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duhragonball · 4 years ago

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Disinterpretation

I finally finished the Sarah Z video about “pro vs. anti”. It’s pretty long, and I ended up watching it in chunks over several days, but I think it’s worth watching, especially if you’re sort of partially connected to online fandom, but not enough to be aware of all the lingo.

As I expected, the whole thing was vague and confusing because the people involved in the conflict made it vague and confusing. In theory, the full terms would be “pro-shipping” and “anti-shipping”, but it seems like it’s more about particular kinds of ships that could be considered controversial. But that’s a slippery slope, and apparently the whole conflict mutated into both sides deciding that every hypothetical relationship between fictional characters is either equally valid or equally dangerous.

Long story short, it’s just purity culture, which was what everyone on Tumblr was calling it around 2012. But now, if you’re a sane person who genuinely asks: “Who gives a fuck about Voltron?”, these people will jump your ass and accuse you of being on the side of their enemies. “Children have died over the importance of Lotor/Hagger! Your callous indifference proves that you yourself must have murdered children!”

I think what Sarah Z really hit upon in this video was that media consumption has become so ingrained in our culture that people feel like it has to go hand-in-hand with our morality. That is, it’s not enough for me to watch Star Trek, I have to justify Star Trek as evidence that I’m a good person. Maybe this is where the expression “guilty pleasure” comes from. Conversely, it’s not enough for me to not watch Dr. Who, I have to somehow convince everyone that Dr. Who was invented by the devil.

I’m pretty sure the Reylo ship has a lot to do with this, since it’s kind of understood to be a dark, problematic concept, and fans either embrace its flaws or recoil in horror because of them. Star Wars itself is a dumb story about space wizards, so people try to give the debate more weight by linking it to freedom of self expression and/or enabling real world harm. Suddenly it’s not enough to just think two actors would look cute making out instead of fighting. Now it’s this battlefield for the soul of civilization or something.

I grew up in the 80′s, when “concerned parents” and grifters would accuse the Smurfs and metal bands of promoting satanism and witchcraft. I used to hear stories of teens going out into the woods in the middle of the night to do occult stuff, and all I could ever think about was: “Why would anyone bother wandering out in the woods in the middle of the night?” Which is why “concerned parents” turned their attention to things that were closer to home, like Saturday morning cartoons. It had nothing to do with the content; it was just about finding a safe, accessible target for their hysteria. Some people want to go on a crusade without leaving the house, so they pick a fight with Papa Smurf instead of confronting the real evils in the world. Even as a kid, I knew this was a con, because I’d watched the show for myself and knew it was too saccharine to be threat to anyone.

The pro/anti folks have tried to disguise this with a lot of terminology. I wondered why they seemed to reluctant to use the full terms “pro-shipper” and “anti-shipper”, and it’s probably a couple of things. First, the word “shipper” is basically an admission that this is pointless bullshit that doesn’t matter, and they’d like to avoid that connotation. Second, they seem to have decided that this goes beyond shipping itself, into practically anything else they want it to involve. It’s all part of the con, which is to make you believe that it’s “us vs. them”, and you can be part of “us” by curating specific attitudes about Steven Universe.

Seriously, “about Steven Universe” is such an incredible punchline. You can make anything funnier by adding those three words to the end of a sentence. “Do not interact if you blog about Steven Universe.” “Hey, what’s up, YouTube, this is SSJ3RyokoLover69, and this is going to be kind of a serious video about Steven Universe.” “Mrs. Johnson, the results of your biopsy are in, and I have some bad news about Steven Universe.” It’s a fucking kids show. “Oh no, all the characters look like the characters in all the other kids shows!” Yeah, that’s because it’s a kids show. Marvin looks like Garfield, this isn’t new.

The common denominator here seems to be that both sides try to wrap themselves in the flag of vulnerable groups: impressionable minors, trauma survivors, harassment victims, etc. The “pros” want to protect those people so that they can feel free to explore weird subject matter on their own terms, and the “antis” want to protect the same people from being exposed to weird subject matter that they might not want to see. It’s all about establishing a moral high ground. Back in the day, it was called “sanctimony”.

But people get roped into this, because at their core, people want approval, and this stupid conflict offers them a sense of community. As long as you support the cause, whatever it may be, you’ll have this online friend network that appears to support anything you do. But if you deviate from their norm, you’ll be cast out. Does this sound familiar?

To use a more familiar example, I still sometimes find people clamoring about Gochi vs. Vegebul. I’ve never understood this, because both ships were canon, and I never saw much direct evidence of a war between them, but people would still talk about how crazy the Vegebul shippers were, and how crazy the Gochi shippers were, and it was like some huge thing going on just over the hills. It’s the same idea, since the idea that you could like both or neither never seems to occur to anyone involved. I never gave a shit, because I used to see the same dumb agendas in the Harry Potter fandom.

Okay, so let me take you back. It’s 2005 through 2011, and I’m hateblogging all seven Harry Potter novels, because fuck you, that’s why. The funny thing I encountered was that occasionally fans seemed to want to pretend like my bashing of certain characters was proving them right somehow. They were like “See? He hates Ron Weasley too! That proves that Seamus Finnegan is the coolest guy ever.” The Slytherin stans would do this all the time, because I would constantly take the piss out of the Gryffindor characters for being self-important dopes. I think they just liked hearing it from an outside perspective. But I had to keep reminding them all that I hated all of them. Every character from Harry Potter sucks ass. Voldemort was my favorite, but only because he was the one guy who wanted to kill all of the others. But he sucks too because he failed.

And the shippers were the same way. I’d say something shitty about Ron, because Ron sucks, and some smartass Joss Whedon fan would be like “Yes! Boost the signal! That is why Harry/Hermione is the best ship!” And I’d be like “No, Harry and Hermione suck at least as bad as Ron does. They’re all terrible and I hate them.” I really do think there was some sort of Stockholm Syndrome going on with Harry Potter books, where everyone secretly knows they suck, but the fans sort of latch on to one or two characters and go like “Well, he’s not as shitty as the rest.” Like finding spaghetti in the trash and picking out the meatball with the least amount of lint on it. Then you’d go and start a flamewar with some other starving person over whether your meatball is shittier than theirs. This is what people mean when they say to read another book.

Anyway, the big thing I picked up from Sarah Z’s video is “disinterpretation”, a term coined by MSNBC columnis Zeeshan Aleem. The Twitter thread is worth a read, but the short version is that he once remarked that a Julia Louis-Dreyfus routine wasn’t very good, and someone got mad at him for insinuating that women are incapable of being funny. They just took his dissatisfaction with one performance by one comedian as being a universal condemnation of women comedians in general. And this sort of thing is all over the internet. Everyone sees what they want to see and then they take it as permission to overreact.

I ran into this myself a while back, because someone saw who I interacted with on Twitter and decided that they’re all bad guys and if I have any interaction with them, then that makes me a bad guy too. At the time I tried to play it cool, but the more I think about it, the more it ticks me off. And over the course of that conversation, it was said that I don’t talk about myself much, and that’s kind of funny, because all I ever do on social media is write long-ass blog posts like this one. I don’t expect anyone to memorize them, or even read them all the way through, but when I write all this stuff and someone goes out of their way to say they don’t know anything about me, the message is that they just didn’t pay attention to what I was saying, and they didn’t bother to try.

So I’m a little jaded from that, because I got called out for a bunch of stuff I didn’t even do or say, and apparently that’s just a thing that happens. People will reject you for completely arbitrary reasons, not because of anything you actually said or did, and you’re left thinking you made some terrible mistake. Except, no, I’ve seen it happen to other people, people a lore more conscientious than I am, and if they can’t satisfy the bullshit purity standards, then I never stood a chance. If the game is rigged so I can’t win, then I’m not going to play.

And it’s that same condition that probably draws people into these online holy wars, because if you declare yourself for the pro or anti side, at least then you’ll have a posse backing you up. Only they don’t support you, they support your willingness to support them. Once your commitment to their agenda wavers, even in the slightest, they will turn against you.

Sarah Z suggests that both sides of the war drop the pro and anti terms, since they lost all meaning long ago. But that just invites a new set of useless terms to perpetuate the same cycle. Her more useful advice is for fandom people to broaden their horizons. She got a lot of flak for tweeting “Go outside” once, but the ironic thing is that it’s sound advice. I had lunch with my mom yesterday and it was just nice getting away from things for a while. People need to do that more often, and unfortunately it feels like it’s harder to do than ever before.

But “go outside” isn’t just a literal thing. It can mean going beyond your usual haunts, reading the same books, watching the same shows, rehashing the same conversations. I think the reason this stuff always revolves around “shipping” is because there seems to be this deep-seated compulsion to pair fictional characters off like this, and for a lot of folks it’s the only way they can consume a story, so they do. And they do it lot, and there’s a lot of them, and they do it the same way every time, and lo and behold the same old conflicts start up. So maybe “go outside” should mean “go outside of that cycle once in a while.” Just a thought.

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chibi-pix · 4 years ago

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Ah! It’s been a few weeks but now I’m back home with faster internet and able to watch Voltron: Defender of the Universe! I’ll admit, I was tempted to bear with my grandpa’s middle-of-nowhere internet to try and watch an episode here and there, but I didn’t. Other things came up. But now I’m home and enjoying it! And I’m going to be honest, time and distance truly do make the heart grow fonder. No, not about Lotor, the only good thing about him is his hair. I’m talking about Bandor’s voice. The anthropomorphic kazoo’s voice doesn’t bother me as much.

Anyway! I’ve been a busy creature! Episodes 39 through 45 have been watched! In the next day or two, depending on my evening art binges, I may have the first part of Voltron finished! Then it’ll be on to Vehicle Voltron and then the third season with Merla since that’s the order on the site I’m watching at. Keep in mind, I do miss some details since I’m drawing while watching/listening to this show in the corner of my screen. So! Without further delay, let’s get to this!

Episode 39. Ah, an episode with a comet! It may not be a trans reality comet, but it’s still a comment. I snorted at Lance’s comment of “If we wanted to play it safe, we would have stayed home.” Dude, the comet was going towards Arus. You wouldn’t have been safe. Oh well. Now it was kinda expected but clever of the baddies discussing the “attack plan” and tricking Romelle into telling Voltron. At first I thought they were being just dumb and talking in front of her, then Lotor smirked. Very clever, guys. “With friends like you, Voltron doesn’t need enemies.” Ouch. Poor Romelle. When paying attention to the gravity, my mind went to VLD when they dealt with planet Naxzela. It seemed interesting to me. I enjoyed Bandor going to try and help Voltron. I felt sorry though. He seemed so pained to fire upon Voltron and the comment in the attempt to help them! Bandor! Be strong, baby! My mind went to thinking of the song “All the Mad Men” (or something like that) by David Bowie when the others were making their comments about their peace with near death. Just thought that was interesting to say. “Come and try it, strange one.” Really, Lotor? That’s your best insult?

Episode 40! Bandor: “There will never be another force like Voltron.” Um... what about Vehicle Voltron? Or do you not know of them Bandor? It’s okay. You do care for the lion force team members. And so much he wants to save them. Even risking robot mutiny. Do your best, baby! You’ve got this! And everyone having these deep realizations at the end of the universe. Personally I would have liked a restaurant at the end of the universe. Lorot: “Do you know how many princesses would love to be my bride?” Um, probably zero, honey. You’re toxis and your only good quality is that hair of yours. And sending Romelle down a pit of skulls. Me personally? I’d hate being dropped, but those skulls? I’d have stolen a few to decorate my room. Skulls are cool.

Episode 41. Oh look, Sven, totally not his brother captured from Earth before it was destroyed since Earth is fine and dandy in this series, is alive! And found Romelle! Sorry you went a bit crazy buddy, but it’ll be fine. You just need a hug and a cookie. Or Romelle could help. That works, too. Sven: “We have to move quickly and quietly. Like cats.” Um... didn’t a cat have to do with you getting hurt in the first place and you no longer got to be blue paladin? I feel like that was it. I mean, it was Haggar’s doing in the end, but didn’t it start with chasing a cat? Anyway! At the end when the Pollux siblings were reunited, it made me super happy! That’s what I’ve been waiting for!

Episode 42. Sand people! Now the tags from @breadstickcat left on a reblog of a palakitty art makes more sense! And those buggers are so cute! I want one! Or many! They’re so precious! And they stack! I’m gonna cry! I was so amused at how tall Pidge felt before they stacked. It just made me grin. It also makes me wanna draw palakitty Pidge, Chip, and Shorty stacking to make themselves taller. I also feel like the Baltoans of my palakitty au would be taller than the sand people. But not by much. I wonder if I should incorperate the sand people in other AUs for my VLD stuff. That’d be amusing. I just want these precious babies to be happy. Those cute sand people. And Sandy! Allura giving him the bracelet. I was ready to cry when he was taken and converted. Thank the ancients that this series doesn’t let people die. This may be my favourite episode thus far.

Episode 43. I really don’t have much to say about this episode. Though Lotor’s line of “I’ve punished many kids on many planets”, my mind went to I think episode 34. Flashbacks, my dudes.

Episode 44. The title “Voltron vs. Voltron caught my interest. And it was kinda clever seeing the fake Voltron arriving before the real one to trick and catch the people off guard. And I like how perceptive the kid was in noticing something was off. Good job kid! And doing his best to dig in the sand to warn Voltron. You’re doing good, sweetie! You’ve got this! “All these people are lying stunned.” Um, are you trying to convince yourselves or the audience? I looked up to see Pidge’s face when things weren’t going well and they were getting shocked. It was hilarious and I did snort with laughter.

And finally, episode 45. Sven: “I think they’re trying to decide which one is the ugliest.” You just like calling things ugly, don’cha buddy? It was amusing to see Sven be a master of disguise to get his job done. Makes me kinda wish we had that reference with Shiro in VLD. Though we did get VLD Allura donning the soldier uniform to sneak in with Shiro in a crate, so I guess that’s good, too. Anyway! Sven! Not only is he a master of disguise, he can also bitchslap a guy! Good job, honey! And then planting the bomb on the ship, definitely gave me Sven vibes from VLD when the others saw the other reality. I enjoy that. What I didn’t enjoy was looking up to see what looked like a spider robeast. Why? Why does there have to be a spider? I hate spiders. Eeeeee! Anyway! Sven returning to Romelle and ticking her off. “So much for a hero’s welcome.” Well buddy, maybe if you approached her with more sincerity instead of joking, she’d have welcomed you better. You’ll learn. Maybe. Hopefully. Hmm...

Anyway! That concludes my night of watching Voltron: Defender of the Universe! I feel glad to resume this show. And! Another doodle inspired from watching. It was only a matter of time until I ended up drawing this.

Anyway! I hope y’all enjoyed this! Until next time.

#voltron defender of the universe #Voltron DotU #chibi writes #chibi doodles #chibi watches #vld Slav #the sand people!#they're too cute and perfect!#i want them to be happy #and i want them in general #more than the skulls #i now understand breadstickcat's tags on my last palakitty doodle

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violethowler · 5 years ago

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Death and Separation: Emerging Trends in Pop Culture Franchises

Warning: The following essay contains ending and character death spoilers for Voltron: Legendary Defender, How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Game of Thrones, and everything released under the Disney umbrella since January 2017. That includes Marvel, Star Wars, and vanilla Disney movies, both animated and live action.

I’ve noticed a pattern in the last couple of years of media consumption.

Since 2017, there has been a string of major releases by major companies or networks that featured story decisions that proved controversial with audiences. Now, such things on their own aren’t really a big deal because for the most part there’s always going to be some fans who aren’t satisfied with how a story turned out, regardless of their reasons.

But what I’m noticing is that there is a pattern to which elements fans are criticizing and why.

As I became aware of this trend I started looking back at media released in the last few years and noticing that many of these stories were featuring the same plot elements, whether they worked for the story or not:

One common point I noticed is how many of these franchises have taken morally complicated characters that were popular with audiences, and permanently killed them off in ways which a lot of people have found narratively unsatisfying:

In Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, Ben Solo manages to achieve his redemption and turn back to the light after all prior supplementary material showed how Snoke preyed on his feelings of abandonment to groom him into joining the dark side. After being redeemed, his contribution to the story’s climax is being thrown into a pit, where he stays until after Palpatineis defeated, and upon climbing out finds the girl he loves dead. Ben then uses the force to heal Rey and restore her to life, only to immediately kick the bucket himself, after which point the narrative ceases to acknowledge him in any way.

Loki and his brother Thor reconcile at the end of 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok, only for the film’s post credits scene to herald their encounter with Loki’s former “employer” Thanos. The next time audiences see Loki in the opening minutes of Avengers: Infinity War, he’s strangled to death on-screen by Thanos following a failed assassination attempt before the film’s title card has even appeared. Despite theories that he had faked his death and would return in Avengers: Endgame, the only versions of Loki to appear in the finale of the Infinity Saga are past versions from alternate timelines, with only the characters dusted during Infinity War being brought back to life.

Gamora escapes from her abusive father figure Thanos in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie and spends subsequent films building a life for herself outside of Thanos’ toxic influence, with the sequel focusing on her repairing her relationship with her sister Nebula. After being captured by Thanos and forced to bring him to the Soul Stone, Thanos flings her off a cliff to her death when he learns that obtaining the Soul Stone will require him to sacrifice someone he loves, and awakens in a pool of water with the stone in his hand. Despite theories she would be brought back to life in Avengers: Endgame, but like Loki, the only versions of Gamora to appear were from alternate timelines that lacked the dead version’s character development.

Black Widow’s defining character trait across the Infinity Saga has been her desire to eliminate “the red in her ledger” to atone for the things she did when the Red Room had raised her to be an assassin. In Avengers: Endgame, Black Widow sacrifices herself to obtain the Soul Stone in the past to give her close friend Clint Barton a second chance to come back from the brutal path of vengeance the death of his family had set him on, in the same way that he had given her a second chance to build a better life for herself when they first met.

In Voltron: Legendary Defender’s third season, Prince Lotor is introduced as a morally ambiguous figure with unclear motives. When forced on the run by his tyrannical father, he forms an alliance with the Paladins of Voltron and eventually develops a romance with Princess Allura. In the sixth season, Lotor is accused of mass murder of the survivors of Allura’s destroyed planet and their alliance falls apart. Lotor insists that his intentions for peace are genuine, but his efforts to explain himself fall on deaf ears, and after a battle, is left for dead in the Quintessence Field. The second episode of the final seasons fills in the details of his abusive childhood while showing that despite what he’d suffered, he was genuine in his desire for peace. Seasons 6 through 8 are sprinkled with hints that Lotor was innocent of the crimes he was accused of, but despite Season 8 Episode 6 Genesis depicting him being still alive after four years in the Quintessence Field, the audience is treated to an image of his melted corpse four episodes later, while his abusive mother searches alternate realities for a better version of him.

The first seven seasons of Game of Thrones depict Daenerys Targaryen as someone from an abusive family who was nevertheless determined to rise above her turbulent upbringing and make the world a better place. Over the course of the eighth and final season, her new allies disrespect her, her lover repeatedly betrays her trust, and her advisers not only question her mental stability but immediately attempt to undermine her campaign as soon as a male heir to the throne from her bloodline is presented to them. When her trusted confidant is murdered in the penultimate episode, she snaps and burns large swaths of the capitol to the ground with dragon fire. In the series finale, her remaining advisers convince her lover to kill her for the good of the realm, and her destructive rage is presented as who she always was.

In the narrative of these characters’ stories, some of these fit with the themes of that character’s story arc. Black Widow sacrificing herself makes sense because of the symmetry with what we know of her backstory. Clint Barton gave her a second chance and guided her back from the dark path she was on when they first met, and in Avengers: Endgame, she returns the favor. Her death, while upsetting to many fans for different reasons, fits within the context of her personal narrative arc from across the last decade of Marvel movies.

While Daenerys turning into a Mad Queen like her father would still be disappointing to fans hoping to see her disprove the “madness is in the blood” ideas about her family, it wouldn’t have come entirely out of nowhere. The hints that she had the potential to go down that path were there, even if many hoped it would only remain potential. One of the biggest issues is how Season 8 portrayed her descent into madness. Her cruelty towards King’s Landing is treated not as the rage of someone who has been pushed too far, but that this is who she always was.

Meanwhile Ben Solo’s death came suddenly and abruptly after repeated narrative fakeouts that he came back from. The previous films, novels, and comics had built him up as a victim of abuse and set up audiences to anticipate him breaking free of the Dark Side and finding a happy ending, likely while working to atone for his actions as Kylo Ren. But despite his actor having been promised that Ben Solo’s story would not end the same way that Darth Vader’s did, that was exactly what happened: with the redeemed villain dying to save a person they loved.

The context may differ, but there is a visible pattern of major genre franchises in the last year taking this type of complicated character and either killing them off when they’re finally in a good place mentally and emotionally, or in the case of Lotor and Daenerys, striping away their happiness to force them into the role of a one-dimensional tyrant and then killing them off. Lotor’s case is even more egregious because there were unanswered questions and inconsistencies surrounding his alleged crimes that after his death were never explained.

While I doubt the creators of any of these titles set out to intentionally hurt people who identified with these characters, their narrative choices still send very damaging messages.

These character’s backstories involve them either intentionally or unintentionally set up to fail by the people around them. Where most characters begin with a blank slate, theirs was already written in with expectations, pressure, violence, condemnation, control, manipulation, and/or outright subjugation. Fans young and old find them relatable because of similar rough pasts or trauma, often because or in spite of their grey moral compasses. This type of character resonates with audiences because they represent what it means to be human - to struggle, to make mistakes, and to have the ability to atone for them in the end.

Except in recent stories they don’t ever get that chance. Seeing Ben Solo and Lotor and Daenerys and Loki denied a chance at a happy ending tells people who identify with them that they will never find happiness. That their struggle toward the light is doomed to fail and will only end in death.

And that isn’t the only divisive trend that’s been observed in recent years. Since 2018, there have been sequels and series finales where the characters whose bond was the core of the story go their separate ways either after the conflict has been resolved or as the means to resolve the conflict:

In the series finale of Star Wars: Rebels, audience viewpoint character Ezra Bridger forces Grand Admiral Thrawn’s Star Destroyer fleet into hyperspace to protect the capital city of his planet Lothal from orbital bombardment. This separates him from his Found Family, and due to their commitments to the rebellion it isn’t until several years later that they set out to find him and bring him home.

During the course of Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-it Ralph 2, Vanellope von Schweetz becomes enamored with the virtual world of the internet, having grown tired of the routine of her life in the arcade in the five years since the original movie. Ralph’s desire for life to stay the same and his insecurities over losing his best friend drive the plot of the movie, and the conflict is resolved when Ralph learns to let go of his insecurities and respect Vanellope’s wishes. Ralph returns to the arcade while Vanellope remains on the internet, though they stay in touch via video chat.

The series finale of Voltron: Legendary Defender depicts the surviving paladins going their separate ways after the war ends, only meeting up once a year for a memorial dinner to honor Allura’s sacrifice. Lance is depicted with the markings of Allura’s people branded on his face, grieving her as he spends his days working on his family’s farm. Keith returns to the stars to restructure the Blade of Marmora into a peacetime organization. Hunk becomes a galactic chef, while Pidge returns to Earth to build robots at the Garrison. A year after the series, Shiro retires from the job he loves and marries one of the men on the bridge crew for the Atlas.

In order to protect the dragons of Berk from Grimmel the dragon hunter, Hiccup must send Toothless away so that the Night Fury can lead the Berkian dragons to the safety of the Hidden World. Year later Hiccan and Astrid take their children to the entrance of the Hidden World where they reunite with their dragon friends and their children.

In order to defeat Thanos and his army, Iron Man uses the Infinity Stones to snap Thanos’ legions out of existence at the cost of his own life. Following Tony’s funeral, Captain America returns the Stones to their original timeline before settling down in an alternate timeline to live a peaceful life with Peggy Carter in the 1940s. After reaching old age, Steve returns to his original timeline and passes the mantle of Captain America on to Sam Wilson along with the repaired shield. Thor abdicates the throne of New Asgard to Valkyrie before setting off to the stars with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Hawkeye returns to the quiet farm life with his wife and children, and the remaining heroes all go their separate ways.

After the death of Daenerys in the series finale of Game of Thrones, the Westerosi nobility decided to form an elected monarchy, choosing Bran Stark as the next king of the Seven Kingdoms. Sansa returns to Winterfell, where she becomes Queen of the North, while Jon Snow is “exiled” beyond the wall, and Arya sets sail to explore lands west of Westeros.

In Toy Story 4, Woody is feeling pushed to the side as Bonny plays with him less than she does the other toys. After getting lost on a road trip, Woody is reunited with his lost love, Bo Peep, who has been living alone scavenging from humans rather than being played with by a single child. After rescuing Bonnie’s new toy Forky, Woody and Bo race to get everyone back to the RV before Bonny’s family leaves. Before boarding the RV, Woody ultimately decides to stay with Bo, and he parts ways with the rest of Andy’s toys as the film ends.

After the previous film was about Maleficent becoming a surrogate mother figure to Aurora, the sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, is about Maleficent learning to let her daughter grow up and leave the nest. After Queen Ingrid’s crusade against the fairies is thwarted, Maleficent gives her blessing for Aurora’s marriage to Phillip and lets her adopted daughter go. Maleficent returns to the Moors with the promise that she will return when Aurora and Phillip have a child of their own.

In the course of uncovering and making amends for their bigoted grandfather’s actions against the Northuldra people, Elsa and Anna learn that the rumored fifth spirit that bridges the mortal and the supernatural is actually them and their bond. After breaking the curse on the Enchanted Forest, Elsa abdicated her throne and remains in the forest to continue exploring the full extent of her powers while Anna takes the throne. Thanks to the magic of the other elemental spirits, the sisters remain in constant contact, with Elsa returning to Arendelle for regular visits.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker establishes that Ben Solo and Rey are a dyad in the Force - literal soulmates. At the end of the movie, Rey sacrifices her life to destroy Palpatine, and after climbing up from the pit he was tossed into, Ben uses the Force to heal Rey’s wounds and bring her back to life, at which point he immediately dies. After a victory celebration with the Resistance, Rey travels to Tatooine and is last seen burying Luke and Leia’s lightsabers in the sands outside the farm where Luke grew up.

As with the trend of killing off morally complicated characters, some of these examples work within the context of the film.

Motherhood was an important element of Maleficent’s arc across the two live action films, and learning to let her daughter leave the nest is a classic lesson in a parental figure’s character arc.

Hiccup and Toothless parting ways fits with the How To Train Your Dragon series’ focus on protecting the dragons and the animal conservation message that comes with that.

Ezra being separated from his found family at the end of Rebels was a way to maintain Luke Skywalker’s status as the only Jedi working for the rebellion in the original movies without permanently killing Ezra off, and the show’s writers left the door open for a potential sequel focused on Sabine following his trail to bring him home.

Other examples, however, do not align with the themes of their respective franchises.

Game of Thrones spent several seasons focusing on the surviving Stark children as they find their way back to each other. Sending them all in different directions at the end feels disappointing and pointless after they had finally been reunited in the previous season.

The Paladins of Voltron finding their own careers after the war that take them to different parts of the galaxy but still making the effort to consistently stay in contact makes sense in theory, but with the death of Allura it comes across as if her passing broke the team apart.

While the original Avengers going their separate ways to let a new generation of heroes step into the limelight seems like an organic conclusion to the Infinity Saga, Captain America’s ending in particular feels like a regression. His character arc across his previous solo films has been about moving forward, and Endgame concludes with him literally going backward.

It’s been common for fan complaints over these story elements to be directed mainly at the people directly responsible for making each project - the showrunners, the movie directors, the script writers…… But I couldn’t help but notice just how many of these examples for both trends fell under the Disney umbrella.

And then I remembered that Infinity War, Endgame, and The Rise of Skywalker all had reshoots done at some point in the production process.

It really makes me wonder how much of these disliked story decisions were really the individual directors’ and showrunners’ decisions and how much were mandated by someone higher up the ladder. And I can’t help but notice the demographics of the people in charge of these companies and the people affected by them.

The demographics of fans that enjoy morally complicated characters and want them to have a happy ending, that enjoy stories where the the characters who bonded over the course of the story stay together after their mutual goal is achieved, are from what I’ve observed predominantly made up of women, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, nonwhite people, and people with mental illnesses.

And most of the people in charge of these story decisions are cis, straight, neurotypipcal, able-bodied white men. The CEO of Disney... The showrunners of Game of Thrones….. Voltron’s a little more complicated because while Dreamworks made the show they didn’t own the franchise, but the Voltron IP owner is a straight white male.

These stories are controlled by straight white men, and the audiences that have the biggest negative reactions to these story decisions are women, LGBTQ+ people, and POC.

Companies may talk about having more diversity on camera and behind the camera, but the people at the top of the corporate hierarchy - the ones with the money and therefore the ultimate control over what gets released to the public - are for the most part the same demographic as they've always been.

And all of these show finales and movies have been released within the last four years, as fandom spaces and American public discourse in general have become increasingly polarized into a black and white mentality with no room for nuance. Where someone can only be either a perfect ally or an offensive oppressor. This trend in killing off morally complicated characters in ways that don’t always work for their character arc has also coincided with the rise of fandom’s pearl clutching over moral purity and whether a villain or anti villain “deserves” a redemption arc.

Your first instinct will probably be to dismiss what I’m suggesting, insisting that these are just shows and movies and that they don’t matter. That it’s Not That DeepTM. But more often than not the media we consume is a reflection of the world around us. And we are seeing a pattern that as fandom becomes increasingly obsessed with purity and enforces a “one strike and you’re a monster” mentality, the major franchises of pop culture are producing stories where people who aren’t clear-cut Pure Good Heroes or Pure Evil Villains die.

Also, dismissing people’s thoughts about the social messages of a movie or show, insisting that we’re wrong for saying that something doesn’t fit with the story so far, is part of the problem. Having critics and other fans praising the stories we feel hurt by and dismissing our criticisms as, for example, whiny shippers mad that our favorite pairings didn’t happen, has a very stifling, damaging effect. It tells us over and over again that this is the way that stories are supposed to be, and that there is something weird, broken, wrong with us for not being satisfied with stories that break up the Found Family or kill off your morally messed up fave regardless of whether it actually makes sense for the story.

It leaves us isolated and alienated from wider fandom discussions because we’re told it again and again until we internalize it that we’re in the wrong. That people just don’t want to make the kinds of stories we want to see. That we’re paranoid for suspecting that there is a pattern when we see this happen over and over. But it’s clear from the way that some creators have acted - going from excitedly promoting their work to complete silence after the initial disappointment over the finale - that there are creators who want to tell those kinds of stories, but they are being silenced. They are being forced to change the stories they wanted to tell because someone in charge didn’t like that kind of story, and because of their NDAs are forced to either keep silent, or lie and take credit for decisions that weren’t theirs.

It’s easy to dismiss these story decisions as a coincidence. To believe that all of these creators made similar decisions on their own. That they just fucked up a beautiful story on their own with no intervention from someone higher up the corporate ladder. It’s a comforting option. It makes us feel like our criticisms have an impact. Because the alternative? That creators can and have been forced to change their stories because the person at the top doesn’t think that it’ll sell well if it doesn’t cater to the demographic they consider most important? That’s terrifying.

#media analysis #meta #trends I'm seeing in popular franchises

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zutaralover94 · 5 years ago

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Zutara, 10

*lays out probably the most g-rated writing I have written in a while* Please accept this almost 4K writing of a cinderella-esque story. It could have been tons longer but I wanted to at least put this out here :)

Katara scanned another book in the library before stamping the checkout card in the front of the book. She pushed up her glasses and turned to the underclassman, “All are due back next Tuesday.” The girl nodded and took her books. “Have a good week.”

Katara sat back and took out her phone from under the checkout counter. She wasn’t on her phone for long when someone cleared their throat. Katara shot up and tucked the phone under her leg. “Sorry.” She tucked a hair that had fallen from her messy bun behind her ear. “How can I help you?”

“There’s some people in the history section making out again.” The boy placed his books on the counter.

“Thanks,” Katara slightly slumped again. She hated when people used the library as their spit swapping spot. They were always so annoying. Katara checked out the boy before slipping the sign that says she’ll back soon on the counter.

Katara made her way to the back left corner of the library. She walked slowly and ran her fingers over the books. She heard the couple before she saw them. Katara stepped around the final bookshelf before crossing her arms and looking at the couple. She waited a few seconds before clearing her throat.

The faces looked at her, Mai and her flavor of the week stared back at her briefly. “You can watch if you want,” Flavor of the week said. Katara grimaced but not without a blush rising to her ears.

Mai glared at Katara for a second before pushing the guy against the shelf when he tried to kiss her again. “Come on, the club house will be empty since the soccer team is away.” Mai’s shoulder knocked Katara’s causing her to stumble slightly. Mai dragged the grumbling guy away.

Katara stepped to the shelf and straightened the books. She sighed and ran her fingers over the spines of the books. They took so much abuse already. When she got back to the checkout counter there were a few underclassmen in line. She looked up to the clock, free period was almost up with only 15 minutes left.

[+.+]

Zuko sat at the computer at the back of the class. Jet chuckling as he changed the background of his computer to porn. The woman had on a uniform that was clearly was from a Halloween store in the 1990’s and the man balls deep in the woman looked like a steroid shot up pedo. Jet smacked the guy next to him, “We got to convince the principal into getting uniforms.”

Zuko shook his head and clicked through the assignment. It wasn’t too hard, just make a blog post about a recent event. He figured he would do that when he got home tonight.

Jet punched Zuko in the shoulder, “I heard Soaring Boars Football team was going out tonight. You in?”

“Maybe,” Zuko rubbed at his arm. “I’ve got training tonight.”

“Ah, man, come on you can have a rest day.” Jet pulled the internet back up on his computer going through more porn to put as his background.

“I really can’t. We’ve got a competition coming up soon.”

“Man, whatever. If you get done with training, you know where we will be.” Jet clicked through a few more images before settling on a girl in a cheer outfit they must have gotten at the same Halloween store as the uniform and a guy even more jacked up than the last.

[+.+]

Katara hid her burning face in her hands. “Oh my god, no!”

Oc3anB3nd3r: Oh my god! NO!

PrinceSparky11: All I’m saying is that you should have just gone for it.

Katara shook her head and filled out another answer as PrinceSparky continued to type.

PrinceSparky11: Just punched them both and then petted the books like Goby just got his first sock!

Katara rolled her eyes.

Oc3anB3nd3r: Oh yes, I’m sure my noodle arms will really punch them out of the way.

PrinceSparky11: Lol you mean you’re not a 280pound pro wrestler?!

Katara laughed and picked up her phone completely.

Oc3anB3nd3r: LOL

Oc3anB3nd3r: Sorry to disappoint.

She sat her phone down and filled out a few more questions on her homework. Katara did her best not to just grab her phone as soon as it vibrated. But her fingers twitched to it.

PrinceSparky11: Oh, come on OB. Here I was sure I was talking to some 50 year old dude in his parents’ basement.

Oc3anB3nd3r: Haha I mean it could still be possible.

PrinceSparky11: True true

PrinceSparky11: But you’re not right??

Katara giggled and watch him type and then undo his typing multiple time

PrinceSparky11: Oh fuck

PrinceSparky11: You are, aren’t you??

Katara fell over on her bed laughing. She heard a few knocks on the wall that she shared with Sokka. She ignored him before she began typing.

Oc3anB3nd3r: No

Oc3anB3nd3r: But I do really have noodle arms.

Katara pulled up her sleeves on her t shirt and flexed as she took a picture. She studied it to be sure there was nothing that could really tag it back to her. The only thing she could maybe see was the peeling blue fingernail polish. But lots of girls painted their nails. PrinceSparky11 would not be able to pick her out.

Oc3anB3nd3r: [sent an image]

Katara tossed her phone, embarrassed that she had just done that. She quickly looked over her homework. Her phone buzzed and Katara looked over at it while biting her lip. She turned to see she had a new message from PrinceSparky11 with an attachment. She tapped her pencil nervously. She shouldn’t have sent the picture.

Katara unlocked her phone and did her best to read the message before looking at the picture PrinceSparky11 sent. But her eyes trained over the pale muscles. Katara bit her lip so hard she was slightly worried she would bleed. She slammed her phone down after practically memorizing the picture.

“Okay, Katara.” Katara ran her hand through her hand. “Be cool.” She lifted her phone back up.

PrinceSparky11: I don’t know OB. Those are some pretty muscles.

PrinceSparky11: [sent an image]

Katara blushed and began typing out.

Oc3anB3nd3r: Show off

PrinceSparky11: Now now OB no need to be jealous

PrinceSparky11: We can pump you up

PrinceSparky11: Get you a workout regime and protein shakes in you

Katara laughs and shakes her head at her phone.

Oc3anB3nd3r: Alright, I think it’s time to call it a night. You’ve gone crazy!

PrinceSparky11: No Wait!

Katara rolled her eyes and placed her phone beside her as it filled up with messages

PrinceSparky11: Come on OB

PrinceSparky11: It won’t take that long

PrinceSparky11: If you give it your all

PrinceSparky11: Okay Okay

PrinceSparky11: I was kidding!

PrinceSparky11: OB! Come on!

PrinceSparky11: Don’t leave me on read!

There was a pause for a few minutes and Katara picked her phone back up

PrinceSparky11: Alright, Goodnight OB

Katara sighed and plugged in her phone. She placed it on her side table and slid under her covers.

[+.+]

Katara opened her notebook and pulled out her phone until her teacher got there. She bit her lip as she opened the messaging app.

PrinceSparky11: Mornin OB

Katara typed back a ‘Good Morning’ before scrolling through her social media page.

“Nice phone case.”

“Thanks.” Katara said as she looked up and then did a double take as Zuko walked by. Katara flipped over her Voltron phone case and watched as Zuko took his seat in the back. He raised his eyebrow at her and Katara turned back to her phone.

“Alright class!” Mr. Boomi walked into the room. “I’ve got partner assignments today!” The whole class groaned. Mr. Boomi passed around his bowl of numbers to decide who would be with who.

Katara smiled as she took out her number. “7.” She whispered to herself and passed the bag onto the girl sitting next to her. She gathered up her items and prepared to move seats, when someone asked the girl next to her to move.

Katara turned and watched as Zuko took the seat next to her. Zuko flashed her a smile and Katara squinted her eyes at him just a bit. Zuko flashed his paper with a number 7 in Mr. Boomi’s handwriting. She sat her stuff back on the countertop and watched as the others moved around.

“Hey.” Zuko tapped his pencil on her notebook.

Katara gave a halfhearted smile. Great, looks like she’ll be the only one doing the work this assignment. At least you’ll get an A. “Hi.”

Mr. Boomi passed out the assignment and smiled at the two of them, “Well this seems like an unfair advantage.”

You’re telling me. Katara smiled at the voice in her head. Katara looked down at the assignment. It looked easy enough.

“So,” Zuko started.

Here we go.

“It’s Katara right?”

“Yeah, and you’re Zuko. Look, I’ll put your name on the paper. Just try not to burn off either of our eyebrows.” Katara flipped the instruction page. Before her eyes widened as she realized what she just said. She whipped her head towards him, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-!”

Zuko was chuckling and shook his head as he took the assignment from Katara. “I’ll let that slide as long as you let me put my name first on the paper.” He winked at her and Katara felt herself gape at him for a moment.

[+.+]

PrinceSparky11: OB

PrinceSparky11: Do you think we know each other?

Oc3anB3nd3r: Sparky, there’s not many of Voltron fans this far south of Crescent Island.

PrinceSparky11: So, the percentage that we’ve met is…

Oc3anB3nd3r: Definitely in the 90s percentile.

PrinceSparky11: So, if I ask you to the homecoming dance Friday…

Katara blew out a breath. Them meeting. Her fingers hovered over her phone. The bell rang and Katara put her phone away and stuffed it into her backpack. She shuffled with everyone to the exit. She bumped into Mai when they stepped out to the parking lot.

Mai looked over her shoulder with disgust, “Move, loser.”

Katara rolled her eyes as she watched Mai wrap her arms around Zuko. He smiled as she kissed his cheek but moved out of her arms to lean against his motorcycle. Katara always wondered if he knew about Mai’s library catalog of boys. But the way they continue to hold hands and stay in a lengthy relationship. She looked away from them and made her way to Sokka’s truck. Katara slid in and pulled out her phone and opened the messaging app.

Oc3anB3nd3r: I might say yes.

[+.+]

Katara unlocked her phone and relocked it. She unlocked it to read the message again.

PrinceSparky11: i’ll meet you there

PrinceSparky11: On the dancefloor.

PrinceSparky11: My mask is very… us

Katara locked her phone again, putting her phone in the dress pocket and took a deep shaking breath. Sokka patted her back before making his way down the stairs. He knew about her meeting a fan tonight. He still wasn’t completely okay with Katara having internet friends. But he figured here was as good as place as any. He could keep a watchful eye on her, and she could meet an internet friend.

Katara followed Sokka down the stairs. Her dark red, two piece dress swished around her legs, causing the spilt to open and show a jeweled thigh piece every other step. She blew out a breath as she made it to the bottom of the stairs. She touched her mask as someone walked by and smiled at her.

Katara looked over the sea of heads and noticed where a majority of people danced. She looked around the dancefloor a few times before walking after Sokka to the drink table.

“What are you doing? Go meet your friend!” Sokka knocked shoulders with her.

“I don’t… What if they don’t like me?” Katara said as she reached for a glass of punch.

Sokka grabbed the punch from her and handed her a small bottle of water. “Someone not like my sister? Ha. Not possible.”

Katara pouted but unscrewed the lid of the water, “You don’t like me most of the time.”

“But I love you all of the time,” Sokka patted the top of her head. “Besides I’m your brother. We aren’t supposed to like each other all the time. That would be weird.” Katara couldn’t help but pout for a little longer. “Alright, come on. What do they look like so we can get this over with?”

“I, uh don’t know.” Katara bit her lip and pulled out her phone.

“You don’t know?!” Sokka turned to her so fast she thought his drink would come out of his glass. “How do you not know what they look like?!”

Katara shrugged, “We didn’t exchange face pictures.”

“You exchanged other types of pictures?!”

“No! Sokka! Calm down! No!” Katara reached out a hand to her overly concerned brother. “We just never exchanged pictures. I don’t know what they look like. All he said was that he would be wearing a mask that was very us.” Katara opened her phone to show him the message.

“He?!” Sokka practically screeched. “You didn’t tell me this internet friend was a he! Nuh-uh. Nope we are going back home. Come on.” Sokka began to pull her way.

But Katara caught sight of a mask across the room. It was like a phantom half mask, black with “Altean” marks that bled light blue down the mask. Katara stopped as his face turned, and he caught eyes on her. Sokka was pulling on her arm but Katara wasn’t moving. He looked to where she was staring across the room.

Katara stood there as they seemed to have a conversation of, “I am, are you?”

Katara’s grip tightened on her phone as her “friend” made his way across the room. When he was about four steps away from her the lights swept over his face and confirmed maybe her worse nightmare.

Where the mask didn’t cover the other half of his face sat a pink scar. “OB?”

Katara let out a soft ‘ha’ before shaking her head. “Sparky?”

His face lit up and he pointed to himself, “Yeah that’s me!”

Katara looked around for someone to jump out and scream, ‘Gotcha!’. Then looked back at Zuko’s face which had fallen somewhat.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just.” Katara looked around again. Somehow Sokka had left her alone or maybe she left him a little. But now she didn’t see him at all.

“Just?” Zuko looked around as well, trying to track her eyes.

“You’re,” Katara licked her lips, “Zuko.”

“Oh,” Zuko looked down and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I know the, uh, mask is on the wrong side. It kind of gives it all away.”

“No, it’s not-”

Zuko scoffed, “No, I get it. I do. I just thought, you’d look past that.”

“Zuko, it’s not the scar.” Katara shook her head.

“Then what?”

“I just want to know who put you up to it.” Katara bit her lip and then looked away. “Another lost bet? You had to trick me to get me here?”

“What? No!” Zuko reached out to her, but Katara took a step back. “I don’t even know who you are.” Katara’s eyes widened under her mask. “I mean - I know who you are. I just don’t know-”

Katara nodded and began to walk away.

“No, wait! I didn’t mean that either! Not like that!”

“My name,” Katara pulled away the hand Zuko reached out for. “What’s my name?”

“Uh,” Zuko stood there a little dumbfounded. Katara shook her head and began to walk away again. She could find Sokka and get out of here. “Wait, OB!” Zuko jumped in front of her. “Let’s talk. I mean it will be great to talk to someone who actually gets me.”

“Actually, gets you?” Katara’s eyebrows wrinkled in more annoyance than confusion. “Zuko, I’m not like you at all. So, why don’t you run back to Mai before she finds her another flavor and sneaks to the historical section.”

“Flavors? Mai?”

“Yeah, your girlfriend, go find her. I’m sure she understands it all more than I do.”

“I broke it off with her,” Zuko mumbled.

Katara looked up to him, “Yeah, sure.” She shrugged her shoulder and began walking away again. “But you’ll somehow end up together again. I mean you always do.”

“No, it’s for good this time.” Zuko sounded almost lost. Katara turned around to see his hands were shoved back in his pockets. “We weren’t really together anyway. More for the show of it I guess.”

“That’s a long ass show.” Katara blew out a breath before grinning. “Sounds even more tragic than season 8.”

Zuko cracked a smile, “Fine, if by the end of the night I haven’t guess who you are correctly, you can officially unfriend me on social media and in real life.”

Katara raised an eyebrow at that and gave a moment of suspense, “Okay, deal.”

Zuko’s smiles widened, “Then,” Zuko bows as he holds out his hand. “How about a walk about the… outside of the school.” Katara laughed and put her hand in his.

They made their way through the crowded venue, then walked outside and through the little gardens around the place. “You know, no matter who you are, you’ll always be OB to me.” Zuko was the first to break the silence.

“Ha ha, sure Sparky.” Katara looked over at him. They had dropped hands when they exited the loud ball. “So, you really don’t know who I am?”

Zuko tilted his head towards her before looking up at the sky, “I know you, I just-,” Zuko grinned over to her. “You’ve got a good mask.”

Katara touched the black and red mask. It wasn’t nearly as fancy as a few she had seen inside. “Well it wouldn’t be any fun for me if I just took off my mask.”

Zuko chuckled and nodded his head, “I guess not.” They walked a few more steps. “So, you’re a student here? In my graduating class? And you know who I am?”

“Yes, yes and yes.” Katara ticked off the yeses on her fingers. “If we are playing twenty questions, you’re going to run out of questions asking the obvious questions.”

“Good point,” Zuko nodded to her, they turned the corner of a walkway.

The gardens were filled with fairy lights in the trees and along a few bushes. The walkway was lined with little lanterns leading around the garden. A large fountain sat in the middle of the gardens. The couple slowly made their way to it.

“Do we have any classes together?” Zuko asked after a minute.

“One,” Katara nodded.

“Yes! Okay,” Zuko tapped his chin. “I won’t ask which one because I feel like you wouldn’t answer it.” He hummed and look around the garden. “Are you going to college? Do you know where you are going to college?”

“That’s two questions,” Katara held up two fingers. “Still, yes and Ba Sing Se University.”

“What for?”

Katara peaked out of the side of her eye at him. He was studying her. Katara looked back to the pathway in front of her, “I was thinking of becoming a linguist.” Katara shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. “I know, it’s not anything big. But I’d like to travel the world and help people.”

“So, how many languages do you speak now?”

“There’s more than just learning the languages.”

“How many?” Zuko nudged her with his elbow.

“I’m almost fluent in three. And can translate two other languages but I just can’t get the guttural sounds down.” Katara touched her throat with a laugh. “I plan on being able to speak at least seven by the time I graduate. That’s seven languages not seven dialects.”

“Damn,” Zuko shook his head. “That would be pretty cool.”

Katara blushed and shoved her hands in her pockets, “Next question.”

The game went on for a long time. The walked the perimeter of the garden, then made their way to the fountain and walked around it at least three times, before Zuko finally stopped them and they sat on the edge of the fountain.

“Okay, last question before I get to guess who you are.” Zuko looked at her in a very serious manner. Katara nodded and felt her heart race slightly. “Are you disappointed that I’m PrinceSparky11?”

Katara bit her lip and shook her head, “No.” She waited a minute as he looked over her again. “Shocked. Definitely. But no, I’m not disappointed.”

Zuko laughed and tucked a curl of her hair back behind her mask. “I know you OB. I do. I-”

Katara sat up straight suddenly and reached into her pocket. “Sorry, my brother is calling me. Hold on.” Katara got up and answered her phone. “Yes?”

Zuko looked around the garden and then to the girl who was talking on her phone. She gave a tight smile to him before turning. Zuko caught a glimpse of her phone case. It was cute. Definitely a fan made item. Wait, a minute…

Katara hung up the phone and looked at him only for a minute with sadness all over her face. “I’m sorry. I have to go. Something happened to my grandmother! I need- I’m sorry.”

Zuko got immediately and shook his head, forgetting all about his game. “No, go. There’s no need to apologize, OB. Just let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Zuko.” Katara gave a wavering smile before pulling off her shoes and took off.

+++

Katara sat in her chair the following Monday and pulled out her phone. Her grandmother was doing better but was still in the hospital doing recovery. She locked and unlocked her phone a few times.

“Good Mornin’, OB.”

Katara paused a moment before looking up from her phone and to Zuko, “Morning, Sparky.” Zuko chuckled and sat down next to Katara. “How did you guess?”

Zuko reached over and tapped her phone case. “I never would have known without this.”

“My case,” Katara shook her head. “If I wouldn’t have had to take the call, would have said my name?”

“Does it matter now?” Zuko stretched and went on, “To be honest, all I could think while you were answering those questions was that I knew you. But you were just OB. You were just my friend. It really didn’t matter who was behind the mask. I already knew I liked you. So, mask or no mask, behind a messaging app or in real life, I knew I wanted us to always be friends.”

Katara blushed and looked away from him, “That was really sappy for it only being 9 o’clock in the morning.” Katara rests her head in her hands that are propped up on her desk. She turns her head just slightly. “But I wouldn’t have you any other way Sparky.”

#zutara #zutara fanfiction #rated g #or e #for you know everyone #zutaralover answers #thanks for the request #fangirlintheforest #cinderellaish #masquerade dance

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 6 years ago

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Hi, what are your thoughts on Strickler/Barbara? How would Claire get the Decimar Blade to break it's hold on Gunmar's army? Also, due to a string of days where my mum and dad get mad at me, I feel emotionally worn out and stressed. It's nothing too serious, and I love my family but I'm tired of always keeping my head down and letting them walk all over me, I'm 20, and this shit needs to stop. I'm not asking that you play psychiatrist, but do you have any advice or encouragement for me?

Stricklake:

I ship it, partially because I was first introduced to the show via some pro-Stricklake content and so it became a key aspect of my understanding of how the show worked before I’d even seen a single episode, and partially because I find the character dynamics really interesting.

(That first point, learning the ship before the show, also influenced me regarding Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The first episode I saw in it’s entirety was Something Blue, where Buffy and Spike are magically compelled to get engaged for most of the episode. Seeing that with no knowledge that the characters actually hated each other at the time, and then discovering later episodes where Spike was in love/obsessed with Buffy, meant I accepted them eventually getting together as a given.

That episode also left me under the impression that Buffy was a comedy series in a horror-style setting, so … that was a learning curve.

Interestingly, the same concept of ship-before-show had the opposite effect in my watching of Voltron: Legendary Defender.

I had seen so much Lance/Keith shipping content before I got around to watching the show that I began under the impression they were an established couple. Therefore, it was really confusing when the first episodes had Lance viewing Keith as his rival and Keith barely noticing Lance’s existence.

I never was able to see their supposed chemistry in canon sources, only in fic and fan art. Of course, I also quit watching after Season Six - I was starting to lose interest in the show by then and decided to stop while I was still having fun.)

In Season One of Trollhunters, there’s a lot of dramatic irony in Strickler and Barbara’s interactions, because the audience knows he’s a Changeling and can catch the double-speak, which makes their scenes interesting to watch. (Except for some people, whose past experience being manipulated meant those scenes were triggering instead and drove them away from the show. Shipping is very subjective that way.)

Barbara is obviously drawn to Walter. Literally moments after she meets him, she asks Jim whether he knows if his teacher is single. Walter, I don’t think, ever intended specifically to flirt with Barbara - the charm and charisma is just a Changeling thing, “yes, human, you should like me, you should trust me,” - and initially him dating her was taking an opportunity to put the Trollhunter in a vulnerable position. Developing actual feelings for Barbara caught him off-guard.

Barbara had a lot more agency and took more initiative in their relationship in the first season, both in starting their relationship (“Coffee? Dinner? Appendix removal?”) and in ending it. (“Don’t talk to me. You’re the one thing I’m looking forward to forgetting.”)

Yeah, while we’re on this subject: from my perspective, they broke up at the end of Season One, and whatever’s going on as of Season Three is a new relationship.

When they meet again in the third season, Barbara’s mostly reactionary, and Walter stumbles a lot because the writers seemed to be treating him like he was already finished his redemption arc by the time they met again in Parental Guidance, rather than still midway through it.

I’ve written before, I believe, that their Season Three dynamic would be much improved by the following two things:

1) If Walter actually apologized at some point; and

2) If Barbara had contacted him after getting her memories back in Parental Guidance, rather than him showing up at her house uninvited after the events of Bad Coffee. This would give him the chance to confess and apologize for his past misdeeds while confirming the truth of her recovered memories.

He could then either back her up when she contacts Nana and the Nuñezes, or convince her to approach the Trollhunter team first, which would give the kids a safe human adult to go to about troll stuff. Forcing the reveals had potential to go a lot worse than it did.

Having Barbara and Walter’s next contact be on her terms would have also balanced out their power dynamic a little. It’s always been skewed in his favour because he has more information than she does. Having him demonstrate basic respect for her boundaries, by not approaching her after the last thing she said to him was basically that she never wanted to see him again, would be more palatable as well as making her more proactive in their Season Three interactions.

So in my opinion, canon portrayal of this ship started strong but ended clumsily, which is where fanfiction comes in.

Trollhunter Claire and the Decimaar Blade:

I had assumed, or rather guessed, that the Eclipse Armour would let the Trollhunter steal and use the Decimaar Blade, which seems to be magically tied to Gunmar similarly to how Daylight is tied to the Trollhunter. (See: Gunmar conjuring his sword; Daylight vanishing when Draal tried to wield it.)

The spinoff novels Welcome to the Darklands and Age of the Amulet state that the Decimaar Blade used to belong to Orlagk the Oppressor, who was the Gumm-Gumm Warlord before Gunmar killed him and took his position. Therefore, we can conclude the sword is tied to the position of Gumm-Gumm ruler, and that rulership of the Gumm-Gumms is passed down by right of conquest.

I figured Gunmar would be killed by his own sword and the Trollhunter would get full control of the Decimaar Blade automatically. (I guess the Trollhunter could’ve still gotten the sword even with Gunmar killed by Eclipse if the writers had gone for this option.)

I don’t know how controlling the Decimaar Blade would work, but I assume it’s at least semi-intuitive.

It might be a burst where the Trollhunter frees every mind-controlled troll all at once, or Claire might have to go through all the Gumm-Gumms freeing their minds one-by-one and … dealing with any that weren’t actually mind-controlled.

Regarding family stuff:

That sounds like it sucks a lot and I’m sorry you’re going through it.

I don’t know how reasonable or unreasonable your parents and other family members are, so I don’t know how well it would go over if you were to say, “The way you’re treating me is exhausting and stressful and I need you to stop [doing specific thing that’s distressing me] and try [less hurtful/more constructive thing] instead.”

I also don’t know your job prospects or state of health or financial situation (because those are all facets of personal information you should not be sharing with a stranger on the internet), and so I do not feel able to offer the reassurance “You won’t have to live with them forever,” because for all I know moving out is not a feasible option for you.

However, if that does sound like something you can say to your parents and moving out is in your hypothetical eventual future, those are probably the best reassurances I can offer that are actually relevant, as opposed to abstract comfort like “so long as there is Internet, you can look at pictures of baby penguins whenever you have a connection.”

#ask me anything #Stricklake #Walter Strickler #Dr Barbara Lake #shipping #narrative #Characterization #Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #alternate universe #Claire Nuñez #swords #mind control #Anonymous asks about Trollhunter!Claire #also #family #relationships #Penguin

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monkey-network · 6 years ago

Text

?Does SU is Garbage¿: A Measured Response

or THE TROOF ABOUT STEVEN UNIVERSE, PART 7

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Monkey of the Makaveli, coming at ya live, once again, through the power... of the internet. And this rant is quite menial, especially since the topic at hand is over half a year old now, but I’ve been sitting on it recently and I wanted to get it off my chest.

Back in 2017, I talked about SU’s handling of villains and how the show was plotting up to make them sympathetic, thus neutering the sense of dimension that can come with developing a villain, especially when you initially make them out to be very fascistic in their approach. Over a year later, Lily Orchard released a video essentially touting the same with the addition of saying the show unintentionally bears a theme of nazi apologia thanks to Sugar’s ambition for character redemption, thus making the show objectively bad. I didn’t agree to this but I didn’t have as good of a case then so I left it alone. Cut to winter where I saw a response from her talking about Robobuddies’ video on SU, considering it good but “malnutritious” compared to hers. Again, I didn’t agree with this sentiment but I didn’t have as good of a case then so I left that alone as well. Cut to April this year where, after learning quite a bit about objectivity vs subjectivity, I went back to that response and rereading this one quote, something clicked:

“No criticism of anything should leave out the themes and whether they actually panned out the way the creator was hoping they would. If all you care about is story structure and animation, Robo goes in an impressive amount of detail about those two specific things. But that kind of hyperfixation on these two things while ignoring the themes is malnutritious criticism.“ [December, 2018]

So with all consideration, the analysis of themes seem important to Orchard when it comes to objective criticism, especially when her video was out to prove the why in “Why Steven Universe IS Garbage.” And this isn’t a one time thing, I remember her covering before that the themes are what can make or break a show, episode, what have you. I would agree, but I hate to say this, given that I tend to be quite a writer/critic myself, yet it should be a given:

Themes should not and are not the end all, BE all to objective criticism, because it is an inherently subjective concept.

Now with that said, I’m not saying she doesn’t bring up good points, but for all the talk of whether the themes actually panned out the way the creator was hoping they would, this talk of fascist apologia in SU is not so much discussing Sugar’s intention but second guessing it based on personal hindsight and bias. In all fairness, I’m not above this since, again, I too felt this way beforehand and after watching SU the whole way through, my perspective has certainly changed.

So permit me, if you will, to go on one final SU rant, not only deconstructing that headline statement above, but objectively analyze Orchard’s idea of SU being apologetic to fascism in addition to reflect off of my previous stance for the villains. Prepare yourselves, this is quite a read...

The Themes, Mason

Keep in mind, I’m not saying discussing themes in media is a bad thing because it can enhance how you feel about it. As such discussing only the story structure, characters, the direction of the media isn’t bad either because you’re focusing on how the project came together and what is measurable in terms of good and bad content. But understand that while connectable, they are still separate types of criticisms. And while many writers can disagree with me on this, I feel like this has to be said: themes shouldn't be the point of the show. This goes for creators and critics equally.

I’ve discussed this earlier with someone, but themes are so subjective, you can put the content on a shelf that cannot be considered good/bad; circumventing any criticisms that could prove you wrong, and essentially deadlocking discussion since any opponent can’t really disprove your theme if proven enough and they either have to go along with you or argue to the death that it can be something else while you can sit comfortably in your generally subjective bubble, thinking you achieved objectivity.

You can give counters, but this is what people like Lily resort to define what’s good or bad writing in their eyes, and it can be frustrating trying to deconstruct because you can’t kill an idea. Not to say Rebecca Sugar or other creators can’t/couldn’t fall for this too because trying to contextualize themes over the actions of the characters and the flow of the plot, to force everything around the themes, can often lead to conflicting and sometimes frustrating thoughts as to what the show is trying to say. You will definitely see this with shows containing the most polarized fanbases, i.e. Voltron, GoT, Star vs. Evil, where it’s arguable that the creators trying to put the themes over the writing crippled people’s interest when they actually pay attention to the writing.

That’s not to say themes aren’t important or shouldn’t be important to you, but they should be the shadow that comes with the walking product, not the partner giving you the directions shoulder to shoulder as it goes along. Avatar The Last Airbender certainly doesn’t get the praise that it gets based on the themes alone, but of how well-written the characters were, how they’ve grown, what were their thought processes, and so forth; people love understanding the logic behind writing. Lily understands this. But on the flip side, I’m willing to bet she’ll use the themes as a defense to me saying Captain Marvel is objectively bad in terms of its writing quality. Whether it be their sacred cow or something they want destroyed, themes can be the go-to when trying to convince people that their judgement is concrete, when in reality it’s interpretive.

Furthermore, saying “No criticism should leave out the themes” is the “you have to have a very high IQ” of criticism standards. Truthfully when it comes to objective criteria, the story structure makes the themes, not the other way around. As such what you experience from a movie/show can be different to how the movie actually turned out. Best example would be a look into Armound White, a staple critic infamous for his contrarian takes. Every movie considered great is bad, vice versa, with some even transcending his scale. For a perspective, this man thought Into the Spiderverse was bad and a majority of video games, aside from Detective Pikachu were great, so take that what you will. But if you read some of his reviews, it’s less about what the movie did and more of what it supposedly stands for; His Spiderverse review mostly talks about how, thematically, it’s indoctrinating people into the MCU’s commercial process:

Whoever says Into the Spider-Verse is about “fun” doesn’t understand movies or anything about how 21st-century media operates — particularly the exhausting Marvel franchise. Millennials, and others, delude themselves by accepting market promotion as part of a larger cultural narrative. [...] Marvel and Sony gamble on Miles to meet the identity-politics fashion that now dominates contemporary culture. (Consider that Spider-Man’s example overwhelms Miles’s school assignment, Dickens’s Great Expectations.) But this is not just freewheeling, imaginative, and progressive capitalism, as in Spielberg’s Ready Player One; it’s the worst social, artistic, ethnic, and political engineering.“ [Armound White, December 14, 2018, this is what most of his reviews sound like, FYI]

Now say what you will about White, his way of reviewing is remotely consistent and can somewhat be a nice measurement to what’s considerably good and bad. You can see his review of Man of Steel and take away that it probably isn’t the “Godfather of Superhero Films” or a movie like Suicide Squad where it’s terrible enough that he couldn’t defend it, all the while mostly discussing the themes in lieu of any concrete happenings from the movie. The same can’t be said for most others when they surely want something beaten to the ground or elevated as great. The standards you might have for one thing can be bent to things you like and don’t like if you so choose; warping the context around your idea. As such, you’ll generally find most wanting to enjoy their own perspective while telling others they’re incorrect for having theirs. But how might this collate with Lily’s case for SU bearing the theme of nazi apologia or redeeming the space nazis, making the show pretty bad? Well...

Sympathy and Redemption vs The Deconstruct of Viewpoints

I won’t deny that Lily’s point about the show bringing in the Diamonds as an overarching threat is touchy given what they’ve done and who they are vs how their character was slowly revealed. It was bold thinking that the Sugar gang were gonna offer these characters redemption or show them in a sympathetic light. But I’ll say right now, and I’m talking to 2017 me as well, this is admittedly surface level.

To preface this, I’ll say that Lily’s point amounts to a lot of pattern recognition. This is something people who criticize with themes use and I’m not above that, as I will be doing that soon. Another thing is that in trying to argue Lily’s point, this is in no way trying to defend Steven Universe’s writing; it’s generally just setting some things straight.

With this said, one pattern that she brings up is that the portrayals of the Diamonds is essentially the show trying to make you feel sorry for them. In addition, with Steven being Pink Diamond, it’s trying to justify that without this factor in mind, the diamonds should’ve been killed because they’re far from redemption or sympathy in any light.

Now, I won’t say the part of Steven being Pink is wrong because this opened a disconnect of Steven having to be the mouthpiece for someone that should’ve been alive to give her perspective to characters that deserve it, i.e. the Diamonds and the gems. In fact, Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz is honestly the main problem with this show as a whole and I could into extreme length as to why but I digress. But,,,, on talk of woobifying the fascists, there is a contradiction afoot. With this contradiction comes a question: are the Diamonds ever shown to be in the right?

Weird question but this is where I’ve noticed a contextual pattern that Homeworld’s ideology is always called out on its bullshit, understanding the fact that they’re truly nothing without their sense of superiority. This is with Peridot calling out Yellow Diamond after commemorating how much she respected her before. Blue Diamond getting a fucking farm and a hand dropped on her after stubbornly touting her grief over everyone. And in the end where all three diamonds, including the literal White Supremacist, fall before the fact that everything they thought was right turned out to be crap. Steven does lend a hand to these characters, but it is never shown that he or the show actively justifies their behavior, regardless of their power/status. If anything, the show constantly makes Steven look better than the Diamonds by comparison, while looking like he’s trying to reach common ground with them.

Heck, I’ll go to where Lily talks of Uncle Andy and his episode in that part. There’s no denying that Andy’s retorts were highly xenophobic, but even when Steven and the others try to be chummy with him through dinner, the last third of the episode mostly involves celebrating each others’ presence without him, not once trying to bring him in on the conversation, not even Greg who’s actual family with him. This results in Andy storming off and later on admit that he’s rightfully at fault for not being susceptible to change, and this admittance comes before Steven offers him the opportunity to connect with the family more. Not saying this couldn’t have been tuned better, but we can’t deny that the show doesn’t tolerate attitudes like Andy’s and thus shows them that they’re wrong before Steven offers them the chance to better their worldview, unless you’re Kevin but he’s an outlier all things considered.

And in turn, this also brings in the pattern that the villains don’t submit so easily. The gems had to fight off the Diamonds before Steven got through to them, and even then it took some time before they actually sided with Steven over White Diamond. White Diamond had to be subdued more than once just for Steven to get through to her. While these moments vary in logic and pacing, again thanks to the PD = RQ twist, the point nonetheless rings home that the show isn’t much sympathetic to the Diamonds as much as it’s intolerable towards their stance and reacts accordingly. The only time the Diamonds are ever in the right are when they acknowledge they’re wrong, playing to the theme that no one’s above a change in viewpoint. Say what you will about what happened, it’s at least reasonable to say the writers provided a serviceable story that benefited from not killing anybody (sort of) while giving the heroes a struggle to overcome.

As with redemption, and I’ve mentioned this before, Sugar hasn’t actually redeemed them and the show more or less understands this. Change of viewpoint is one thing, but if they haven’t sacrificed anything beyond their ego or high ground, can’t really count that as them going through a redemption arc because they haven’t really given up anything sincerely valuable of theirs. Given that the show isn’t over yet, it would be premature to say that they’re in the clear and can’t be given time to repent heavily for their past. Just saying, for somebody that sought objectivity in my criticisms of SU for a while now, I’m actually willing to give Sugar a chance to finish her story before vilifying her intentions unlike some. And if I’m proven wrong, I will be happy to admit that.

Now taking everything into account, it’s reasonable to say that the show wanted to give the Diamond more dimension, make ‘em less like Disney villains. And it’s also fair to say that the show stumbles in conveying this rationally given the prefacing condition I’ve mentioned before. But is this prevalent theme of trying to make the space nazis sympathetic applicable to saying SU is objectively bad? Well, if you ignore most of the context, this is a probability, otherwise this is very discrepant to what actually happens in the story give or take its few hiccups. We can say Sugar’s development of the Diamonds comes from a fascination of trying to redeem them, hence trying to sympathize with space nazis, but given what we know and what we don’t know yet, I can’t help but say that this is trying to make it deeper than knowingly. Or if so, the writers are doing it at quite a distance, so to speak.

“”The Argument””

Unfortunately, herein lies a problem I’ve noticed with how criticism is made and handled. Lily and others like her can be pretty inconsistent with their arguments that they resort to inventing quotes and problems to make their arguments look irrefutable and their opponents look crazier by comparison. Not saying Sugar hasn’t flubbed up a few times in the past with SU, but Lily is giving her a lot of credit for something she generally invented herself, only to then say Sugar is remarkably unaware of everything she’s doing like she’s Mr. Magoo. Doesn’t help that the woman offers no citations or references to Sugar providing insight on her intentions or goals in the show, no actual commentary on the matter even when such could exist, to actually make her stance objective. She just says that this theme for SU exists, ergo the show is bad for it... Do you now see what I mean when I say that themes aren’t the end all, be all to objective criticism? Especially for a show like Steven Universe where it can either be analyzed incrementally or as a whole when completed? It’s this dishonesty that stifles genuine criticism because whether or not you're in the right of something, this meshing of objective and subjective takes leads to misinformation and the lack of fair discussion because you can stubbornly keep to your stance. And for the fact that her video’s ratings are disabled and the comment section bears nothing but complete agreements with her, I doubt this troubles her.

Again, won’t deny that the Diamonds aren't fascistic in their character, nor am I saying that the story couldn't have been done better with them, but it should be said that this nebulous vitriol towards Sugar, regardless of her executive position, has lead to a far-fetched presumption that I doubt barely anybody is truly behind other than those who just agree with her. Yet this is what she considers the crux of her stance, an idea that hasn't been denied or accepted by anybody important other than herself. Or better yet a stance she finds irrefutable when in reality, it's a subjective opinion that nobody can or has to really deny unless they actually think about it hard enough. I won’t take away this theme, but if Lily’s seriously believing that this makes Steven Universe garbage... well, she is wrong. And you know what? That’s okay.

The Conclusion

With all this, like I said before, this was less about disproving Lily’s point and more about understanding my old perspective. Cuz when I think about it, critiquing media like SU among others helped me understand what I truly like, differentiate between what’s entertaining and what’s good, generally without having to be interpretive or try to make every argument I have “just my opinion.“ I’ve become more... aware of how see things and I’d say that’s better than trying to stick with a single viewpoint. Doesn’t mean I’m critical towards everything I watch, just feels like I’ve grown thoughtful in how I consume media.

Steven Universe is not a show I find to be a favorite anymore, but through many thoughts and realizations, it’s a show I’ll gladly stay tuned to because it is entertaining and makes me think about it in a nuanced way. Again, this response was in no way an active defense towards this show, but overall, I’ll say the show deserves a better look through than this, so to speak.

#su critical #su critique #anti su critical #lily orchard #analysis #su #Roy Macintosh #long post #i'll see myself out

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sp4c3-0ddity · 7 years ago

Note

> remember the blond guy at pidges school who sorta madefun of her.. what if they come back to earth, she meets and recognizes him, he hits on her in some way cuz dang pidge is in some nice cute hot outfit and she’s a hero now. Then lance gets an urge to defend her, or shoo him off, prbly hunks bside him, then he realizes shes badass and can handle her own and stops himself. True enough she burns the guy.. or idk taze or drop kicks him or something. <3

ha i’ve seen some variation of this floating around tumblr so it was fun to try my take on the concept. but i’m not sure it’s quite what you wanted, though i hope you like it!! <3

(word count is ~2000)

also warning because there’s some sexual harassment

Pidgelets her hair grow in space, on the route from the rift between realities toEarth. The long journey leaves no time for extra grooming, and by the time herhair brushes her shoulders, she decides she likes it enough to keep it thatway.

But she misses her long hair, misses tyingit into a ponytail and twirling the end around a pen while focusing onsomething else. Misses her mother carding her fingers through the strands andfinding that one off-color clump. Misses begging Matt to braid her hair, evenmisses when she was small (or smaller) and her mother was busy and she had toendure her father’s inexperienced and rough brushing.

She forgets it makes her look like a girlagain and can’thelp noticing the little side-eyes that Lance keeps shooting her way.

It rankles her nerves and brings heat toher face, aggravating her enough that a few light-years from Earth she finallysnaps, “Whatis your problem, Lance?”

“Problem?”Lance’s eyes widen in bewilderment, and he raises his hands defensively. “I don’thave a problem.”

“Thenwhy the quiznak do you keep lookingat me like that?”

Lance flushes, his gaze darting away fromher while he scratches his chin. “I…uh…like what, Pidge?”

“Like…like—Idon’t know!” Pidge throws her hands up, frustrated, and when Lance glances backtowards her, she, absurdly, wants nothing more than to cry. “I-is theresomething on my face? Is that it?” She touches her cheek, half-expecting tofind something stuck there.

“Actually,yeah, you got an…eyelash.” Lance leans towards her, his thumb brushing justunderneath her eye. He pulls away with a grin and shows her…an eyelash. “Make awish, Pidge.”

Pidge releases the air trapped in her lungsand grumbles, “Iwish you’d stop doing that.”

Lance quirks an eyebrow at her and asks, “Doingwhat?”

“That,” Pidge replies, gesturing towards him. Andthough she knows “that” is an unspecific answer, she can’t think of a betterone with sweaty hands and a furiously pounding heart.

But she knows it has something to do withLance.

Pidge regrets letting Allura and her fatherconvince her to go on this stupid publicity tour.

It’s worse when she stands at the front of ahigh school gymnasium, a basketball hoop and backboard casting an ominousshadow over the podium. The school’s entire student body populates the uglyyellow bleachers, staring at Pidge and her teammates with expressions rangingfrom excitement to apprehension.

The Galra attack Earth, yet high school goes on.

Not that Pidge ever attended a high school, as she was too busy denying her family’sdeath, infiltrating a government space exploration program, and fighting anintergalactic war alongside actual aliens.

And…her friends.

Pidge glances over at Lance and Hunk. Thelatter smiles awkwardly, his hand held up in a wave, while the former,naturally, soaks up the audience’s applause, his hands resting on his hips- it’s very much a superheropose - and a radiant grin stretching his face.

They’re a calming presence, at least, andseeing Lance so comfortable helps put her at ease.

The soft smile he sends her way doesn’thurt either.

Feedback from the podium’smicrophone startles Pidge, and she spins around to hear the student bodypresident - a blond boy of unspectacular height and build - conclude his briefspeech.

The gym explodes with noise as hundreds ofstudents stand and climb down the bleachers, nudged along by disgruntledteachers to rush them back to their classes. But before Pidge can so much asrelax - perhaps even lean against Lance - the president turns to them.

Turns to her.

“Uh,Katie?”

Pidge’s eyes widen, her breath catching in hershock. Beside her, Lance very obviously stiffens, and Hunk glances between herand the student, his brow furrowed.

“Aha,you don’t recognize me, do you?” The boy rubs the back of his neck and smilesbefore holding out his hand. “We were in the same class in eighth grade,remember?”

Pidge’s gaze drifts down to his offered hand,then flits back up to his face. Something like recognition flickers in the backof her mind, and when she remembers her heart pounds uncomfortably and sheforces herself to stand her ground, to keep from backing up a step.

“Yes,”she says through gritted teeth, a smile that feels more like a grimaceplastered onto her face. “I think I remember you now.”

The boy grins. “Great,”he says. “I wasn’t sure if it was you, because you’re a lot, well, prettier than I remember—”

Pidge’s eyebrow twitches.

“—butI guess that’s just how girls look in middle school, right?”

Pidge scowls, her hands clenching intofists at her side, but before she can retort, Lance snaps, “BecauseI’m sure you were such hot stuff in eighth grade,asshole.”

Pidge spins her head around so fast a waveof dizziness hits her. And as she shakes it away, she notices Lance’sexpression.

He glares at the boy, a deep scowl twistinghis mouth and his arms crossed.

If Pidge didn’t know better, she would think that Lanceis jealous.

“I-Iwas just…” The boy stares at him, his eyes wide in surprise. “Katie and I werefriends in middle school, dude, so chill.”

“Really,”Hunk says skeptically, his own quirked eyebrow weighing in on the conversation.

“Sure!”The boy chuckles before he sends a frantic glance Pidge’s way. “She helped mewith my homework—”

“Stolemy homework and copied it,” Pidge grumbles.

“—gaveeach other nicknames—”

“Oh,nerd is such a cute nickname.”

The student, apparently losing hispatience, rolls his eyes and says, “Then let me make it up to you?”

Anger twists in Pidge’sgut - anger that her childhood bully thinks he can wipe away years of tormentwith obfuscating words and a backhanded compliment - and displaces any trace ofpanic she felt when familiarity set in.

“Howthe quiznak do you intend to do that?”

“What’sa—never mind.” Then he smiles - doing an awfuljob of reading the room, in Pidge’s opinion - and wonders, “Are you busytonight?”

Pidge opens her mouth to reply - “Too busy for you, dick.” - but Lance beats her to it.

“She’stoo busy saving the universe for the likes of your ungrateful ass.”

Somehow, warmth spreads through her chestat Lance’sdefense…but irritation also curls in her gut, so she shoots him a glare of herown.

“Fine,”the boy says, rolling his eyes yet somehow not seeming put-off. “How abouttomorrow night?”

“Howabout never,” Hunk says with a sickly sweet smile.

He’s shorter than both of Pidge’s teammates,his physique utterly impressive next to Hunk’s bulk and Lance’s lean build(which she’s let herself admire much too often), but he still holds his ground.

“Whatabout after you savethe universe, Katie?” he says, baring his teeth in an unfriendly smile.

Pidge sighs. “I really didn’t want to do this,” shesays, her bayard materializing in her hand, “but you’re really getting on my nerves, you bully.”

The student body president flinches as ifrecoiling from a slap - the word “bully” striking deeper than Pidge expects.But it’s gratifying that she can level even some of the hurt he inflicted onher in school, and she smirks in satisfaction.

It doesn’t last.

The boy glowers at her and steps towardsher. “Youthink that just because you’re a Paladin of Voltron - which, for all we know, is somegovernment hoax cooked up by your crazy dad—”

Blood rushes past Pidge’sears, and she lashes out without thinking.

Her electrified bayard strikes him in theribs.

He shudders and falls with a groan, hisblond hair standing on end as he clutches his abdomen. “W-whatthe hell?”

Pidge lowers her bayard. “Youdone yet?”

The boy glares up at her - blood drips fromhis lip where he must’ve bit it - and stands.

As soon as he’s upright, his eyes narrowed angrily, Hunkgrabs his shoulder and asks, “Don’t you have a class or something to get to?”

Lance shifts noticeably closer to Pidge,his hand twitching as if he wants nothing more than to summon his own bayard.And as easy as running the student through with a sword would be, they need tomake sure the mess left is easy to clean.

The student glances from Hunk just behindhim to Lance hovering beside Pidge. “Why not at least give me a chance, Katie?”

Pidge snorts. “Youbullied me in middle school and grew into a pushy asshole who probably only gotelected student body president because he threatened to distribute nudepictures of every girl he knew on the Internet.” Her lips twist into a scowland she adds, “And you also insulted my father.”

Then a crazyidea strikes her, for if shocking him with her bayard didn’twork…

She wraps an arm around Lance’swaist, hoping her face isn’t as red as it feels when she tucks herself into hisside. “Also, this is my boyfriend, Lance. He’s alsoa Paladin of Voltron, can take no foran answer, and is hot to boot.”

“Wait,you think I’m—ow!” Lance yelps when she pinches his side, but he takes her cue and throws an arm around her shoulders.

(Pidge tries not to think about how familiar and friendly the gesture is.)

The boy’s eyes narrow as he touches his bleedinglip. Pidge’s heart pounds, her grip on her bayard tight, but then he shrugs andsays, “I heard that so-called alien princess’ ‘public address’, Katie. You’restill a nerd.”

“Sowhat if I am?” Pidge demands. She grins at him and says, “It’s just anotherpart of my identity.”

He scowls and mutters, “I’mgoing to class.” He turns tail and walks away, his pace speedy.

Once he escapes their sight, Pidgedismisses her bayard and reluctantly drops her arm with a relieved sigh.

“Whatan asshole,” Lance says, glaring in the direction he fled.

But he keeps his arms around Pidge’sshoulders.

“Whatwas his name again?” Hunk asks.

Pidge blinks, surprised by the question,but wracks her brains before confessing, “I, uh, forgot.” She smiles sheepishly athim and Lance, and when they both shoot her matching wide-eyed glances, shebursts into laughter.

Pidge laughs so hard tears prick at hereyes and air evades her lungs. She doubles over, hanging off Lance, delightnearly overwhelming her, and when her laughter finally ceases - while she’sstill gasping for breath - Lance raises an eyebrow at her and wonders, “Youdone yet?”

She giggles. “Yes,” she says, “but quiznak, that feltgood.”

“Oh,yeah?”

Pidge straightens, then, still high onmirth, wraps her arms around Lance. “Yeah.”

“I’lljust…wait for you guys with the Lions,” Hunk says, his squeaking footstepsechoing throughout the gymnasium in his rush to retreat,

Pidge frowns in that direction. “What’sthe hurry?”

Lance peers down at her and, his facedarkening, wonders, “Did you mean that?”

“Mean…what?”

“Whatyou said about me.”

Pidge blinks, confused until the memory ofher own thoughtless words hits her.

She pulls away from Lance, her face hot andher gaze flitting at any and every point in the gym that isn’thim. “I, uh…you’re obviously a Paladin of Voltron, Lance.”

“Oh,”Lance says, and she glances up at the sound of his subdued tone. “That’s all?”

She forces a laugh and shrugs. “Well,you’re definitely not my boyfriend.” When he just stares at her, she sighs andmutters, “But I kind of want you to be.”

Pidge’s cheeks burn as the words - moredeliberate than earlier - escape her. Her heart pounds, filling her ears, ather calculated risk - for, unless she missed her guess, Lance was…jealous.

The hypothesis boggled the mind, so Pidgeneeds evidence, even if it’s from a misguided experiment.

“So…” Lance says with an oddly shy smilethat still sets her heart racing. “Are you busy tonight?”

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lanceville · 7 years ago

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Hello, I really want to get this out of my mind, so I hope I do not bother you, if I bother you please ignore me, ok this will be long. I saw one of your previous answers, where you say that you feel different or with a weird mood, I've also been feeling weird, and I've been thinking about things that really stress me, I'm in a mood so pessimistic and depressing that I come crazy and terrible ideas about many things (part1)

one of those strange thoughts is this: LM and JDS have said (or so I’ve heard correct me if I’m wrong) that they do not want to talk much to avoid surprises about the plot of the following seasons … so I came this horrible thought. if they for example do not want to ruin the surprise about Klance by becoming a canon, Why do they talk so much about them? (part2)

why they give the fans so many hopes and make them believe that they will become canon if they want it to be a “surprise”?. then my pessimistic thoughts lead me to this, the surprise is not klance becoming canon, the surprise will be that another ship either All//ance, K and R or even worse She//ith is the one that will become canon. So if I’m not bothering you I’d appreciate it if you answered this, I’m sorry for bothering you with this stupidity (last part)

it’s alright bro, i gotchu.

first, it’s true that lm and jds and known to be super secretive about the plot and upcoming events, and they have been vague about lance’s and keith’s relationship until this interview. there are instances were they were talked about them in a romantic context several times too but i’m just gonna focus on this video for now. there are two reasons that they have decided to openly talk about it like that:

1. they were approached specifically by the author of this article to hear out what they think about the “science behind shipping,” since they’re the executive producers of the show with the most popular ship on the internet.

2. they’ve realized it’s necessary to keep avoiding klance at this point. the klance fandom is huge, and no matter how much they try hide who the endgame will be or even sway us a little bit from it, the klance fandom only grows each time. they never expected klance to gain such a huge fanbase so quickly and for the fans to pick up on the hints that easily. it was as if they were still in shock and denial that their endgame surprise has been exposed, but there’s no use denying it at this point. they know we’ll forever believe in the ship, so since everything’s exposed, they don’t see why they can’t engage with the fans about them. if it is really not the endgame ship, they would’ve tried to do more damage control to not break the hopes and fail the expectations of the fans later, but they only spoke positively about klance in that video.

and don’t allow yourself to think that, annonie. i know that it’s really worrying because of how little keith and lance have interacted in the past few seasons, but that does not mean in any way that their relationship has regressed. season six especially was the very definition of intense, and there was barely any time for keith to interact with any of the other paladins besides shiro. keith, especially, was under a lot of pressure, and they were all stressed. but now since everything’s calmed down and keith’s finally back on the team, things will get better. have faith.

(gonna put the rest under read more bc this has tuned way longer than expected)

and about other ships becoming canon, you can rule that idea out by the process of elimination.

keith/romelle and keith/allura are never gonna happen. you know why?

the endgame is between two main characters (”characters who have been present since the beginning″ aka the paladins). romelle isn’t

keith and allura have only ever interacted in what would seem like (but it isn’t) a romantic fashion in s2, and it was just bc of keith’s heritage. even though it’s kinda disappointing since i’d like to see more of their friendship, they’ve barely interacted with each other outside of missions. there’s no way they’re gonna develop romantic feelings for each other when neither has shown interest in the other.

literally

also dude keith’s clearly not straight. no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise, the man isn’t. one look at him is enough to know that.

biggest proof is allura, a gorgeous space princess who everybody swoons over, falling right into his arms and him not even blinking a goddamn eye. his indifferent expression still cackles me tbh.

also, it’s known that the endgame involves lance, so if it’s a ship that does not include lance, then nah it’s not happening.

not gonna even bother with why shiteihaha will never become canon in a bazillion realities because it’s ridiculously clear as to why to those who have at least 2 functional brain cells. don’t even let that idea cross your mind.

this leaves us with all//ance. tbh, it did have a chance of becoming canon up until s5. but dude, after watching s6, i was like “did they just really kill this ship.” all//ance is really cute and sweet, and i wouldn’t have minded it becoming canon since both allura and lance really care about each and i loooooooooove their friendship so goddamn much. but this is the thing. what allura and lance have is friendship. they both were really good friends up until the writers decided to bring lance’s crush back from the bottomless pits for drama’s sake. lance’s crush on allura is so valid man. he truly does like her. but the thing that killed the ship wasn’t this; it was the whole love triangle drama. allura fell in love with lotor and never requited lance’s feelings even when she knew about them, meaning she does not view lance that way, and it’s her right - she can like whoever she wants. the writers said that romance will happen naturally in the show. if allura would ever reciprocate lance’s feelings, she would’ve at least displayed some signs of that at this point. she got to know lance and see some of his greatest moments. she even got to experience what lance dying would feel like, yet she still didn’t develop any romantic feelings towards him. if feelings of loss and grieve didn’t make her realize how important lance is to her romantically, then that’s because there are no romantic feelings present in the first place. it would not make sense at all for her to develop feelings for him later on. she cares deeply about him as a friend, and romantic love is not some upgraded form of friendship love - it’s a totally different type of the same class, and that’s what she feels about him.

it would be utterly cruel and unfair for both if they end up together after the shit that has happened in s6. allura would never find a lotor in lance, and lance would always feel inferior if he gets with allura because he know’s he’s no lotor - that he isn’t who she wants (lance is much better than all the boys in the entire universe and whoever has him is literally the luckiest person ever but this is not the point so moving on). allura’s feelings for lance would not be genuine, which would make allura feel bad because she would never want to make lance feel like a rebound or a second choice. lance, on the other hand, really likes allura, and being the helplessly selfless person he is, would accept to be allura’s rebound while being fully aware of it and accepting his fate as a second choice which, god, would take a heavy fricking toll on his already bad self-esteem issues. seriously man, every time i think about them getting together after s6, their relationship is just full of heartbreak and hurt, and i don’t want either of them to feel like that because they don’t deserve it. even the showrunners admitted that them getting together right after would be a disservice to both of them. i fucking love them both and their friendship so much and i don’t want anything to ruin it.

i wanna also elaborate on another point. if you’ve noticed, allura and lance shared a couple scenes that paralleled klance’s but they’re slightly more romantically-coded (the scene might seem this way but since allura has 0 romantic interest in lance it ain’t, but anyway). the reason i think they included such parallels is to tell the audience that, “if you see those a///rance scenes as romantic, then those previous klance scene were meant to be romantic as well :)” as i mentioned before, the writers were quite surprised we have picked up on klance pretty quickly and early. since they might’ve thought we wouldn’t, they might’ve thought “something” was needed to hint at where they’re planning on taking klance’s relationship, and that “something” is all//ance. but unlike all/urance’s scenes (especially the dying lance moment which resembled the bonding moment) where the romantic interest is one-sided, the similar feelings in klance’s scenes are reciprocated by both parties (bonding!!!! moment!!!!).

now then, guess which ship we’re left with!!!!! yup! it’s klance. i could go on and on and on and on about how they!!! are!!! gonna!!! be!!! canon!!! but i’ve seriously spoken too much (and i cant feel my fingers anymore erfberk) and i don’t even know if you even have read it all the way to end bc ik i’m quite boring when i explain stuff ebjrvkebr but!!! seriously dude. just go rewatch s3. that’s all the confirmation you need of their budding romance. they have some of the most trope-y romantic scenes. and dude, i say all that but, whatever happens, i will forever believe that there’s no better ship in this show than klance. nothing will surpass it.

edit: gonna just add the petty ask i sent voltron (that i knew they were never gonna answer but i had to send it nonetheless bc i needed to let the salt inside me out somehow lmao) because it’s succinct and summarizes what i said above lmao

#uhhhhh this turned REALLY long actually.... rip........#i'm sorry for replying late! i just needed to choose the right day to allot some time to replying to this properly #hope i could ease your worry a bit????#mp #analysis #klance #anon #asks

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fangzeronos · 7 years ago

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SDCC 2018 wrap up

Ok now that SDCC is over, I feel like I should do a little wrap up for the weekend. I got to sit and wait for all the trailers and news to come out since I couldn’t afford to go, so this is gonna be strictly from the “Nerd on the Couch” perspective. I’m putting a read more in case anyone wanna skip this.

Titans: The trailer was alright. Robin’s in a bad place because of Batman so his “Fuck Batman” line is justified. Starfire and Beast Boy could still use some work, but it was only the first trailer, so we’ll have to reserve judgement until the show comes out. I’m looking forward to it anyway.

Young Justice Outsiders: It’s actually real. I thought for the last two years we’ve all been thinking it’s not coming and that we’ve all been living in a dream about wanting it back. I was in the middle of the store when I saw the trailer and my heart stopped. Two minutes of Season 2 recap, including Wally’s ‘death’ (HE ISN’T DEAD ALRIGHT!? HE’S JUST IN THE SPEED FORCE AND NOBODY CAN CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE DAMMIT!!!) before we get the new footage. The new characters look amazing, Geoforce looks like he’s going to be a good character, hopefully we’ll get Terra since she’s “been missing for two years”. Still waiting to see M’gann, Kaldur, Beast Boy, and the rest of the season 2 cast, but I’m excited for this one more then Titans.

And since both shows above are going to be on the DC Universe Online service, I can see paying $75 a year for it if we’re going to get more Young Justice. With all the shows coming out on DCUO, like Harley Quinn, Stargirl, Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol, and all of the older shows like Batman The Animated Series, Wonder Woman, the older DC movies and the comics, I can justify paying that much for a yearlong subscription.

Supergirl: Season 4 looks like it’s going to be interesting. Agent Liberty seems like a decent antagonist, but with the way this show has done in the past, hyping a villain for the first half and then swapping it with a generic bad guy for the second, I don’t have much hope. It looks like they’re toning down the relationship drama from season 2 and 3, which is good. I’m honestly thinking they’re going to screw Lena’s character development and have her go evil Luthor judging by how season 3 ended with her “We can begin phase two” line and having the Harun-El made up that she gave to Alura. A few quick shots of Alex as Director of the DEO sporting a new haircut, nothing too revealing except for the Supergirl spacesuit at the end. I saw it and my mind went to the first Injustice 2 game trailer from 2016 with the armored look. I’m looking forward to the new season, not keen on it being on Sundays before the Charmed reboot but have to get the viewers for a remake somehow.

Arrow: Oliver Queen in prison. That’s a hell of a concept for the season. We know something’s going to change and he’s going to be out by the fourth or fifth episode, possibly earlier. Decent shots of the other characters, Dinah wearing SCPD riot gear was a nice touch, Laurel-2 denouncing vigilantism makes for an interesting idea considering what the hell she’s done in the last seasons. Diaz is fine, not enjoying having him around again but since he didn’t get killed at the end of the last season, it’s fine. Longbow Hunters might make for interesting fodder, but we can’t be sure until the show starts. I’m sick of Felicity, but that arguments been done to death. We all know it was Roy in the Green Arrow suit in the end of the trailer. If it had been Diggle, we’d have seen his face and since we know Roy’s back, it doesn’t really give us many options to choose from. I’m glad it’s on Mondays now so I can watch it and keep up instead of being behind.

Legends of Tomorrow: It looks great. This one has become one of my favorites on the network and I’m glad to see they’re getting more episodes. Hopefully this season doesn’t get shafted and end up getting thrown to a different night or time or cut in the middle for a different show. Bringing Constantine back for a regular spot is a good move considering what they’re going to be dealing with thanks to the fallout from killing Mallus. Dragons, demons, all sorts of magical and mythical creatures. “Couldn’t we be heroes just a little longer?” made me laugh and it’s that sort of thing that makes Legends stand out to me. It can be dark and gritty but still lighthearted and fun. It’s what Flash started to be and it’s what Arrow needs to be. I’m glad it’s going to be on Mondays along with Arrow.

Flash: Coming off of the reveal that Mystery Girl is actually Barry and Iris’ daughter (which I’d had a feeling about anyway since she was so giddy at the wedding in the Crisis crossover), Nora seems to be a fun addition to the cast this year. I’m honestly looking forward to seeing what she messed up, why she came back, and why didn’t she learn from Barry’s mistakes about screwing with the Timeline. Cicada looks to be interesting, and I hope he’s going to be the main villain for the year. I want to know more about how Caitlin was Frost before the Accelerator and Flashpoint happened, or is it a side effect of Flashpoint two years later? Guess we’ll find out in October.

Aquaman: The trailer looked amazing. This might just be part of what the DCEU needs to get its shit together and stop being so grimdark. Wonder Woman proved DC movies can do fun and lighthearted and still hit some dark themes and notes, and this looks like it’s going to do the same thing. Jason Mamoa looks as badass as he did in Justice League, Amber Heard is beautiful as Mera. Atlantis looked amazing. I’m thoroughly excited and December can’t come quick enough to see this.

Shazam!: One of my favorite DC heroes, man. Zachary Levi just killed it in this trailer and I was laughing the whole way through. If the movie keeps that same energy up, I’ll be damn happy. March release for this one and I’m ready to go!

Godzilla: King of the Monsters: It’s frigging Godzilla, fighting his own list of bad guys. Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah, all classics that should have been in the first one instead of the MUTO. I’ve always been a Godzilla nerd, so when I saw this trailer I was geeking the fuck out. I’m definitely excited for this one.

Now, you’re probably wondering, “Hey, where’s Voltron in all of this?” and you’d be right that I haven’t talked about it yet. I have spent three days milling over the reveals from the Voltron panel and been trying the right ways to word things, so I don’t seem like I’m being an asshole and damning myself with what I’m going to say. Now, with that out of the way.

The season 7 trailer looked good. We’re going back to Earth, so who knows how much time really has passed since the only indication we’ve had was the week that Kuron was in the Galra fighter before Keith and Black found him back in season 3. I’m sad to see that season 8 is going to be the last of VLD, but I can understand why, since they were only approved for so many episodes. Going back to a 13-episode season is the best thing they could have done. Keith piloting Black still kind of irks me, but with Shiro only having one arm, I guess it makes sense. I would much rather have Allura in Black, put Lance back in Blue, and give Red back to Keith, but that’s a whole other post.

The big thing people took away from the panel was “You’ll meet Shiro’s significant other, Adam.” When I saw that on Twitter, I was…. I’m not gonna lie, I was disappointed. You’ve had six seasons of moments between Shiro and Allura, the Hand Touch, the way she looked at him when he said “You found me” at the end of the season, how adamant they are about saving each other every time they’re in danger, Shiro’s resolve to get her back in Season 1 after she threw him into the shuttle and got taken by the Galra. And now it’s all thrown out of the airlock?

No offense to the writers, Josh Keaton who gets mad credit for keeping this close to the chest and not revealing anything, the fans that are a fan of this plot point for the next season, but I’m not a fan. Don’t get me wrong, LGBT representation in animation/kids’ media has come a long way in a few short years. Look at Steven Universe. One of the main characters is a literal fusion of two she-pronoun using space rocks. I just feel like this is shoehorned in like a checkmark on an RPG character creation. “PTSD? Check. Missing limb? Check. Male POC? Check. What else can we check to make people happy? OH! Gay! DOUBLE CHECK!!” is what it feels like to me. To me, this feels like the writers have been shadow stalking Tumblr, AO3, FF.net, everywhere else Voltron is big and made their choice but what the popular ships were in the search results.

Make Shiro gay, fine. Make him bi, that’d be a better option because then we can ship him with whoever we want and not get comments that say that shipping Shiro with Allura or any other female member of this show is gay erasure. By saying “Shiro’s gay”, you’re shooting all of the other Shiro ships in the face. Shieth shippers are over the moon, Shallura shippers are sitting in a corner, Klance shippers are looking between the two going “WTF”, and the rest of the internet’s like “Why is it a big deal?”

I feel like I should stop there about this. This is already more then a page in my word doc.

SDCC 2018 was fun to watch from a distance. CW brought some good trailers, DC killed it with 8 trailers, and Voltron is what it is. Now begins the countdown for SDCC 2019.

#SDCC 2018 #Titans #Young Justice Outsiders #Arrow #Supergirl #Flash #Legends of Tomorrow #Godzilla #Aquaman #Shazam

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ganglylimbs · 7 years ago

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C, I, O, and P?

C-A ship you have never liked and probably never will

Oh boy, I’m going to go back a few years for this one. Naruto/Hinata and Yugi/Tea.

I have a lot of Thoughts about the end pairings for Naruto, but even when the manga was running, I never liked the Naruto/Hinata pairing. I mean, I was more convinced Sasuake/Naruto and Sasuake/Naruto/Sakura would happen before Naruto/Hinata. Most of my complaints come down to this; the romance was never earned.

It’s also kind of obvious that Masashi Kishimoto’s heart wasn’t really into the end of the story. I think if he spent a couple more chapters setting up the end (not the big fight but after, in their happy ever afters), the romances might have been more satisfying. Or no romances (which is what I would have preferred)

Same problems with Yugi/Tea. It’s clear that they were only together because it was Male lead and Female lead (I’m only talking about the show and not the manga and it’s been a few years since I’ve seen the show). 4kids had a bigger problem than Naruto and that is that they didn’t know how to write women outside of being romantic vessels to further along the man’s plot.

(What’s funny though is that Naruto and Yugioh weren’t bad at writing romances, just straight ones. It was said a lot during the manga, but if either Naruto or Sasuke had been a girl, they would have absolutely ended up together. They had the chemistry, the history, and the drive that would have made for a good romance-still some things that would have been needed to set up a happy end, but it would have made for a terrific romance. Same with Yugioh. Because the male characters had agency of their own, a story outside of romance, had a history that was actually explored and were able to talk to each other without romance being implied, it would have been way more believable if one of the male lead characters ended up with another male lead character.)

I-Has Tumblr ever made you stop liking any fandoms, if so which and why?

I mean, I feel like I’ve beaten on the RW/BY fandom a lot, but what’s one more time? Basically my problem comes down to the majority of the RW/BY fandom acting like a bunch of entitled brats who think that being “progressive” means hating male leads that have the audacity to breathe, harassing show writers to the point you make an innocent bystander quit the internet, and thinking that putting in LQBTQ characters really means just wanting your ship to become canon and that’s it (also, let’s throw in some biphobia in there for good measure).

So yeah. I guess you could say tumblr has made me hate a fandom. The Voltron fandom is on my shit list too.

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

Born to Be Yours by Kygo and Imagine Dragons sort of reminds me of Freewood and Raywood

P- Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)

Ok, so I sort of cheated here because this is an old au, but I’m adding a twist to it.

So, X-Ray and Vav are forced to flee their city once a villain works out their true identies as Ray and Gavin, putting their friends and family in danger. They move to a different city, Los Santos, this one where crime is rampant and it’s all dark and gritty, but it allows them to blend in. They vow to give up on being superheroes.

Except, well, they’ve never been good at doing that. So they continue to stop crime (X-Ray stops a gas station from getting robbed, Vav stops a woman from being shot during a mugging-I should also mention, in this au they have the actual powers instead of it being in their suits). It just happens that they’re messing around in the territory of the Fakes, a gang on the rise. Geoff doesn’t take too kindly to this do-good nonsense and wants to put a stop to it before it gives anyone else ideas.

Except, no matter what they do, they can’t seem to pin down the two.

Meanwhile, the villain that drove X-Ray and Vav off in the first place set’s his sites on Los Santos, wanting to take out the two heroes while also taking over the city.

This leads to the superheroes and criminals working together and, here’s the twist, finding out they’re soul mates, each of them having the others’ names scrawled on their body (everyone used nicknames the entire time, so they didn’t realize it before). (X-Ray and Vav knew they were each other’s soulmates and had been happily together for two years)(Meanwhile, Jack, Geoff, Michael, and Ryan were still dancing around theirs, unsure if they wanted to take that leap).

#sorry about posting this so late #i had to get off of work first #i hope you see it anon #also #do I sound bitter?#i don't mean to be #but I don't like the rw/by fandom #never have #in fact #they almost drove me away from the series a couple times #just by how shitty they are

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squirenonny · 7 years ago

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Clone Shiro Theory in Season 5

Okay, so this mess was inspired by talking with several people on Tumblr and discord about the Clone Shiro Theory in the wake of Season 5, as well as seeing posts in the fandom tags. And...I’ve noticed some common themes in arguments against this theory.

Please note that this is not meant to be a direct rebuttal to anyone, more... working out for myself why I’m so convinced that Shiro is a clone because I’ve got all these nebulous thoughts running around in my head and I need to organize them somehow. So feel free to read, respond, reblog, ect, but also feel free to ignore this completely if Clone Shiro isn’t your thing.

Season 5 spoilers and a very long post under the cut.

I’m going to break this down into three parts:

I. Why a clone and not something else (mind control, magical spyware, ect)

II. Why I won’t accept anything but clones at this point without crying foul

III. Clone Shiro vs Galra Keith

I. Why a clone?

I think at this point there’s no way to deny that something happened to Shiro in Operation Kuron. We’ve seen Haggar spying through him, the headaches are a recurring theme, and his behavior has changed to the point that he’s going behind his team’s back and lashing out at the team in ways he hasn’t before.

With most of the proof, you can make several arguments. Haggar’s mind-controlling him directly, but he still is Shiro. Haggar’s spyware is giving him headaches that’s making him more testy than usual, but he’s still acting under his own free will. Ect. But I think there is enough evidence to give the clone theory specifically an edge over other explanations.

Shiro’s hair grew roughly a foot during his captivity between seasons 2 and 3. There’s no clear answer on how long this was, but it seems like a fairly short time period. At the start of the season, Keith is still raw over Shiro’s disappearance, and though they’ve done a few missions without Shiro, they haven’t run up against anything that required Voltron. Which... considering how often they form Voltron both before and after this period, suggest to me that we’re talking a time frame of weeks at the longest. Then episodes 1-3 happen in pretty quick succession, with the lion switch and Keith immediately charging off, almost out of spite. We pick up with Shiro a day or two before episode 3 (which is where Shiro finds Voltron and then loses them.) He spends another week chasing them before Keith and Black find him. All told, this is probably in the realm of one month since his disappearance, maybe two. For reference, human hair grows on average half an inch per month. Shiro is shown to have significantly more hair growth in this time frame than anyone else gets in the entire series--even people who have been prisoners for extended amounts of time. Matt and Sam each get maybe a few inches, and Shiro’s hair was kept short during his stint in the Arena. This tells me that Shiro’s hair growth for The Journey is not an artist’s exaggeration to show that he’s had it rough. If it is, then it’s sloppy, and the animators on this show are typically pretty attentive to detail. If this is intentional, I can only conclude that Shiro has been in captivity for far longer than the timeline allows and/or the clone was grown in a short time and the accelerated growth also affected his hair.

Calling attention to the difference between Shiro(s1-2) and Shiro(s3+). These, I’ll admit, are more suspicious than damning, but they’re worth mentioning. The animators made a deliberate decision to give Shiro a new look after his return. We’ve seen people in different outfits, and Allura has a few different hairstyles (up, down, mice poofs), but no one has changed their “default” outfit like Shiro has, only their armor or other special outfits (pajamas, swimsuits, ect), and no one has gotten a new haircut, except Pidge (in backstory, as a plot point) and Sam and Matt (compare to Shiro on the Kerberos mission vs post-escape in s1.) They want you to be able to tell the difference between Shiro 1 and Shiro 2. At the same time, they call attention to this change by having Shiro comment about his “weird headache.” The writers also made a point of having the Galra refer to Shiro differently in the context of Operation Kuron (Subject Y0XT39 vs Prisoner 117-9875.) From a writing standpoint, this is a strange choice--not necessarily significant, but likely so because both designations are mentioned in passing and without context, so tossing both out there without reason is more confusing than world-building. And in-universe, it tells us that the people in charge of Operation Kuron couldn’t or didn’t want to refer to prisoners by their already-assigned number. Possibly this is for internal organization--i.e. if not all subjects were prisoners or if they had completely random prisoner numbers. But if it is clones, they would need new ways to identify them, since they’d all have the same prisoner ID. Again, not proof, but suspicious.

Shiro appeared in the Voltron bond. And it seems as though the Shiro with the team didn’t. Not just his head is fuzzy about it. He wasn’t there. Did you notice how Shiro-in-the-bond was translucent, only seen from a distance, and almost completely lacking in detail in the head area? Maybe to obscure the fact that he has his old haircut (both from us and from Lance)? Did you notice that he didn’t appear with everyone else, and how desperate he was to communicate with his team? There are two Shiros. The only question is whether the distinction is physical (clones) or mental (mind control with the real Shiro’s mind completely suppressed by Haggar’s persona)

Following up on this point, Shiro himself is questioning things. If this was a case of mind control, of Haggar taking over Shiro’s body, there is no way she would allow her puppet to question his own identity. If she has direct control, she certainly wouldn’t mention it to Lance, and if the real Shiro is still in there waiting to take his body back, she absolutely would put safeguards in to make sure her controlled personality stays in place.

And of course, the single biggest argument in favor of Clone Shiro: Operation Kuron = literally, “Operation Clone.” This can’t be a coincidence. It can’t. With everyone working on the show (how many of whom are anime fans and have at least a rudimentary familiarity with Japanese pronunciation?), and with Lauren Montgomery having talked about how Laith is a much better ship name for Keith and Lance, because Laith means Lion, I do not believe that they accidentally chose a name for this major plot point that means “clone” in Japanese (which is either Shiro’s native language or at least connected to his heritage.) I also don’t believe that it was chosen as a red herring to make us think this is all about clones when it really isn’t, because the target audience (which is, what 8-12 year olds?) will not pick up on that hint. It fails as a distraction for the core demographic, which makes me think it’s far more likely that it was meant as an easter egg and the writers didn’t necessarily intend for people to pick up on it. It’s like... This post about English name symbolism in FMA. It’s a clever nod to character traits for people who are in the know, but then you give that same name to an English speaker and it’s almost laughably on the nose. For people who don’t speak Japanese (most of Voltron’s audience) and don’t have social media to point it out (unfortunately, comparatively little of the fanbase), “Operation Kuron” is a subtle nod. In a novel, where people likely won’t engage with the fandom until they’re finished, it would work. Hell, for people not actively engaged in fandom, it works. The problem is that we’ve had months upon months and the power of the internet, so now everyone knows that JK Rowling named her werewolf Wolfy McWolfenstein the Galra named their secret clone project Project Clone. That isn’t bad writing. It’s perfectly fine writing tossed to the wolves of a global fandom that loves to theorize.

(Also, I was curious, so I checked, and “Operation Kuron” is called the same thing in the Japanese dub, so lol if it’s not clones, Dreamworks is going to have some explaining to do.)

II. Why having the answer be “Not Clones” at this point would be bad writing

Okay, see, this is way more subjective than part I, which was already pretty subjective. But here’s the thing. Dreamworks has set up Clone Shiro, almost blatantly so. I can forgive the fact that this twist is obvious to the Tumblr fandom, at least, because (a) the show is for kids, so the foreshadowing has to be a little bit more obvious, and (b) you cannot judge subtlety based on thousands of people working together to figure things out. Most of the fandom figured out Galra Keith before season 2 dropped. Some people hated it, but then, some people were incredibly resistant to the Clone Shiro Theory--still are. It feels like everyone and their grandmother figured these twists out way in advance, but if you took away the part where we all screamed about it and laid out our arguments? If you somehow reached out to the viewers who aren’t involved in fandom? I’ll bet you good money that a lot fewer of them have picked up on the hints. (And if they have, they aren’t nearly as certain about it.)

But if we get to season 6 and suddenly find out Shiro has been Shiro all along, just with magic in his head letting Haggar watch him? I’m going to be disappointed, because that resolution is almost guaranteed to leave plot holes. How did Shiro get recaptured/how did he disappear from the Black Lion in the first place? Why did his hair grow so fast? What’s with the change in behavior (I’m not talking about the snappishness and arguing with Keith and Lance, I’m talking about directly undermining the very teamwork he’s been the single biggest proponent of from the start by going behind the team’s back again and again)? Why didn’t Black accept him at first? Why did he have to prove himself to her again, after they’d been more closely bonded than anyone? Why was the project named Operation Kuron? Why did Shiro see another, hollow-looking, him on the exam table in that flashback? Why hasn’t he used the bayard yet?

The show might explicitly answer some of these, but I think we all know by now that it won’t slow the pace long enough to explain all of them. The clone theory explains or implies answers to almost all of these (especially if you couple it with “the original Shiro is stuck in the astral plane” or some such.)

So, no. Clone Shiro isn’t a twist at this point. Maybe it’s just me, because I’m usually pretty good at picking up on foreshadowing and figure out most twists ahead of time, especially if I’m given time to ruminate. But I’m fine with not having big, shocking reveals. Something doesn’t have to be a surprise to be interesting. I don’t have to feel like I was clever for figuring it out. I can’t wait for season 6 because I’m desperate to know that both my sons (Shiro and Ryou) are going to be okay--because I think, at least, that the Shiro with the team right now is not being set up as a villain. He may become a martyr, but he’s meant to be sympathetic, regardless of where he came from.

In the end, I don’t mind that the Clone Shiro Theory seems obvious, because the foreshadowing is aimed at kids and the adult fandom is bound to pick up on those hints faster. And clones explain everything so well that I honestly don’t think any other answer would make for a satisfying conclusion to the Kuron arc.

III. Clone Shiro vs Galra Keith

Okay, now this is interesting, because these are the two main theories that the fandom swarmed. One turned out to be true, and I honestly think the other will be proven right in June.

Also interesting is that, in terms of episode count, they both are paced about the same. It’s just that the Galra Keith plot happened over the course of 1.5 full seasons, while the Operation Kuron plot is going on 3.5 half seasons. Same number of episodes, but more spread out and with more breaks in between. Galra Keith was dropped into a single seven-month gap with a growing fandom and then confirmed immediately with the next batch of episodes. Operation Kuron was introduced in August, fans jumped on it, season 4 dropped, the fandom was split on it (because, admittedly, s4 didn’t add anything to the argument that couldn’t be explained by trauma and/or mounting pressure on Shiro), fans wrote a shitton of Ryou hcs/fic and drew a lot of Ryou art, season 5 dropped, with major new developments but no confirmation, and now we’ve got another break. At the earliest, it will be confirmed or debunked in June, a full ten months after it was first hinted, and with three season breaks for people to theorize, create fanworks, and otherwise dig into Camp Clone.

Can you imagine if the first two seasons had been done like that? (Note: I know I’m fudging the midpoint of season 1 a little bit, but bear with me here. I want to do a thought experiment.)

Season 1: We get hints of Keith’s knife and the major red flag of Keith opening doors that have been implied to be species-locked, so Hunk has to use a Galra arm to get past one door in the same episode Keith uses Galra tech with no problems. There’s also the word of god that says Keith is an orphan, so speculation runs wild. The fandom is split, with a small but vocal group on Team Galra, a vocal opposition, and a whole bunch of people on Team “Can’t we just wait and see what the writers have in mind, guys? We don’t have to fight!”

Season “2″: Little movement on Galra Keith Theory specifically, and both sides have arguments for what little we do get. Are those purple patches the effect of Galra heritage or is that supposed to tell us Quintessence does freaky things? Does Zarkon’s, “You fight like a Galra soldier,” mean anything (and is there a comma there/does that change the meaning? I can only imagine the comma drama if that had been one of the only new points for debate after three months.) The only major development is explicit confirmation of the species lock on Galra tech. All this is exacerbated by growing concerns in the autistic fanbase who worry that Team Galra Keith is starting to twist the legitimate autistic traits to support their own theory. (Believe me, I was there, and I was scared of Galra Keith for a good long while because of this.) The debate starts to turn bitter.

Season “3″: Ulaz shows up, we see Keith’s knife, we have Keith worrying that Zarkon “imprinted” on him, and though nothing comes of that, it still says something that the writers are even willing to acknowledge the theory. The season ends with no clear answer, but by now most of the fandom is on Team Galra. There’s been fic. There’s been art. There are headcanons and metas galore. The evidence is all laid out, and there’s really no denying it at this point. Some people are angry about it, and lots of people are hoping for Altean Keith or something, just because it would still be a surprise.

Season “4″: The Galra Keith reveal happens in episode one or two, and literally no one is shocked. Some people are angry, everyone is pissed that there wasn’t more fallout after four seasons of buildup. But we all knew it was coming.

Think, in contrast, how the Clone Shiro Theory might have gone if we hadn’t switched to half seasons. (In a hypothetical world where the theory is true, and it’s getting revealed next season.)

Season 3 now covers everything through Naxzela. Operation Kuron is huge in fandom discussion, but it’s partially overshadowed by everything else that happened--Keith joining the Blade, Lotor’s offer of talks, Keith’s near sacrifice, Matt’s return... Fewer people are as adamant about the clone theory because we’ve already seen Shiro back in the Black Lion and fighting alongside the team. There are lingering doubts, and people still lay out all their arguments, but it’s less splitting hairs and more the broad range we saw with Galra Keith, from adamant arguments on either side to a broad, casual fanbase in the middle who doesn’t know if it’s gonna happen and honestly couldn’t care less but sure as hell likes to play around with the idea. Like with Galra Keith, there is some evidence that’s either straight-up confirmation or lazy writing (Keith opening doors vs kuron meaning clone) but for the most part people are still uncertain.

Season “4″ drops and hits us all hard with new evidence. People are getting behind the Clone Shiro Theory in earnest now, but somewhere near the end of the season it’s confirmed, forestalling another round of theorizing. Lots of people are caught off-guard, lots of people are edge-of-their-seats “Holy crap, is that actually true??” The major, irrefutable pieces of evidence (Ulaz, Keith’s knife, his nightmares vs Shiro lying to the team, Haggar’s spying, Shiro calling out to Lance in the bond) are immediately followed up by confirmation.

Can you see how the spacing of the episodes drastically changes the perception of the theory? In all honesty, Galra Keith and Clone Shiro feel extraordinarily similar in terms of pacing, evidence, and alternate explanations--it’s just that Keith’s story happened much quicker, in fandom time. I can’t fault the writers for that. I just think half seasons were a bad idea, especially when the show was clearly written with full seasons in mind.

TL;DR Version:

There’s enough evidence that specifically points to clones that I’m 99% convinced that Shiro is a clone at this point. That last 1% is reserved for skepticism because, while I don’t believe the writers could provide me with a different explanation that fits as well as clones, they might try in the name of pulling one over on the viewers.

Galra Keith and Clone Shiro are set up in a very similar manner, and the latter suffers primarily from half season releases and a fandom who knows what tricks to look for.

The fact that the show is geared at a younger audience and so isn’t going to be super subtle is not a mark against it, but unfortunately if you’re active in the fandom, there’s a good chance you’re going to see a solid argument re: upcoming plot twists that spoils the surprise.

#voltron #voltron season 5 #operation kuron #shiro #kuron #voltron meta #voltron spoilers #season 5 spoilers

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ursae-minoris-world · 7 years ago

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Fans tend to forget that most Voltron viewers are casual viewers who don’t notice all the foreshadowing

I think a lot of people get frustrated with Voltron’s writing because sometimes it feels like we’re waiting for so long between the moment when we suspected something due to foreshadowing and the big reveal. What makes it worse is that in the meantime we keep projecting how we would like it to happen. And with fanfiction writers, comic artists and so on, we also see how others see it and we get excited about it, and sometimes are a bit disappointed when what happens in the show is not how we expected.

For instance, one of the first things that lets you suspect that Keith might have galra blood is in “return to the Balmera” when he interacts with Galra technology with his hand and it works. At least it’s the first thing I’ve personally noticed (I know he had his knife since episode one, but you couldn’t conclude much about it aside that it seemed important to him). And then evidence piles up, and the wait is kind of agonizing specially considering how we see Keith getting anxious about it...until the actual reveal in “Blade of Marmora”, 12 episodes later, right ?

Well yes, if you noticed this. Thing is... I’m pretty sure most viewers don’t.

Look, I’ve got 3 irl friends who are watching Voltron. They’re all adults, and I wouldn’t even call them “casual watchers” because they can be quite analytical in the media they consume, and some of them are actually storytellers themselves (in one case in a professional way as the person is a comic artist). At least two of them had realized Pidge’s identity from the photo in the pilot episode (which I had missed hahaha), so they’re definitely not blind.

None of them had caught that anything was weird with Shiro after his return. They all were REALLY surprised and not entirely convinced when I talked to them about clone theory and possible brainwashing.

In my case, when Shiro (or Kuron) escaped in “the Journey”, I was already wary at how easy his escape was, and was wondering if it was set up. When he saw that operation room with that other Shiro strapped to the table... for me it was such a punch in the gut that I literally had to pause the episode while cursing like a sailor and trying to catch my breath. Seriously.

Well... None of my friends had noticed anything. They just thought it was part of Shiro / Kuron’s flashback, and they hadn’t thought that usually his flashbacks are triggered by something...

So I asked one of my friends when she had started noticing about Keith’s origins. She told me “well given he looks entirely human, I hadn’t suspected anything at all until the Blade of Marmora episode.”

I’m putting the rest behind a "read more” because as usual this got really long.

Same with Keith becoming a Blade. I think a clever viewer realizes as soon as he sees the BOM episode that it looks kind of like an initiation. I personally only realized it in “Best laid plans” when Kolivan stepped in when Keith wanted to go on what he called a “suicide mission”. I thought something along the lines of “wait Kolivan why are you stepping in here he’s not one of your... oh sh!t he is one of your Blades now, isn’t he ?!” and Thace calling Keith a fellow Blade cemented it. So I got excited : are we going to see Keith join the Blades next season ? But, it was not addressed at all in s3, so I thought the show wasn’t going that route and that I had gotten excited over nothing. And then season 4 , 13 episodes after the BOM episode ? Keith joins the Blades. I was super excited first and then when he left Voltron I thought “nooo I wanted it BUT NOT LIKE THAT !!!” lol.

I haven’t asked any of my friends about that. But I bet the casual watcher’s reaction is... to not think about this at all until they see Keith being a Blade in “Code of Honnor” and go “Oh ! Cool ! Keith’s a Blade, now !”

From the 2 more in depth conversations I had, my friends hadn’t noticed anything about Keith and Shiro’s backstory either, aside from “they knew each other”. They hadn’t realized at all that Keith got expelled from the garrison around the time where the Kerberos mission failed, and that those facts could be linked. We’re all here, trying to imagine it, writing / reading I don’t know how many “pre-kerberos” metas, fanfictions, fancomics, edits, etc. The average viewer probably just realizes they knew each other and seemed to be friends (and some even miss that). Even if they are curious about the back-story in the moment, when they don’t get it they don’t think much about it.

And look at Allura’s space magic ark : there are 17 episodes between Allura using magic to heal the Balmera, and her using it again against Haggar in “Blackout” ; then 13 episodes again before she uses it in “a New Defender”, and then 6 before the “White Lion”. Frustrating ? Yes. I bet the average, casual viewer, doesn’t think much about it and goes “oh, right, she does have space magic, that’s cool !” when she does use it.

And 23 episodes between Keith’s dad explaining that Keith’s mom gave him the BOM knife in “Blade of Marmora” and Keith finally finding Krolia in “Bloodlines”. But not every watcher expected Keith to find his mom. I know I hoped he’s find some answers, but I didn’t expect him to actually find her.

So here we are, waiting for season 6, and being impatient that “project Kuron” ark to finally come to an end, because we have been worried about it since season 3. Well, if, like me, the foreshadowing about Shiro’s arm being used to alter his memories in “Shiro’s escape” (s2) made you worry, then you’ve been anxious about it quite some time now.

After all, it’s been 14 episodes since “the Journey” so it feels about time for this to come to an end... Which is not that much longer than for Keith’s galra reveal (13 episodes) or Keith becoming a Blade (13 episodes). I admit it’s a particularly distressing ark : for “Kuron” who is in a dreadful situation ; for Shiro, if there is a double, because if that’s not Shiro... where is Shiro ? Is he ok ? Is he even alive ?! (oh please let him be alive). For the rest of the team, because of the way Haggar uses Kuron to spy on them. For Keith because he will be impacted by anything that affected Shiro, and because it really seems to me that his departure from Voltron was at least in part due to feeling rejected by Shiro (and the team).

But the casual viewer ? The casual viewer has only realized something was wrong in season 5 when he saw Haggar actually watch through Kuron’s eyes, and with the mindscape incident. He’s certainly hooked now on what will happen next, but not nearly as worried as the viewer who has suspicions since s3 (or even before).

And those viewers ? The viewers who catch the foreshadowing, and who try to see what’s coming ? They are a very little part of the general viewership of the show. And I’m just talking about the engaged viewer who notices stuff. The fans who discuss all that online, listen to every interview, dissect the show image by image, write long metas, or fanfictions or create art around it ? A very very small fraction of the viewership. We’re immersed in it; because well... we interact, and because we see those who interact (for the best and the worse) with the various creators of the show but... a lot of the viewers just enjoy their episodes, don’t dwell on them, and move on until the next season.

Voltron is written in layers so that different kinds of viewers can enjoy it !

Don’t forget that the most important target are young children who might want to play with the toys. Most of them will enjoy the fight sequences, the action, the funny stuff. Later, they’ll remember something like “oh I watched this show, the transformation sequence was cool, my fav lion was the red one and my fav character was Pidge !” and maybe a few of the most significant plot events. Maybe.

Older children might catch a bit more of the story, character arks, and themes. And start to enjoy the more emotional scenes.

The casual teenage or adult viewer will just... go with the flow and enjoy the plot twists when they happen.

The fans of the 80′s Voltron (another target, specially considering that they can have children in the age of watching too) will mostly either enjoy the changes, or be frustrated about them. They will enjoy shout outs like Sven in “Hole in the Sky” or Allura’s pink armor, and so on. Other than that, their level of involvement can vary from “casual viewer” to “fan”.

Attentive viewers will notice some foreshadowing. They’ll probably be more engaged than the casual watcher because they’ll be more curious about how things will get solved. They might get frustrated when it takes to long to unfold, but mostly they should enjoy the story. (That was me while watching the first 2 seaons). I think attentive watchers are already a minority in the viewership. Honestly, most people I know are not that analytic about what they watch, and are casual watchers, whatever they’re watching.

And then, fans who are attentive watchers but also discuss and exchange theories on internet, and as such, miss even less of the clues ? They are the most engaged, but obviously also the most frustrated. We notice the most, we get more excited about it, we have more expectations because, as we’ve seen the signs, we start thinking about how we would like the story ark to be solved. Even if it feels there are many fans because we see a lot of them in our online experience... they are a very small part of the general viewership.

So when people get frustrated that we don’t have the answers for everything yet, and say it’s bad writing that it takes so long, or that some stuff isn’t addressed immediately... I’d like them to consider that the show isn’t written only for them. It’s actually quite impressive that this cartoons provides enough depth for us to be involved that much, to make crazy theories because foreshadowing, to make big character analysis because they are that well developed. In many tv shows, even ones for adults, you just can’t analyze that far. Because there’s just not that much to analyze !

But at the same time, it is still targeted towards kids. And it is still meant mainly as, well... commercials for robot toys.

Also, Voltron is clearly written as one, long, story. The seasons are only chapters. It doesn’t work like, say... Doctor Who, where every season is a story ark on its own that reaches a conclusion. It is normal to still have questions at the end of a new season. When we will have all the answers... the story will have reached it’s ending !

-----

So yeah, just my take on this, and I might be wrong but... really, I keep seeing fans being frustrated and considering that every watcher experiences the cartoon as they do but... I know that they don’t. A lot of people don’t.

And yes, people, it’s a cartoon for children. Stop comparing it to stuff written only for adults. Here the writers have to juggle so that children stay engaged and that adult viewers still have fun. And they managed to have a part of the viewers who have become deeply engaged fans. Honestly, I find it quite amazing.

#voltron #meta #is it ?#i don't know #I wouldn't call it discourse either #it's just me rambling #probably into the void #but I don't mind #i need to get it off my ches #maybe i'll add pictures #voltron thoughts #my stuff

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