerned expression. “You don’t have to be there Lance. Not if you don’t want to.”

 “That’s what Hunk said. I’m fine Coran, really.” There was that lie again. Lance forced a smile to try and sell it.

 Coran looked skeptical but shrugged. “If you say so.”

 “I do. Really.” Not technically a lie. Feeling and saying were two different things.

 “Want to walk with me there?”

 “Sure.” The two fell into a thankfully slower pace, as Coran sensed Lance’s reluctance. Something Lance was grateful for. While he wanted to get there, Lance was in no hurry. Acknowledging it made it more real.  

 His mind once again went back to memories to distract himself from what he was walking towards. Keith had really liked to use battle as a starting point for them. Even their first “I love you” had been said while kicking Galra ass. Though to be fair, that one had been his fault too.  

 It seemed the universe had made a habit of putting Team Voltron in tight spots, thought Lance as he fired through a line of sentries.

 “Nice shot!” called Keith as he slashed a drone in half as he dangled from the ceiling by one arm. Much to Lance’s relief, he dropped down and started fighting another soldier. Lance had said before and he would say it again, loving this boy was going to kill him one of these days.

 “Thanks babe! You’re doing pretty good yourself!” Lance dropped to one knee to take out a hover chariot. The explosion lit the sky and the battleground, allowing Lance to see that across the canyon, a makeshift booth was set up with Galra soldiers and sentries frantically pushing buttons. “Keith!”

 “I see it!” Keith split a Galra’s head open like a cantaloupe. “Can you hit them?”

 “No,” Lance fired at another sentry. “It’s too far away. But I can hit the canyon if I get close enough.”

 Keith was silent as he slashed through the ranks for a moment. “Do you think you could fire a line to the other side?”

 Lance smirked. “Thought you’d never ask. Shiro? Did you hear the plan?

 “Yes. Do it, we’ll be fine. But be careful. That station looks heavily guarded.”

 “Got it.” Lance and Keith broke into a run mowing down anything that stood in their way. When they got to the canyon’s edge, Lance grabbed Keith’s shoulder. “Wait. since we might die, i have something to say to you.”

 Keith blinked. “So do I actually. On three?”

 Lance nodded. “One, two, three, I LOVE YOU!” they yelled in unison. The two stared at each other before sharing a quick but passionate. Lance fired the line. “Go, I’ll be right behind you.” He felt his grin threaten to split his face in two.

 Keith nodded, to happy to give a verbal response. Those Galra soldiers didn’t even stand a chance.

 “Lance? Are you alright?” asked Coran.

 Lance shook himself out of the daze. “Yeah I’m fine. I was just remembering.”

 Coran nodded. The two turned down another hallway in silence until Lance saw that Shiro’s door was open. He took a quick glance inside to find Shiro sitting on his bed staring into space. He looked like a mess. Not that Lance could blame him. “I thought Hunk said everyone was ready?”

 “I think that was just to get you moving. Worked didn’t it?”

 “Yeah.” Lance glanced back at Shiro. “You go on ahead Coran. I’m going to check on Shiro. We’ll be along in a minute.”

 Coran nodded and quickened his pace. Lance went up to Shiro’s door and knocked. “Can I come in?”

 Shiro looked up. “Oh, hi Lance. Go ahead.” Lance entered and sat down on the chair next to the bed.

 “Are you ready to go?”

 The question made Shiro jolt in surprise. “Yeah. I just gotta finish buttoning up.”

 “Take your time. But you should probably shave and fix your hair too dude.”

 He shrugged, still staring off into space. Lance sighed and hunted down a razor. Shiro didn’t move the entire time even when Lance accidentally nicked him. The whole thing reminded Lance of his visits to 98 year old great-grandfather. Not exactly a pleasant thought.  Especially when he realized that if and when Shiro’s parents died, Lance would be his only family. What would he do then? Lance didn’t want to replace Keith as a brother, but what could he do?

 For a moment there was silence between the two as Lance worried and Shiro stared at the wall until he whispered, “Lance?”

 “Mm?” He paused combing his leader’s hair.

 “I’m sorry.” Shiro’s eyes were suspiciously watery. “I am so, so sorry. You two were supposed to be happy. For once I could step back and not have to worry about my baby brother. And when I do-’

 “Stop right there buddy. What happened was not your fault. We were all there and yet…” Lance finished parting Shiro’s hair and started working on his buttons. “But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry too. You lost a lot that day too.”

  “Thank you.” Silence filled the air between the two friends, but it was slightly less awkward. Once again, Lance felt himself drifting back down  memory lane while he finished with the final touches on Shiro’s suit. This time to how he and Keith had gotten engaged.

 The fight had started out as a quick little skirmish on some far-off planet, but it soon escalated to a full out battle. It was nothing Team Voltron couldn’t handle, but that didn’t mean they were having a good time. Except maybe Keith. In the two years they had been together, Lance noticed that Keith tended to use fighting to let out his angst. And Keith had a lot of angst.

 This was fine (with “fine” being a relative term. Lance’s would be much happier if Keith ever decided to find a less dangerous way to work through his anger. Like yoga). But sometimes it lead to Keith getting himself into tight spots. Like now for instance. Keith was surrounded by six Galra soldiers and was barely holding on. “Lance? A little help!”

 “I’m coming!” Lance fired at the soldier who was currently dueling Keith and one who was trying to sneak in a kill shot. They fell easily. Lance tackled another and shot another on the way down, narrowly missing a shot from another soldier. He shot the one he was sitting on, jumped up and bashed his rifle into the head of another one. He pushed it’s limp body into another soldier and shot them both clean through the head.

 When he was done, Keith was standing there with his mouth open. “Marry me!” he blurted.

 Lance froze. “What?”

 Keith sprang back into action, nerves making his movements faster. “Fuck, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. I meant to do that later after I found some rings or some shit. And maybe after I wrote a speech. Or something, I don’t know- ”

 “Spit it out Keith!”

 “Will you marry me? I love you and we might not get another chance. So what do you say?”

“I-yes! Yes I will marry you!” Lance felt like he could take out the whole Galra army single-handedly right then and there. He settled for shooting some more sentries.

 Keith grinned as he sliced a someone’s arm off. “This might be the best day ever of my life.”

 “Mine too. If we don’t die that is.”

 Their conversation was interrupted by Hunk sniffling over the comms. “Congratulations you two. Lance I call dibs on making the cake and being your best man.”

 “Who else would I choose? You don’t even have to call dibs.”

 “Keith,” began Shiro. “As your brother I call dibs on being your best man. And Congratulations you two.”

 “Wait, then what am I?” complained Pidge.

Lance shrugged “Godmother?” Both he and Keith turned bright red at the implications of that the second it left his mouth.

 “That’s fair.” said Pidge. “Hope you’re prepared for me to corrupt my future godchild.”

 “Of course.”

 Lance finished buttoning Shiro’s suit. “I’m done.” Shiro blinked, out of his daze. He stood up and gathered his own flowers. Lance joined him.

 “Alright then, let’s go.” Neither party was in a rush or had anything else to get of their chest so they walked to the ballroom in silence.

 Lance let his eyes wander down to his wedding/engagement ring. Both he and Keith had agreed they really only needed one. It was more efficient that way. Although he had teased Keith; saying his younger family members would be disappointed that they didn’t get the chance to duel for the honor of  being ringbearer on the big day. That and Lance’s aunt would probably think Keith was cheap. Keith had always rolled his eyes and said that he would deal with that when the time came, and that nothing could stop him marrying Lance; disapproving aunts and small children be damned. He never ended up having to worry about that when the day came though.

 He could feel his mind wander to his wedding day. It seemed he would have no peace until he relived it. So he closed his eyes and let the memories come.

 This was officially the worst battle that Keith and Lance had ever fought in. The Galra had pulled out all the stops. Even Allura was fighting on the ground with them. “KEITH DUCK!” he did, barely missing the shot. Lance took the opportunity to shoot the Galra soldier while Keith was down.

“Thanks Lance.” Keith looked up and tackled Lance just in time to avoid a bullet. He sliced the sentry’s feet off while Lance took a shot.

 “Quiznack! That was close.” The soldier Allura had been fighting went down. She waved a hand in thanks before tackling another one.

 “Too close.” Keith looked like he was contemplating something serious as he spilled a Galra’s guts. “Lance, this is the worst battle we’ve ever been in. I know you wanted to wait until we got back to Earth to get married but how’s now?”

 Lance dodged a bullet and fired back. While it wasn’t exactly how he’d fantasized his wedding day, Keith was right. They could also always have a belated reception back on Earth. So why not? “Sounds great to me.”

 Keith grinned and turned to Allura. “Allura! Marry us!” Lance was briefly reminded of an Earth movie but went back to fighting.

 Allura looked up, exasperated. “How? Altean marriages require a dead snaflax, three full moons, and many knives at the very least.  I don’t even know how Earth marriages work.” She zapped a line of sentries.

 “Just make up some vows and pronounce us husbands or some shit like that,” yelled Keith as he dueled a soldier.”

 “Are you sure that will be enough?”

 “Pretty sure. You’re a princess and the captain of a ship. I don’t think it gets more official than that.” Lance fired at a hover chariot. “Please Allura?”

 She sighed as she skewered a Galra soldier. “Fine. We are all gathered here today to fight the Galra, but also for the marriage of Keith and Lance apparently. In joining in marriage, they must swear to be loyal, caring, and stick together even when times hit a rough patch. Like right now for instance. You must also swear to be patient, but not so patient that you won’t call the other one out on poor behavior. Not Something you two will have a problem with, but no matter. Does anyone oppose to this union?”

 “Me,” said the Galra Keith was fighting. Keith stabbed him and motioned for Allura to go on.

 “Does anybody who actually matter oppose?” There was a chorus of no's from Coran and the other paladins. “Excellent, Keith and Lance, do you two swear to uphold these vows until death parts you?

 “WE DO!” they yelled in unison.

  I now pronounce you married. You may seal the deal in whatever way is traditional for humans.”

 They wasted no time in doing just that, with Hunk covering them with his cannon so they could kiss in peace. They broke apart smiling and went back to fighting with renewed vigor.

 “Hey Lance?”

 “Yes, Mr. Kogane-McClain?”

 Keith laughed again as he disemboweled a soldier. “Remember how when we got engaged I said it was the happiest day of my life? I was wrong, today is-” he was cut of by a shot through the heart.

 Everything else but Keith falling to the ground seemed to freeze. All Lance remembered was doing the same to his killer and standing over his body for the rest of the battle, protecting it and his friends. He should have died that day. But where Keith’s luck had run out, Lance’s seemed to be fine.

 Lance and Shiro finally made it to the ballroom. Everyone else had already arrived and was standing over a box. They hadn’t been able to scrounge up a casket, but Coran had managed to  find a crate in the armory. Everyone agreed that it was good enough and that Keith really wouldn’t have minded. In fact, he probably would have preferred it. Just last week he and Pidge had been talking about how the funeral business was slowly taking over America.

  Lance walked over. He was tempted to caress Keith’s cheek, but saw that Allura was about to begin. He settled for laying his flowers down on Keith’s chest. Shiro followed suit.

 “We are gathered here because we have lost a paladin of Voltron, friend, brother, and husband. Also because Keith said multiple times that if we made a big event ot his funeral, he’d come back as a ghost to haunt us for such foolishness.” Hunk let out a watery laugh. “ So for his sake, I will try to be brief. I am grateful that we were all able to get to know him and-” Allura sniffed. “That we all had the time with him that we did. Even if we wish it was longer. And we will honor his memory by,” She sniffed again, louder this time. “Finishing the job he helped us start.” Allura wiped her eyes and sniffed again. “If anyone else would like to say some words before the completion of the ceremony please do so now.”

 Hunk stepped up, sniffling. “Keith, you were a prickly person at first but once you opened up to people you would straight-up die for someone. I’m gonna miss you buddy.” He may have wanted to say more, but the sniffling had built up so much he was crying too hard to form words.

 Pidge came forward with Lassie beside her. Lassie laid down more flowers while she nestled a rolled-up scroll among them. Pigde took off her glasses and started to clean them, something she always did when she was trying not to cry. Lance still caught a glimpse of tears. “I’d prefer not to read that, if it’s okay,” she mumbled. Everyone nodded.

 Shiro and Coran shook their heads. All eyes turned to Lance. He stepped forward and transferred a kiss from his fingers to Keith’s cold lips. Then he leaned down and whispered into Keith’s ear;

  “I love you Keith Kogane-McClain. Thank you for doing the same, you wonderful, impulsive, hot-headed man.”

 Allura sniffed again and cast her hands over the casket. Quintessence enveloped Keith’s body and slowly turned it to ash. Allura waved her hands again and Keith’s ashes rose up and somehow passed through the glass. Once outside, the slowly drifted through space. “May your remains have a short journey through space until they find your soul again.”

 It was only then, seeing Keith’s ashes drift though the stars did Lance finally break down.

[avelera]

My wishlist for Voltron season 3 as well as speculation as to where the series is going, what’s happening, what we’re going to learn, some meta etc etc...

(cut for spoilers)

- Galra Keith who actually turns purple is a serious wishlist item, like I’m still over the moon that we got confirmation but I am here for the transformation angst. I also feel like one of the reasons we got the disappointing “non-reaction” from the team is that the revelation isn’t very... impactful? Like Hunk says, we don’t even know if it’s a grandfather or otherwise distant ancestor. I know the fans are disappointed but finding out that someone had a distant alien ancestor is kinda only mildly interesting, to be fair. Like, we’ll see how this plays out but it doesn’t impact their day to day lives. Hunk’s questions, Shiro’s natural acceptance, and Allura’s period of adjustment to the idea really are the only reactions one can have at this point. Nothing actually changed about Keith yet, so it’s just a footnote about who he is but it really doesn’t mean anything yet. (Also, I find Allura’s reaction completely acceptable for a three dimensional, well-written character I don’t even know where the idea that her reaction doesn’t make sense or is “bad” comes from). 

But if we get some purple and ears like the fandom art, then we’ve got grounds for some actual reaction from the team members, because then it’s going to start influence Keith’s day to day life. Infiltration missions with the Galra become easier, but missions like going to the mall or to help oppressed aliens are going to change dramatically. Allura’s initial acceptance may hit a speed bump. The other team members are going to have to deal with a dramatic shift in the visual makeup of the team, with Keith looking like their enemy, and that’s a harder thing to cope with. 

My prediction? Like Alteans, Galra can change their appearance (they have no reason to at the moment because they’re the dominant Empire and don’t need to go undercover that we’ve seen). Keith has been unconsciously doing this his entire life, something will happen that throws his control into chaos, we’ll have an episode or two while he adjusts to the full consequences of his heritage, and once he accepts it he’ll reclaim his ability to look the way he is more comfortable with (as the Keith we know). Further predictions, both his mother and father are Galra, his father was just shifted to look human at the point. Further, more mainstream prediction, his mother was the mysterious Galra in the crystal harvesting episode and she’s part of the Galra resistance. 

- No Prince Lotor/Allura, please: apparently was pursuing Allura in the original anime. Now, as much as I would love the Keith/Allura/Lotor “love triangle” to be shifted to a Keith/Lance/Lotor one, and I would really love it, I can understand if that doesn’t happen. That being said I am firmly against Lotor/Allura. Please just let them be childhood enemies or just plain antagonists towards each other. The last thing Allura needs is a plotline where she is just a prize to be won or a woman to be seduced. I get that a lot of men think that’s an “empowering” plotline, and maybe at one point it was, but it has been done to absolute death. One reason Pidge is such a great and revolutionary character is that their gender really wasn’t brought up again after the initial revelation, it never comes up during a fight. Please let Allura’s identity not be reduced down to a love interest, even if it’s by a “bad guy” and therefore a “bad” thing. It's just exhausting at this point. So please, no Lotor creeping on Allura. Just let them hate each other if anything (eventual friendship, now, that could be interesting...)

- No Keith/Allura either - Somewhat feeds into the previous point and is one reason I’d love to see the Keith/Allura/Lotor replaced with Keith/Lance/Lotor, because quite frankly even in this season of not much Klance, Keith and Lance had more chemistry than Keith and Allura. They were literally floating romantically in space, carrying one another bridal style, going through the revelation of the other’s past, etc etc. all things that could be a decent romantic arc and I felt... absolutely nothing. Maybe friendship? It was nice to see them bonding? But there just wasn’t a hint of spark there and I don’t even say that as a shipper. Shiro/Allura seems to have the most actual connection, even with the little we’ve seen I just can’t imagine Keith making a move there with Shiro gone and second, making a move at all. For all of Lance’s flirting, Keith has been pretty self-contained and disinterested if not oblivious to the idea of relationships. Even Pidge and Hunk have at least talked about significant others (Pidge with the “girlfriend” photo misunderstanding and Hunk with Shay had a little something going on, even if it was denied). Keith is an absolute blank on the romance front, and it showed even more in the traditionally “romantic” scenes we saw with Allura. Let’s also mention that Allura could not get out of his arms fast enough, and there was no crush-y blush to go with it. It was pure lack of interest and I really hope they let it stay that way. 

- Better Hunk & Lance - At first I didn’t quite get what people were talking about, since Shiro is sort of my darling and Galra Keith was my favorite theory, I found the season extremely satisfying. But going back to rewatch season 1 I can see, yeah, their characterization got Flanderized to Guy Who Flirts and Guy Who Eats, rather than as the engineer and pilot etc that we got in season 1. The worst culprit was the scene of Pidge’s Galra Prediction Engine. It’s a tired out trope already to do the whole “speak English not Science!” and I rolled my eyes that it was there at all, it’s just bad writing, but that fellow members of the academy like Lance wouldn’t let Pidge finish their sentence was just too much. It would have been better for Hunk, who in season 1 was shown to be extremely intelligent, to finish Pidge’s sentence for them. Hunk and Lance aren’t my focal characters, I think some level of their lesser exposure is just because there is a limited amount of time. Keith had almost no personality or plot in season 1, it’s just the trade off of developing characters and Hunk and Lance got a huge amount of development in season 1. But I do get where their fans are coming from now. I feel like this is an outcry the writers will hear though, I think we’ll get a better story around them next season and this was just a lull to set it up because...

- Shiro disappearing is a big deal - Shiro is literally my favorite character but I was still 1000% ok with his disappearance. First of all, there’s no way he’s dead, if he or any other character does die we’re going to get a really big scene if not an entire episode around it, not just an anticlimactic vanishing. So no fear there. Something is definitely Happening with Shiro. That being said, as much as I love Shiro, the team couldn’t mature with him there any further. Hunk, Lance, Keith, Pidge, etc are going to get their maturation arc against the backdrop of Shiro’s absence, there’s just no doubt about it. He was just too good at his job of being the Space Dad and Leader for them to grow very much on their own, he helped everyone a lot and they didn’t have to go through any sort of painful maturation as a result. Season 1-2 got them through the awkward stage of being kids to being full Paladins, now they have to grow further into those roles without that crutch. Shiro has to grow too, and a lot of his pain is tied up in what the Galra did to him, something he can’t really explore so long as the whole team is protecting him and he’s got people around that he has to keep it together for. So that’s good too for character development.

What we’re going to get is this: Keith is going to be the new team leader, and there will be some friction and growing pains around that. We’ll have a period where they can’t form Voltron, which will hurt their effectiveness. Ideally, rather than Keith becoming the Black Lion pilot (which doesn’t make sense in this iteration of Voltron given the importance of the personalities and bond) we’ll eventually get Allura stepping up. As a bit of a Shallura shipper, I’m thinking she and the Black Lion will bond over missing Shiro and basically she’ll get it to work with her on the basis that it’ll help them find Shiro (cue badass pilot Allura, hell yeah!), which is better than bringing in a new team member. 

On the other side of the story, and this is my perennial angst-writer heart speaking, we’re going to get Shiro in captivity. Him vanishing IMO isn’t just a random accident, so he’s not going to just be stranded on some random planet (after all, that was already the opening of season 2). Almost certainly this is the work of Haggar or the Galra using magic, since no way Black would let someone board and kidnap Shiro. So he was probably transported right off somehow, possibly using his arm as a tracking device. Whatever happened, I’m really, really hoping we get Shiro as a captive again of the Galra. We know a lot of awful things happened to him the first time, but we’ve still only got glimpses. I think we’re going to get what really happened fully fleshed out, it’s going to tie into rescuing Pidge’s family, we’re going to learn more about the arm, and generally we’re going to see Shiro broken down and allowed to be vulnerable in a way that he hasn’t been as a leader of the team (because he hasn’t been able to, which has limited the growth of the character). We’re probably going to get a few episodes next season where Shiro is just missing and we don’t know where he is or if he’s alive. Then we’ll find out how he was taken, where he’s been, what’s been happening to him and if I have my way it’s going to be dark dark DARK.  We’ll also get a lot of revelations of what the Galra empire looks like from the inside, something easier with a POV character situated there. 

- The relationship between Alteans and the Galra is going to be revealed to be much more complex than we thought. Allura is a princess, which means she probably has a fairly idealized view of Altea. I know people are speculating that Haggar is her mother, I find that impossible for the same reason that Thace (sadly) isn’t Keith’s dad (though could be a relative) - even with a disguise, we can expect family members to recognize one another. No, Haggar is someone completely unknown to Allura (but maybe not to Coran?). My money at the moment, given no real information, is that she’s someone lower class, perhaps even a servant or slave, since she willingly took part in the destruction of her own planet, which indicates a serious grudge. Now, with episode 2.2 we saw a queen we thought was evil turn out to be mind controlled by a parasitic artifact, it is possible that Haggar isn’t evil but controlled. However, it’s also possible that she’s a victim of the darker side of Altea and therefore would gladly see it fall and work to that end. 

Zarkon used to be the Black Paladin, so at one point the Galra and the Alteans had a close alliance. My theory is that the Paladins used to each be from a different planet, a bit like the Sailor Scouts from Sailor Moon, and protected the galaxy as a visible alliance of the rulers of those kingdoms before it broke apart. We don’t know what made Zarkon shift, but given the vitriol towards the Alteans, either Haggar influenced it or the Alteans did something we don’t know about. 

Another thing that’s curious is the space mall. We’ve seen a lot of aliens on the fringes being oppressed and tormented, but the Galra have to believe they’re in the right somehow. If we have stability and peace at the heart of the empire, a place we haven’t really seen yet, it would create an interesting moral gray area and beg the question of whether the Paladins and Allura, who has admittedly been disconnected for 10,000 years, are actually on the right side of this war or if they’re just terrorists. Now, given who the good guys are and that this is a kid’s show, it’s unlikely we’ll go far with that line of questioning, but I do find it curious. 

The Galra being more complex than we know is one reason that I just nodded the minute we were introduced to the Galra resistance. Look, you can’t just kill one guy and expect everything to be fixed, even in a kid’s show. There needs to be a structure already out there to substitute in to fix the Galra Empire, otherwise the only method of ending their reign is genocide which I doubt is going to happen either in a kid’s show. So we need rebels who will take over and start the path to peace once the bad Galra leadership is taken out, just like in Avatar the Last Airbender with the good Fire Nation members like Zuko and Iroh. It’s just natural from a storytelling perspective that we’ll get people like the Galra resistance, and Keith being likely descended from members of that resistance (though not recently enough that he was recognized) just brings it full circle.

- I have a feeling the show is going to kick off  with season 3. Season 1 and 2 have given a great proof of concept, it’s a huge success and very well received, they’ve shown they can sustain an A+ narrative. Now we’re getting more Galra Empire, more backstory, more moral gray area. This show is on the route of Legend of Korra and Avatar, so while we have to understand some things won’t happen or be fully explored because it’s aimed at children, we can be somewhat hopeful of themes being dealt with maturely. I for one can’t wait.

[ptw30]

VLD Season 7 Reactions: Part 2

Hi, @dreamworksanimation and @voltron! Hope you had a great holiday weekend. I received more asks since the last time I sent you a post. Please give these a read, as these are the reviews sent to me from the fandom. Best - ptw30

Anonymous said: Voltron is all build up and no follow up. They teased us with a very cool premise and then slowly went away from it till they finally went to "nope don't remember didn't happen". And the EPs even seem proud of that. I wonder if they ever watched the show :(

The EPs lack the ability to bring a resolution or closure. We never find out Haggar’s motivation or reasoning about Operation Kuron. We never find out who the “other one” was in the pilot. We never find out Shiro’s bayard form. Lance’s insecurities are never resolved. We never find out the limitations of Allura’s powers - she can transfer souls but can’t find the Black Lion galaxies away? There’s just so much left out of the story. 

Anonymous said: Sometimes I think about all of voltron’s loose threads and how this next season is the last and am then transported back to my high school days of putting off projects until the last second, throwing something together, aiming for at least a passing grade. 

The EPs failed a long time ago, if that’s the case. When they decided to kill off one of the main characters without allowing the team to grieve, forced the most popular paladin off the team, demoted the leader of the team to a soldier, and abandoned its own lore, including breaking the strongest paladin-lion bond without any explanation - they failed to give the viewers any satisfying conclusion to this story. No matter what the next 13 episodes include, it won’t make up for the middle 39 episodes that literally brought tragedy after tragedy, especially to the team’s only LGBTQ+, multiple-minority character. 

@sweet-rabbit​ said: You know, if the EPs wanted us to not like, nay, LOVE AND ADORE Shiro as much as we do, it was probably a huge misstep on their or whoever's part that they hired a man who voiced a freakin' DISNEY RENAISSANCE CHARACTER to voice Shiro. The blasted fools, the lot of them!

Josh Keaton is a consummate professional, and no doubt, Andrea Romano nailed it when working with him and the team. If there is one thing that is absolutely, without a doubt, above reproach with this show - it’s the voice acting. It is outstanding.

@safeautistickeith said: Damsel Shiro aaaaalways felt Suspect ™ for me. Like. Keith can say, ”we saved each other” (whoever wrote that bless them) But, lbr Shiro’s sidelining was a slowburn that started from his damsel-dom. S1: S and K each got a Big Save. K saved S when he came back to Earth. S saved K when K went after Zarkon (Shiro voice: I’ve got you, buddy) S2: K saved S in Across the Universe. S saved K in Marmora. Equals? Yes. Truly. Then s3 comes along and it’s not longer this beautiful, mutual thing, but Shiro becomes a Damsel in Distress. Which Yikes ™ Asian man demoted to damsel? Unfortunate implications. He’s arc has been about leading up until then? Unfortunate implications. He’s a gay male( the reveal planned in s2??) un for tu nate implications. There’s a line between, ”you can be masc and also need help” and just making him a damsel. Big Yikes. 

Voltron originally broke tropes, which was awesome. Allura wasn’t a princess locked away in a castle-ship but a knock-out, drag-out warrior who wasn’t afraid to get into the fray. Shiro, the strong-willed leader, wasn’t afraid to accept help. Keith, the loner, felt perhaps the most for his team. “Loverboy” Lance was actually the heart of the team, rather than a female character playing that part. Hunk, too, was strong but scared, and Pidge was not the stereotypical girl figure. 

In Season 3, the story began to fall into the traps of the tropes it had broken, and it’s been a demoralizing and disappointing journey ever since.

@melissa18999 said:The lack of characters being challenged emotionally is why everything after season 2 bothers me. Kuron’s arc didn’t test the characters on an emotional level given how after the arc is over everyone just moves on. It’s there only to write actual shiro out of the show for a bit rather than seriously affect the cast. Same thing with Keith’s [crap] and every other character. Nothing tests them emotionally. (Maybe Allura with Lotor)

VLD misses a lot of emotional beats. One of the biggest failures was not showing when the team learned about Keith’s Galran heritage. Then we never see the emotional fallout with the clone, other than the team referring to him as “evil.” The clone fought alongside with the team, perhaps longer than Shiro, and the team never mourned him. Sendak and Shiro’s fight? Shiro never says a word, and then Keith kills Sendak, taking away Shiro’s right to fight back against his one-time captors. 

Lotor had Pidge’s dad and didn’t even try to make her a traitor to Team Voltron? Narti could control minds and not one of the paladins was ever brainwashed by her? Haggar did it to a clone, not even Shiro. 

Even Allura and Lotor’s relationship - Allura’s anger was the stereotypical  “woman scorned.”

So much potential, and it’s just wasted. 

Anonymous said: An ask or two doesn't have enough room to describe how much Shiro means to me, how much strength I draw from him, how many dark places he's helped me out of. But s6's treatment of kuron/shiro left me in tears and nearly dissociating for hours, and it's the only season I haven't rewatched. And here's the kicker: Everything I've read about s7 has made the thought of watching it feel identical to an urge to self harm. I want the EPs to think about that. I want them to think hard about people like me, because I doubt I'm the only one who's been affected like this. And I want them to really, really consider if this is the story they wanted to tell. If this is the effect they wanted their story to have.

Shiro is important to many people in terms of representation, and I’ve read many posts about people who identify with him. I’m glad he’s had an impact upon your life, and I hope you can still take comfort in the earlier seasons. Please take care. 

Anonymous said: I think I'd be okay with the "Shiro had a degenerative disease" if that was it alone. Like, it's a really good explanation of why everyone so readily accepted the pilot error thing despite Shiro being an absolute legend of a pilot. But it was tied together with his gay reveal and then the story he was shoved into and... I cannot like it, or accept it.

Shiro was revealed to be LGBTQ+, have a degenerative disease, and lose his place in Voltron - all in one season. The juxtaposition of the reveals is reprehensible, and it sends a horrible message to people who have mental and physical struggles, are LGBTQ+, and minorities. 

Anonymous said: So, here's why the "it's a show abt war so you have to suffer watching, bc there's only tragedy" excuse is weak: It’s a show about space robots, a space robot called voltron. It's not a show about drama, about people dying and it never was. It was supposed to be a show about teamwork (supposed bc that premise has left the building a long time ago) with war comes death? Yes, absolutely, but its not an excuse to kill all of the lgbt characters 

That’s the issue - it’s not an excuse to kill all the LGBTQ+ characters. A show about war that has death and handles appropriately is one thing. Mourning the clone, mourning Shiro, mourning Narti - all those things should have happened, and they didn’t. (These characters were also all with physical and mental disabilities, DreamWorks.)

Showing children closure, helping them to understand death - is a good lesson to learn. But excluding Shiro from his only family, killing his one-time SO in a “fringe” move, and then killing the other LGBTQ+ couple in the show - not to mention killing Shiro four times - that’s a message DreamWorks should not be sending children. 

Anonymous said: The one thing I wanted from Voltron Season 7: Shiro getting to reunite with the team, and work with them again as a part of the team - also, the one thing the Voltron EPs refuse to allow.

Not to be technical - but that’s actually two things. Shiro did reunite with the team, but unfortunately, he wasn’t a part of the team. In fact, he was excluded to the point of no longer even being called a paladin, according to “The Journey Within,” and I agree. I wanted that in Season 7 as well. 

Anonymous said: I'm still lowkey [mad] that Sincline, made of the same material as Voltron, was not sentient, but the MFE fighters and Atlas, which are reverse-engineered galtean tech and run off... idk what they run off, magic low-charge batteries maybe... are implied sentient.

I’m not sure, but I can say - I am sad that didn’t pan out, either. I wanted to see what Lotor and his generals could do in Sincline. I’m sad that Atlas, clearly built for Allura, didn’t talk to Allura first. Instead, she will always be Blue’s second choice, Lance Red’s second choice, and Keith left to Black because Shiro...didn’t not to fly Black anymore? I’m not quite sure why. The story never tells us. 

Rounding back - Sincline had so much more potential than was realized. 

Anonymous said: In not committing to a specific black paladin, or even a specific direction and endgame, the story failed to stay together. It fell apart in the same manner a soft cheese does when pressed to a fine-hole cheese grater.

There are a lot of things that failed to keep the story together. The first and foremost was - you need to keep the team together, or at the very least, not lose two of your main characters in one 26-episode batch, one character for 24 episodes, another for 12.  

Anonymous said: If the EP's have treated Shiro as an equal instead of a 'problem' they had to put up with, would VLD have not have gone downhill? It does feel like their dislike for one character and their stubbornness to stick to their original plan is what dragged the show down. It really does feel like what happened behind the scenes has become a cautionary tale on what you shouldn't do when writing a story and its characters.

I can’t say for sure, but what I can say is - the moment the EPs saw Shiro not as a character but as a plot device, is the moment the story began to unravel. 

cc: @netflix