#God and shiro and the black lion BONDING!!! how shiro actually respects the lion!!! and how black saves him!!!! they heal together!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lanceville · 5 years

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bold of any of you to think i’ll ever let the fandom acknowledge what s8 has done. THIS is how the last season went:

the first episode starts with their discharge from the hospital. on his way out, shiro notices a familiar figure in one of the hospital rooms, sitting on the bed with his head that’s wrapped in a dozen bandages facing the window, face unseen. however, shiro thinks it’s just his imagination and tries not to dwell a lot on it and swallows his hope. he needs to stay strong for the universe, for “him”, just for a little longer.

lance asks allura out in the first episode, and she accepts. the klance sunset scene still happens the way it did. but when they go out on the actual date, she tells him that she doesn’t think a romantic relationship between them will work out, that she does care about him and cherish him, but only as a dear friend, and not in the same way he cares about her. she rejects him softly and gently, tells him that he’s a great guy and that many would be lucky to have him. it’s just that she can’t see her and his future together playing out well, and that maintaining their relationship as friends would be much better for both of them. she also tells him that he deserves someone who’d love him and cherish him the same way he would for them, a person with a heart full of kindness and love like lance’s. tells him that that person already exists, and that lance knows who they are without her specifying anybody. she thanks him for always being a good friend to her, and hugs him tight. lance accepts her rejection with no hard feelings, yes, he’s a little heartbroken, be he somehow feels relieved. relieved that he has realized that he doesn’t need to be in a romantic relationship to have others care about him and value him strongly and love him for who he is. relieved to still have allura as a friend, and relieved that she was honest with him, and that he didn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to. he just wants her to be happy. they spend the rest of the night hanging out, and lance is content.

the next day when keith sees lance, he asks him how the date went. lance smiles bittersweetly and tells him that it didn’t work out. he still feels heartbroken a little, but not at all as bad as he thought he’d be, and will feel better in a couple days. keith’s eyes become gentle, and he puts his hand on lance’s shoulder to show his support and smiles softly. he tells him that he will find happiness one day, and that he will be there for him all the way if he needs any support. that he is there for him now in case he needs some comfort. lance smiles and tells him that some sort of distraction right now would be great, so they go racing down the mountain on hoverbikes. lance feels much better afterwards.

lance still provides allura with emotional support like always, and she’s so grateful for that.

shiro gets a new prosthetic arm (this time a normal one) and it glows like the old one, though it also leaves a trail of sparkles when he swings it. romelle suggested that, and, well, shiro kinda likes it if he’s honest with himself. it also has the sky symbol of the black lion on the bicep which keith insisted on adding, since shiro will always be the rightful leader of voltron and the best of them. lance seconds that and tells shiro that he’ll always be his role model and his hero. and yes, shiro is still part of team voltron and goes on missions with them, along with krolia. he also dyes his hair black. when he looks himself in the mirror and sighs “god this looks so much better on me” allura glares at him and asks him if he has a problem with white hair. she glares daggers at him for the next five solid minutes he fumbles to find words. keith saves his ass and tells her that black happens to be shiro’s favorite hair color and that he has nothing against her white hair. allura doesn’t look convinced though.

the small, intimate, private talk between lance and keith still happens, though lance is worried about what lies ahead in the final battle, and if all of them will make it out, and even when he feels that he’s grown a lot since their journey started, he worries that he still might not have what it takes to ensure everybody’s safety. keith reassures him that it will all work out fine because they have lance on the team, and tells him that they’ll always have each other’s back and protect each other, and that he’d never let anything harm anyone on the team. lance laughs softly and points out how keith has changed a lot since the beginning too, and they spend time reminiscing about the past and how far they’ve come. they clasp hands, but it lingers longer than necessary as neither of them attempts to let go that quickly.

there has been also another thing on lance’s mind... but he doesn’t tell keith that because it revolves around keith himself.

before they all go to space again, the team takes allura, romelle, and coran to an amusement park. the alteans have the time of their lives. allura breaks the high striker strongman game. she looks so proud of herself, and everybody’s impressed, but not really surprised.

i have no idea what the plot was or who they fought or what happened outside of character interactions this season because i didn’t watch the past two, but during one of their battles, lance uses his altean broadsword. he conjures it to strike someone aiming for shiro’s back, and keith stops mid-battle to just. gape. he would’ve had his ass handed to him again if lance didn’t turn his bayard into a riffle again and accurately shot whoever was aiming for keith. lance smirks and teases him: “cat got your tongue, keith? never seen a handsome sharpshooter who’s also a swordsman in your life?” and he winks. keith’s flustered for just a second before he smiles softly and tells him while they resume fighting: “yes, lance. you’re the first handsome sharpshooter swordsman i’ve seen.” allura is heard giggling somewhere from behind them while chopping off some dicks with her battle ax bayard and krolia shouts “good one, son” while judo-flipping some guy and breaking his neck. lance just stays silent, and when keith looks over to him, his face is hidden, and lance just mumbles “let’s just get this over with.” keith and lance fight with their swords back to back.

lance unlocks his own voltron bayard upgrade, which is a cannon on each of voltron’s shoulders - one shoots magma, while the other shoots a freeze ray.

when they go to haggar/honerva to stop her from whatever she’s doing, they meet lotor trying to do the same. everyone is shocked to see him back, especially allura. hunk places his hand on her shoulder. lotor tries to ignore them, to not look at them, and focuses on defeating haggar. they’re fighting somewhere near a neutron star like the one keith and krolia orbited on a space whale. the imbalance in the threads of space-time lets them see some of the horrid memories lotor went through because of zarkon. and since haggar is trying to open a portal to jump to other realities or whatever, they got to see how other realities are like, where zarkon and his family are not zombies thirsting after quintessence - where they’re a normal family. this, however, is hard for lotor to see. he’s about to charge at haggar in anger and frustration when allura grabs his arm and tells him not to, that he wouldn’t be able to defeat her alone. long story short, allura finds a way to defeat her, though a sacrifice on her part must be made, since she holds all the magic.

so, in order for allura to let haggar and lotor die in peace and return to the realm of the dead, she sacrifices her altean alchemy knowledge and her marks of the chosen. she won’t be able to use magic anymore, and all her knowledge of altean alchemy would disappear, along with the lions’ connection to her life force. so she gives that up, and while doing that, she rises to the sky and shines like an actual angel, light that appears both plain white and vividly colorful emitting from every inch of her. the lions are heard roaring, letting go of their connection to her. the light then starts to morph into the shape of a white lion above her. her eyes glow a bright, beautiful turquoise, and when she looks down at haggar and lotor, the white lion charges at them with its fangs fully exposed, but instead of attacking them, it passes right through them, and they’re flooded with light surrounding them from all sides. before their souls disappear into sparkles, lotor and allura lock eyes, and they smile gently, and both honerva and lotor thank her. before the light fades out, alfor appears semi-transparently, and tells allura that he’s the proudest father in the universe. with that, the universe is saved.

they go back to earth to rest for a couple days after all of this. with her magic gone, the pink in allura’s eyes disappears, and they become just turquoise (that’s like, to physically showcase that she lost her magic). romelle, hunk, and lance assure her that she’s still as beautiful as ever. since the connection between the lions and her life force is gone, so is her bond to blue. she goes to her to tell her how grateful and honored she feels that she’s got to pilot her, and that she’ll never forget that experience. blue keeps purring softly at allura. lance is with her, keeping a respectful distance for some private chat between her and blue, glad to see that both of his beautiful girls are safe, happy, and doing fine.

the night they return from space, after he and allura return back from where blue was and have dinner with everyone, with lance sitting next to keith like always, lance goes to see shiro before bed. lance tells shiro that he’s always liked keith, and that he wants to start something with him, but he’s afraid that it’s still too soon and that he’s rushing things, especially that he got over allura just awhile ago and should probably wait a while longer before he starts confessing romantic feelings to anybody again. he knows that keith cares about him, because it shows, but he’s... afraid that it might not be in the same way he does. shiro breathes out a soft laugh and places a hand on lance’s shoulder, saying: “keith reciprocating your feelings is the last thing you should worry about. you’ll be surprised when you find out.” lance just stares at him confusedly, and shiro continues “if you need time to put your feelings into words, then take however long you need. keith will be waiting for you. he’s always been.”

lance spends the next two days staying close to keith, hanging out with him and stuff, contemplating whether things between them might work out after all or not. they clean their lions together, prank slav and coran, race on their hoverbikes, teach allura and romelle about pokemon and how to play it (romelle especially is hooked), make sure shiro is getting enough rest and is relaxing and not falling asleep in the gym, play with lance’s niece and nephew, and watch the sunset together (lance still doesn’t know how this part is considered “hanging out” but he’s not complaining). lance never misses the soft smiles and tender glances keith keeps sending his way, so he makes up his mind,

on the third day, lance tells keith that he wants to talk to him about something. they climb the black lion and sit on his head (this has become their usual private spot), and lance begins talking...

“i’ve always wanted to explore the skies and to become a pilot. i loved looking at the stars and dreaming of discovering the secrets they hold as much as i loved the ocean and- and you know how much i love swimming, haha.... anyway, when i got into the garrison, i was extremely joyful and excited. there, i met you.... the little bratty lonewolf mullethead who never talked to anyone and kept breaking the rules and- yes it’s true, keith, don’t deny that, you were such a brat when you were a kid i swear- but- but as much as you annoyed me and got on my nerves, i loved seeing you fly. you made it seem so natural, so smooth, so easy, so liberating. you were... really amazing... and you were my goal. you made me want to become better and better, and do my best to be as good as you are. i admired you so, so much. i won’t deny that i didn’t have any feelings of jealousy though.... haha..... i was...... pretty jealous of you too.... like you were close to shiro, my number one hero, and you��re a natural prodigy who barely put in any effort in training and yet bested everyone, even the instructors, and you were really popular, man, like even i- *awkward cough* anyway, i tried my best to reach you on the top, because if i reached the place where the best pilot is and then surpassed him, i’d be considered the best, and then i’d be recognized and acknowledged, and gain what i’ve always wanted before: attention and glory. but you never noticed me, and that really saddened me and got on my nerves.... made it seem like you were a stuck up belittling me and thinking that i’m not worthy of your attention, so.... so i created this rivalry with you... deluded myself that i hated you.... tried to grab your attention in the pettiest ways because you would never look at me otherwise........ but when we got trapped together in space and were forced into a team together, i learned more about you, and even though you look like an intimidating mulletted emo from the outside, especially with that intense frown of yours that never left your face and that made me think you’re always plotting someone’s murder, you’re just a stupid dork with a soft heart from the inside... and..... and i grew to like your soft mullet, your murderous frown, your rough voice that can grow exceptionally soft at times, your eyes that harbor numerous galaxies inside of them, your impulsive tendencies - even though they make you seem suicidal sometimes which is not acceptable at all, you idiot - your cute smile, your fighting style....... i grew to like you, keith. deep down i knew it, but for some reason, i didn’t wanna admit it. allura... allura was my ideal. she’s a perfect goddess who everybody is captivated by, and it was only natural that young, stupid, flirtatious, immature me would try to score with her..... but i grew to genuinely care about her too.... though it was... more platonic than romantic at first. i started caring about her as a friend more than anything... and i was about to give up on liking her romantically in favor of being friends especially that... that you and i grew closer after shiro disappeared, and i thought- i thought there might be... some chance for me to accept my feelings for you and to voice them when i’m ready, but you left for the blades, and any hope i had for anything between us shattered... heh... i know it might sound silly coming from me of all people at that point of time but - but i took your abandonment of the team pretty hard.... you have become the closest person to me, and i used to spend most of my time with you... so when you left... i felt so lonely, especially that the rest of the team have each other and know their place... i used to be your right hand man after shiro disappeared, and you always listened to what i had to say... gave me the acknowledgement and validation that i was in need of.... treated me as an equal.... and listened to my worries and reassured me... so when you were gone, i lost all of that... clone shiro didn’t need a right hand man in the first place, and nobody seemed to need me around.... so i started doubting my place on the team and my self-worth again, and i thought maybe... maybe if i found love, i wouldn’t feel like that anymore... so i turned to the only other person i’ve had feelings for - allura, and i... tried projecting my feelings for you onto her, but somewhere along the line, those feelings became genuine, and i truly liked her, and i thought, maybe this would work out after all, and when i came to you, you encouraged me too, which... which made me think that maybe it’s time to move on from you now but.... when allura rejected me, i was heartbroken, but not as much as i thought i would be? i felt some kind of... relief. i felt complete. that i’m my own person, and that i should be proud of that... and i finally realized that i don’t need a romantic relationship to feel validated... allura still cares about me and i care about her too, and that didn’t change and won’t change, whether we were in a relationship or not. romance isn’t the solution to everything, and i shouldn’t pursue it thinking that it is. i’m really glad that it ended like that between allura and i. this way we can comfortably be friends without any awkwardness or discomfort or mixed feelings, and it’s not just allura who accepts me for who i am. i have a lot of people who i cherish and cherish me back - shiro, romelle, coran, hunk, pidge, my family, and most importantly.... you, keith. you were actually the one who provided me with the most emotional support that i badly needed to realize my worth and place in the universe. you are always there for me when i need to talk and you always comfort me.... i feel most comfortable around you. talking to you is easy and comes naturally to me, and you always make me feel better when i’m feeling down. this is why- this is why i want to always be with you, keith. you make me feel happy, and i want to make you feel happy too. i really, really, really like you, kei- whoa! dude?!?!!?”

when lance turns his head away from the sunset to look at keith after the longass heartfelt speach he gave, he sees that keith’s face is smudged with tears... no wonder keith stayed silent without a word for this long because the boy looks barely able to breathe, let alone speak. lance is taken aback, and tries to ask keith if he maybe said too much or something wrong when keith jumps on him and stuffs his face into lance’s neck, holding him really tight. lance relaxes into the hug and holds keith just as tight. keith mumbles through the tears: “i really like you too, lance. i always have”

the next day, the go on a date to the beach, except that everyone else tags along, and they only spend like 30 minutes of walking alone together on the beach shore, fingers intertwined and swinging between them, before they hear everybody shouting and race back to see that coran thought that the watermelon was a beach ball and threw it to allura and romelle who wanted to play beach volleyball, and when allura tried to spike it, the watermelon burst open and fell all over her face. they thought hunk was crying because he was scared allura got hurt, but it turns out he’s just tearing up with his face in the sand because he’s laughing too hard. when he looks up with his face covered in sand and tears, he says: “me? scared that allura would get hurt by a watermelon???? this is the funniest thing i’ve ever heard since we knew zarkon had a son!” and then he dissolves into half-laughing-half-crying in the sand like a dying ostrich.

the garrison along with the rest of the planets in the galaxy prepare a prodigious festival to celebrate the defenders of the universe’s victory. when shiro is about to pass a corner to go to his room to get ready, he bumps into a tall man with slightly wavy chestnut hair, bangs falling to his eyes, one of which is lightless, rectangular glasses framing them, right side of his face paler than the rest of his tan skin due to a scar extending from his neck to the corner of his eyebrow. he forgets how to breathe, and so does the other person. me manages to let out a chocked “adam...?” before his vision goes blurry and his eyes well with tears. they hug, forgetting everything else for now that they’ve finally found each other after so long, and go to talk in shiro’s room. when shiro tells adam that he thought he was dead, still dumbfounded that he’s alive, adam deadpans: “talk for yourself. if you think i’ll ever forgive you for making me believe you were dead for good and have me grieve over your stupid soul for years without even thinking of sending me a text message once to reassure me you’re not and then coming back with the title of “defender of the universe” after you’ve adopted like five kids besides keith and transferring your soul into body that was your clone’s is just straight out unacceptable, takashi, hope you’re ready to pay for all of the compensations.” and shiro is horrified and feels really guilty for not taking adam’s feelings into consideration, so he tries to make it up to adam and take responsibility: “i’m ready to pay all the compensations and more if it means that you won’t be mad at me anymore.” adam looks at him and says: “well, the first thing you have to pay for is a house. if you want to move in together again then at least buy a better house this time than that ugly apartment, takashi.” shiro looks up at adam and stares. adam’s face softens and he continues: “i was mad at you because i loved you, and i’m still mad at you because i still love you. you make me worry too much about you, takashi. if you promise you’d take better care of yourself, i’d consider participating in paying the expenses of the wedding we planned before instead of throwing all of them in your face. so, what do you say?” shiro is still staring at him. he snaps out of it a few moments later, and his eyes go tender and teary: “trust me, i have experienced enough things to last me ten lifetimes. i want to do nothing for the rest of my life besides drinking orange juice on the beach sand with you.”

“are you really solo-planning out the rest of my life for me, takashi?”

“you still have the option to accept it or reject it”

“you idiot. you know that i’ll accept it”

shiro and adam have their wedding that they’ve always deserved and it’s a huuuge one! when adam throws the flowers, they fall into lance’s hands. a second later, another bouquet falls into keith’s, and when they both look up, they see shiro and adam winking at them, and adam says: “takashi and i both bought flower bouquets for each other. convenient, huh? now you both get to have one to gift the other after the wedding.”

as for their future, they rebuild altea all together as their final mission as voltron. allura becomes the queen of the new altea, with coran and romelle as her advisors (romelle is only an advisor in title though, she mostly spends her time gossiping with allura). hunk is a galactic diplomat, and he visits shay constantly, and sometimes works alongside allura, or for her. he also still works in the garrison as engineer, but only when he’s needed. pidge builds a robot factory, and works as a technician and inventor in the garrison. despite what shiro said, adam and shiro still work in the garrison as instructors, but only part-time. they love flying way too much to abandon their jobs, honestly. keith stays in the blade with his mom along with lotor’s generals, and the blade of marmora becomes a humanitarian and direct relief organization. lance becomes one of the best instructors of the garrison and a renowned pilot. he’s sometimes asked to do other, very unrelated jobs, like modeling for a fashion magazine, or helping out hunk with his diplomatic work, or teaching kids how to milk cows. he’s also become part of the blade of marmora with keith and helps him out occasionally. keith and lance take vacations from time to time and go to different planets on dates.

they’re all happy and safe. and that’s a constant in every reality.

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kcwcommentary · 5 years

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VLD1x05 – “Return of the Gladiator”

1x05 – “Return of the Gladiator”

Zarkon is hit/infused with quintessence, which he describes as giving him power (power to do what specifically?). If my memory serves, this is the second reference to quintessence in the show, the first being when Allura was describing the bonds between respective Paladins and their Lions. I already know it’s a futile mission, but I want to try to note throughout this series of reflection writing how quintessence is presented/handled/mishandled by the narrative. In 1x02, quintessence was something unique to each person. Here, it’s some miscellaneous energy that can be absorbed to enhance one’s power.

Training for Team Voltron continues; repairs of the Castle of Lions continue.

Pidge is eager to get information about the Holts from the aliens they rescued from Sendak’s ship. Shiro is worried about finding out what those aliens meant by calling him “Champion.” Hunk cooks, but this Hunk=food moment is much better at showing it to be an issue of him using cooking as a means of creativity.

This episode reveals that the planet is not uninhabited. There is something adorable about the Arusian warrior’s approach as he storms/approaches the Castle. The Arusian seems to be scared, dodging behind rocks and wildly swinging his weapon, but the fact that he’s making the approach despite that fear makes me appreciate his bravery. Keith is apprehensive, concerned with potential threats, but Allura launches into an almost propagandistic “peace first” proclamation. It’s not that she’s wrong; they should attempt diplomacy. It’s more that the way she said it sounded more like a slogan than a genuinely held philosophy and understanding of diplomatic methods, so my problem is more that the line of dialogue could have been better.

The Arusian warrior has come because the Arusians think that there’s a Lion Goddess who’s angry, revealed through the recent destruction of the Galra ship by Voltron. There is an unfortunate (and unacknowledged by the show) implication of colonialism and racism in thinking that native inhabitants of a land are primitive, unintelligent, and will worship those who are technologically advanced as gods. It’s not that Allura or the Paladins think this way of the Arusians, but that the writer of the episode is perpetuating that idea and using that trope in writing the Arusians to think the way demonstrated in this scene.

This brings up something I don’t remember the show ever addressing: Why is the Castle of Lions here on this planet? We know Altea was destroyed, so the implication is that Alfor placed the Castle here, but why here instead of elsewhere? And how was it placed here in such a way that the Castle currently looks like buildings built in and out of rock rather than what it actually is: a ship that currently has parts of itself surrounded by rock (in other words, how did those parts of the castle get rock encased around them)?

Did Alfor know Arus was inhabited? What was his process for choosing a planet to put the Castle on? If he did know the planet was inhabited, did he use diplomacy and get an okay from the inhabitants to essentially install the Castle on their planet? Or did he just put it there, thinking the Arusians are primitive and thus couldn’t understand what he was doing, or that their opinion didn’t matter because his attempt to protect the Lions, the Castle, and Allura were more important than Arusian sovereignty? Also, it’s hard for me to believe, with 10,000 years and really advanced technology, that the Galra haven’t located the Castle of Lions long before now. Given the aggressive, conquering policies of the Galra, putting the Castle of Lions on any inhabited planet was to invite danger and threat to the inhabitants. I definitely feel like all these issues and these questions needed to be addressed in the show.

The ancient Arusians referenced a Lion Goddess and carved themselves worshipping it. It suggests that those ancient Arusians had seen Voltron. If the Arusians were indeed inhabiting the planet when the Castle of Lions came, then why haven’t they advanced beyond the “primitive” state they’re in now? 10,000 years is a lot of time to develop as a civilization, but they haven’t.

“I am Allura and this is my castle.” How is that an explanation to the Arusian warrior that they haven’t angered the Lion Goddess? Why did she think that statement proved anything? It’s like she’s assuming the role of Lion Goddess to the Arusians (and that’s how the warrior interprets it), that she has authority to say the Lion Goddess isn’t upset because she’s the Lion Goddess. This is the first time she’s seen an Arusian, and the first time they’ve seen her. Its aligns with colonialist thinking that the native inhabitants of a location would assume the “superior” colonizers are gods. How does she react when the warrior calls her “Lion Goddess” and bows to her? She just askes him to take her to his village; she does not deny being the Lion Goddess. Ugh!

Allura was all daggers at the team for taking time to rest in between training sessions last episode, but now she’s cool with taking time away from her desired counterassault against the Galra. “Part of the Paladin’s mission is to spread peace and diplomacy,” she says. Again, this sounds like propaganda. One, diplomacy is a method of action, one uses diplomacy and can encourage and promote its use. The wording – “spread peace and diplomacy” – sounds like the disproven idea that peace and diplomacy can be externally forced onto a group of people.

Back to Pidge and Shiro helping the aliens from the Galra ship. They inform Shiro of how they know him. Through limited knowledge/perspective, the narrative head-fakes Shiro attacking Matt. “You were so thirsty for blood, you injured [him.]” The narrative almost instantly tells us that there is information lacking that will recontextualize the events the alien describes. Shiro then thinks that they can get some additional information from the crashed Galra ship. (That does kind of bring to question why they hadn’t already tried to get information from that ship’s computer systems; we know that they were kicking at least part of the ship around while in Voltron, as part of their training from earlier. Information from the ship would be very useful intelligence in a war, especially since most information the Castle has is out-of-date.)

The King of the Arusians calls Allura the Lion Goddess twice more before she finally gets around to saying she’s “not a great being.” She then does take responsibility for whatever danger the Arusians are in because of the Castle being there. Of course, she’s not exactly responsible; she didn’t choose to put the Castle there. I appreciate she finally tries to present herself as just a person, but it should have happened the first time when the Arusian warrior called her the Lion Goddess.

“But the mighty robotic angel, has it not come to destroy us because of our immoral ways?” the King says. How do they know what a robot is yet also think it’s a goddess?

I do like the small moment between Keith and one of the Arusians. The visual design of that Arusian character invites the viewer to assume a femininity to the character, but the deep voice defies that assumption. This little moment can work to deconstruct and criticize the process of that assumption of gender. The moment also shows a bit of a softer side of Keith’s personality.

Shiro’s hand is a really advanced piece of technology that it can power a computer system just by touching the surface of it. Pidge does say that they needed a Galra-compatible power source, thus Shiro using his hand, but then the need for technological compatibility is ignored when Pidge starts downloading data from the Galra computer. Without compatible technology, two computers cannot communicate with one another, and thus transfer files like Pidge is doing. Either care about realistic compatibility issues or don’t, don’t both care and not care, especially in the same scene.

Shiro tries to hold out for Pidge, but the incoming threat of the Robeast is too much, so he grabs her, and they run. Pidge demonstrates her inability to engage in rational thought, to the point of not even caring about her own survival and wanting to go back into the ship. I really don’t like this aspect of Pidge’s personality. I get her wanting to find her brother and father. I get her willing to risk in pursuit of that goal. I don’t get her being this thoughtless though.

Crash. Explosion. And the Black and Green Lions come from wherever they were to shelter their pilots. I really like that. It continues what we saw a couple episodes ago with Red saving Keith after he was blown out into space. The show talks a lot about Paladin-Lion bonds, and moments like this are a simple, effective way of demonstrating that bond.

I also like the Robeast’s visual design, particularly the weapon and the two different eyes. Keith orders the other Lions to lay down covering fire, which is good tactical writing. The team realizes quickly that it’s on them to stop the Robeast, so they form Voltron to fight it. Shiro’s comment, “Remember, we are one unit fighting with one goal,” is a far better way of stating the way Voltron works through team unity than last episode’s generic mysticism of them just “feeling” their way into team unity. I love the call-back to the beginning of this episode with Lance declaring he’s going to kick the Robeast’s orb. The fact that Lance was said to have failed in his kick at the beginning of the episode suggests via typical narrative structure that he would succeed here, so I love that he fails in his kick here too. That was a great use of the subversion of expectations through manipulating narrative tropes.

This fight isn’t just about explosions, it actually has structure. The characters have to think their way through something, not just grunt and shoot lasers. The Robeast’s attack is two-edged: If Team Voltron focuses on the ball, the Robeast physically attacks them, but if they focus on him, they get hit by the ball. The combat catches up with Shiro, and his PTSD results in him being triggered again. This time, he remembers fighting in the Galra arena against the person this Robeast has been made out of, and that person had a weapon that worked just like the Robeast’s. Shiro might have had a traumatic flashback, but he’s able to draw strength and tactics from it. Being able to convert past pain, trauma, and struggle into current use/benefit is one way of helping oneself to heal from the traumas of the past. Shiro here uses his knowledge of the past fight to help with this fight. We also get it revealed that the Paladins’ bayards can enable the Lions/Voltron to upgrade and produce new weapons. Keith draws Voltron’s sword, and boom. Robeast is destroyed.

Then it’s revealed that Sendak has survived the Galra ship’s destruction and plans on attacking the Paladins through their compassion for others, just like a villain would. I’m not complaining. This was probably the first time I felt I wanted to see more of Sendak.

Then we get the episode’s biggest revelation. It’s a nice quiet scene between Shiro and Pidge. Not only does it work to conclude their arc for the episode, but it also answers the question the show has been hinting at about what’s up with Pidge. Shiro explains that he hurt Matt so that Matt wouldn’t have to fight in the arena. By posing as a battle-hungry person, Shiro drew attention to himself over Matt, but also Matt, being injured, wouldn’t be able to fight. Shiro is a true hero! Thank you Pidge for hugging Shiro; I’d do it too if I could. I love that Pidge doesn’t just accept Shiro’s explanation, but also apologizes for her having doubted Shiro’s honor when the alien had told them that Shiro had attacked Matt, and she also thanks him. The voice acting for Pidge in that moment is really nice too, there’s an ache and a vulnerability in it.

And then, boom, Shiro calls Pidge by her real name Katie. Pidge isn’t a guy. I personally really like this twist and reveal. For one, the show needed to have more than just one female main character. Two, it challenges assumptions of gender. How nice that such a reveal about Pidge comes in the same episode that had a similar challenging of gender assumptions with that small moment between Keith and that one Arusian. Narrative resonances like that demonstrate a thoughtful writing process.

#voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld #voltron criticism #vld criticism #voltron critical #vld critical #vld season 1 #vld 1x05 #commentary

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stardust-and-blades · 6 years

Text

Keith’s First Halloween

This is for the voltron games I’m participating in! Team: Red Lion Round: 1 Challenge: 3 with Shiro, Keith, and Adam

Summary: After finding out Keith hasn’t celebrated Halloween since the death of his father, Shiro and Adam invite him for some pumpkin carving and caramel apples! ----------------------------------

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

“You’re kidnapping me. You’re kidnapping me and going to sell my organs on the black market, aren’t you?”

Shiro barks out a laugh, veering away from a slowing car ahead of them, but maintained hands on the wheel. Shiro is great at flying, but sometimes Keith questions how he got his license with all the risks he takes. “Patience yields focus, Keith. Relax, it is nothing bad.”

Keith quirks an eyebrow, but nonetheless allowed Shiro to take him to God knows where. Since his arrival at the garrison, he has been living there rather than the group home. His roommate wasn’t particularly fond of him, what with his bad temper and representation for being a discipline case. But it was better than where he was, an invisible boy unable to find a home. Unable to be seen by a family as worthy. The only person who ever truly loved him has left the land of the living, leaving Keith wishing the fire never occurred. That his father never ran back into the building, though he knew it was a selfish wish. A child is alive today because of him. As much as Keith wanted to keep his father, at least he died a hero. His hero.

Shiro glances at Keith, the sixteen year old looking out onto the road with a far off gaze. He is leaning on his right, arm propped up on the arm rest and a fist to his cheek. His usual stance when he is deep in thought.

He didn’t say anything, but he knew what Keith was thinking. Most likely his father, maybe his future. It was only recently that Shiro found out Keith hasn’t celebrated halloween for awhile, what with the death of his father severely impacting his joy in holidays meant to spend with family or friends. Keith’s only family passed away, and as far as Shiro knows, he hasn’t been able to make any friends. Students and teachers of the school are weary of him. They believe he represents nothing but trouble, and the higher officials at the garrison severely question Shiro’s judgement. Iverson going so far as to say he made a mistake by bringing Mr. Hotshot to the school.

What they didn’t understand was he is a kid. A child who felt abandoned and dysfunctional.

And every kid deserves to have some happiness in their life, at the very least.

So, Shiro talked Adam over having Keith over, explaining his background and how excellent he is in the garrison flight simulator. Adam was skeptical at first--not of Keith being a good kid--but of him willingly coming over. Shiro has spent more time with him than Adam, who unfortunately had no classes with him and only passed by the kid every now and then, greeting them on sight and Keith waving silently as a means of respect.

Despite Adam’s opinions, Shiro has a gut feeling this is what Keith needs. And who knows, maybe he will take a liking to Adam and the treats he has in store. --------

As they approach the house, Keith turns to him, confused.

“Um, is this your house?”

“Yup.”

“Uh...” He looks around, waiting for Shiro to continue, but received nothing. “What are we doing here?”

“We,” Shiro begins, reaching behind his seat and grabbing some plastic bags full of groceries he picked up earlier. “Are going to prepare for Halloween.”

Keith looks uncomfortable. “I don’t really celebrate halloween. Or any of the holidays, for that matter.”

“I’m aware,” Shiro said, leveling him with a kind look. “You mentioned it when we had lunch the other day. But we need a helping hand with the pumpkins.”

“We?”

“Yeah, me and Adam. He’s my--er--He’s my boyfriend.” Shiro can feel a blush creep on his cheeks. He neglected to tell Keith of his and Adam’s actual relationship. It wasn’t that he was ashamed, it’s just he totally spaced on the little tidbit. So much for making the kid less awkward.

Keith doesn’t blink, cocking his head to the side. “Professor Adam? Doesn’t he hate me along with the other instructors? You’re getting serious flack for getting me into the school.”

He shakes his head. “Nope. In fact, he was more concerned on if you would show. I told him about you. He is looking forward to getting to know you as both a pilot and person.”

“I still don’t think this is a good idea. You should just--”

“Nope!” Shiro interrupts, snatching a pumpkin in the back and plopping it on Keith’s lap. “You’re a kid, and kids should be having fun. Not brooding in their room at night while halloween is just around the corner.”

“I don’t brood.” Keith exclaims, his lip jutting out in a pout.

“Right, and I have white hair.” Shiro said, sarcastic. “Come on, up and at ‘em. And don’t even think about stealing the car. I have the keys wrapped around my fingers.”

------------------

It was a little awkward, Shiro admitted. As Keith lugged the largest pumpkin Shiro gave him and entered the house, Adam emerged from the kitchen to greet the two, kissing Shiro on the cheek. He smiled down at Keith, introducing himself and holding out a hand to the tiny boy. There was a moment of silence, Keith not used to friendliness outside of Shiro. He half expected Adam to pull Shiro aside, meaning to be out of ear shot so he could chastise Shiro for bringing the “problem” child in their home. But he just gazed down at Keith, soft brown eyes never breaking from the starstruck indigo. Not until his expression morphed into that of discomfort, not sure what to do since Keith wasn’t responding in any way.

As he lowered his hand, Keith shifted the pumpkin to one arm and on his hip, carefully reaching out to grasp Adam’s hand.

“It’s nice to meet you, sir. I’m Keith.”

Adam smiles, toothy and proud. “Please, call me Adam. I’m not one for formalities.” He motions to where the kitchen is. “Come along, I was getting the newspaper ready for the pumpkin carving.”

They followed Adam, Shiro’s boyfriend asking Keith many questions as they prepared and began to pumpkin carve. He stuck to his interests, avoiding any semblance of questions having to do with Keith’s past. Shiro had already informed him of the touchy subject and to approach it if Keith chose to open up. To which, he eventually did, mentioning how his dad was never good at carving pumpkins and sometimes burned the seeds when they would roast them for a horror night. It was a small tidbit he lent; a sliver of his childlike, nostalgic side, void of sadness and regret. As Adam asked if he was good at carving pumpkins, Keith gave a small smile and said he was, sometimes using the knife his father gave him. Shiro watched the two interact, a fond and loving smile gracing his lips as he forgot about his pumpkin and focused more on the two bonding.

Shiro hadn’t seen such a big smile since he taught Keith how to land the hoverbike perfectly from jumping off a cliff in the desert. His eyebrows raised, eyes dancing in the florescent lighting, galaxies and mirth erasing the secret darkness he held whenever he is seen. The child Shiro encountered in the classroom, the boy who sadly looked out the window and strayed from the other children, not bothering to line up for the simulator, was overtook by a sense of peace. Meanwhile Adam, who expressed anxiety over the young teen hating Shiro’s idea, ruffles the raven haired boy’s locks and joked about how Shiro does that all the time, eliciting a squawk from Shiro.

“I burned them once! Once, Adam!”

“Once was enough to make sure you never touch an oven again.” He jokes, laughing as Shiro grumbled about being betrayed by his own lover.

Adam leans towards Keith, a hand coming to partially cover his mouth as if to tell him a secret. “He may be a pro at flying now, but he crashed the simulator three times in one go in our cadet days.”

“Don’t poison his mind with lies!”

“It isn’t a lie when history is true.” Adam counters, grinning.

“Oooooo he got you there.” Keith joined. Shiro shook his head, dipping his hand in the orange fruit and flicking it on Keith’s nose.

“Respect your elders, kid.”

“You’re 24.” Adam stated, Keith wiping his nose on his sleeve and chucking a large pile of orange goop at Shiro. Suddenly the three were engaged in an all out pumpkin guts fight, streamers of fruit coating the kitchen and their clothes. they were all laughing, Keith and Adam teamed up against Shiro as they hid behind the table, whispering strategies as Shiro gunned for another chunk of seeds and squash. Before he could land a hit, he is pummeled by two flying chunky globs, one hitting his chest and the other his neck. He chucked the stash in his hand, landing a hit on Keith’s tiny head. The atmosphere, so used to the voices of two, range with the laughter of three. They ran around the small kitchen, their pumpkin war ending only when they ran out of fuel from the three pumpkins Shiro brought home.

They laid on the floor, tired from their food fight but letting out a couple of giggles every now and then. Shiro noted how the two were smiling so wide, he couldn’t help but smile himself. Yes, this is what Keith needed. A sense of being a kid. A sense of having a family, whether it was a mother and father, or a brother figure and his boyfriend. Keith’s walls were up, pure stone covering the tenderness of his bruised heart. But now, they were down. Keith’s heart was wide open, the burden of his past forgotten and filled with glee he hadn’t felt in years.

Adam stood up and began to clean up, announcing they will make some candy apples after they all scrubbed the place clean. Keith didn’t put up a fight, he really didn’t mind. He was chivalrous in his cleaning, asking Adam and Shiro if he missed any places.

He is a good kid. His problem lies in trusting others, in trusting the human race. But when he ignores the darkness of humanity, he is a quiet teen who wants to have fun and acknowledges when there is chores to be done.

He isn’t a problem child. He just needs to be given a chance.

The night ended with Keith curled up in the couch, a half eaten caramel apple on the coffee table in their living room. Shiro gingerly lifted his head to place a plump pillow under his dark head, and Adam covered him in a red fleece blanket he had stashed in a closet. Tiny snores escaped Keith’s nose, his face in a state of peace and content.

Shiro doesn’t regret giving him a second chance in the least.

#shania writes #red lion #round 1 #challenge: 3 #pumpkins and apples #keith kogane #shiro #adam (voltron)#adashi #takashi shirogane #VLD #voltron #voltron games

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siriusly-unexpected · 5 years

Text

OKAY. Voltron season 8 thoughts below. Very much spoilery.

AND LONG I’M SORRY.

I took notes with a pencil on paper like the old-fashioned person that I am. Also I binge watched all 13 eps without any breaks so my thoughts might be a bit all over the place. But, let me try to organize them a little bit.

Allura x Lance

we gotta start with this shit.

I mean no hate, if you ship this then great, this is just my opinion.I respect your ship, you respect my ship. (I totally just wrote shit. Oops.)

it felt too rushed. like why make all of that happen in the first episode and then forget all about it for a few??!

it was too soon, like i didn’t really think it would happen? they should have had a little more waiting time before going all oooh allura totes said yes to a date with lance, like where did that come from??

allura has been paired with a lot of the male characters throughout the seasons, and I HATE THAT

let her be a strong female character without a love interest goddammit

yeah that is actually my main problem with allurance. like, wasn’t she just kissing lotor a while ago? and then she had her moments with keith? and first was shiro in the very first season i could tell they were thinking of making it a thing

ugh

that first kiss was so ugh i actually gagged too much romantic for me

that was not a grammatically correct sentence i am sorry i am an english major but it is just past midnight

i get that this show is aimed for a younger audience, but show some connection between the couple before they become a couple and after??

yeah i just don’t like this ship

i am still klance trash

but i will admit allura and lance kinda cuddling? that was cute af

also they were SO CLICHE at times (ep11... the ending...)

this didn’t have to happen? the season would have been great without it? this didn’t really add anything to it? other than a couple awkward kisses? forced hetero romance -.-

Keith

gotta have a section for keef he is my baby boy whom i love

“the one i really want” meaning keith i mean same

he is so hot goddammit

and such a great leader i love

a lot of my comments are literally like “KEEF UNF” (ep1), “KEEF GOT A GUN *heart eyes*” (ep3), “BBY KEEP” (ep5), “keith babe <3<3 shouting at zarkon” (ep10), etc. you get the point i love him

oh one more

“as long as we’re a team we stand a chance” i literally wrote: YAS KEEF BBY !!!

that was ep 12 btw

also in ep5 when the whatshername was falling into the volcano i just had enough time to think ‘what a bad way to go’ and then my boy saved her <3<3<3

Paladins

BONDiNG MOMenTS

i love klance and you cannot make me not love klance

after their handshake thing in ep 11 i let out embarrassing noises because even with lance and allura i still can’t not ship klance okay

i love keith and hunk bonding or spending time together or getting stuck in an amusement park ride together

i love LOVE lions saving their paladins? like eating them in space? that shit so good mmh (ep 3)

i hate to see pidge cry do not make my child cry ever again

hunk has won over my heart i love him

Honerva (& Lotor and stuff)

iiiii’m not sure how i feel about her still being alive and being this season’s main villain

but i guess it makes sense since it’s the last season and all

they didn’t really have enough episodes to make a fully new villain

i really really wanted lotor to be dead and stay dead i mean he had his seasons now it’s momma’s time in the spotlight i mean what

honerva having guardians to protect her thoughts and memories reminded me of inception in some way

i liked the old paladins being there? it felt appropriate

little lotor was cute

and when he said she’s not his mom? yass alternate lotor do some good

honerva was a little predictable tho? like in the end esp. when she couldn’t have what she wanted she was like ‘the no one can have anything’

but of course she turned good and helped in the end

about that. THE ENDING THING

that. was. so. intense. actually this whole season was really intense

i don’t like multiple realities things in anything

it’s a cool theory but it usually doesn’t do it for me in books / movies / etc

this was no exception

they made it a thing and then forgot about it for a while

which, bleh

then they saved the universes with (OFC) enough time to say goodbye cause who needs to hurry when realities at stake lol there’s always time for a goodbye kiss

(but hell yeah lance with altean markings??!! why what how??! but hells yeah.)

(catch me with that future altean!lance x galra!keith fic. i want it give it to me.)

yeah for a moment i was really afraid allura would find a way to come back? but THANK GOD that didn’t happen and she stayed dead

which i CALLED IT

like even before they went into honerva’s mind i was like it’d be p cool if allura died

not like cool cool but cool from the show’s perspective? you know?

someone had to die okay. even in a kids’ show, someone has to die.

iiiii didn’t really like that they had a statue for allura it reminded me too much of the lotor one and look where that got us

paladins color coding even a year later hell yeah

bye lions :’’’’’’’<<<<

also the picture of them older? hells yeah hot damn

SHIRO

WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT SHIRO

I SOBBED OKAY I SOBBED

that. was an actual gay kiss. on a CHILDREN’S CARTOON. AAAAAADDGDRHKAEDH

REPRESENTATION MATTERS

but it was pretty funny how it was like ‘the paladins did this, and that, and accomplished this and that, oh and shiro was gay’

but still. i love love love

keith with long hair can GET it, also him in the future? i love.

i have too many emotions about this right now

(i still believe in klance i do i do) (i mean i also ship sheith and pidge with like some of the boys sometimes? but klance is my main hoe)

i am a multishipper so i accept you and your ships even if they are different from mine

Finally, other misc things

voltron tv-series :’’’’DDDDDD

i had chills down my spine multiple times when they were giving inspiring speeches, like for example when they were leaving earth in ep1

KOSMO <3<3<3<3<3<3

paladins in black underarmour can GET IT

matt is hot what is new

ATLASBOT is thicc and i love her <3

theee video diary documentary ep was actually pretty cool, i liked it

i had my doubts when it started, but seeing everyone from a different perspective was really cool

(there was a dude named seok jin i see what you did there bts IS taking over the world)

(yes i am actually kpop trash)

it was really stupid having everyone elsewhere when allura was doing stupid shit with the dark orb what was it called again? anyway.

i didn’t like that part actually, her using the dark powers (lol is this star wars?? come to the dark side allura)

REALLY PRETTY ANIMATION AT TIMES THO!!! I LOVED IT!!!

some moments were a bit predictable but again, kids’ show

i really enjoyed by binge watch, despite all the critique i have said here

i like this show, and will be watching it again from the start some day

i still don’t remember the names of the new kids from last season but i guess i’m glad they didn’t die? i thought they might

i’m just rambling now i should just end this here

i don’t think anyone but myself will read this but if you did, thanks i guess? send me a message if you agree with anything i said? what did you like? was it a good final season? i think it was. thank god they knew where and when to end this and not go on forever.

#essi talks random stuff #voltron #spoilers #voltron spoilers #voltron s8 #voltron season 8 #voltron s8 spoilers #i want to tag all the possible spoilers tags i don't want to take any chances #this is long af but i had a lot of thoughts sorry

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vld-spoilers-blog · 6 years

Text

ive been awake all night. i own voltron now. heres season 7

-once the crew has found a planet to camp at for a night lance and allura have an honest sit down. allura thanks lance for being there for her during the whole loturd mess, and also admits that the mice spilled the beans about lances crush on her. allura says that she respects lance as a person and paladin, but after everything thats happened, shes not ready for a relationship, and she feels they work better as friends than they would partners. lance is obvs heartbroken, but supports her and understands what shes gone through and what she needs/wants. after this discussion their friendship grows even stronger.

-keith and crew take a moment to just... appreciate that theyre alive, that everyone is okay despite the hardships theyve endured. the team bonds w krolia and the wolf dog and they discuss the last 2 fucking years. keith and lance break off from everyone and have a convo along the lines of “hey man i missed you, im glad youre okay/i respect how you/we’ve grown”, where lance semi admits to the one sided rivalry as a coping mechanism for feeling insecure, and now that shiro almost died and all the other shit hes realized that he needs to put all that behind him and continue maturing like keith has.

-the journey to earth is long af considering they dont have a teleduv to wormhole them across the galaxy, which means hours of them all flying in their lions playing ‘i spy’ ‘20 questions’ ‘never have i ever’ etc to pass the time and “bond”. of course the paladins are gonna have some kinda trick contest w their lions bc flying for hours on end gets boring as shit. also? roadtrip sing a longs started by hunk and pidge which end up lasting for hours w almost everyone chiming in depending on what song theyre singing. during this time pidge and hunk work on a replacement prosthetic for shiro which is sick as FUCK.

-once they finally make it to earth, first thing lance does is find a phone and call his family. like fuck the government, fuck the garrison, this boy is calling his family they need to know hes okay. of course he cries on the phone w them. hunk calls his moms and pidge contacts her mom and dad, matt fully joined team voltron on their way to earth bc by god hes not gonna go see his family all together again. keith and shiro visit keiths shack/wherever shiro and keith lived before the kerberos mission. ummm shiro has a husband named theo like that one post ill link when i have the energy, so they go and find theo and shiro and his husband just,, sob into each other. shiro feels like this is the first time he can breathe in years: being back on earth with his team and keith and his husband there and hes no longer connected to the galra and hes just,,, ALIVE.

-team voltron is cordially invited to dinner at lance’s familys house which is just a mad house considering how many people there are when u combine his family and team voltron lmao. but they all get along so well and its the happiest the team has ever seen lance, dudes talking a mile a minute and laughing with his siblings and giving his parents the tenderest looks like if keith wasnt already in love w lance hes fucked up now. lances siblings DEFINITELY tease him about his obvious crush on keith theyre like, “youve been back home for 5 minutes and weve already seen you make goo goo eyes at keith 3 times”.

-lance is out on the back porch after dinner after sunset, listening to the waves crash on the beach that sits a block away from his family home, smiling at the din of voices he can hear from inside his warmly lit house. keith steps outside to join him, to which lance quips about it being too cramped for keiths liking:

“actually, it’s.. nice. youre family is really special lance, i can see why you missed them so much.”

“i did. its funny - i dreamt about being back home every night up in space, but now that im here it doesnt feel real.”

keith hums and moves closer to lance, resting his hip on the railing of the porch. he quirks his lips into a smirk “it’s definitely real, considering that your sister showed me all of your middle school theater pictures. i couldnt make that kind of awkward tween imagery up.” lance sucks in a breath and groans, turning his body towards keiths. “please dont tell me she showed you pictures of my role as mercutio in romeo and juliet when i was in 8th grade...” keiths turns his gaze back towards the house, his grin showing absolute mirth and... tenderness as he nods. he shrugs and scuffs his boot across the porch boards, “i thought it was cute.”

their eyes lock, searching each other as they shyly smile. “careful kogane,” lance says, his eyes glinting, “get all mushy on me, i might think you like me or something.” keith leans forward, his bangs falling over his eyes. “i do like you, i never disliked you.” hesitantly, lance reaches upward and brushes the hair away from keiths forehead, his fingers lingering near keiths temple. “neither did i.” lance breathes. their eyes meet again, challenging each other to move, and so lance does. in one careful motion, he brings his hand down to cup keith’s jaw, angling him so that they align perfectly as lance brings their lips together.

inside the house the familiar chatter continues, and lance has never felt like hes belonged anywhere more than now.

-during their time on earth, allura meets a wonderful girl named erin whos patient with her and caring and admires allura in every way, but meets her w enough fire to keep allura on her toes. allura falls in love with her the moment she sees erin smile.

-since lotors cis ass is gone voltron essentially takes his position as head of the galra empire?? like the people who chose to follow lotor cant necessarily go to sendak bc their traitors to him, and leaving the empire to form another doesnt offer much protection, so team voltron releases the planets that they had under their control and team up w the galran army against sendaks “empire” and rip that bitch to pieces lmao

-after the big ol battle everyone retires back to earth where they all live together/relatively close to each other since they cant imagine being apart from their family after everything theyve been through together. shay leaves her planet and comes to live on earth w hunk after a while, and earth becomes a hub of peaceful human and alien life.

im real tired so this might not make a whole lot of sense but anyway shiro retires, lance becomes black paladin and keith goes back to red, bi lance is canon king, allura and lance are the wlw/mlm solidarity we deserve, everyone on team voltron deserves to be happy. in this essay i will-

#vld #voltron spoilers #my post #voltron s7 #mars txt

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sage-nebula · 6 years

Note

If you don't mind two how about Keith and Lotor?

Absolutely.

Keith:

Character: hate them | don’t really care | like them | LOVE them | THEY ARE MY PRECIOUS

Romantic Ship With: Lotor and Allura. Apparently, someone has to be royalty before my brain enjoys imagining them in a romantic relationship with Keith. I have no idea why this is, it just seems to be the case. Not that he doesn’t deserve it, anyway, because he does tbh.

Platonic Ship Them With: Shiro (the real one), Kolivan, Hunk, and in my absolute dreams Acxa, Ezor, and Zethrid. (Would be Narti as well, but … :/ ) Matt as well, possibly.

General Opinions: Keith deserves better, always, all the time. He deserves better from the show, and he deserves better from the fandom. I have full confidence that he will return to Team Voltron as the Black Lion at some point, and when he does, he’s going to be even more amazing than he was before (which is a feat, I know, given that he was pretty goddamn amazing before, but trust me, he can top that, he can always top that).

Lotor:

Character: hate them | don’t really care | like them | LOVE them | THEY ARE MY PRECIOUS

Romantic Ship With: Keith. Just Keith. Yes, I watched S5. No, that doesn’t change anything.

Platonic Ship With: His generals (Acxa, Ezor, Zethrid, and the late Narti), Allura, Kolivan (in my dreams), and strangely enough, Shireplica?

Yes, I’m aware that everything went to Hell and is currently still in Hell as far as Lotor’s relationship with his generals goes, but damn it, I’m really attached to that team and I want to believe things will get better.

I’m also aware that Lotor’s and Allura’s interactions came across as really hella shippy in S5, and I recognize that reading it romantically is a totally valid read, but I just … it’s like there’s a disconnect in my brain where I’m just not feeling it. So I recognize all the respect, the admiration, the bonding, et cetera, but I just prefer it platonic.

There is (was?) so much potential for Kolivan and Lotor to have a really meaningful arc, what with Kolivan knowing exactly what it’s like to come from the Empire but then turn everything around, as well as (given what we saw this season) being able to teach Lotor how to rein in his impulses, and how to know when to back down and give up, but unfortunately we were denied that because these showrunners don’t understand what they set up and thus fail to capitalize on the potential.

And finally, for all his faults, Shireplica is literally the only reason why Lotor is even alive right now, as well as the only reason why Lotor is the emperor right now, so honestly, gotta give it to him, he actually did good things this season, credit where it is due. But god is it going to fuck Lotor up when he realizes that one of the few people to really be a potential friend (or at least good ally) to him in the Castle is Narti 2.0 thanks to Haggar. Oh, that’s going to be so much fun for him. [/sarcasm]

General Opinions: Oh look, it’s another character who deserves better, always, all the time. He deserves better from the show, and definitely deserves better than the fandom.

Lotor is a highkey fave, the highest of highkey faves, and is the character on the show I’m most emotionally invested in at the moment. I still love Keith as much as I did before, but the emotional stakes surrounding Lotor are higher, and there’s a lot more to unpack with him at the moment. Additionally, I think I’ve spent so much time writing Keith being in love with him that some of it transferred, because good god does my stomach do the swoopy thing sometimes when I see him, and especially when I hear his leitmotif … djkslfdsfds

All that aside, real talk, I believe in him, full stop. This doesn’t mean that I think he’s going to stay allied with Team Voltron forever, but in all honesty, I don’t care whether he does or doesn’t. Team Voltron isn’t always right, and to be even more honest, they already betrayed him in 5x02, and didn’t even have the decency to a.) discuss whether they found it morally acceptable to send him to his death for their own personal gain, or b.) apologize to him afterward, so you know, whatever he does to them from here on out is fair game, imo. (Not that I think he’ll betray them directly, of course—merely breaking the alliance does not constitute a betrayal—but even if he did, they already betrayed him first, at a time when he was at his most vulnerable, so I wouldn’t even be mad. Turnabout is fair play, after all.)

(And point A is really important, because they discussed everything except whether they found it morally just to send him—someone who came to them seeking a truce and asylum, surrendered himself as a prisoner of war when he was denied the truce, and then actively helped them make great strides in their war effort after the fact despite how he was continuously met with mistrust and accusations despite all he did—to his death for their own gain. They discussed whether Zarkon was lying, whether Lotor would be more useful alive because of a potential alliance, and whether he was on their side or not, but not once did they discuss whether they could live with themselves knowing that they were playing judge and jury to Zarkon’s executioner. They knew Lotor would die, and yet they still talked about him as if he was an inanimate object up for trade right in front of him. They cared more about personal gain than they did the life of someone completely at their mercy, the life of someone who posed no threat to them, the life of someone who had helped them, the life of someone who came to them seeking asylum. In all honesty, that made them look worse than their actual decision did. It was a severe, severe writing fumble on the part of LM and JDS, sorry.)

At this point, Lotor would have to murder Keith and/or Kolivan in cold blood in order to get me to break with him. And even then, at least with regards to Kolivan, it would probably end up being “you’re on thin fucking ice” territory, depending on how it shakes out. I believe in Lotor. He’s got my support, and tbh he has had my support ever since 3x01 when he made that speech in the arena. Hell, even more tbh, he had my heart from the moment he opened his mouth and said, “Throk! You wish to challenge me?” I’ve loved him since day one, and I’m going to continue loving him, and I highly doubt anything will ever change that.

So yeah, my general opinion is vrepit fucking sa, because I love Lotor and support him in his endeavors and happiness. I hope he finds happiness. I want him to find happiness, and peace, and stability. And you know, in canon he probably won’t end up with that, but I can dream and write fic, and whatever, that’s probably good enough.

#character meme #decadeoldtiger #i don't know why i'm being so ballsy by saying all i'm saying right now #i know it's a real risk but #it's honestly how i feel so whatever #i've got really strong feelings on it actually so #there it is ig

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riskeith · 3 years

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i couldn’t stop smiling reading your last message i’m literally so happy atm. you’re so cute and i’m SO happy. i reread it three times and giggled so loud my brother asked why i was laughing... 🥺 he’s in the next freaking room 🥺

sappiness aside: YES!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE? i wish i could give my luck to you as you deserve it much more ): it’s true but it’s still important if you wanna do well in combat sadly haha dhdydbjdnd like you said it’s very inconvenient to have a unbalanced team but i decided that i’m just gonna switch around with the characters i have when it’s needed yk? they’re all mostly around the same levels so it works fine rn.. or it will until i have to focus on who i want to focus on ascending when i get to higher levels bc payments and materials and all.. sigh there’s so much to think about with too many cute characters... anyway how many rolls have you done since you started playing? do you remember?

OH???? is it easier on pc? i’ve always enjoyed smaller consoles tbh (like switch or even phone) bc it’s easier to focus so it wasn’t that difficult for me. but like you said it might just be a ‘getting used to it’ thing. also now that you’ve seen both; which differences are there in the game? are you gonna have two different accs?

i did restart it from the first ep!!! i figured i might as well get the ~full~ experience. it’s been a while too so it’s like a new experience but not rly? it’s like traveling back to your home country and you’re like wow... i belong here even if i’m not here all the time dhsjsjdhfh bad example but you know what i mean?i’ll keep you updated! rn i’m at training camp part of s1 and it’s great!!! just having a blast tbh. needed this especially now that school is back... :(

i guess we are talking about voltron in 20fucking21. i don’t know if i love that for us or not.... (our honeymoon can be whenever you want babe pick a date and i’m There 😏)

pls unrequited love is soo good. it hurts but it’s good too? haha, maybe if one has experiences with it it just hits different yk? but i’m with you—watching voltron i always always had the headcanon that keith first started to feel smth for lance in the ‘we did it’ scene and actually thought ‘i’m in love’ during the black lion scene. like the proof is all there... s8 and the sunset scene just proves his longlasting feelings nobody can tell me otherwise. keith is the type to cherish the people he loves a lot because he barely has anyone and that means putting their happiness above anything else and lance’s happiness was allura for a while and he just... accepted that despite yearning . god . i always think about is bittersweet smile while having his speech. it’s like; i know that you’re great and you should know that you’re great too and if she can’t see it she doesn’t deserve you.

you freaking out over the leave the math to pidge scene... losing my fucking mind. girl they’re literally in love fuckinf crying 😭😭😭😭😭 they depend on each other SO much like the show runners always push the ‘hunk and lance bffs’ agenda ok sure but in the show hunk was never there for lance the same way keith was. they just eased each other’s anxieties without having any expectations on each other at all? yet they surpassed all of them. the other was just.. there. always. remember the ‘we all miss shiro’ scene too???? the entire team looked at lance and wanted him to step up!!!!!! like HELLO??????? and the second lance spoke keith just calmed down... kill me now. if that doesn’t show much trust and appriciation and respect there was between them idk what does. and the fact that the others know that despite their differences they still need each other just..... yeah. *cries*

YOU SHOULD YOU SHOULD YOU SHOULD YOU SHOULD. i get you tho klance is just... comfort ship but the ship that leaves you depressed too. i’m sure you could still write them perfectly but i’m absolutely in no way pressuring you at all you truly don’t have to if you can’t. i know how hard it can be to write when the motivation is just not there... :/ anyway idk what i’d prompt i just love your fics babe hsjdhdjdjdk. that’s so boring of me to say help but everything you write i love so.. surprise me? i can’t believe you have a final klance fic tho that sounds so sad.... ): i’m curious what it’s about but maybe it’s better to keep it hush hush.. hm?

i hope you’ve slept well!! you make me so happy!! kisses! xxxxxx

FHSJFKDS that makes /me/ so happy to hear!!! i was sitting on my bed smiling like a FOOL reading this ahahahaha. and soz to your brother but what can i say 🤪🤪

nooooo im so glad you got a 5 star already pls it’s fine im just gonna use all my primogems on xiao banner and it’ll end up okay fhskjdfds. yeah just switching charas in when needed totally works too! it’s just annoying when you accidentally get caught up in combat and it’s just ‘oop im level 1 against level 50′ AHAH. (tho i guess you won’t run into that issue yet?) honestly yeah there’s so much to do with the characters like ascending, constellations, talents, weapons, it’s just like.. what do i do first.... and who..... afhdskjfhsjf sometimes i just want to use character bc pretty and that should be enough 😔

hmmmm for the character event banner I believe i’m at 60 or 70 rn? so i’m reaaaally close to pity which is why when xiao comes 🙏🙏🙏 and for the standard banner i have no idea, maybe 40? so yeahhhh LOL... i keep saying this (and i better not be jinxing it BUT) im hoping it’ll all pay off...... i hope it’s all been building up for xiao... c6 xiao.. come home FHDKSJHDS

i definitely prefer it on PC! controls aside i just like the bigger screen tbh (my laptop is 15″). mostly the differences are the controls/buttons! since you can’t hold down multiple buttons at once on mobile, they’ve got more to cover all the functions (pc doesn’t have an extra dash button, we just right click or press shift; if we’re in the air i think one of the buttons turns into the drop down/plunge, rather than showing like 3 on mobile? i can’t remember precisely but yeahhh; there’s also the joystick on the left side of the screen on mobile that obviously isn’t there on pc bc we have the keyboard. it’s also harder to move the camera around whilst doing things on mobile i feel?)

and nah i don’t think i’ll make another acc, esp since i’ve gotten so far into game already but i did definitely think about it as a possibility ahahah (bc of my bad luck... i was wondering if i did a reroll (second) acc i might be able to get diluc FJKHSKDFS)

omg it feels like coming home what a good description 😩😩 haikyuu is just such a fun warm experience! legit so comforting and light-hearted but also get deep when it needs to be. oh yes training camp <33 gosh they were so young then :’) HAHAAH. and noooooo school has started up for you again? rip i wish you the best of luck 😔💪

maybe 2k21 is the year of revisiting old things...... god voltron ended in 2018 can you BELIEVE that (😏😏😏 i was gonna mention playing genshin co-op together (even back when you first started) HAAHAH but i assume you play in europe server? im asia rip 😥)

WE DID IT WE ARE A GOOD TEAM!! THE FUCKING PURPLE AROUND THEM!!!! THE SMILEEEE OH MY GOD THE BONDING MOMENT THE. fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk every time you mentioned a single line or scene im just. all the memories come flooding back fhdsfkhsdjf. hang on a second.. they are red and blue.... the scene was purple... surely i knew this back then but im thinking about it now and?????/ oh my god

the sunset scene!!!!!!!!!! that is Peak pining keith unrequited love and pain scene... my goodness. “that means putting their happiness above anything else” NOOOOOOOOOOO you are so right tho 😭😭😭😭😭 please keith deserves the univerise <333 :((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( the fact that lance seeked him out for that too.. just like old times.. “you can sure be a hard guy to find when you wanna be huh” the way i still remember that ugh they really were my everything 😔

YES!! like they pushed the whole lance+hunk+pidge thing but then in the actual show had hunk+pidge treat lance like shit and belittle him so often?? like ?????????? (once again where fanon saves us 😩) and oh my god yeah.. when everyone turned to him and lance like walked up to keith and then said all that.. we actually had so many moments?? god. *cries with you*

speaking of shiro.. s06e05 the black paladins!!! “shiro.. please.. you’re my brother.. i love you..” “just let go, keith” 😭😭 keith suffered so much AND FOR WHAT my god i miss him so much oh no

FSHFKJDS “surprise me” the only reason im asking is bc i have no ideas!!!!!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭 but i shall think.. (and if you want to think and help me out too.. 👐) & i’ve actually posted about that final fic a lot! LMAO that’s how you know i know i’m never gonna finish fdskhfksjd but in case you do wanna see, here are some links: one, two, three

thank you!! i stayed up to 4am like an idiot LOL but i swear today.... and same 😭 im so so happy to have met you 🥰❣ muah! xoxoxox

#we're really taking a trip down memory lane damn #marriage anon #wowclunaanswers #long post

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pidgelings · 6 years

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List of AUs

Since y’all really seemed to like my Cross-Time Doctors AU, I might as well share the list of all the AUs I’ve come up with thus far!

If any of the AUs interest you, just pop an ask in my inbox sharing the name of it and I can go into detail of it!

Some AUs are more creative than others. XD

[Under a cut because long list is long]

Cross-Time Doctors AU - [Post] Pidge and Lance are doctors of different times that become connected through death.

Galra Prisoners AU Lance, Keith, and Pidge become prisoners of the Galra Empire and forge strong, essentially romantic bonds with one another as they question if they’re ever going to get rescued.

Dance Competition AU Pidge and Lance are old friends that end up in a Dance Competition TV Show and end up partnered up with Keith and Allura respectively as both groups compete for the prize.

Hockey AU Focuses on the struggles of the hockey team “The Voltron Lions” as they not only work to beat their rivals, “The Daibazaal Galras,” but also as they try to figure out the strange feelings that have formed between Team Captain Shiro and his right-hand man, Keith.

Long Distance AU - [Post] Friends separated by distance and joined by things like Skype and Discord, our beloved Team Voltron is now a bunch of friends scattered around the world.

Ghost Adventures AU The title says it all! Some of the members of Team Voltron have been placed into the roles of Team Ghost Adventures. Spooky shit shall occur!

Greek Mythology AU An AU that Tama helped me create, Lance is a mermaid/siren that falls in love with a Forest Nymph (Pidge). The Nymph’s friends a centaur (Shiro), a satyr (Hunk), a fellow nymph (Allura), and a male harpy (Keith) are not too pleased with this arrangement.

Karakuri AU Loosely based off of the Karakuri Series, Lance and Shiro are officers in the Altean Army. When the Altean’s greatest enemy, The Galra, create new cyborg/superhuman weapons to take them down, Lance will have to come face to face with an old friend while Shiro will have to encounter a man he met while imprisoned.

Soulmate Dream AU - [Fic] Soulmates share the same dreamscape as one another and can meet and interact in it but will only remember the location when they wake up. Turns out, Pidge and Lance are Soulmates.

Photographer + Programmer AU Two college students with different studies, Lance and Pidge’s worlds collide with help from their mutual friend, Hunk. Soon, they’ll learn to see the world through each other’s eyes.

Split Mind AU - [Post] Somehow, Pidge’s mind gets split across five different realities! As she suffers from the new memories from these different realities, she finds herself clinging to the one constant throughout all of them, Lance.

MS AU Pidge suffers from MS while Lance stays by her side through it all.

Dancer Pidge AU Pidge is just your average college student with a colorful group of friends but she just is harboring a little secret. She just so happens to be a dancer at a rather interesting place. And, no, as she’ll say herself, she’s not a stripper.

WWII AU When Pidge’s brother enlists to fight in such a deadly war, Pidge disguises herself as a boy so he won’t go into the fight alone. However, she didn’t count on meeting Lance.

Pacific Rim (+ Uprising) AU Shiro was once a famous a famous Jaeger Pilot with his brother Kuron. However, after losing his brother and going into hiding, he is called back to service by Marshal Kolivan. There he meets Kolivan’s adoptive daughter, Allura. A powerful, yet naïve female, a bond is soon formed between them in this war.

Years after the war against the Galra was believed to be over, a new threat rises. Keith, another child of Kolivan’s who turned to a life of black market dealings after leaving the Jaeger Program, encounters a skilled hacker and mechanic by the name of Pidge who needs Jaeger parts for her self-made Jaeger, Rover. The encounter soon leaves the two arrested and with a choice: Join the Jaeger Program, or face prison time.

Pacific Rim Voltron AU An AU where everything is the same in the Voltron verse, however, the way the team pilots Voltron when it’s in the giant robot form is the same as how Jaeger Pilots pilot the Jaegers. Basically, their whole bodies are put to use.

Oblivion AU(s) Based on the movie, Lance/Shiro is Tech 49 on a Post-Apocalyptic Earth being guided by Allura and Honnerva (nicknamed Haggar) during his day to day tasks. That is until Pidge/Keith crash land on Earth and everything changes.

Edge of Tomorrow AU Can be seen two different ways as either Shiro being Bill and Keith being Rita or the reverse, but no matter the case, it’s up to them to save humanity from aliens that can manipulate time like a video game.

1950’s AU It’s the 1950′s and there’s nothing like a ragtag group of friends and mixed up feelings! Love is in the air in this diner hangout~

Drama Production AU Team Voltron does drama?! What kind of shenanigans will that ensue?!

Magic AU Modern-day witches and wizards tasked with protecting humanity from not only dark supernatural beings but also other witches and wizards? What could go wrong?

Dance Team AU That’s right! Team Voltron is now a Dance Team competing in competitions! Time to get the groove on~

Hamilton AU You can pretty much guess what this is. It’s my take on it though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Youtubers AU Pidge and Lance run a Gaming Youtube Channel together and all sorts of silly things occur! They aren’t the only ones on Youtube though~

Extreme Stunts AU Based off of videos filmed by devinsupertramp on Youtube, Shiro and Keith have a strong taste for adventure along with the rest of their friends and set off to film their adventures as they travel around the world doing all sorts of crazy things!

Star Wars AU Not based exactly on the movies but taking place in the same universe, Team Voltron is a ragtag group of rebels doing whatever they can to fight against the Empire.

Gods and Goddesses AU Gods and Goddesses of the Elements and the people of Earth, our dear Paladins have a lot to deal with. (This has been done to death.)

Seasons AU Pidge, Lance, Keith, and Shiro are the actual embodiments of the seasons Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Managing entire seasons can be rather stressful.

Sven’s Verse AU - [ Plangst Story ] Basically my take on what’s going on in Sven’s Universe. Plance angst and Sheith fluff are very present there.

New Champion AU A different take on Voltron’s story where Pidge was also on the Kerberos Mission with her family and Shiro. While Shiro escaped, her brother was rescued, and her father was sent off to a work camp, Pidge was forced to become the Galra’s Champion to replace Shiro. She doesn’t disappoint.

Tron AU Kinda based on Tron: Legacy, Shiro goes missing for several years until Keith ends up at the arcade he was last spotted in. After being transported into a video game, he has to learn how to survive with the help of a couple of odd characters and the very man he’s been looking for.

Actors AU Yup. This is exactly what everyone else is doing. “What would happen if Voltron was Live Action and not animated?!”

Special Class AU A High School AU where all members of Team Voltron end up in a rather unique class that doesn’t exactly follow what the rest of the school is like.

Parasyte/Tokyo Ghoul AU Loosely based off of these two animes, Pidge and Keith become infected with a strange disease that gives them unique powers and abilities. Sadly, while they plan on using these powers for good, the others of their kind aren’t as nice and Pidge and Keith find themselves needing to protect those they care about.

Superhero AU Yup. Basic idea. Team Voltron as superheroes. Not like anyone has done that before. XD

Aerialists AU Team Voltron is a bunch of aerial artists in training. They all have different skills and different interests but maybe special connections can be formed?

Mental Reincarnation AU Remembering things from another life sucks, especially when you get the memories randomly. What shall our former Paladins do as they slowly remember the events of Voltron?!

Soulmate Voltron AU Legends say that only Soulmates can pilot the mighty Voltron. So, what do our Paladins do when they find out they’re able to pilot it?

Cosplayers AU Team Voltron is your average cosplayers that have grouped up to make some pretty amazing cosplays. They like to compete at cons.

Hanahaki Disease AU Pidge has a crush on Lance but he doesn’t feel the same way. God, does it suck to cough up these petals...

Dark Woods Circus AU Pretty much an AU based on the Vocaloid song. More torture for my poor beans~

Suasoculi AU - [Post] Pidge has been as Suassie for as long as she can remember, refusing to use the benefits of being one. However, when she meets a fellow Suassie by the name of Keith, she is tossed into a battle that she was never prepared for.

Year Walk AU Based on a short, old horror game based on Norse Mythology. A fic is in a WIP.

This list is always being updated as I think of more ideas. XD

#Pidgey Chatter #Pidgey Works #AU List #Water The Plance #Support and Protect #Beauty and the Beast #Cotton Candy #Pokemon Starters #Garrison Trio #Volcanic Love #The Rebel Princess #Rocky Love #Forged Bonds #Voltron #Voltron: Legendary Defender #¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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some-cookie-crumbz · 6 years

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The Shrink Treatment

The Shrink Treatment Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Pairing: Kidge Summary: Request fill. An experiment goes awry, leaving Keith in a strange situation and Pidge the one in charge of looking after him. Standard Disclaimer: If you read and enjoy this, please give it a like/ reblog so I know if I should write more. AN: Third fill for the requests I received. I deviated a little bit from what the original request wanted but I hope that this is still enjoyable!

Keith eyed the concoction Coran had shoved into his hand with a skeptical raise of an eyebrow.

He had agreed to help Coran out with some testing in regards to antidotes and medications to be implemented by the team. While they’d all been given first aid and small emergency supply kits to keep stashed in spare compartments in their Lions, none of what they had would be particularly effective for serious injuries or ailments. The need for them to have higher grade medication had first been brought up after Shiro’s injury from Haggar, and the point had been driven home even further when Hunk had nearly lost his right hand after shrapnel from an exploding Galra ship caught his wrist. He had been thankfully fine after a trip in the healing pod - though he did admit to suffering from his pinky and ring fingers occasionally going numb or twitchy – but this had seemed to light a fire in Coran. He insisted that if he could develop some kind of oral or spray-type medication that could begin repairing the damage until further treatment could be given, Hunk wouldn’t have any discomfort with the limb, and that now he had to assure no other Paladin suffered such long term side effects.

Thus leading to Keith’s position, sitting on one of the exam tables in the sick bay, holding a strange liquid that was mostly yellow with specks of grey and pink sprinkled throughout. “And this is supposed to do… What, exactly?” He asked, swirling the contents around curiously. He managed to hide a shudder when whatever it was bubbled ominously at him in response.

“Well, it’s designed to heal damage from the inside,” Coran explained happily, heading over from the other side of the room with a clipboard, “or, rather, start to heal it… Hopefully… The goal is that it should begin healing the internal effects to injuries, like mending broken bones and such. It’s mostly just a way to prevent any permanent nerve or muscle damage being caused, so basic medical treatment will still need to be administered to any wounds on the surface level. This little tonic should just assure that in a situation where your foot nearly gets severed from your leg, you’ll be able to heal with minimal to no long term side effects of the injury.”

Keith glanced down at his casted arm and hummed quietly. That certainly explained why Coran had insisted that he was the only one that could help him, as well as why he had pleaded for Keith to avoid the healing pods upon arrival.

“Well, I guess we’ll see how well this works, huh?” He asked before taking a deep breath and chugging the contents of the vial.

Coran watched him curiously for a few minutes, reaching up and twirling one of the ends of his moustache as he did, then tilted his head curiously. “Well? Feel anything?”

Keith shook his head and smacked his lips a bit. “I mean, other than a bitter after taste, not really,” He said with a shrug, shuffling off of the exam table to stand on his own two feet. He regretted it immediately when a wave of dizziness hit him, akin to the first few times after being in the simulator back at the Garrison. He rested his good hand against the table and shook his head again.

“Are you alright?” Coran fretted, coming closer and settling one hand on Keith’s back.

Keith swallowed to try and answer but his mouth felt suddenly dry. He then tried to nod but instead his head just wobbled in an odd circular motion. An odd sensation ran through him as if something was settled in his gut and was creeping from his belly and through his body, seeming to simultaneously chill him down while amplify the temperature of his blood to the point he swore he could feel it as it pumped through his veins. The dizziness became worse, the world becoming an odd blur of color and light, and he crumpled in on himself, one arm curling around his stomach while the other clutched at his head. He vaguely heard Coran calling out to him and rushing toward him before his consciousness slipped under an inky veil.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Pidge had been heading toward the hanger when she heard some kind of commotion starting up at the other end of the hallway. She spotted Hunk, looking concerned and uneasy, standing just inside the medical bay but halting in from of the curtain leading to Coran’s private research area. He’d designated the area as his own space with a sign posted – written in both Altean and English – on the door that read, in big, bold, blocky letters, “NO PIDGES OR HUNKS ALLOWED!!”, after the two had accidently botched up one of his experiments.

She had been expecting him to appreciate their help enough to forgive them for setting his moustache on fire. Some scientist he was.

“Hey, Hunk,” She said conversationally as she reached him, pausing when she heard unholy shrieking and Lance’s yowling coming from the other side of the curtain. She peered inside and blinked in confusion as she watched the shadow of her other teammate trying to placate a small form he was holding above his head that was thrashing about like a lunatic. “Um, what is that all about?” She asked, pointing to the spectacle and looking back at Hunk.

“Well, we saw Coran rushing out of here all frazzled and frantic… And when we offered to help he told us to stay out and that he would handle it himself… But after he left Lance got curious and went to see what he was hiding and… Well, he hasn’t been hanging in very well,” Hunk said nervously.

“Then why don’t you go help him?” She suggested. Lance howled in outrage as whatever he was dealing with got a handful of his hair and started yanking for all it was worth.

Hunk looked scandalized before indicating the sign. “I have respect for boundaries, thank you very much,” He huffed indignantly.

“My diary and I would beg to differ,” She quipped back before grabbing the edge of the curtain and tugging it aside with one fluid motion. Standing before her was Lance, struggling to control what seemed to be…

“Keith?”

The small child suddenly jerked to attention, eyes large as he looked between the two newcomers in a mix of apprehension and a touch of fear. The child was wearing a simply red shirt and some long tan pants but the messy black hair and deep violet eyes were dead giveaways to his identity. His tiny fists were still clenched in Lance’s hair.

“Oh, thank God, please get this wild beast off of me!” Lance whined, giving him a tug to try and dislodge him. This only caused the fear in his eyes to spark brighter and he squawked in protest, pulling at brunette’s locks still clutched in his grasp. Given the situation, she deduced that it had to actually be Keith; it had to be, however, a younger Keith with no memory of who the other Paladins were given how he was behaving with Lance. Well, that or he just really didn’t want Lance picking him up, but that seem like it. Another quick glance at his frightened eyes was all it took for her to piece together the answer; not hard to figure out, when you paid as much attention as she tended to.

Pidge walked over and reached toward him, standing on her tiptoes to be a bit closer to where Lance had him. “Keith, come to me, okay?” She said, doing her best to make her voice sound softer and warmer than normal. She wasn’t sure exactly what was going on with Keith’s mind – though she could reason his mind had digressed to match with his current form – but she figured to try her hand at getting him over to her. She and Keith had spent a good amount of bonding so, regardless of how many memories he had of his time as a Paladin, she would most likely have a better chance at calming him down than Lance since she had a better idea of how to engage with him.

He stared at her for a moment before nearly tossing Lance’s head from his grip and reaching toward her. Lance handed him over eagerly while Keith latched on to her like a koala bear, his arms looping around her neck and legs squeezing around her stomach as best he could. She rested one arm under the bottoms of his thighs to offer more support while the other settled on his back, between his shoulder blades, to begin rubbing to further calm him down. A low groan called her attention back to the set of blazing blue eyes glowering down at the small tot in her arms. “What was that all about?” He snapped, pointing an accusatory finger.

Keith shrunk a bit into her at the gesture, as if to hide, and she opted to keep the truth to herself. Why reveal a childhood fear of heights to Lance when he’d just use it for teasing later?

“He probably doesn’t like your face,” She said with an indifferent shrug.

Lance gasped and slapped a hand to his chest. “Excuse you! What is there to dislike about all of this magnificence?” He protested, gesturing in a wide circle to his head with his other hand.

“Chin is too pointy,” Keith suddenly chimed up, his voice soft but defiant. He was wearing the scowl they’d all grown accustom to seeing on him in their time as a team; though it read more as a pout when paired with his chubby baby cheeks.

The older boy gaped before leaning down right into Keith’s face. “My chin is not too pointy!” He snapped back, the skin of his cheeks darkening with a flush.

“Is too!”

“Is not!”

“Yeah huh!”

“Nuh uh!”

“Yeah huh times ten!”

“Nuh uh times 100!”

“Yeah huh times infinity!” Keith all but screamed back, one hand clutching at Pidge’s shoulder while the other had dropped to form a fist at his side. He looked ready to straight up deck Lance in the face, which seemed like an awful idea. Though she doubted that Lance would actually hit Keith while he was a child – regardless of who threw first punch – she also didn’t think that getting up in his face and shouting was a good alternative. She glanced over Keith’s head at Hunk, then looked back at Lance quickly, and raised her eyebrows twice in quick succession.

Thankfully, her partner in tech crime seemed to understand the covert indications; he walked over and settled a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Come on, dude, no need to get up in his face. He’s like, what, three?” He asked.

“I’m three and a half!” Keith protested loudly, but his words lisped a bit for the ‘three’ came out sounding more like ‘twee’. It was then that Pidge noticed that he was missing his front left tooth.

Hunk held his other hand up defensively. “Okay, sorry, my bad, buddy,” He said gently. Keith let out a small huff, satisfied with the response, and flopped back against Pidge to rest his head against her shoulder. With the other calmed down he turned his attention back to Lance. “So, like, did Coran explain what was happening, exactly?” He asked.

“Tch, I wish!” Lance squawked back, flailing his arms to help illustrate his frustration.

Pidge rolled her eyes at his theatrics and looked down at Keith again, whom was looking back up at her. “Do you remember why you’re here?” She asked gently. He answered by shaking his head. “Do you remember who we are?” She asked, motioning to herself and the boys.

“Not a lot… I know that I like you. You’re good and safe,” He said, shifting to lean toward her ear, “but I dunno about the other one. He’s super mean.” Despite clearly aiming for a whisper, it came out more like a slightly softer conversational tone. She laughed while Lance grumbled under his breath.

“Well, maybe if you were nicer to him, he wouldn’t think you were super mean,” She hummed back, a smug grin on her lips. Keith followed her statement up with a sentiment of his own in the form of a raspberry. Hunk tried to hide his snorts behind a hand but it didn’t work, given how Lance switched his glare from Tiny Keith to the other. She then shifted and indicated Hunk. “What about that one? Is he super mean or is he good too?”

Dark eyes shifted from her to Hunk, who was now smiling and waggling his fingers at them. “He’s weird… but I like him, too, so he’s good,” He said with a nod of finality.

Pidge opened her mouth to speak just as they heard voices approaching from down the hallway. “Coran, what’s going on, exactly? Allura and I have the conference call with the Multarian leaders to discuss their joining the coalition,” Shiro said, his voice a touch tired and annoyed.

The three other Paladins exchanged concerned looks as Coran entered, walking backwards so he could address and guide their leader to the incident in question. “Now, look, I don’t think it will be hard for me to find out where my miscalculation was, so I should be able to get him back to normal relatively quickly. And if Zarkon is feeling generous we won’t be dealing with the Galra until this whole thing has been reversed! We just have to keep everyone else from finding out!” He beamed, turning around just before running right into Hunk.

They all stared at one another for a moment. It was oddly enough Keith who broke the silence to announce, “I’m hungry.”

They marched to the dining hall in silence, with Lance being sent to get Allura along the way, and Hunk got a plate of food goo. They found a few old Altean tech manuals to help boost Keith up high enough to reach the table, as there were no booster seats still in decent repair. Shiro and Coran were settled on either side of Keith, Pidge across from him, Lance and Hunk to Pidge’s right and left respectively, and Allura was positioned between Lance and Shiro. She cleared her throat lightly and indicated the toddler prodding suspiciously at the green glop. “Now, Coran, would you mind enlightening us with how this occurred, exactly?” She asked gently.

“Of course, Princess. Well, I was working on a new oral medicine to help heal broken bones and other such injuries. And, since Keith had just broken his arm, he agreed to be my test subject,” He said, reaching over to ruffle the mop of dark locks beside him.

Keith scowled and tried to wretch his head away, scooting as far away from the chuckling man as he could, then resumed poking at his plate with more vigor. Shiro reached over and gently smoothed his hair back down. “Keith, don’t play with your food,” He said calmly before turning his attention back to Coran. Keith’s nose wrinkled in distaste and he stared at the small spoonful of goo in his hand. “Was this even a plausible side effect?”

The other laughed nervously and twiddled one end of his moustache in thought. “Well, it wasn’t on my short list… See, the goal of the medicine was to sort of return the afflicted area to a recent point in time where the damage had yet to occur to minimize the after effects. It would be a temporary solution – would only repair the damage so that there would be enough time to get them proper treatment – but… Well, I certainly didn’t think this was what would happen. Initially it seemed to just be nausea and dizziness, so I thought that maybe that he was going to get physically ill, but then he start sweating and having trouble breathing… And then when I was preparing to throw him into a healing pod to flush the medicine from his system he started to shrink! And… Well, then he became like this,” He explained, his fiddling shifting from his moustache to his fingers as he spoke.

Keith glanced up at the mention of his name, looking from everyone else on the table, and paused when he and Pidge locked eyes. He still hadn’t taken a single bite of his goo. “That stuffs actually pretty tasty, buddy,” She said gently, hoping to reassure him. He looked back down wearily, then back at her, before finally seeming to give it a try. After his first bite, a little grin turned up on his lips and he started eating eagerly.

Allura’s brow knit in concern and she sighed. “Well, this certainly is an issue. What if the Galra attack like this? Does he even have enough memories to properly pilot Red Lion? And even if he does, would he be able to reach the controls?” She fretted.

“In regards to memories,” Pidge chimed in, “he doesn’t remember specifics; just general opinions. He knows that he feels safe and secure with us on the Castle Ship, but doesn’t seem to know the exact circumstances for why. As for piloting Red… I’m not sure if he remembers the Lions at all. And I doubt that Red Lion would let him in her cockpit while he’s so much smaller and vulnerable.”

“So Voltron’s out of the question for a while. Well, I guess this just gives us more reason to focus on getting Keith back to normal,” Shiro said, glancing down at the small child beside him. He was watching them all curiously, still shoveling goo in his mouth, but still as attentive and alert as he’d ever been. A fond smile quirked up on Shiro’s lips before he turned his attention back to the others. “Okay, what can we do to help you out?” He asked, attention turned to Coran again.

The older man hummed in thought. “Well, Pidge and Hunk could be helpful in looking over my calculations to see where I went wrong. If I can track down where my mixture went wrong, working backwards to find a solution would be a piece of Deglarberry pie!” He said enthusiastically. He then tapped his chin thoughtfully, glancing down at Keith again. “It then just becomes a question of what to do with Keith in the meantime. My work area is far from a place for children.”

“Well, perhaps Lance could-!”

“No,” Keith cut off Allura flatly. He pointed his goo-speckled spoon at the boy in question and shook his head. “I don’t like him.” And then he started licking the last remnants of goo from his spoon.

“Well, good, because I don’t like you either!” Lance shot back.

Keith’s head shot back up and he gawked, eyes starting to actually water, clearly wounded. “Lance,” Shiro said, low and warning. He reached down and gently patted the unruly mop of black hair. “Well, I could keep an eye on him.”

“Shiro,” Allura said, patient but also a bit worried, “we have the conference with the Multarian leaders. And the Multarian people are very strict about the safety and security of young ones; if they see Keith, they’ll assume that he belongs to someone on the ship and it could jeopardize the alliance. We are, after all, constantly under threat from the Galra.”

Grey eyes widened then glanced down, conflicted. Pidge waved one hand and whistled lightly. “Um, yeah, hi. I could look after him. I mean, he seems pretty okay with me and I’m sure he’d get a kick out of seeing the Lions. Little kids dig giant robots,” She suggested. She didn’t miss the sparkle that came to the indigo eyes settled across from her, shining as if she’d just promised him a room full of his favorite snacks and the abolishment of any bed time protocol.

“What? But, Coran requires your help,”

“If it’s just going over calculations and the equations used to mix the chemical components, I can do that from anywhere. Heck, it might even be easier to do from the hanger, since that’s where all my equipment and gear is set up,” She said with a shrug.

“I wanna see the giant robots!” Keith suddenly announced, squirming to stand on the very edge of the seat with his hands on the table. Shiro immediately grabbed him around the middle to keep him from slipping off the tiny edge left from the booster of tech manuals. Big, pleading eyes were squarely fixed on him. “Please? Can I please? I like giant robots a lot!” He all but whined, earning a chuckle from Pidge.

Shiro looked at Keith then back at Pidge. “You’re sure you can keep an eye on him? Little kids can get bored easily and I don’t want him wandering off and getting hurt or anything,”

Pidge flashed him the Garrison salute as she stood from her chair. “I guarantee no harm will befall the wee toddler Keef on the watch of the Green Paladin of Voltron,” She hummed happily.

“Okay. I trust you to keep an eye on him,” He said, releasing a sigh that was an odd mix of anxious and relieved, before plucking Keith off the seat and setting him on the ground. She waited for him at the other end of the table, grinning widely as he darted over to her as quickly as his little legs would let him. He skidded to a stop in front of her and held his arms up expectantly. She raised an eyebrow and cocked her head. “What’s up?” She asked.

“Carry me,” He said, pausing a beat before adding, “please.”

She laughed before leaning down and scooping him up, carrying him as she had before. “Only because you remembered to mind your manners, okay?”

He nodded and looked around the halls eagerly, much more enthused than he had been on the trip to the dining room. “Are they really giant robots?” He asked, breathless in his wonderment.

She grinned. “Well, they aren’t so much giant robots,” She trailed, her grin widening at the betrayed look that fell on his face, “as they are ginormous robots!”

“Ginormous?” He squawked, any trace of distrust erased, while leaning closer so that their noses were touching.

“Oh, yeah, they’re huge. And they combine to form an even bigger robot! And, if you behave yourself, maybe I can convince Shiro to let me take you for a ride in Green later,” She said, dropping her volume to a conspiratorial whisper at the last statement.

His smile was as bright as the sun at her words. He flopped into her shoulder and nuzzled in with a contented sigh. “This is why you’re my most favorite,” He mused.

“Oh? I am?” She asked in slight surprise. Keith admittedly spent time with her pretty regularly but more times than not he could be found training or relaxing with Shiro.

“Yup,” He said, shifting a bit in her arms to wrap his arms tighter around her neck. He rested his chin on her shoulder, completely relaxed, and hummed quietly. “You’re super smart and really funny and you’re always really nice to me. And I like your glasses cause they make your eyes all big and sparkly. You’re just the best.”

She smiled and shifted her grip to better support his weight with the adjustments he’d made. “Well, I’m glad cause you’re my favorite too,” She said happily, grinning wider when he giggled and burrowed into her from glee at the omission. It seemed that in his child-like state, he was more open and transparent with his feelings. While it was far from a confession, it made her happy to know he held such opinions about her.

Maybe her little crush wasn’t as silly as she’d thought.

#Voltron legendary defender #Keidge #Kidge #Peith #Pidge Gunderson #Keith Kogane #my fics

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kittyrossa · 7 years

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this is a sequel to my post about fanon versus canon keith, but with a tighter focus on keith and shiro’s relationship, especially in S2, and how fandom misinterprets it, especially in S2. the misinterpretations can be boiled down to two points:

keith doesn’t care about anyone on team voltron except for shiro

shiro has favoritism for keith that puts keith above everyone else on team voltron

both of these are just — so simplistic and so superficial, and ultimately simplistic and superficial readings of keith and shiro as characters. so let’s try to do a deeper summation of their S2 character arcs:

keith is dealing with the discovery that he is galra, and the fear that this may endanger team voltron/alienate him from team voltron (again: huge expansion of that here)

shiro is dealing with the discovery that zarkon used to pilot the black lion, and the fear that he is too weak/unworthy to be the new black paladin

if you ignore or downplay either arc, you’re automatically going to ignore or downplay why S2 focuses so much on what they give each other! they give each other humanity, stability, and protection.

humanity

have you ever noticed that keith and shiro are the only paladins who don’t talk about wanting to reunite with family?

for keith, we now know that this is partially because his family is a big question mark — when and why did he get separated from his dad, and does he even have memories of his mom?

for shiro, his backstory is more about his time as a galra prisoner. we also have glimpses of his garrison era: a “senior officer” and the chosen pilot of the kerberos mission.

lance calls shiro a “hero” and a “legend”, and then calls keith his “rival” — even after keith becomes a “dropout”, iverson still reminds lance that keith had been “the best pilot” in his class. if keith and shiro didn’t have a pre-series relationship, “garrison golden boys” is what our main pre-series impression of them would be. they would exist more as pedestals for lance instead of people with their own backstories.

and true, their shared backstory is still mysterious! i’m writing this at a time when only S1 and S2 are released, so we don’t yet know how keith and shiro met, or what their exact relationship was, though we can guess: a combination of mentor/student, friends, and found family.

keith: patience yields focus.

shiro: that really stayed with you, didn’t it?

keith: you’ve given me some good advice. if it wasn’t for you, my life would have been a lot different.

“patience yields focus” is established in the first episode of S1 (keith repeats it to himself to find the red lion, as shiro advises); and the first episode of S2 confirms that this is something shiro has instilled in him. keith is aware that he can be impatient — a hothead — and so he turns to shiro’s “patience yields focus” to slow down and look for a new angle. this is further confirmed by cast and crew, who have more access to backstory than we currently do:

lauren montgomery (showrunner): obviously in the original [keith] was the leader guy, and we just wanted to start him in a different place. he looks up to shiro, but he’s definitely not the leader that shiro is at all. and so he’s got a lot to learn, he’s still very impulsive, very rash, and he’s got a hot temper.

joaquim dos santos (showrunner): it gives him a good place to grow, too. he latches onto shiro at times because shiro’s sort of the only thing that can really calm him down and keep him in check.

(source)

steven yeun (keith’s voice actor): i actually think that [keith] was in more or less ways called upon to be a leader from the beginning. that’s not to say the leader of voltron, but to say that shiro always took him under his wing. keith always hoped that he could reach a place where shiro was and hopefully more. i think shiro saw that in him and tried to stoke those flames and cultivate that within him. there’s a nice history that he and shiro have where if shiro were to ask him to do that, he would understand where it was coming from.

(source)

the idea of keith becoming leader — of shiro passing the torch to him — is where canon gets extremely misinterpreted!

when does shiro first suggest that keith take over as leader? after seeing that keith is able to revive and fly the black lion (on top of the crushing blow that zarkon not only used to fly black, but still has the ability to take control of black and sever shiro from the cockpit)

the second time shiro suggests that keith take over as leader? after confirming that zarkon is tracking voltron through his connection with the black lion (shiro may have weakened that connection by fighting zarkon in the astral plane, but he hasn’t removed the big target on his back: zarkon still wants the black lion, is still capable of finding it, and therefore still capable of hurting, and killing, shiro)

shiro is a human being! he is not a robot, created solely to lead voltron with mechanical neutrality. he is a human being who, not long ago, was a prisoner and gladiator champion, and is still plagued by nightmares that he is a monster and a broken soldier. being a leader does not strip him of this humanity — of insecurities, of vulnerabilities, of awareness of his own mortality.

look at what he says to zarkon:

shiro: you can’t pilot the black lion after everything you’ve done! you can never lead voltron again — you’re no paladin!

doesn’t that sound an awful lot like sendak’s mind games? real or hallucinated, shiro is completely shaken by them:

sendak: we’re connected, you and me. both part of the galra empire.

shiro: no! i’m not like you!

sendak: you’ve been broken and reformed. just look at your hand.

shiro: that’s not me!

sendak: it’s the strongest part of you. embrace it. the others don’t know what you know. the others haven’t seen what you’ve seen. face it: you’ll never beat zarkon. he’s already defeated you.

shiro: i’m not listening to you!

sendak: do you really think a monster like you could be a voltron paladin?

shiro: STOP IT!

amongst other prisoners, shiro has the reputation of “a legendary gladiator, undefeated in the ring”, and haggar says that he could have been “their greatest weapon” — but “champion” is not a title that shiro is honored to embody, not like “defenders of the universe”. when ulaz frees him, he says that shiro, as both “a fighter and a leader”, gives hope. this is the legacy that shiro wants: someone who helps people, who saves people. not a monster — not someone who spreads blood and violence and destruction.

it’s unfortunate that pidge is another character that shiro is accused of “favoring”, since that is quite the warp and twist of “bonded by their ties to sam and matt holt and the desire for them to be safe.” shiro’s first “good” memory of his time as prisoner is that he acted to save matt, and pidge is tearfully grateful to him — shiro gives her hope for the survival of her family.

and now, shifting back to keith — shiro, at some point in keith’s life, became a presence that still gives keith his own sense of hope. keith’s very first scene is saving shiro, his eyes widening and shimmering: a humanizing balance against the hand-to-hand combat and knife-wielding and lance seeing him as someone who ��one-ups” him. shiro makes it impossible to reduce keith to a hothead with no personal connections or emotions, and in return, keith reveals that shiro brings hope not just on a grand “saving the universe” level, but on a personal “you changed my life” level. neither of them descended to earth as gods, fully formed as mythically skilled pilots; before they even knew what voltron was and before shiro even left for kerberos, they were just everyday human beings that connected to each other. and once they do join team voltron, you can see telltale signs of that connection: playful nudges, shoulder touches, private smiles, full-body hugging, and yeah, this is just physical stuff. the emotional stuff is a whole other thing!

stability

allura says that the lions “choose their pilots — it is a mystical bond that cannot be forced. the quintessence of the pilot is mirrored in his lion.”

the black lion is:

the decisive head of voltron

the lion that needs a pilot who is “a born leader” and “in control at all times — someone whose men will follow without hesitation”

the red lion is:

temperamental and the most difficult to master — you’ll have to earn its respect

faster and more agile than the others — but also more unstable

the lion that needs a pilot who “relies more on instincts than skill alone”

in just this breakdown, it’s clear how black could be mentor-like to red: “in control” where red is “temperamental”, “decisive” where red is “unstable”. we may not know every last detail of keith’s backstory, but in his own words, shiro is someone who helped him find a different direction. shiro didn’t put out keith’s fire, but (as steven yeun says), shiro taught keith how to tame his flames into a source that lights a path rather than burns it. keith, before shiro, probably lost any solid presence that could provide that.

steven yeun (keith’s voice actor): [keith] operates a little differently than the other paladins. he’s not the only one with a difficult family history, but his centers around the way that he is. he’s hotheaded for a reason, and he’s very talented without a lot of ways or things that he can use to express that. his naïveté mixed with his sheer will to make things happen for himself means his hotheadedness may be viewed as a defense mechanism. he comes from an obviously difficult and mysterious past that pushes him to be great … keith thinks with his heart often, and sometimes his heart is very fiery, and i think that leads him to brash decisions. sometimes they’re right, and sometimes they’re wrong.

(source)

it’s fair if you’re thinking, well, this is all too vague to be concrete: we need to see keith’s past to fully understand shiro’s impact on keith.

but i’d argue that we do see shiro’s impact! there’s a strange fanon myth that shiro “coddles” keith — that shiro never calls keith out, that shiro lets keith get away with anything and everything.

off the top of my head, shiro:

tells lance and keith to focus on the mission whenever they butt heads, sometimes literally (“save your energy for fighting zarkon!”); he doesn’t hold back when keith initiates, nor does he single out lance when lance initiates

tells keith that people have to want to be part of a team, they can’t be forced (when keith scolds pidge for wanting to leave and find her family)

tells allura and keith that no matter their intent (saving the team), it’s even more dangerous for them to separate themselves from the team, as the team is always stronger together, and he repeats this to keith when they’re alone: “when you and allura ran off, it put us all in jeopardy”

tells keith that he needs to learn self-discipline and control his emotions, especially if he’s going to be a leader someday (when keith blows up at the others for not being as devoted to the marmora mission)

it isn’t “coddling” or “favoritism” that shiro doesn’t see keith through a black-and-white lens (completely “cold” or completely “hotheaded”). and it isn’t “coddling” or “favoritism” that shiro knows keith is willing to work on himself. “patience yields focus” is direct proof that shiro feels he can give keith advice that keith will take into consideration. it isn’t an “in one ear, out the other” situation.

in response to all of the above, keith amends his behavior:

in the keith versus lance example where keith had initiated the fight (“gotta be quick!” and darting in to take lance’s drone shot), keith initiates teaming up with lance in the later drone battle, alerting lance to targets and replying “good eye!” when lance alerts him right back

he listens attentively as pidge explains why she now wants to stay with team voltron, and says “good to have you back on the team” with a smile that pidge warmly returns — a complete tonal flip of their earlier argument

he and allura apologize for running off, acknowledging that shiro was right — “we thought we were doing the right thing,” admits keith — and even before that, keith does everything he can to quickly get himself and allura back to the team, with results both disastrous (blowing up their pod) and miraculous (unlocking a long distance mental link with red)! the next time keith goes off on a mission alone, it’s only after informing the entire team of his plan and asking for pidge’s help with cloaking the pod (as opposed to escaping with a stolen pod and without telling a soul); shiro is still worried, but takes the heads-up for what it is and tells keith to stay in contact — he’ll give keith cover and clear a path for him (teamwork!)

in his first mission with another teammate after the marmora mission, keith tries to control his emotions as he leads hunk through the weblum, providing clear instructions and encouragement; some impatience still shines through, but the mission is a success and hunk acknowledges that keith is actively trying to reach out and encourage him

i mean — can anyone blame keith for shiro being the person he “desperately wants to see”? as explored in my post about keith’s S2 arc, the marmora trials reveal that these are keith’s hopes and fears:

THE HOPES: having family; connecting to family; feeling that he belongs with a family and knowing exactly how he belongs, whether it’s found family (shiro; team voltron) or biological family (his dad; his mom)

THE FEARS: losing family; but that wanting family — that hoping for it, that pursuing it, that expressing that he wants it — makes him selfish and will distract him from being a paladin of voltron + the greater good of saving the universe

keith sees shiro in the mindscape because he’s the person he’s closest to, yes, but that just scratches the surface: he sees shiro because he knows shiro will help him zone in on the right focus.

now, there’s a small catch: hologram!shiro is not the real shiro.

josh keaton (shiro’s voice actor): it’s not really shiro, it’s keith’s perception of the worst [case scenario]. you get an insight into what his biggest fears are … being alone. and it seems like he’s constantly scared that he’s gonna do or say something wrong, and [then] he’s gonna lose shiro.

(source)

here’s a visual breakdown of expectation versus reality: hologram!shiro is calm and collected. he doesn’t react to keith being in both physical and emotional pain — he just congratulates him for lasting so long, like a detached instructor; he doesn’t ask how keith is feeling. sure, he gives keith a hand to help him stand, but he doesn’t linger: he instantly puts distance between them. “we’re all the family you need” sounds mechanical instead of heartfelt, a professional plea for keith to keep his focus on the mission instead of genuinely making keith understand how much he cares about him. he walks out as soon as he feels that keith isn’t going to listen, not even turning around as keith yells “shiro! wait!” and tries to stop him.

the real shiro, of course, wears his heart on his sleeve: his face is wrecked with fear and concern, and he doesn’t stop holding keith after helping him up. “keith, are you okay?” he only lets go because the blade makes it clear they’re not going to let keith leave with his knife, and shiro immediately charges to fight them singlehandedly. he doesn’t, not even for a second, consider siding with anyone but keith.

that being said, shiro doesn’t always wear his heart on his sleeve.

shiro: if you’re going to be a leader, you’ve got to get your head on straight.

keith: i’m sorry. i’ve just had a lot on my mind.

shiro: i know. we all have.

keith isn’t the only one that can be guarded. as black paladin, shiro strives to be “a born leader who is in control at all times” — he does his best to cope with his trauma internally. unless it involves information that can help their mission, he doesn’t open up about his time in prison, let alone how much he fears that what he’s done as “champion” makes him an unworthy paladin. when fear slips through the cracks, it’s from a triggered memory (and keith is almost always the first person to notice that something is wrong). this is a big part of why shiro clashes with slav, who does not attempt to hide how he copes with being a tortured prisoner.

shiro isn’t on zarkon’s level, though. zarkon thinks that weakness is an infection that should be cut off before it can spread. he refers to voltron and the black lion as weapons to wield, and claims that both shiro and keith are too weak to know how to use them. zarkon relies on singular power and intimidation to rule, and with the exception of haggar, does not appear to have personal advisors to assist him, or even, really, any personal relationships. we don’t even find out that his son exists until the end of S2.

zarkon: you have no idea how to command a weapon like this!

shiro: no one commands the black lion!

zarkon: you dare lecture me? do you think the black lion would allow such a feeble creature to pilot it? only the powerful can command it!

shiro: you’ve forgotten what’s most important between a lion and its paladin. it’s not about power. it’s about earning each other’s trust!

this causes shiro’s bond with black to strengthen while zarkon’s weakens, and in the following episode, red shows keith the same devotion after keith wakes up from the mindscape, choosing saving the universe over reuniting with his family. keith and shiro are both extremely passionate about their roles as “defenders of the universe”, and though they can be guarded about their own past and their own trauma, they each hope that the other will trust them as sources of stability.

shiro, being leader, does not only do this with keith — he has close relationships with pidge and allura and is sensitive to the burdens that they try to keep private: “owning who you are is going to make you a better paladin” (pidge) and “you should be resting; i know how you feel, but you have to step away for a while” (allura). but he’s a human being, not a robot, which means he can be self-contradictory — he doesn’t always follow his own advice.

he also isn’t a mind-reader, so as well as he knows keith, he still needs keith to talk to him. before the marmora mission, shiro has no idea what’s going on in keith’s head, even if he’s the only person to notice that something is going on. where others may see keith standing apart from the group as keith just being aloof or antisocial, shiro picks up that keith has anxiety about something, and isn’t convinced when keith acts like nothing is wrong:

shiro: is everything okay?

keith: yeah. why?

shiro: you just seem a bit anxious.

keith: i’m fine. just tired. like you said, i should — get some sleep.

this is a war, but shiro shouldn’t have to approach being leader the way that zarkon does. caring about people is not a weakness. shiro should not be forbidden from being close to someone or forced into emotional distance: into depriving keith of the emotional support that has canonically turned keith’s life around for the better.

which doesn’t mean that he deprives the others of emotional support! it just means that shiro has been aware of keith’s need for guidance even before voltron, even before kerberos, and that doesn’t translate into “isn’t aware of keith’s flaws” — it translates into “better awareness of where keith’s flaws come from, and how to approach them”, something the others aren’t as tuned into yet.

and you know what the best part is? keith gives shiro that same emotional support!

of course, the same goes in reverse: keith can’t know what shiro doesn’t tell him. when shiro looks troubled in the healing pod, keith doesn’t understand: “he just got blasted by a space witch and mauled by giant lizards. what dream could be worse than that?”

even though keith can tell when shiro is vulnerable, he doesn’t know every memory that flashes through shiro’s mind, nor how unstable the memories can make shiro feel. keith tries to open a conversation when they first reunite (gentle and tentative, but still curious). shiro, however, is as lost as keith is:

keith: so, what happened out there? where — were you?

shiro: i wish i could tell you. my head’s still pretty scrambled. i was on an alien ship, but somehow i escaped. it’s all a blur.

shiro changes the topic to “how did you know to come save me when i crashed?”, bewildered but in awe, and this is actually a good point to segue from. because shiro gets profoundly moved by saving people and being saved, and this can sometimes lead to shiro losing focus on the bigger picture and bigger risks.

the first example doesn’t cause any harm, though it has the potential to: they’re on sendak’s ship, and pidge wants to rescue the prisoners, saying they can’t just leave them there. it’s hurting shiro too, but he says they don’t have time — in war, you have to make tough choices, and right now, that choice is to find the red lion and leave. it isn’t until pidge reveals that sam holt is her dad that shiro changes his tune, telling pidge he’ll come with her and that keith will find red on his own. keith doesn’t like the idea of going by himself, but off he goes (“patience yields focus” on his mind), and everyone gets out alive.

the next two examples are more complicated:

shiro says that they aren’t going to destroy zarkon’s empire overnight and that hitting him where he lives would be a huge mistake — and then allura gets captured, sacrificing herself to save shiro. shiro immediately changes gears: they’re going in fast and without warning, and they’re not leaving without her. hunk points out that shiro had said this would be a suicide mission, but it’s keith who flat-out suggests that they shouldn’t go on the mission at all: “we’ll be delivering the universe’s only hope to the universe’s biggest enemy.”

when shiro recalls that ulaz had helped him escape prison, he’s determined to find him again. everyone objects to this, especially allura, but it’s keith’s objections that are obviously colored by a personal history with shiro: “shiro, are you sure you can trust this? i mean, after all the galra have done to you, they — they took your arm. you know i trust you, shiro. but this doesn’t feel right.”

keith almost does a boomerang of “patience yields focus”: he gets why shiro is emotionally moved in both of these examples, but fears his judgment is clouded by those emotions. and like keith learns from shiro’s call-outs, shiro goes through a trial and error period: in future missions, he constantly points out the dangers of bringing voltron to places where zarkon can track them and take control of the black lion.

also, this is a more comedic example, but still relevant: keith is right there with the other paladins in pulling faces at shiro when allura says she doesn’t need shiro’s permission to go on a mission. it’s small, but it’s further proof that keith doesn’t object to shiro being challenged, whether he or someone else is doing the challenging.

i think all of this can be misconstrued as “keith and shiro advise each other to keep their emotions in check, which means they don’t care about each other’s emotions.” they absolutely care! but they’re painfully aware of how not having control can lead to chaos, and in a way, they overestimate each other’s hold on having control. this is partially why they’re so adamant about each other’s leadership strengths: they each see the other as someone who can attain stability and inspire it in the rest of the team.

but once the marmora mission happens and keith’s fears are laid bare, shiro doesn’t ask keith to be leader again. and while keith does work on applying shiro’s advice, he still unwaveringly thinks of shiro as leader and black paladin, as he has from the beginning: “shiro’s the head.”

shiro: your father must have trusted [the galra] once. zarkon was the original black paladin, wasn’t he?

allura: that was a long time ago.

lance: wait, what?

keith: didn’t you see how he stole the black lion right out from shiro? or that he could do all that cool stuff with his bayard? shiro’s bayard? you know, the black one?

lance: whoa, what did you do?

shiro: i’ve got zarkon’s bayard.

keith: you mean you’ve got your bayard.

the mutuality of keith and shiro’s stability is perhaps best summed up in this parallel:

SEASON ONE

keith: it’s good to have you back.

shiro: it’s good to be back.

SEASON TWO

shiro: good to have you back, keith.

keith: good to be back.

whatever happens to them, whatever they win and whatever they lose, they have each other to come back to. and there’s an in-universe example of someone noticing this: allura, who has her own relationship of stability with shiro as co-leaders, witnesses shiro hugging keith goodbye, just as she hugs coran, her own found family. she knows that shiro has been traumatized by the galra, and it’s his word that she trusts in reaching out to the galra as allies. and here she sees shiro trusting keith, enough to hold him close and to want him to be safe. again: this is a relationship that helps to humanize keith and shiro, not only to the audience, but to the characters that notice it.

protection

keith: after getting booted from the garrison, i was kind of — lost, and — found myself drawn out to this place. it’s like something — some energy was telling me to search.

shiro: for what?

keith: well, i didn’t really know at the time, until i stumbled across this area. it’s an outcropping of giant boulders with caves covered in these ancient markings. each tells a slightly different story about a blue lion, but they all share clues leading to some event — some arrival happening last night. then, you showed up.

it’s a common headcanon that keith got booted from the garrison after the kerberos mission was announced a failure due to pilot error, killing shiro and the holts. the timeline adds up: pidge doesn’t become a garrison cadet until after she starts investigating, and by that time, lance has just been made fighter pilot (“hasta la later, keith!”); lance himself says he was upgraded to fighter class “thanks to [keith] washing out”, and iverson describes the situation as “had a discipline issue and flunked out.”

however that “discipline issue” manifested, it’s rather touching that keith — no matter how “lost” he felt — still managed to remember “patience yields focus”, throwing his entire concentration into following the lion’s energy and all of the cave clues about an arrival. and that was without even knowing that shiro would be the arrival.

so, imagine how devoted keith is to protecting shiro when he knows it’s shiro! actually, we don’t have to imagine it, because it’s such an ongoing thread. it happens a lot, y’all.

MONTAGE!

as soon as he realizes that this is shiro, that this is shiro alive and back on earth, keith doesn’t linger: he’s emotional, yes, but he snaps to it and cuts shiro free and lifts him up; and though he’s bemused by the involvement of lance/hunk/pidge, he adjusts to having them on his bike, coming up with an on-the-fly steering strategy and flying off a cliff just to outrun the garrison and get shiro somewhere safe

even though shiro can’t answer keith’s questions about where he was and what happened to him, keith notices shiro’s memory trigger on sendak’s ship (and thus begins a pattern)

shiro has another memory trigger while fighting the altean gladiator, and despite having just himself been knocked out by the gladiator, keith resurfaces to put himself between the gladiator and shiro, sword drawn and pushing against the gladiator’s staff — all of this as he looks back at shiro and asks if he’s okay

keith notices a robeast coming to arus while he/lance/hunk are separated from pidge and shiro, and instantly goes from relaxed to panicked: “oh no! we gotta get to our lions!” you see the first sign of keith taking leadership, too: “lay down some covering fire so they can get out of there!”

he then realizes that shiro has zoned out while facing the robeast, remembering him from the gladiator ring: “shiro, we gotta move! shiro, are you there? shiro!”

after the castle has clearly been corrupted by the galra crystal, keith’s first thought is that they’d left shiro with sendak, hinting that he knows this could put shiro in some form of danger (even if he doesn’t know exactly what’s said in sendak’s mind games): “sendak … wait — has anyone seen shiro?”

he doesn’t object to shiro and allura going on a mission alone, but his face is scrunched up with some sort of worry that eventually reveals itself as “how are you going to get shiro on board?”

when they go to central command to save allura (a mission that keith is already aware of being Peak Risky), he tells the others to save her without him because “shiro’s in trouble! i’m going in!”; he again asks “shiro, are you okay?!” as he hears shiro’s grunts of pain while zarkon overpowers the black lion, and simply tells lance that he’s going to do “whatever he can”, not even stopping when he knows it’s zarkon and that zarkon is the original black paladin (and remember, this does not remotely shake his view of shiro being the true black paladin and that being shiro’s bayard, thanks very much): literally the only thing that stops the fight is shiro regaining black and scooping up red — “i got you, buddy!”

you can basically put the entire first episode of S2 in this bullet point, but i’ll try to summarize: once he gets used to his post-wormhole surroundings, keith starts worrying about shiro; tries to get in contact with shiro and smiles and laughs when he does; worries about shiro’s wound; recalls “patience yields focus” to come up with a plan to get to shiro; tells shiro to stay with him and lets out more relieved laughter when he sees the black lion; and, as a final desperate measure, approaches the black lion and asks to be let in: “i know i’m not shiro, but he’s in trouble — we need to help him”

once shiro is safe and sound, keith still asks after his wound and doesn’t find shiro’s jokes about it funny — and really becomes 100% serious when shiro starts talking like he’s not going to make it (“stop talking like that”), which happens again when shiro brings up leader!keith a second time: “why are we even talking about this? nothing is going to happen to you”

he stays by shiro’s healing pod as his wounds heal, and looks openly soft and relieved when he wakes up; seeing shiro wounded so recently probably adds even more ammo to keith’s fears that ulaz is untrustworthy (“they took your arm”), but once he knows that shiro had been right, he’s the one to track down shiro and comfort him about ulaz’s sacrifice, apologizing for not trusting ulaz

when they get back from the space mall, keith looks around and, not finding shiro, asks where he is; and as soon as shiro gets back, he asks him if he was able to form a stronger bond with the black lion

several factors lead to keith’s decision to give up his knife, but what makes him regain his strength and tell everyone to stop fighting is seeing shiro activate his galra hand against the blade of marmora

remembering last time, keith is attuned to shiro during the big battle with zarkon, yelling “fight it, shiro!” as zarkon yet again tries to control black and invade shiro’s mind; and when it looks like shiro has passed out and zarkon has succeeded, keith gets himself together and directs the team: “something’s wrong with shiro — guys, we can’t let zarkon get the black lion!”

he notices shiro isn’t moving after the battle and he and pidge carry the black lion back to the castle, where — well, you don’t need me to remind you of keith’s desperate run to the empty black lion as he calls out for shiro, but: yeah, that sure does happen! :(

keith is a mirror of the red lion. on the surface, they are both hotheaded; fast; impulsive; instinctive; and difficult to open up. but at their core? they channel all of that not into destruction, but into protecting who they love!

and keith protects people beyond shiro (click for detailed examples)! keith 100% cares about people other than shiro, and shiro being his closest relationship doesn’t negate that, just as allura and coran’s relationship doesn’t negate them caring about the paladins.

but don’t forget the framework of the virtual mindscape. shiro walks out, and the mindscape becomes keith’s dad, whose dialogue implies that he and keith have been separated for a long time: “so many years have passed. don’t you want to catch up?” keith says of course he does. the setting is the desert shack — the last place keith could call home or his own. add the loaded baggage of keith not knowing where his knife comes from, or, apparently, much about his mom, and you get the image of someone without a lot of stability in his past. this hasn’t made him resentful of people: slow to open up to anyone and everyone, yes, but still yearning for connection and for people to call family. shiro, in the absence of traditional family, has become the closest presence. of course keith is protective of him, of course he fears losing him! he’s lost family before and he’s lost shiro before!

think of how much it means to keith that his fears aren’t reality: that shiro isn’t going to abandon him because he makes mistakes, or because he doesn’t always do or say the right thing. it cannot be overstated that this isn’t “coddling” or “favoritism”: it’s being a friend; it’s being family; it’s not giving up on someone. shiro doesn’t look at the fact that keith has been omitting things from him — the knife, and his fears about it — and decide to leave keith to fight that fight on his own. he may not completely understand keith’s past, but he’s willing to protect keith’s right to explore it; he doesn’t think it makes keith selfish, or someone to walk out on. this doesn’t change with the galra reveal, no matter how surprised he is: it only makes him hold keith closer.

when shiro talks about something happening to him, it’s because of his own fears. he isn’t saying “i’m going to willingly leave you”, he’s saying “i may fail” — and it’s a complete sign of trust that he thinks keith is someone who can pick up those pieces and put them back together. this isn’t the garrison. this isn’t about keith being “the best pilot” in his class. sure, he relies on keith’s flying to get them out of tight spots (asteroid fields, black holes), just as he relies on hunk’s strength or pidge’s hacking or lance’s sharpshooting. but it’s so much deeper than that.

i mentioned that without their relationship, keith and shiro “would exist more as pedestals for lance instead of people with their own backstories.” and i think some people still see them that way; and i get it, because lance’s fears are what some deem the most “human” — not all of us can relate to being alien orphans or alien prisoners, but can relate to not feeling as valued as other people (or one specific person). that’s completely valid, but, to me, becomes invalid when it turns into acting like keith and shiro aren’t human, or like their “alien” plotlines strip them of humanity and all that comes with it, including flaws and fears. a lot of us can also relate to PTSD; to struggling to maintain stability; to not just biological family but to found family; to fears of being alone and abandoned.

think of how much it means to shiro that after a year of captivity and having to fight for survival, he knows he can rely on keith to protect him. sometimes keith does it without being asked, like fighting zarkon, and sometimes shiro asks him to, like fighting the lizards. it’s true that shiro looks at the whole team as fighters that are stronger together — who can win together if they work together — but on a personal level, he has been shown that keith doesn’t want him to fight alone and that keith not only wants him to survive, but will fight for him to survive.

like i said: this post is only being written based on S1 and S2. i don’t know what’s going to happen in S3! shiro’s disappearance is a major curveball for keith; he’s going to want to find him and protect him, now more than ever. i’m sure mistakes will be made. i’m sure he’ll have to be reminded that patience yields focus. he’ll need help, and he’ll have to let in that help. the ideal is that he won’t internalize everything as his own burden: that he’ll work with the others, because unlike shiro’s first disappearance, keith isn’t alone — he has a team, and he has to be willing to open up to them. they’re never going to be what shiro is to him, but they can develop relationships of equal strength!

keith and shiro are flawed people and therefore their relationship is flawed: they both need to work on communicating and on not bottling up emotions. but even so, they have a mutual understanding that the other will be there for them throughout those emotions (bottled up or exploded), and that’s so important after everything they’ve been through.

shiro: thanks for saving me.

keith: you’d have done the same for me.

#friendsheith #vld keith #keith kogane #vld shiro #takashi shirogane #vld meta #long post #keith and shiro #i've been sitting on this meta for a long time!#i know this is a keith blog but i feel like understanding his relationship with shiro is so integral to understanding keith overall #S3 is going to be WILD

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cclaudias · 6 years

Text

it’s too damn quiet now.

Voltron fic you can read at my ao3.

Summary:

Keith wistfully reminisces the hull of the Galran ship. The particle barrier they couldn't break down. The paladin's initial panic projecting on to the others and him making him increasingly anxious.

Then they went quiet.

Leaving Keith buzzing with anxiety, fear, memories he had buried in the back of his mind, and ear-piercing quiet.

Keith felt pissed.

And annoyed, disappointed, upset and kind of shaken.

Yes, Lotor saved his life. But that didn’t change any of the other stuff he did. Nor did it change the fact Keith hated him and certainly did not trust him. He was mad at Shiro for complying with Lotor’s “request” and felt the paladins betrayed him when they agreed with Shiro (they were hesitant, but in the end they too gave in).

The Blade was at the castle, waiting with the paladins for the banished prince to arrive. Keith needed a moment away from the rest of them so he was roaming around the castle aimlessly. He didn’t want to go to the room that used to be his. He wasn’t a part of Voltron anymore, so the room didn’t belong to him. He didn’t want to go anywhere near the training deck either, because it was for paladins.

So he walked towards the room with the star map. The room he was first appointed as a paladin in.

Keith frets back to only a few vargas back – the silence, Matt’s hollers and protests, the silence and then the blindingly white light. He heard the door close behind him as he entered the room and moved across the dimly lit chamber. The star map was turned off, giving usually star-lit irradiating room a dusky, gloomy shade. It seemed rather ironic, the room he chose to walk into reflected his present state of mind.

Leaning against a walk, Keith dramatically slid down to the floor. Throwing his head against the wall, he struggled to organize his thoughts. He didn’t know what the team would think of him if they knew he almost sacrifice himself. Would it make them mad? Would they sympathize with him? Look at him with pity? Would they care at all?

Letting out a consecutive sigh, he squeezed his eyes shut. Memories of the incident flooded back, painting a series of events against the pitch-black of his eyelids.

Keith remembered the huge sigh of relief that left his lungs when Allura wrenched them out Naxzela. He remembered the relapsing dread when he realized that the team’s lives were still in danger. He pulled his legs close to his chest as he heard the memories blabbering in the fear of their possible impending demise. But then they all went quiet.

He reflected on his feelings upon the sudden silence. His thoughts flew back to a three year old and his laughing parents. The child’s cries of protest and fear watching his mother’s back disappear. The quiet that seemed to replace her presence. Keith felt the growing sharpness of the razor in his throat, similar but dull than the one he felt when Lance wasn’t whining or bragging anymore, when Hunk and Pidge weren’t speaking gibberish they called physics, when neither Allura nor Shiro were giving life-saving commands.

They were all quiet, like his father for all those years before even he decided Keith wasn’t worth fighting for.

He couldn’t think then. The silence was deafening and Keith felt a sense of panic he didn’t seem to have felt since he was three. He lost a family once. He was not going to lose one again. His body and mind seemed to be coordinating out of his own accord. They found the best course of action – anything that would save his family – and he felt his hands move, pushing his ship towards the Galra ship. Towards his demise. Towards a secure future for his family.

Then Matt called out to him. Told him to stop. Keith knew Matt was right, he should have stopped - the team wouldn’t want to live a life at the cost of his life. But when he shut his eyes, he watched his mother go, his father recede from view and heard nothing but the deafening quiet. He watched Shiro give him brotherly advise, treat him like his own brother. He felt Allura hug him, laughter bubbling within him because of Hunk, fondness watching Pidge’s grin grow when she figured something out and exasperation at Lance’s cheer.

They were worth living for.

But he had opened his eyes, he heard nothing - felt nothing but dread, fear and a lump in his throat.

They were also worth dying for.

So Keith kept moving.

Now, in the inky room, Keith wondered how they would react if Lotor wouldn’t have jumped in. Keith was upset that they decided to give this meeting with Lotor a shot, despite Keith’s evident malice and distrust towards him. The guy tried to split them apart and take them down one-on-one for god’s sake.

Except that was mostly Keith’s fault alone. He put his forehead on his knees and pulled himself in tightly.

Maybe after you almost die for people you consider your family, it feels like a spiteful betrayal when they choose to give an asshole you hate a shot.

Or maybe Keith was just being miserly.

Keith was also worried about Matt telling the team about what he tried to do. He wouldn’t know how to react if they knew. What if they acted sympathetic? It would kill Keith. But he’d feel even worse if they acted like they didn’t know about it, which was pretty unreasonable on Keith’s part, because he didn’t even know it Matt actually told this to them. A hundred possibilities ran through Keith’s head on their possible reactions, each worse than the previous.

He felt sick.

He tried to think of something else, something less upsetting but the only other thing he could think of at the moment, was his mother leaving. He thought of his father who distanced himself after his mother left, leaving Keith to his own devices. Keith despised his father for that, but still when his father wasn’t there anymore, Keith selfishly grieved.

Then Shiro came along. The highly capable cadet who was loved and respected by everyone. Who loved and respected Keith. Who treated Keith like a brother, who taught Keith the meaning of family. But then Shiro disappeared too, reimposing the quiet around him. Keith spent every day after that looking for Shiro, struggling to silence the quiet, to find the man he could call family again.

It was a quiet then, alone in the desert shack, with no one he could even talk to, with nothing around him to make him feel important or loved. The only thing that kept him going was the need to bring his brother back. Thinking about it even now stung Keith’s eyes, he never wanted it to be so damn quiet again, never wanted to be alone again.

Then the universe decided that it had tortured Keith enough, and gave him his brother back, and even gave him a family. A home. Somewhere he was needed. Somewhere he was important. Somewhere he made a difference.

Somewhere he belonged.

But apparently the universe didn’t like the sight of happy Keith. Or maybe all of this was only to give him love so it cruelly snatch that later.

Shiro disappeared again.

The only person who hadn’t given up on him.

And the other paladins seemed to have given up on Shiro. Keith didn’t understand, they were a family. Why did the team give up on finding Shiro so easily?

They might have, but Keith didn’t.

When the team had seen Keith almost at his limit, they made him realize that he wasn’t really alone. That they were struggling too, they just had different ways of dealing with it, of showing it. They hadn’t given up on Shiro. They considered the team as much of a family as Keith did.

So then why were they trying to force Keith into piloting the Black Lion. He didn’t want to, he had made it very clear. Allura was a much better leader than he was. Why did Black choose him. Somewhere Keith knew the answer, but it only made it him feel worse, so he didn’t think about it. But when Lance – arrogant but capable Lance – told him that he respected Black’s decision to choose Keith, it made him feel better. Important.

Being a leader wasn’t really that bad either. He had a few hiccups along the way, but he knew that leading wasn’t as bad as he had made it out to be. It didn’t change the fact Keith did not want to lead.

Even though he would never openly admit it, having Lance by his side made everything so much better.

Then one day, Lance came to Keith to talk about something troubling him, Keith felt ecstatic. Things started rocky for them, but they were bonding, they were getting there. Lance then proceeded to burst Keith’s bubble when he told him he'd come to him because he was the “leader”. Keith already loathed that word being associated with his name, but if possible he grew to hate it more.

Admittedly, Keith acted a little selfish and inconsiderate then. He was put out and maybe acting a little spoilt. It didn't concern him in the beginning, because this was Lance. He probably wanted Keith to get more comfort facilities for Kaltenecker.

But when he realized that Lance was serious, that this was really bothering Lance, he immediately regretted his behavior. He tried to make it up to him, although unsure if it would help in the long run. Lance’s smile before he left Keith’s room reassured Keith that his comforting had worked - at least for then.

It was after that Keith started noticing little slips in Lance’s behavior and it made him feel realize how wrong his initial judgement of Lance’s character was. It made Keith struggle to make up for his misjudgment by supporting Lance whenever and however he could.

But Keith slowly realized he was getting too attached to Lance. He had been pretty attached to Lance for a while then, Keith had a minor crush on Lance that he would never let anyone – especially Lance – know. But he was growing more attached to him and to the rest of the team. Keith did consider them family, but he’s so often questioned if they felt the same that his growing attachment to them set off an alarm.

Keith tried to let that slide but ever since Shiro had come back, he'd always seemed a little irked by Keith. He would apologize and they’d make up later, but it didn’t ease the knot in Keith’s stomach around the man who was supposed to be his big brother. Shiro’s behavior made Keith’s insecurities grow.

The rest of the paladins would eventually behave in the same way with him, wouldn’t they?

Sure they were different people, in different circumstances, so there was no guarantee they’d eventually get annoyed of Keith.

But there was no guarantee they wouldn’t either.

He thought about how none of the paladins ever tried to ask him if he was alright. No one asked him to stay besides Allura and Shiro. Even they asked him to stay for Voltron. Because Voltron needed him.

They clearly didn’t.

Keith felt the dull lump in his throat grow sharper.

He'd never asked for much. He didn’t want his mother to stay so she could shower and spoil him with love. Hell, she didn’t even have to stay. All he wanted was to know that she loved him. He didn’t want his father to forget all his sorrows and concentrate only on Keith. All he wanted was for his father to acknowledge that he was not the only one suffering, Keith was too, and to let Keith know he loved him.

Unlike Zarkon and Haggar, Keith didn’t want world domination, power or wealth. All he wanted was a family. Was love.

Was that too much to ask for?

He really thought he had a family with the paladins. He called this place home, Allura called him family and none of them left the other behind.

In the beginning, Keith was glad to find a place where he was needed, to find somewhere he had a responsibility and was important. It was for the universe, it was for Voltron.

Then, he grew to love the people he fought for the universe with. He called them family, he was certain they would never leave him behind or alone, not even for the universe.

So why did none of them ever call the Marmora headquarters for a reason that wasn’t saving the universe?

They said they’d miss him. They said it wouldn’t be the same without him. So why didn’t any of them call to check on him once? Why did the universe become more important all of a sudden?

He pulled his knees closer, his thoughts choking him, a sob escaping its grasp.

He thought about their performances. Where everyone seemed happy and fine. Where Lance didn’t seem insecure. Shiro wasn’t agitated. Allura was doing a ridiculous job of imitating him.

He remembered what Pidge called him: loner. Was that really what they saw him as? Was that all they saw in him? A socially inept orphan with anger issues. A socially inept orphan who was kicked out of school. A socially inept orphan who only mattered when he was the rash red paladin, or the crappy leader. Was a moody, awkward, impulsive loner all they saw him as?

They might be right, heck they were probably spot on, but it made Keith angry and miserable anyways.

Keith couldn’t watch their performances after that. He tried but each time he felt a dull, but growing ache in his chest. The kind that would make it hard for him to breathe and twist his stomach into a thousand knots.

He also tried to find a family in the Blade. But after the paladins, he couldn’t. He couldn’t consider the people who were ready to sacrifice others for the universe his family. He couldn’t grow fond of people who seemed to have no relation outside the mission. He couldn’t consider them family because no one in the Blade was loud, arrogant, boisterous but also loving, caring and even insecure. Because no one in the Blade laughed as warmly as they hugged. No one in the Blade had sparkles in their eyes whenever they came across some technology remotely intriguing. No one in the Blade called him family, led like fully-grown mature adult or could talk to space mice. No one in the Blade treated him like a little brother.

So he just missed these people he considered family more. Even when he knew they probably didn’t think of him too much. Even though the person who told him he was her family only asked him to stay for Voltron.

Hot tears fell from the corners of Keith’s eyes, leaving a burning trail in its path. Keith frantically wiped his tears, more sobs spurting out his throat.

He could be with them right now, but instead he was here bowling his eyes out over something childish and irrelevant. He swabbed out more tears, his sobs finally coming to a stop.

He hated this. He hated how his cries were the only sound ringing out in this silent, dead room. He hated how quiet this place was.

He hated how quiet it was in the Marmora headquarters.

He hated how quiet it was in space.

He hated how quiet the castle was when he was alone.

He hated how quiet his ugly desert shack was.

The sobs he thought he had under control gushed out again.

He told himself he’d be okay. This wasn’t the first time this happened, it would pass and he’d be fine again. But the quiet was gnawing at him, choking him, making it harder for him to think, to breathe, to stop crying.

He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be with them. He wanted to be somewhere someone was always talking, somewhere it was never quiet. He wanted to be with someone who would keep arguing with him. With people who would speak in gibberish they called science. With a man who was too loud and had a ludicrously perfectly shaped orange moustache. With a girl who was incredibly strong and caring and bright and perceptive enough to do things perfectly on her first time. He wanted to be with the person who taught him the meaning of family, who made him realize he mattered, that someone cared. He wanted to be with his big brother, who didn’t always seem agitated with him.

Keith’s spiraling was rudely interrupted when he heard the door slide open. Eyes wide, he buried his face behind his knees, hoping he could pass as asleep. He tried furiously swiping at his tears, the best he could do without making it seem like he was moving.

“Keith?” He heard a warm, comforting voice call out.

Shit, he thought. How did Hunk find him?

“Do you think he’s asleep?”

Quiznak, Pidge was here too.

All he needed was Lance, Shiro and Allura to be present too.

He heard a snort, “Yeah, that makes sense, come to the castle after months, that too for for security purposes and then fall asleep in a random room with no bed. He’s only been gone a few months, I don’t think he’s forgotten the way to his room.”

Keith felt slightly annoyed when Lance said months in an agitated manner, like Keith had done something wrong.

“Lance, he might be tired. Stop being crude.”

Man, Allura too?

Now the only thing left was some input from Shiro. Oh wait, Shiro was too annoyed with Keith to bother looking for him.

Wait, why were they looking for him?

“Hey Keith, buddy?” Hunk again. “You with me?”

If Keith looked up now they’d notice he was crying. If he didn’t they’d come closer and find out anyway.

Keith cleared his throat, to make sure it wouldn’t crack when he spoke. He didn’t lift his head up, but moved so his arms were on top of his knees and his cheek on top of them.

Whatever Lance said about his hair was invalid, at least his bangs covered his probably red, swollen eyes.

“Yeah”, he croaked out and then cleared his throat again. “Just…tired.”

“Keith, we need to talk to you a moment, if that’s okay with you”, Allura said.

Taking in a deep breath Keith began to answer but Lance cut him off. “Oh and maybe if you had the decency to look at us while we talked, or did your time with Marmora eradicate any social mannerisms you had left?”

Keith felt anger boil within him. Why the hell was Lance acting so spitefully?

But Keith knew better than to look up, so he answered, “like I said, I’m tired. You should know. Your fatigue is making you act like an asshole.”

He heard Lance sucking in a deep breath, probably to say something but Pidge spoke before Lance had a chance to. “We just wanted to know if you were okay?”

What? Keith wanted to snort, to scream, to yell, to look at them. But instead he shifted again, his forehead on his knees, his arms wrapped around them.

“For the last time -”, Keith tried to sound exasperated, “I’m tired, Pidge.”

He felt fingertips brush his bangs aside, but that was not what made him look up. “Of almost dying for us?”

Hunk’s question made Keith look up so fast, his fingertips almost poked his eyes.

He watched their eyes go wide taking in his appearance, Lance looking last. His frown turned into a mixture of hurt and surprise, the look the rest of them had when they noticed his tear streaked face.

Keith hated this.

But at least they weren’t looking at him with pity.

Standing up abruptly, he said, “The mission was more important than one person. It wasn’t just you guys -”, such an obvious lie “– there were a lot of lives at stake.”

Lance’s expression turned bitter again. He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when Hunk hugged Keith.

“You’re right”, he said. “Saving the universe is more important. Voltron is more important.”

What?

Keith felt a stab of pain. If this was Hunk’s way of comforting, he was doing terrible.

A pair of smaller arms wound around his chest, as Hunk moved away. “Hunk’s right, Keith. The universe can replace you, Voltron can”, Pidge said.

“But we can’t”, Allura and Hunk said, turning and smiling sadly at each other for a moment, then turning to look at him.

Keith blinked. When full realization of their words - this gesture - hit him he blinked again, more frantically than the first time, hoping to blink away the new wave of tears.

What?

“We know saving the universe is important Keith”, Allura said. “But to us, it’s not more important than you, however selfish that may sound.”

Pidge pulled away to look him in the eye, “Keith, you’re a part of our family, like one of my big brothers, this mission might be important but I don’t want to lose you.”

“None of us do”, Hunk added.

Lance was still quiet.

But then he sighed and moved towards Keith. “The only reason I’m not breaking your face right now”, he said, very clearly still annoyed. “Is because that would be unfair.” He looked away from Keith, down to his side. “Because I may – would – have done the same thing in your position.”

The rest of them nodded, and Keith looked down, trying to blink back tears.

He heard Lance sigh again. “That doesn’t mean we’re not mad at you Keith!”

“Did you really think any of us could go on, knowing that the only reason we’re alive is because -” Hunk’s voice shook a little, “- because you’re not?” His voice cracked and Keith knew without looking that Hunk was crying.

He looked up at them, vision still blurry. “I’m sorry.”

“Keith you don’t have to apologize for anything, you didn’t do anything wrong”, Allura said, as she moved in to hug him.

“Maybe except putting your life in danger for the people who’d rather die than live at the cost of your life”, Pidge stated. “We’re sorry too, Keith. For not telling you this before.”

Allura pulled away, smiling, “She’s right. And this is not just because of my fear at possible survivor’s guilt, I’ve lost enough, I can’t lose you too.”

His heart clenched watching her expression darken. He wished there was some way he could fix everything for her, for the rest of them. He felt a physical ache seeing them hurt.

Allura moved, so her, Hunk and Pidge were standing to his sides, leaving Lance standing in front of him. Keith realized that they were each hugging him one by one so by order that left Lance. Keith felt his heart skip a beat and stomach twist. Lance had never hugged him before and he was wasn’t sure if he’d be able to survive that.

But if Lance didn’t hug him - that would probably hurt a lot more. It’d feel like an indirect rejection to Keith.

Then Keith heard Lance call him team leader in his head. He remembered how Lance supported him regardless of what during his time as the Black Paladin. He thought of what Lance had said when he’d messed up in Thaycerix, “But now we gotta fix it.” We. Keith had clearly been the one who messed up, it was all Keith’s fault but when Lance said that, Keith knew Lance had his back. That Lance would support and help him regardless of what and how many times.

Keith didn’t need a hug from Lance to know he would be there for him. He knew that already.

But when he looked at Lance, he noticed Lance looked unsettled and fidgety. Like he wanted to ask Keith something, but didn’t know how to phrase it or if he should ask it at all.

“Keith”, Lance started, and Keith’s stomach dropped from the sound of his voice. Like he was going to ask something Keith definitely did not want to answer. “I don’t know, man”, he ran a hand over his face, “but…was I – what I asked you the other day – was that even part of the reason you left? I know it wasn’t the whole, obviously, but”, he looked at Keith with a look saying he definitely did not want to hear the answer to this. “Did it have even a small part in this?”

Keith looked at everyone but Lance. Everyone’s confounded expressions. They had no idea what Lance was talking about. Keith wondered if what surprised them even more was that Keith and Lance actually interacted with civility when left alone.

Wait, the way Lance put it, it could be interpreted as a fight.

So they were just surprised that Keith and Lance had a fight that didn’t wake the rest of the castle.

Lance still looked like he didn’t want to know the answer. Keith still didn’t want to answer.

“I guess I thought about it once”, Keith admitted in a small voice, hoping it wouldn’t reach Lance.

But quiznak, the universe really hated Keith. Lance heard his reply.

Rushing to explain, Keith said, “What you said didn’t make any sense.” The shock on Lance’s face persisted. “You’re a vital part of Voltron, and it didn’t make any sense that you thought you should -”, Keith never got to finish because Lance surged forward to hug him.

Lance.

Hugged.

Keith.

Keith would never get Lance. With all that rivalry shit, he was certain Lance would be the last person in the universe to hug him.

“I’m sorry”, he mumbled near Keith’s ear. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you why you were pulling away from us. I’m sorry I – we – weren’t there for you. I’m so sorry, Keith.”

Lance didn’t really have anything he had to apologize for, but yet here he was apologizing.

Keith had cried enough for one day. Didn’t Lance see that?

He felt three pairs of arms slide around him, making him laugh through his tears.

“You know that you can talk to us anytime, about anything, right?” Allura asked.

Keith nodded, even though he knew they wouldn’t see it.

“It was just -” he croaked out, “- really quiet. All of you had gone silent. You guys were never like that before and all I could think of -”, he couldn’t say it out loud. It was way too scary.

Allura, Hunk and Pidge squeezed him, and Lance shifted his palms so one of them fitted in the small of his back and the other behind his neck, fingers in his hair. “I know”, he whispered, comfortingly, his hands soothing out the knots in Keith's hair.

From the sniffles around him, he was certain Pidge and Hunk were crying, which despite his emotional fatigue, made him want to laugh.

“Just made a mental note to cry out loud every time we’re about to die and one of you isn’t around”, Hunk said, his voice faintly hoarse.

This time Keith laughed out loud.

He could feel them all relax hearing his laughter and Hunk was no doubt beaming at his achievement.

“And Keith”, Lance said, “I know the Blade is important to you. But obviously we are important to you too - more important, I'm sure -, so it’d be really nice if you’d make time for us sometime from your busy schedule of self-sacrifice.”

There. Lance was back again.

He felt someone move their hand to hit Lance, making him giggle. He heard Pidge then, “And since you're obviously important to us – all – too -”, she said, enunciating the all, while no doubt giving Lance The Look. “- we’re going to make time out so we can hang out with each other. It’s really quiet when you and Lance aren’t trying to rip each other’s heads off.”

All of them loosened their grips around him, except Lance, who held on a moment longer to say, “I actually like crying Keith better than your loner persona.”

“Persona?” Keith whined, despite the fire making its way up to his face.

“C’mon, Keith”, Pidge grinned. “We all know you like hugs better than your emo music.”

Keith scrunched his face up in denial. She wasn’t far from the truth, but only because they were in space without any rock music, another thing he'd never admit out loud.

“Wait”, Hunk started, “you all know Keith has a sense of humor right. This guy here can crack jokes that make people laugh.”

All of them except Keith laughed. “Why are you all laughing?” Keith asked indignantly.

They tried to hide their giggles behind their palms, “No reason.”

When they began to exit the room, Hunk and Allura stood by Keith’s side, slipping their palms into his hands.

Although confused, Keith appreciated the gesture, so he let them hold his hands.

“What kind of a Keith joke made Hunk laugh?” Lance asked smugly.

Crush or no crush, Keith wanted to punch Lance right now.

He growled but didn’t reply, feeling too drained to think of a snarky comment right now.

The rest of them kept talking, along the way, not asking Keith to talk but occasionally asking his opinion.

Halfway to the castle’s control center, Hunk and Allura switched with Lance and Pidge. Finally understanding what they were doing, a small smile creeped up Keith’s face.

He really loved these people.

Unlike Hunk and Allura who were still, every time Pidge wanted to tell Keith something or wanted his input, she’d tug his arm down and Lance had been swinging their arms since he’d taken Keith’s hand.

Usually he’d get annoyed, but it made him especially fond today.

Eventually Pidge too let go of his hand but Lance hadn’t. Instead, Keith noticed Lance turn his head toward him from his periphery.

Expecting a jab, Keith turned to face him, but Lance didn’t look like he was going to make fun of Keith. He had an odd expression on his face instead.

Keith noticed a faint red hue staining Lance’s brown skin. “I missed you.”

Keith’s head buzzed, stomach twisting itself into knots. Till Keith remembered what Lance told him before he left. Rolling his eyes bitterly, he said, “I know, Lance. You didn't have any one to make fun of.”

Lance snorted and looked away from Keith, “I guess I missed that too.”

Keith felt his heart stop for a minute there, taking in what Lance said.

Then, his lips turned up in a grin, Lance's admission leaving Keith feeling all giddy and happy all of a sudden.

Lance really, actually genuinely missed him. And he admitted it. Out loud. To Keith.

Pressing down the urge to laugh, Keith answered, “I missed you too.”

They both grinned at each other for one stretched-out special moment. Then Lance looked back ahead, Keith mirroring his movements.

Keith knew that he would spiral back down again. He knew he’d probably have another breakdown when he was alone. But also knew he wasn’t ever truly alone. He had Lance, Pidge, Hunk, Allura, Shiro and Coran. He had his family. And regardless of what he felt at the moment, he reminded himself, that they did in fact care about him. As much as he cared about them.

When they’d almost reached the castle’s central controls, Lance stopped swinging their arms in between.

But he didn’t let go.

#voltron fic #keith pov #hurt comfort #klance #a little #space fam #voltron #vld #myfic

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ironinkpen · 7 years

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the bayard is the paladin is the lion: a season 3 prediction

Alternatively titled: Watch This Child Jeopardize Her GPA in Real Time As She Ignores Her Midterms to Write Yet Another Fucking Meta

The lovely @littleblackchats already wrote an awesome post about the symbolism of the bayards for each of the characters in Voltron. But I was wondering: could we take it a step further and use the weapons - and what they say symbolically about the paladins wielding them - to make an informed guess about who’s going to end up in what lion next season?

(even if the answer to that question is no, i’m already writing this so whatever)

Since Allura, Keith, and Lance are the most likely to be swapped into new lions (or, in Allura’s case, to be put into a lion for the first time), I thought it’d be cool to take a look at what the weapons each of them wields says about their personalities, and whether that can give us hints as to who’s gonna be the Black Paladin next season while Shiro’s gone.

Alright, so in episode 1, Allura tells us that a lion’s quintessence is mirrored in its paladin, and that the paladin shapes the bayard. So lion = paladin = bayard. The lion and paladin should be similar in personalty, and the bayard should be compatible to the paladin’s style of fighting and personality as well. This is shown really well in Hunk and Pidge: Pidge’s weapon is small (like her), electric (reflecting her interest in computers), and made for precision (Pidge is more interested in finding clever solutions than just brute-forcing problems), while Hunk’s is big (just like him), long-range (reflecting his wish to stay distanced from conflict), and packs a punch (Hunk is the strongest character on the team, after all).

So the weapons tell us something about the personalities of the ones using them. But what can their respective weapons tell us about Keith, Lance, and Allura?

Let’s start with Mr. “I want you to lead Voltron” himself:

Keith’s weapon is a sword, which is all sorts of metaphorical fun. Swords in literature (besides being like. hella phallic lmao) are usually associated with the archetype of the knight.

The knight character usually brings to mind two sets of traits: leadership, wisdom, chivalry, and arrogance (yay phallic symbolism) and on the flip side, hot bloodedness, passion, youth, romance, inexperience, and naiveté. Knighthood stories usually either follow an older, wiser knight as they go on a quest (usually to repay an old debt of some sort, a la Beowulf), or a younger, bright-eyed knight as they set out on an adventure of some sort (which typically involve a pretty girl in some way). Two very different possible characterizations! As you can see, sword imagery is a... double edged sword.

(I’ll show myself out)

Keith doesn’t have the naiveté or sense of romance that young knights often have, but the traits of hot bloodedness, passion, and youth fit him well. He’s definitely an impulsive character, prone to charging into battle without a plan:

(it was such a bad idea that Hunk thought it was a joke sldkjf)

The sword itself is a very impulsive, instinctive weapon. Sword fighting is about being faster than your opponent and values making the first strike. It’s also a reaction-based weapon that requires that you respond to your opponent’s attacks. Instinct is key in sword fighting– you have to be able to quickly respond when a blow is coming at you. This fits into the whole “relies on instinct more than skill alone” thing of the Red Lion.

The sword is also a weapon of violence. Knights were... usually not actually great, noble guys in practice. Keith subverts that whole mess by being a genuinely nice kid, but we see the bloodthirstiness typically associated with his weapon in scenes like at the end of season 1, where he charges in to attack Zarkon despite the fact that that’s. A really bad idea. Like I said, Keith’s a passionate character, and that can often translate into stabbiness with him.

As a close-range weapon, swords require that their users be brave enough to get close to their enemy. The user also has to be pretty confident that they’ll be able to handle themselves in a fight, because you gotta get like super close to someone that wants to kill you and be fairly certain that you’re the one who’s gonna make it out alive. Definitely Keith.

The sword is also tied with the traits of adventure, protection, and duty. Keith kicks off half of this whole Voltron adventure by going to get Shiro (Lance brings Pidge and Hunk along and finishes the party). His protective instinct is seen when he saves Shiro in season 2, covers Lance when they fight together, and tries to leave the team because he thinks they’re being tracked through them. His sense of duty is seen when he argues that Pidge can’t leave the team to go after her family bc they need her for Voltron (like... not ur call tho buddy) and when he turns away from his past in BoM to save people.

And it’s a rebel’s weapon! Which totally fits the whole “had a discipline issue and flunked out” thing at the Garrison. My boy doesn’t like authority at all lmao. When Coran tries to stop him from fighting Zarkon he just. Runs off and does it anyway. I love him.

Another motif often tied to swords is brotherhood. “Brothers in arms,” and all that. In that scene with the Blade Of Marmora, the armor Keith’s wearing is meant to show the wearer’s hopes and fears, and he sees Shiro, someone he considers a brother, walking away from him. The choice he is forced to make in this scene is between knowledge and companionship, and then between knowledge and heroism, which is telling of what Keith values as a person. He actually chooses knowledge over companionship during his conversation with Shiro, which... actually doesn’t really fit with the knight motif at all. But he then chooses heroism over knowledge, turning away from the answers to his past, which does. Either way, the decision to pick his past over his friends was clearly a difficult one to Keith, which makes sense, as knights are often more interested in interpersonal relationships and saving others than the pursuit of wisdom.

(Interestingly, though, Lance calls Keith a “samurai” in the comic, and the samurai archetype is often associated with traits like loneliness, wandering, and being lost. So while Keith clearly places value in bonds with others, like a knight, it seems that in practice he behaves more like the lonely samurai. Aw :( )

At his core, Keith is a very loyal character, both to the cause of saving the Universe and to his teammates. And this is consistent with his weapon. Knights are often sworn to a lord or lady or cause that they’ll fight for. With Keith, that cause and those people are Team Voltron.

Alright so that’s a lot on Keith. Now onto Lance:

His bayard’s a gun! Also super phallic lol. But ignoring that, let’s talk about what this says about Lance!

Alright, so for one thing, Lance’s weapon is built for medium to long range fighting. It’s a weapon that requires distance from the opponent. This shows a tendency to disengage when possible, which is absolutely consistent with Lance’s character. He prefers to think up a plan rather than charge right in.

Lance’s weapon also calls upon the archetype of the sniper. When you think of a sniper, the trait of patience probably comes to mind– the sniper of the group is usually the guy sitting up on a high place, observing the lay of the land and quietly waiting around to make their shot. While it may seem at first glance like Lance’s loud-mouthed, hyper personality doesn’t fit this archetype at all, it… actually does. Really, really well.

(God this shot (heh) always gives me shivers)

Take this scene for example. Lance, despite the closing doors, the fact that he’s just been shot out into space, and the stress on him (they need Slav for their whole plan to work), makes the shot and saves Slav. And he waits for the perfect moment before shooting. The cool-headedness he shows here is astounding.

Plus, think of his Garrison backstory. He was a cargo class pilot at the Garrison despite wanting to be fighter class. But did he give up? Not at all. He continued to work to be top of his class so that when a slot opened up, he was able to be moved up into fighter class. And he did this with no indication that a place would even open up in the first place. He was likely working for quite some time before Keith got kicked out. He’s actually a pretty patient character!!

On the flip side, though, there’s the idea of the “itchy trigger finger.” Lance doesn’t always think things through– he can also be pretty hotblooded and passionate and make snap (read: bad) decisions (like in the case of his thirst for Nyma, for one). That also says something interesting about his character: impulse = bad when it comes to Lance. An itchy trigger finger is a negative thing. While with the sword, passion and energy can be good, noble things, the gun is a weapon that almost exclusively causes harm when used impulsively. Keith’s impulses tend to be on the right path, while Lance’s are usually bad.

The gun ultimately requires focus. When a sniper’s eye strays from the scope, the shot’s lost. A lot of the times Lance messes up in when he’s looking at the people around him for approval / praise instead of focusing on the task. In episode 1 he crashes the simulator because he’s bragging, at one point in season 1 he crashes into something when boasting to Shiro about how he’s not an amateur, etc. etc. However, in situations like the above where Lance is focusing on a task and not on the opinions of others, he’s extremely effective.

This plays interestingly with another trait of the sniper archetype: observation. A sniper is often looking at things from a higher vantage point and watching others. While they have to be focused, they also have to be aware of the things around them. When he talks about his team during the episode with the prison break in season 2, Lance easily describes each of their strengths, and in season 1, he’s able to tell that the bomb isn’t Rover almost immediately, because Pidge isn’t with it. For someone that seems so self-absorbed at first glance, Lance is very in tune with the people in his environment and the environment itself.

On that note, the gun, like the sword, is a weapon of decisiveness. There’s really no taking back a shot bullet, just as it’s hard to stop a blade once it’s swung. The user of a gun must use it at the right moment, and with precise aim. In the scene above where he’s rescuing Slav, Lance only gets one shot (heh) to do what he can. And he follows through with one decisive flick of his finger.

But that edges into the dark side of the gun. While there’s definitely the trait of cool-headedness associated with gun users, this can also toe the line of cruelty. Characters with guns can be lone wolves and cold-blooded killers– the distance from their opponents makes them more able to detach from the act of killing. There’s also an aspect of cowardice to it, as the user often doesn’t face their opponents head to head.

I’d say that the narrative tosses that set of traits aside for Lance, though. When saving Slav, Lance goes for the warden’s arm, not a killing shot. Lance uses his gun to minimize damage, not cause it-- he often shows a preoccupation with the well-being of others (like when he reminds Keith to be careful with the Balmera because they’re alive). And Lance is definitely pretty brave (like when he pushes Coran out of the way of that bomb). His talkative personalty also subverts the lone wolf trope. However, the fact that his weapon requires distance can be a reflection of the loneliness he feels (he thinks he’s a seventh wheel :’( ).

Last, but definitely not least, we move onto Allura:

Alright, so the thing about Allura is that she doesn’t actually have a bayard. She does, however, have a weapon of choice, which is a staff.

(more… phallic imagery…….)

I’ll be honest, my knowledge of martial arts is limited and my English classes don’t typically cover staffs (heh), because none of the characters in the books I’ve read so far actually like… use staffs to fight. BUT I’ll try my best lmao

The staff has an interesting duality to it: on one hand, it’s a very firm weapon that requires strength and a good, firm stance to wield, while on the other, it’s a very flexible weapon that allows its user to change direction and move. This matches Allura’s character well. She can be really stern and really stubborn (when she insists on going into the ship in season 1, when she runs off with Keith, when she refuses to work with the BoM, etc.), but she’s also adaptable and flexible (when she wakes up and is like “yeah okay I guess I slept for 10000 years,” when she trains the paladins despite their being young and inexperienced because hey, they’re what we’ve got, when she works with the Blade of Marmora despite the fact that the Galra killed her entire people, etc.). Allura digs her heels in at times and lets herself go with the flow at others.

The staff is a weapon of strength and steadiness, one that has the ability to withstand blows. Allura goes through like. So much through the story, what with her losing her home, her people, and then her father’s AI. But despite that, she doesn’t crumble. Girl’s strong as hell.

But, on the flip side, it’s also a weapon of lightfootedness, a la Aang from Avatar the Last Airbender. I mentioned mobility and flexibility earlier, and that’s absolutely relevant to Allura. The staff allows its user to maneuver quickly. Similarly, Allura facilitates travel for the team: she provides wormholes so they can move around the universe to fight / ditch Zarkon. She’s a mobile, versatile fighter.

The staff is a weapon that’s close range. It has you get right up in your opponent’s face. So, like the sword, it requires that its user be confident and able to respond to attacks quickly. It’s a reaction-based weapon.

However, while it’s close range, the staff also allows the user to keep its opponent at a certain distance if they choose. This quality of the staff reflects Allura’s tendency to “strategize on the fly.” She’s close to her opponent like Keith, but can keep them at a farther distance than he can, like Lance. So she can, if she wants to, step back and get a broader look at the situation. As a result, Allura can rely on both instinct and observation.

It’s also an avoidant weapon, whose main strength lies in parrying the opponent-- it’s built for weathering blows and getting in strategic counterblows. As previously mentioned, this is the strategy of Team Voltron in the war: they attack Zarkon where they can, but otherwise avoid and regroup. It’s a strategy of wearing the opponent down.

The staff’s a difficult weapon to kill with. It doesn’t have a blade like the sword or bullet like the gun. It’s a weapon whose main purpose is to protect, not maim. This is reflected in Allura’s tendency to prefer diplomacy to violence.

Staffs also bring to mind balance. Allura is balancing a lot between helping train the new paladins, running the castleship, and organizing resistance against Zarkon. She’s a character that has to juggle several responsibilities, and she does so expertly.

Some more fun things about the staff (@quillowl thanks for the info!!) is that it can symbolize either a cane or a scepter. The scepter has close ties with responsibility and royalty. As the Commander of the Castle of Lions, Allura is charged with... basically running this whole Voltron show. And, she’s a princess, so, royalty.

As for the cane, it apparently has ties with the traits of wisdom and age. Allura is quite literally 10000 years old, so there’s the age part. And she’s a very wise leader (though she sometimes jumps the gun). The cane also denotes support.

Alright, this is already getting really long so we’re gonna jump to the good part. What does this have to do with the lions?

Allura states here that the quintessence of the lion matches that of their pilot. I’m basically 99% sure that there’s going to be a lion swap in season 3, what with Shiro out of the picture (for a while at least??), and the three lions that are most likely up for grabs are Black, Red, and Blue. The three people that will most likely fill one of those positions are Allura, Keith, and Lance (though for Allura to do so they’ll have to find a way for Coran to pilot the castle without her).

The Black Lion is the decisive head of Voltron, and requires a born leader who is in control at all times. Its related element is Air.

The Red Lion is the most temperamental of the lions and requires a pilot that relies more on instinct than skill alone. Its related element is Fire.

The Blue Lion’s traits are not stated outright on the show, but the Voltron website describes it as the friendliest of the lions, the most accepting of new pilots, and one of the most confident. Its related element is Water.

So who’s going where?

Well, each of these characters has the decisiveness required of the Black Lion, but personally, I think that Keith fits the Red Lion’s traits a bit too well to be moved from it. Keith fights with his instincts more than his head, which serves him well in battle. He’s agile, like his lion, and quick to charge into a fight (even when it might not be wise to do so). Plus, his relationship to the motif of brotherhood makes it hard for me to believe that he and Red will be easily separated. I think that Keith’s sense of duty to Shiro will make him try to pilot the Black Lion for at least a while, but his deep bond with Red will probably prevent him from keeping the role. However, he would be a good fit if the job if they did keep him in the Black Lion. The sword is a weapon of leadership-- Keith would just have to learn how to hone it.

As for Allura, if she is put in a lion, she has the friendliness of the Blue Lion, seen in her tendency to use diplomacy where she can. Her adaptability is consistent with that of the Blue Lion’s element of water– she “goes with the flow.” Plus, the staff is a weapon that is more difficult to hurt others with, and water is the element of healing. The Blue Lion is also a very well-balanced lion stat wise, reflecting Allura’s preference towards weapons that are balanced. And Allura has the steadiness and strength that a leg of Voltron would need to support the team, just as Hunk does.

On the flip side, that firmness and strength would also serve her as the Head of Voltron. Her adaptability makes her the flexible leader she already is, and the Black Lion is also a very well balanced weapon. Her ability to juggle so many things reflects a leader’s ability to balance and keep track of their team. Plus, the interpretation of the staff as a scepter calls to mind leadership, dignity, and responsibility-- all of which the head of Voltron should have. The staff is also, again, a weapon of lightfootedness, which is a definite argument that Allura’s native element could be Air, aka the Black Lion’s element.

As for putting Allura in the Red Lion, the agility and mobility her weapon provides would suit Red well. However, Red is a temperamental lion, and while Allura is passionate and fiery in personality, the staff errs more on the side of defense than on attack. Red would appreciate Allura’s willingness to step forward and attack, but might become frustrated with her tendency to keep distance from the opponent and strategize in the meantime.

And that leaves Lance, who’s a little weird. He’s been in the Blue Lion this whole time, but his weapon doesn’t really seem to match Blue’s flexibility as far as I can tell (the gun is too… constricted, you feel me??) or friendliness (guns require distance from others!!). It also doesn’t really match the impulsivity and instinct of the Red Lion, either. It’s very likely that Lance will, at first, be moved to the Red Lion, but I can’t see him fitting the role well. His weapon doesn’t have the agility and mobility of the Red Lion. And, as we’ve said, the gun isn’t a weapon that really works instinctively– when Lance takes that shot in season 2, there’s thought put into it. Impulse + guns (according to the above interpretation) = not great. His tendency to distance himself from problems and think things through even a little would probably piss Red tf off.

However, his decisiveness and patience could be a good fit for the Black Lion. Shiro has told Keith, “patience yields focus” and the weapon of the gun requires both patience to aim and focus to fire. Plus, Lance’s observational skills are befitting of a leader: he’s familiar with the strengths of the team and is quick to tell when something is wrong. The fact that his weapon requires distance shows a tendency like Allura’s to step back and look at a situation to diffuse it, also what a leader would do. He’d have to work on staying on task though lol.

Anyway yikes this got long but my point is that the weapons of the paladins might have been telling us more than we thought!! I’m not completely certain these three are gonna swap for sure or anything, or if Allura is going to get a lion in the first place given the fact that the castle needs her, but I think that if they were to do it, Black Paladin Lance, Red Paladin Keith, and Blue Paladin Allura would make the most sense based on this particular analysis (though keep in mind that I’m biased because I love Lance haha).

But hey the show writers could be interpreting their characters another way, in which case I just wasted like 2 hours I probably should have spent studying but oh well lmao

#voltron #voltron meta #keith #lance #allura #black paladin lance #blue paladin allura #why can i never write short metas #if you read this whole thing... i'm sorry........

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tazumihanako · 7 years

Text

Out Of Line

Third chapter is out for Out Of Line, and we got a slow burn klance. Oc and Keith at beginning, but as the story progresses it changes. Oc is planned to be Pidge’s alien gf.

read it on Ao3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10638642/chapters/23537223

The next day everyone got a rude awakening when an alarm had sounded off through the castle. Everyone had jolted out of bed except for Lucy and Lance whom were in a very deep sleep.

“Allura, what’s going on?” Keith was the first to enter, already in paladin gear. He didn’t know what to wear as armor goes so he grabbed his usual red armor.

“Nothing, just testing out the system,” Allura smiled as she walked over to Keith. “Today is the day that we get Lucy prepared to take over the red lion, but also more team bonding so that we can get everyone to work like they use to with Shiro in charge.”

“It’s not going to be the same.” Allura covered her mouth, she knew that the topic of Shiro was especially touchy for Keith and yet she had mentioned his name.

“It will be if we try.” Allura understood what Keith was going through, she missed the black paladin as well.

“Allura, what’s the emergency!” Pidge came sprinting in with Hunk in tow, both in their paladin gear as well.

“No emergency, today is coronation day for our new team member.” Allura smiled happily as Pidge took a look around the room.

“Speaking of where is Lucy?” Pidge questioned.

“Someone else is missing too, but it doesn’t quite surprise me since this happened before.” Hunk laughed as he scratched the back of his head.

“Time to wake them up then, can two of you go and retrieve the rest of the team.” Allura questioned as Keith and Pidge both volunteered to get their respective paladin.

“It’s cool, I guess I’ll just wait here then.” Hunk sighed as Pidge grabbed his arm and dragged him along to retrieve Lance with Keith going to get Lucy.

Lucy was tired from the night before, and also embarrassed. Ever since the third day of her adventure with mullet boy sent her spiraling down from her normally independent attitude. She was strong, and could normally handle herself, but her feelings were slowly changing for the team leader. She could remember every detail of that day, the moment they shared while getting water by the river, and the second time that he had saved her life. She knew she was falling hard for him, and she didn’t want to believe that she could fall for somebody this fast. She had already screwed up on team bonding night by trying to seduce him by climbing on top of his lap. She knew the dare required sexual appeal, but as soon as she had gone over to Keith she had realized her mistake and made up for it by going to every paladin as to not make it seem like her feelings existed. She had a crush, that was a definite. She just didn’t know how to react to these overflowing emotions, they were making her act strange. She never got easily embarrassed before, but suddenly she was blushing at every single thing involving Keith. She had to shake this before it got out of control and caused her to do something she’d regret. Lucy had been so lost in thought that she did not realize that her door had opened, and before she knew it her arms had shot out around the person who walked in and pulled them closer to her.

“Um…Lucy?” The voice spoke as Lucy’s eyes fluttered open before realization struck. It had been Keith that she had latched onto, and without thinking she had pushed him away to where he had landed on the ground.

“Keith, I’m sorry,” She said as her hands fell on top of her chest in order to calm her beating heart. “I…you startled me.”

“I should be saying the same to you. Do you always hug people in your sleep?” Keith smirked as Lucy blushed, looking away from him with a pout.

“No, I must have been super tired from the truth or dare game.” Lucy commented as Keith’s expression became serious.

“I do have a question, well maybe two questions. First, it’s a bit strange that you knew how to play immediately without any explanation of the rules. Second, why did you dance like that yesterday…toward me?” Keith was genuinely curious and hoped he’d get an honest answer.

“I’ve studied a lot of earth culture. There were a couple Altean’s that had left Altea, because they were scared of the Galra empire long before the galra had betrayed the Altean’s. These people found a new place to live, and stayed in hiding for years to come. A few of them would often make travels to Earth and study their culture and write it down in books for the others to read. It’s what got me so fascinated in Earth culture in the first place. As for the dance…thing, it was a part of the dare so I was just doing what I was told.” Lucy tried her best to look straight into Keith’s eyes as she talked, but it became increasingly hard. She noticed how beautiful his violet eyes truly were, and felt that she could get lost in them.

“Lance didn’t exactly tell you to climb on my lap.” Keith answered smugly as Lucy glared at him.

“I thought humans were supposed to show off sex appeal by sitting on someone’s lap.” Lucy answered honestly. She had read in one of the book’s that this was how sex appeal was shown for earthlings, but the book also stated to only do this with a lover which Keith was not in the slightest. She hoped to god that he would never read the book of the Alteans.

“Not exactly, but I’m sure that we can show you what actually happens on earth,” Keith smiled as Lucy found her heart beating faster. “Anyway, suit up, you have a date with a lion.”

“Hope the lion’s a gentleman.” Lucy commented as Keith chuckled slightly.

“Red’s actually a girl.”

Meanwhile, Pidge and Hunk had been talking to Lance as he was having a freak out session about his new discovery. He also wanted to fill Hunk in since they were bros for life, and there was no way he’s keep this big of a secret from Hunk.

“So what do I do?” Lance questioned them.

“Well, does Keith like you back?” Hunk questioned as Lance gaped at him.

“No way, Keith is definitely straight.” Lance immediately dismissed the idea, and oh how wrong could he possibly be.

“Lance, I don’t think Keith is straight,” Pidge answered as she took a glance at Hunk who nodded in agreement. “He didn’t react when you kissed him, and normally a straight guy would have totally freaked out afterward.”

“I guess that’s true, but it seems like Lucy and him are super close.” Lance commented as Pidge frowned at this.

“Let’s just hope they don’t get together, and if they did then wouldn’t Keith be bi-sexual?” Pidge stated as Hunk pounded his fist into his palm.

“Oh my god, yes that has to be it. Lance this means you’d still have a chance.” Hunk smiled at this as Pidge gently punched his shoulder.

“Hunk’s right, but you’d have to act fast and actually try and win him over before they can become a thing.” Pidge explained as she thought of a few different scenarios in her head. She’d normally be ok if Lucy dated anybody, but it can’t be Keith. Lance and Keith belonged together, and Pidge was almost certain that it would work out.

“I guess I could try, but what if he doesn’t like me?” Lance was nervous and he was starting to let his insecurities get the best of him.

“Lance, the guy has a freaking mullet and you’re worried about him liking you?” Pidge questioned which led the three of them laughin.

“You do have a point there, what was I thinking. Falling for a guy with a mullet.” Lance laughed as Pidge took a look at the time and gestured to Hunk to get moving. She left without a word as Lance just stared after her.

“We got to go, today Lucy becomes the red paladin. The red lion needs to accept her first but hopefully it’ll work.” Hunk said placing a firm hand on Lance’s shoulder before exiting the room.

“I don’t think I’m quite ready for this change, not yet.” Lance whispered to himself before chasing after the two.

Lance looked around the hanger as he saw everyone gathered around the red lion like they were giving Lucy as a sacrifice. He had just arrived because he had to change into his paladin armor. He saw Pidge and Hunk in theirs and figured that it would be appropriate for the situation.

“Lucy, the red lion is the most temperamental of all of the lions. It will not accept you so easily, we hope that if Keith talks to his lion that we may reach an understanding.” Allura explained as Keith walked up to the red lion only to be blocked out by a force field that had appeared around her.

“I don’t think she feels like talking much.” Keith yelled in annoyance.

“I don’t think I’d let you in either after you cheated on her with the black lion, just saying.” Hunk said as he watched the boy kick at the force field.

“I didn’t cheat on her, I’m just following Shiro’s orders.” Keith sighed as he thought about his insecurities with being in the leadership position. He didn’t think Shiro made a good choice, and he had secretly hoped that the other paladin had been joking. Shiro was not much for saying things for the hell of it, and Keith knew that with Shiro, nothing he said was a joke.

“Maybe, she needs to be shown that another paladin can take care of her till you return.” Pidge suggested as Keith nodded before walking over to Lucy to give her his Bayard. He didn’t need it anymore if he had his own Bayard has the new head of Voltron.

“What’s this?” Lucy questioned.

“It’s a bayard and a weapon of sorts, each paladin has one. You’ll be red’s paladin, so it’s now yours.” Keith replied as Lucy looked up at the lion in front of her.

“How did red accept you the first time?” Lucy had been genuinely curious and had wondered for a long time. How did each lion choose their paladin?

“I took out some galra soldiers by opening up an airlock. I got sucked out to space with it and red came out to get me.” Keith explained as Lucy tried thinking of a way for red to accept her.

“Maybe we should stage a fight and prove that I’m capable of holding my own.” Lucy had suggested as Allura nodded in agreement. She found it to be a great idea and hoped that it would work. All of the paladins surrounded around Lucy as she prepared her fighting stance, but Allura stopped them for a moment before they decided to start.

��Keith, it’s probably for the best if you don’t participate,” Allura explained. “The red lion has always been temperamental, but she seems to be quite protective of you and I’d rather the castle not get destroyed.”

“Don’t worry mullet, we can have a sparring match another time perhaps.” Lucy had suggested as the paladins exchanged looks between each other. This was the second or third time that she had reminded them of Lance.

“Maybe.” Keith walked over to stand by Allura and Coran as they watched the paladins from afar.

Lance was normally better at long distance shots, being the team’s sharpshooter and all, so he stayed behind everyone else so that he had a better advantage. A part of him wanted to wipe the smile off Lucy’s face because of her relationship with Keith, but the other half hated himself for even thinking like that. Lance was not a black hearted person, he cared for everyone so much that it hurt. He loved making everyone laugh and hoped that it made the teams day. He was jealous of Lucy and that was no doubt but he couldn’t bring himself to hate her even if he kept thinking of ways to get rid of the blonde. He wanted to go back to when Shiro was still on the ship, maybe if he realized sooner he’d have a better chance. While Lance was lost in thought he had failed to see how Lucy had managed to take down Pidge and Hunk and was coming straight for him. She aimed her leg towards stomach as he blocked the blow with his arms.

“Nice block.” Lucy complimented as she went in for another swing. Lucy was nice and was never mean to Lance, but he couldn’t help how the feeling of jealousy plagued his mind. He hated it.

“Lance!” the leg had connected sending him backwards, his breath slipping away from him. He didn’t hear the voice that had yelled to him clearly as his vision went fuzzy. He didn’t realize how powerful and altean’s kick could be.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to.” Lucy cried in a panic as she backed away. Keith had run straight to Lance and cradled him in his arms. He was unconscious and Lucy felt guilty for what had happened.

“Lance, can you hear me?” Keith questioned the boy as grabbed his wrist to check his pulse. The rate had slowed slightly but nothing serious, she had merely knocked the wind out of him. Keith sighed with relief as he smiled up at Lucy. She was already near tears from the shock, and it made Keith want to hug her so that she wouldn’t have to cry anymore.

Pidge and Hunk walked over from the spots on the floor that they had been previously. She had knocked them down, but they figured if they pretended to be wounded that the red lion would see that Lucy was strong. They didn’t realize that she could have easily knocked them out if she had gone any further. Pidge looked up at the girl as she saw the tears in her eyes, and decided to comfort her by placing a hand on her shoulder. Lucy looked over at Pidge and immediately tossed her head in the crook of her neck. Pidge couldn’t help the blush that appeared on her face from the contact.

“Whoa, my heads spinning. “Lance murmured as his eyes fluttered open to take in the view of Keith who was happy he was ok.

“Lance, your ok!” Hunk exclaimed but Lance could only focus on one thing right now and that was the soft features that were present on Keith’s face in this moment. His face turned red as he noticed the close proximity that they were in as he gently pushed away from Keith out of embarrassment.

“Glad your ok, Lucy see no worries.” Keith reassured as she peaked out from Pidge’s shoulder to see Lance wide awake.

“Thank god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for that to happen. I’m sorry, Lance.” Her words didn’t seem to matter to Lance that much, his mind had already wandered off to a few minutes before when Keith had literally cradled him in his arms like he had done before with there bonding moment. Would this be another bonding moment for them, would he have to start picking out wedding bands. Lance chuckled to himself at the thought of that, but it confused the others as they wondered what was funny.

“What’s so funny, Lance?” Pidge questioned him, avoiding eye contact with Lucy.

“No…no..nothing.” Lance managed to get out with his cheeks tinted red.

“Lance, I’m sorry for what happened.” Lucy apologized once more as Lance turned to her and gave her a thumbs up before ruffling her hair.

“No worries, so stop apologizing ok?” Lance said his feelings on Lucy pushed aside for a brief moment.

“I believe that should be enough for today, everybody get to the mind melding chamber.” Allura spoke up as the paladins nodded and walked toward the room. Three specific paladins, nervous that with this exercise, there feelings for a certain paladin would be discovered.

They all sat around the floor ready for the exercise as they placed on the head bands that would connect them. Lucy furrowed her eyebrows as she stared at the head band, but Keith had put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and all the nerves she was feeling went away in an instant.

“This exercise is to help everyone get in tune with each other. Lucy is new, and we don’t want to risk not being able to form Voltron.” Allura spoke while Hunk and Pidge took a glance at each other.

“Zarkon isn’t around anymore, so we might be ok without Voltron.” Hunk said as Allura snapped her head toward him.

“We can’t risk that. I already lose someone I care about; I can’t lose anyone else.” All of the Paladin’s eyes widened as Allura straightened her posture before excusing herself out of the room.

“What was that about?” Lance questioned as Pidge gave him a look that said ‘Really, Lance?’.

“Allura is still hurting, we are the only family she has. All of the Altean’s were wiped out by the Galra.” Hunk mentioned as Lucy looked over at Hunk. She had only ever lived with her father and then the rest of her life with the galran empire. Only sharing some of her life with other altean’s, the only things she learned before going to the galran empire were all the books she about earth that the altean’s had collected. She didn’t think they were extinct but their whereabouts are unknown.

“Lucy, you lived with altean’s for a bit, do you know if they are still out there?” Keith decided to ask as Lucy’s eyes had widened a fraction. She couldn’t help but smile a bit since Keith had actually listened to her story.

“To be honest, I’m not quite sure.” Lucy decided to leave it at that, she didn’t know where to begin with the search. The others decided not to pry as they dropped the subject.

“Paladins get to your lions; we have been contacted to help this planet. The planet’s name is Fortes, and it’s falling a part, we need a rescue team to retrieve all and any survivors we can find. I found this distress call when I left, and we’ve got no time to lose. Lucy you are without a lion, so go with Keith since you may be more comfortable traveling with him. Keith you will take the red lion down, maybe if Keith is there the red lion might warm up to you, Lucy.” Allura came back in as she gestured to the door.

“Come one, Lucy.” Keith said as he grabbed her wrist and led her to the door. Lucy tried her best to keep up with him as he dragged her along to red. Lance, Pidge and Hunk followed after, but Lance couldn’t help but wear a solemn expression as he saw Lucy and Keith’s interactions with each other.

“Ok, team get to your lions, it’s-uh-time to save some aliens?” Keith spoke hesitantly as Lucy gave his hand a reassuring squeeze which eased his nerves. Keith didn’t know how to lead Voltron, but it was nice having Lucy there to calm him down.

The paladins got into there lions as they landed on the planet. Red had surprisingly let Keith in this time, probably thinking that Keith wasn’t going to fly black like she thought. Lucy was wearing temporary paladin armor that Allura had lended her. Keith wore his usual red outfit as her’s was a purple color that looked perfect against her purple altean markings.

When they landed everyone got out of there lions, they only had so much time before the planet started to collapse. Keith directed everyone to split into pairs, but figured Lucy should branch out and talk to the others as well. He didn’t want her to be dependent on him, and wanted her to become close with the others so that forming Voltron would be easier.

“Ok, Lance and I will take the north. Hunk see if Coran would be able to go with you to scavenge the east and west of the planet and make sure you take your lion to cover more ground. Lucy and Pidge will take the South.” Keith spoke up hoping that he was doing a good job as leader. He didn’t want to let Shiro down, he believed he wasn’t the best choice for this but he believed he had done a decent job so far.

“Really? Why me?” Lance whispered as he walked over to Keith as Lucy walked over to Pidge. Keith smiled, he had figured he’d pair her with someone she was at least somewhat familiar with. Lucy had talked to the others, but she had grown closer to Keith and he wanted her to get just as close to them as she was to him.

“Pidge, let’s get out there shall we?” Lucy smiled as Pidge couldn’t help but blush at how cute she was. She was going to die from this trip, she could tell.

“Let’s save some aliens.” Pidge and Lucy started to head out as Hunk went into his lion and took Keith’s advice and brought Coran with him to go and take care of his part of the mission. This left Lance and Keith alone.

“I’m surprised you didn’t want to go with, Lucy.” Lance shrugged as he tried to start a conversation with mullet man. They had started to walk towards there destination, and he wasn’t going to just sit quietly.

“Why’s that?” Keith was honestly confused; did he infer that Lucy was his favorite?

“Well you guy’s seem really close after those couple day’s in the forest.” Lance scratched the back of his head as he took a glance at Keith.

“I mean we did, but I don’t completely trust her with everything if that’s what your getting at?” Keith turned to look at Lance who’s face was turning red. Lance had never noticed before how beautiful Keith’s eyes were.

“D-Don’t worry about it.” Lance quickly looked down at his feet as they continued to walk, so far no aliens in sight. Keith was oblivious as usual to Lance’s behavior as he turned around to continue on their journey. Lance hoped that Pidge was having an easier time with Lucy.

“Lucy, we haven’t seen any alien’s yet. Do you think we should head back?” Pidge questioned as Lucy looked around the barren land until she spotted a small cave.

“Wait, maybe they went into hiding. Look over there.” Lucy pointed out as Pidge smiled and ran for the cave with Lucy calling after her.

“Come on, what are you waiting for.” Pidge laughed until she came to a stop underneath the entrance to cave. She began to wave at Lucy but her expression changed when she saw Lucy charging at her with fearful eyes. She closed her eyes tight and shielded her self with her hands above her head as she felt a body come crashing into her. She slowly opened them but all she saw was the pitch blackness as she turned on a light from her suit. The rocks from on top of the cave had toppled down and were blocking their way out. She directed the light towards Lucy for a moment as tears threatened to spill from her eyes. Lucy was knocked unconscious and she could see a small amount of blood coming from her hairline underneath her helmet. Pidge gently took it off as her hair fell to cascade around her face. Lucy had saved her life and now they were trapped in this cave and she was losing blood because of her decision.

“Lucy, please wake up.” Pidge cried as she moved a strand of hair away from Lucy’s face. She tried her helmet, hoping she could get a signal out to someone.

“K-Keith!” A voice crackled through the helmet as Keith answered back.

“Pidge, what’s wrong?” Keith called back as Lance looked at him for a moment.

“L-Lucy, s-she’s unconscious and not moving. We need help please.” Pidge sounded desperate as Keith’s eyes widened a fraction.

“Stay right there, we will come get you.” Lance watched as Keith turned to him, it looked as if he was ready to lose his composure.

“We have no choice, the rocked tumbled over, we have no access to the outside world. We are sitting ducks, and the planet could collapse at any moment.” Pidge cried as she pulled Lucy closer to her.

“Pidge, we’re coming.”

#klance #pidgexOC #voltron #fanfiction outofline lucy klance keith lance tazumihanako #lucyisoc #lucyandkeithinbeginning #Ao3 #fanfiction

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sage-nebula · 7 years

Note

Lance Hunk and Shiro from Voltron please?

—Lance—

General Opinion:

Aesthetic Attractiveness Level:

Hogwarts House:

Gryffindor | Slytherin | Ravenclaw | Hufflepuff

I’ve been throwing around different possibilities for Lance recently, but while he doesn’t seem as immediately In Your Face about being a Gryffindor as, say, Keith does, I think that at the end of the day his values and motivations (along with his innate qualities and actions) align pretty well with Gryffindor House. He just demonstrates it in a different way.

(Also, please imagine: Lance and Keith would be in not only the same House, but the same dorm. Hogwarts AU where Keith is expelled, they meet up again years later, Keith still says, “Who are you?” when they reunite, and Lance’s outrage is magnified tenfold because, “Are you kidding me? WE SLEPT IN THE SAME ROOM FOR FIVE YEARS!!!” Oh my god, Keith, no.)

Best Quality:

Lance’s best quality is honestly probably his desire to lift everyone’s spirits. He’s constantly making jokes when the situation is serious, and while on the one hand that can be an issue at times, I think it’s also important to Lance—for whatever reason—that everyone is “okay,” at least as much as they can be, and that part of the reason why he seems so lighthearted about things all the time is because he’s trying to lighten the mood. Considering the fact that he often seems like the most lighthearted person on the team (outside of Coran), I feel like he works double-time to try and do this, which is why he sometimes seems over the top or out of place. With that said, I do think that the good parts of this outweigh the bad, because Lance’s desire to make the others feel better makes him rather the heart of the team, and that’s absolutely necessary in a war-time situation. (And even though he often antagonizes Keith, I think that this extends to Keith as well. I headcanon that Lance showed, in his own way, that he was cool with Keith being half-Galra after 2x8, to try and make him feel better. We just didn’t see it.)

Worst Quality:

Definitely his immaturity, in the sense that it often manifests with unnecessary aggression toward Keith, unnecessary flirting toward Allura, and a desire to showboat and be The Best™ in times when showboating and bragging really isn’t the best course of action. Lance has a lot of growing up to do, and I don’t say that to drag him, particularly since he’s a sixteen-year-old boy and so it’s expected that he be immature (and because, tbh, he hadn’t even graduated from the Garrison, so like? He’s been handling himself in war without graduating, so I think his immaturity is even more justified). He needs to get a grip on reading situations and knowing when to Serious TF Up, and also needs to get a bit better at learning that, okay, he doesn’t really need to showboat here, it’s not about showing off how cool or great he is, it’s about helping the team.

Ship Them With:

Pidge, albeit a couple of years down the road when they’re both a little older, though their maturity is pretty much on the same level now so that’s not too big of an issue. That said, I don’t think he has feelings for her; rather, I think it’s one-sided on her end at the moment.

Hunk, because they could have an easy-peasy friends-to-lovers thing

Keith, kind of, but one-sided on Lance’s side at the moment. I can definitely see Lance having a crush on Keith, but being in heavy denial about it for a variety of reasons, and antagonizing Keith partially as a “no see I don’t have a crush on him I’m BOTHERING him because I HATE HIM DON’T YOU SEE THAT” kind of thing. (Also he flirts more aggressively with Allura like SEE I’M STRAIGHT I TOTALLY AM without even realizing that it’s the parts of Allura that remind him of Keith that make him want to flirt …) But I don’t think Keith returns these feelings, especially not with how High Key Stressed he is right now.

Brotp Them With:

The Blue Lion

Keith

Hunk

Pidge

Coran

Needs to Stay Away From:

That one alien chick who stole the Blue Lion. :/ I forget her name but, yeah, Lance, don’t trust her.

Misc. Thoughts:

I really like Lance a lot, but he needs a lot more development and growth on-screen. I think that, when Keith temporarily becomes the Black Paladin (hopefully it’s temporary, I WANT SHIRO BACK), Lance will be the Red Paladin, and I think he’ll find that he’s really good in a #2 spot, that he has a lot of strengths to offer there, that he can develop leadership skills while fulfilling the role of lancer to Keith’s leader. He needs to grow up, and I think he can, but we need to actually see that on screen, rather than having to fill in the blanks ourselves.

—Hunk—

General Opinion:

Aesthetic Attractiveness Level:

Hogwarts House:

Gryffindor | Slytherin | Ravenclaw | Hufflepuff

Hunk is, I think, pretty determined to protect those that he sees as being in his community. It’s not really just a “his people” thing (that’s Pidge), but more that it’s a “people he sees as worth protecting” type of thing, wherein if he thinks you’re someone worth protecting, you are in his community, and he will do whatever he can to help you—but if you’re not, and you’re outside that circle, then you are out. Like any true Hufflepuff, he has to justify why someone is being ousted (and we see him do this; he never trusted Rolo from the start, Rolo was not a person within Hunk’s community like the other members of Team Voltron + the Balmeara, but even after everyone had already agreed to that Hunk STILL KEPT rattling off his justifications for why he was right all along), but he can still do it and once someone is out, well, that’s it for them, they’re out. Hunk’s difficulty with accepting Keith at first also points to this, because he had initially seen all Galra as the enemy. Realizing that Keith is part-Galra, and coming to terms with accepting that Keith is still a valued member of his community anyway, seems very Hufflepuff to me. So yeah, right now I lean more toward Hufflepuff for Hunk.

Best Quality:

His resourcefulness! Hunk is rather astute and can quickly figure out plans on the fly, can quickly figure out which alien food ingredients can be used to make a delicious recipe, et cetera. In fact, whether he’s cooking food or fixing a spaceship, Hunk is incredibly resourceful and can make the most of what he has, even if he has never seen the materials before. He’s smart, as Keith points out in “The Belly of the Weblum,” and he definitely shines with it.

Worst Quality:

His cowardice. He’s getting better about it, but his fatal flaw for a while now has been either his unwillingness to join the fight to begin with, or his tendency to easily hurl or get stricken with panic.

Ship Them With:

Keith

Lance

Brotp Them With:

All of Team Voltron

Needs to Stay Away From:

Things that want to kill him? Haha.

Misc. Thoughts:

Like Lance, Hunk is sorely lacking in on-screen development. I want to see him explored more as a character, I want to see him grow, and I want him to stop being reduced to food jokes ffs. We get it, he likes food, food is great! But there is more to him than that. Please respect him.

—Shiro—

General Opinion:

Aesthetic Attractiveness Level:

Hogwarts House:

Gryffindor | Slytherin | Ravenclaw | Hufflepuff

Best Quality:

Definitely how much he cares for those around him, how he not only protects and leads them in the heat of battle (and keeps a cool head while he’s at it, usually), but also how he’s supportive of and nurturing to them off the battlefield as well. Space dad is a great dad.

Worst Quality:

Shiro has a tendency to downplay whatever he’s struggling with. The man could literally be dying and he’d crack a gallows humor joke before saying he’s fine. Gee, Shiro, I wonder where Keith gets this from???

Ship Them With:

Allura.

Brotp Them With:

KEITH

The Black Lion

Pidge

Lance

Hunk

Matt Holt

Needs to Stay Away From:

Zarkon (hopefully this won’t be a problem in the future??)

Haggar

Galra who want to torture him in general

Misc. Thoughts:

He better be okay, and he better come back within a couple of episodes to be the Black Paladin again, because honestly I’m going to be pissed if they had him finally bond completely with the Black Lion and get his (yes, Keith is right, that is SHIRO’S) Bayard back in the last episode of season two only to kick him off for real. He better be back, or SO HELP ME. BRING SHIRO BACK 2K17.

#send me a character meme #xxxbladeangelxxx

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