#male pronouns for pidge only because no ones realized shes female yet

[folded-wings]

Seeing Blue

A blind Lance au that’s been brewing in my mind for a while.

---

The last thing Keith wanted was for another person to join his little ‘party.’ He finally found Shiro - who apparently spent the last year captured by aliens - and he wanted nothing more than to sit back and relax with his brother. But then he was forced to tolerate two strangers, Hunk and Pidge, who had helped Keith rescue Shiro from the Garrison. Pidge demanded answers about the other crew members, but relented when Shiro said he didn’t remember much from the last year. Hunk seemed to just be along for the ride, but without him, Keith would not have found this cave. He was so close to finding that weird energy source that had been calling for him. 

So, yeah, he was going to tolerate them. For now, at least. 

But as they looked at the cave filled with strange lion carvings, they heard footsteps approach from the entrance. 

“Oh man, we are in so much trouble,” Hunk whined, being the last to turn around.

The stranger seemed to be staring right past them, but startled upon Hunk’s voice. 

Keith glanced behind him to see what the stranger had been looking at, but he saw nothing there. Save for a few more lion carvings, but nothing different from the others. As he moved to look forward again, he noticed Hunk was wearing a huge grin.

“LANCE!” he shouted, suddenly running forward.

“Hunk? Buddy, is that you?”

Without warning, Hunk wrapped Lance into a hug, effortlessly lifting him off the ground. Lance squeaked in surprise, before a smile come onto his own face. He wriggled until he got his own arms free, wrapping them around his friend. Laughing, he said, “Yep, that’s you. I’d know this hug from anywhere.”

After another moment, Hunk finally put Lance down. Shiro took that as an opportunity to speak. “Hunk, who is this?”

Lance startled again at the voice, before turning his head in Shito’s direction. Except, he was off by a bit, meaning he was staring directly at Keith. Seeing how quickly uncomfortable Keith had become, Hunk lifted his arm up and pushed Lance’s head, so he was facing Shiro. 

“I’m Lance, Hunk’s certified best friend!”

Shiro gave out quick introductions.

“Wait a second,” Hunk said, interrupting before any more words could be said. “Dude, what are you doing here?” Hunk peeked out around the cave entrance, expecting to see Lance’s family, or someone. A frown marked his features when he saw nobody there.

Lance had the decency to look ashamed. “I, uh... kinda... wandered off...?”

“Dude!”

“It’s not my fault!” Lance protested. Pausing for a second, he continued, “Okay, maybe it is, but still.”

“Lance...”

“Hold up.” Pidge put up his hands. “Hunk, what’s wrong? We basically wandered here.”

“Yeah, but we aren’t blind!” Hunk froze at his own words. “Jeez, I’m sorry Lance-”

“Relax, buddy, I get it. You’re just worried.”

“Wait, you’re blind?” Keith asked, feeling a slight flush of embarrassment. He shouldn’t have felt so uncomfortable when Lance turned towards him. “How’d you make it all the way here?” 

“I walked? Dude, there’s a town my family’s staying at not too far from here.” Lance gestured in the direction he came from. “Just because I’m blind doesn’t mean I’m helpless.”

“That’s not what I mea-”

“Alright then what are you doing here?” Shiro asked. He knew Lance would get in trouble for wandering off, but that was  so much better than what he had been dragged into. It was bad enough that he was dragging Keith, Hunk, and Pidge into this whole Voltron mess. He didn’t want to take anyone else with them. 

Lance reached up, resting his hand on his neck as he considered the question. “I was following some weird energy? I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s been driving me apples and bananas. This thing was calling to me, I think. It lead me here too, like it gave me some sort of path?”

“You sensed it too?” Keith asked. "And you got a path?" He couldn’t deny that he was jealous, at least a little. Keith had needed Hunk to create the geiger counter to come here, yet this stranger had apparently just been told where to go. 

“Yeah, ever since I got here. Where exactly is here anyways?” 

"We're in a cave with some weird lion carvings all over the place," Hunk explained, temporarily forgetting he was supposed to be angry with Lance. He led his friend deeper into the cave, closer to the others. "We think that energy you and Keith have been feeling might be Voltron!"

"Voltron?"

Hunk rambled off a quick explanation about Shiro's disappearance, and how they had ended up here. As Hunk talked, Lance brought his hand up to the wall so he could feel the carvings Hunk had talked about. He trusted his friend to know that he would want that, and Lance was not met with disappointment.

As his hand landed on the cool stone, the lion carvings suddenly lit up, illuminating the entire cavern. Gasps echoed shortly after.

"They've never done that before," Keith murmured.

"What?" Lance called. "Did I do something?"

The only answer Lance got was a bunch of screaming as suddenly the ground gave out beneath them. It ended a few seconds later with a splash.

"Ugh," Pidge groaned, sitting up. "What just happened?"

"I guess we got deeper into the cave, Hunk," Lance joked, trying to hide his panic. He shook his head, trying to get the water out of his hair. He was starting to feel a little bit of regret with following that energy. His mom was gonna kill him.

Keith ignored Lance, looking around. His mouth dropped, and it took Keith a moment to get past his shock. "What is that?"

Everyone turned to look where Keith was staring at. They could only stare in shock as the blue lion seemed to be staring past them.

"Is that Voltron?" Pidge asked.

Sure, they had all expected Voltron to be a pretty massive weapon if what Shiro said was true, but when actually facing it, it was easy to say they were unprepared.

Keith began walking forward, but to everyone's surprise, so did Lance.

"There's some sort of shield around it," Keith said, turning slightly. He was surprised to see Lance so close without Hunk hovering close by, but he brushed his thoughts away.

Keith put his hands up, feeling the barrier. It pulsed around his hand, but gave no indication that it would allow him to pass. "I wonder how we'll get through..."

"Maybe we just need to knock." Lance pulled his fist against the barrier, knocking twice. He gasped when he felt the barrier fall away.

Suddenly the lion's eyes began to glow brighter than before. No one had a chance to comment on that though as suddenly a vision filled their minds, five lions coming together and forming one robot, a sword in hand.

Lance and Hunk fell back in surprise.

"So Voltron... is five lions creating one robot," Pidge finally breathed, staring in awe at the lion looming over them.

Lance was shaking from his spot on the ground.

"Lance?" Shiro called out cautiously, afraid to startle him anymore. "Are you okay?"

"Holy crow... Holy crow! I saw that!"

"Lance what are you..." Hunk trailed off when suddenly Lance launched himself off the ground. At the same time, the lion lowered its head. Everyone yelped and took a step back, but the lion made no move to hurt them. Instead, all it did was open its mouth, and a ramp lowered itself right in front of Lance.

He didn't even take a second to consider the consequences before he ran into the lion.

"LANCE!" Hunk called following after him. The others decided it would be a good idea for them to come too.

They watched Lance move in the lion with such confidence and familiarity, they couldn't help but wonder if he had been here before.

Pidge had to ask his question out loud. "Lance, how are... have you been inside the lion before?"

Lance paused before a door, continuing when it opened with a hiss. He put his hand on a chair that sat in the middle of the room. A cockpit.

"Nope," he answered Pidge, popping the p. "Its really weird. It's like the lion is showing me where to go. I don't see anything, I'm just... sensing where I need to go?" He sat down on the pilot's chair, yelping when it suddenly moved forward.

"Are you saying the lion is talking to you?" Keith asked, doubt dripping from his voice.

Lance didn't answer him.

Keith glanced at him, wondering what was wrong, before sharing a worried look with Shiro. Lance seemed to be staring out the window into the cavern, but that was impossible. His mouth was open, his shock impossible to misplace.

"Buddy?" Hunk called softly. "What's wrong?"

"...Holy crow..." Lance swallowed down the lump in his throat, and Keith noticed a tear slide down Lance's face when he turned towards Hunk. But he was smiling. Practically vibrating in his seat, Lance turned forward, moving his head curiously.

"Hunk. Hunk! I can see!"

[echodrops]

Home and a Half Pidge Headcanons

An ask I got yesterday reminded me that I never posted the HaaH headcanons for Pidge like I promised, so here they are! (I’ll answer the actual ask as soon as I can with some new material instead of headcanons I already had written... oops...)

Anyway, without further ado, some headcanons for Pidge related to my fic Home and a Half!

Pidge:

- Grew up in the picture of the nuclear family: mom, dad, two kids, dog, nice upper-middle-class house in a quiet neighborhood, dinner on the table at 7:30pm on the dot… Of all the paladins, Pidge had the most stable and “average” childhood… at least on paper.

 - In reality, there is not a single person in the Holt family who isn’t eccentric as fuck. Grandma Holt? May or may not still be an active intelligence agent for MI6. The dog? Woofs in Morse code. Auntie Ariana? Has actually seen the Jersey Devil. Colleen Holt? Has killed a man. If you ask Pidge, she’ll say that her upbringing was perfectly normal and she’ll genuinely mean it, but this is a consequence Pidge having no idea what “normal” even means.

 Rest under the read more to save your dash:

- Not actually a girly-girl when she was young. Although they’re eight years apart and thus unlikely to be mistaken for one another, very early on Pidge got frustrated by how similar she and Matt look, and she definitely did not want to wear his tacky hand-me-down clothes, so she pitched a royal fit and insisted on wearing dresses and hairbands so that her family would have to buy Pidge all her own things. (They probably would have bought them anyway if she’d just asked calmly, but Pidge was three at the time, and they were all very impressed by her grasp of cause and effect.)

 - Of course, when Matt disappeared on the ill-fated Kerberos trip, those tacky hand-me-downs ended up being some of the most important items in Pidge’s life. Even outside of infiltrating Garrison, wearing Matt’s old clothes was one of the few comforts Pidge would allow herself—when she cut her hair and put on his baggy shirts, for a second, looking in a mirror, she could almost convince herself he was still there—

 - Pidge has no intention of changing the way she dresses or styles her appearance until she’s reunited with Matt and her father. After that? Well, they may not be the coolest looking things ever, but Matt does have a point that baggy t-shirts are very comfy…

 - And okay, because I’m sure everyone expected this headcanon first: Pidge and gender is a surprisingly uncomplicated subject. Side note before I go further: I’m sure everyone has their own headcanons for this and none of what I say here should be taken as rejecting or invalidating any other fan’s views on Pidge. The only thing invalid in the Voltron fandom is canon. Anyway, I personally like to imagine that Pidge is very ambivalent on gender. There is so much else going on—the war, Sam and Matt being missing, freaking giant robot space cats—that sitting down and sorting out the question of “Do I identify as male, female, nonbinary, or anything else?” is just really, really low on Pidge’s to do list. Pidge thinks of Pidge as “Pidge” and even that’s rare because Pidge doesn’t sit around thinking about herself or what other people think of her.

 - In fact, what strangers think is, in general, extremely low on Pidge’s radar. Although she used to be more self-conscious due to bullying from both classmates and her teachers, the combination of her parents’ consistent support and Matt’s… extreme tactics (“I’m telling you Pigeon, nanobots in their lunches will solve all your problems.” “That’s illegal, Matt.” “Nothing is illegal until you get caught.”) Pidge (mostly) overcame the phase of being affected by other people’s opinions. Who cares what strangers think? Absolutely none of them will ever be even close to as smart and talented as her family anyway. (My IQ is three times yours, your argument about my gender is literally invalid.)

 - By the way, I’m using “her” simply because that’s what I’m used to seeing in the fandom and to keep the fic and headcanons consistent, but in the functional world of HaaH, Pidge answers to any pronouns and doesn’t have a preference for any set in particular over others. In fact, Pidge is used to going by different sets of pronouns coming from different people, and might be “he” to one person, “she” to another, and “they” to yet someone else. Pidge is just… Pidge.

 - Again, with the war and Voltron and missing family and literally everything else going on--and the fact Pidge is far more practical than all of the rest of her fellow Team Voltron members combined--she isn’t wasting time and energy doing something as troublesome as falling in love with an alien. (“Keith, can’t your melodrama wait until after we win the war?” “My drama waits for no man.” “Then please explain how you and Lance manage to engage in synchronized dumb-fuckery at least three times a week.”) Eventually, after life has settled down and Pidge has had some time to think about it, she’ll realize that the reason she somehow managed to avoid any romantic entanglements in space isn’t because she’s just much more mature than her teammates (although this might be true)—it’s that she’s just not really interested in romantic engagements with anybody, period. 

 - Pidge’s one true love is discovery; she feels far more passionate about knowledge and learning new things, encountering new puzzles, and grasping new concepts than she does about anything else. In between all her creations and codes and experiments and observations, it just doesn’t feel like there’s room—or that there needs to be room—for a romantic relationship with a real person.

 - Pidge will make room for friends though, if and when they insist on worming their ways into her life. She tends to be a fairly private person who has never really had a large friend group (back on Earth, before Garrison, there wasn’t anyone but Matt and her parents who really understood her, and she didn’t have much in common to discuss with children her own age), but once someone earns Pidge’s trust, she does open up and form close bonds and she will give her all to help and be there for her few, but close, friends.

 - Meeting Hunk at Garrison was a huge revelation. Up to that point in Pidge’s life she had never really met any young person outside her own family with a soaring genius-level IQ that was a match for her own. Although she and Hunk bicker frequently because their approaches to science are extremely different, she’s still over-the-moon to have someone who doesn’t stare at her like she’s talking gibberish whenever she goes off on one of her tangents.

 - If you ask Pidge, she will violently swear up and down that Lance never and in. no. way. reminds her of Matt, fills in for Matt in the lame-older-brother role, or helps her miss her brother just a little bit less. That did not happen, never had a chance of happening, what are you even talking about—

 - But if you ask about Shiro, she will be flat-out honest and admit she totally thinks of him as Space Dad. It’s not her fault. Shiro literally hero worships Sam Holt (still to this day!!) and may or may not have taken on more of his mentor’s mannerisms in order to fill the leadership role for Team Voltron. Sometimes Shiro will say or do something and Pidge will be absolutely dumb-struck because he got that from my dad is an actual thing she has to deal with.

- “Pidge” is actually a derivative of “Pigeon.” Everyone in the Holt family has a bird-based code name. Mr. Holt is Eagle Two.

 - People often get the impression that Pidge is scatterbrained because she can talk about ten different things at once and pounces on leaps in her own logic that other people just can’t follow, but her thoughts and speech are very organized. It’s not her fault you couldn’t understand her system of organization if you tried.

 - Put Pidge on the spot on a subject she doesn’t know, though, and watch the awkward jump right out. (“Oh, you meant the pop band Galileo, not the person. You know, that’s really an easy mistake to make. You can hardly blame me when you stop to consider all the similarities between modern chord progression and the trajectory of supermassive objects like—”)

 - And if it’s not awkward, it’s defensive. Pidge may be hyper-intelligent, but she’s still very, very young, and it’s hard not to get snappish when challenged by people whose opinions she really does care about. She has a far quicker temper than Matt (who is a “revenge is a dish best served cold” champion), a trait she shares with their mother. Colleen, in turn, blames it on her having been born in New Jersey. Pidge has flipped so many tables on the Castleship that Coran and Lance eventually went around and bolted them all down.

 - Do not even so much as hint that Sam and Matt Holt might be dead instead of just missing in space. Keith is still scared after his last attempt at reasoning with Pidge about her family’s fate.

 - Has a bad hoarding habit. Back on Earth she had her parents there to insist she clean her room at least once a week, but in space, things are getting a bit crazy. The Castleship closets and cabinets can hyper-condense their contents and she’s STILL running out of room for all the neat doodads and parts and scientific wonders she finds on their adventures across the galaxy. Is definitely in the “Look, there’s still a mostly clear path to the door; it’s fineee” category. It’s not like she finds it hard to let things go once she’s gotten attached to them or anything. Nope. Definitely not.

 - Pidge’s mess is absolutely of the “everything has a proper place” type though. Move anything with her name on it and you will feel her wrath.

- As the only one of the Earth paladins to have technology on her when they were unexpectedly swept off to war, everyone on the ship relies on Pidge’s laptop for their monthly dose of Earth nostalgia. Good thing for them Pidge and Matt’s pirating skills put Pirate Bay to shame, and she’s got basically every Earth movie from 1980 to the present. She even has every episode of the timeless classic F.R.I.E.N.D.S. (Keith hates that show with a burning passion that even he cannot explain.)

 - Speaking of technology Pidge had on Earth—every single person in the Holt family is (and has been for decades) aware of the existence of aliens. Pidge’s family tree has been involved in communications, radio wave technology, and interpreting space observations since those fields were first invented. When Earth first identified patterns of waves that obviously corresponded to alien communications going on outside Earth’s galaxy, Pidge’s great- great- grandfather was there. When world governments covered up the discovery, he was the loudest voice of dissent. Since then, the Holt family has been deeply involved in military and space operations across several countries, operating from within an oppressive system they fundamentally disagree with, using their positions of authority to monitor the Milky Way and beyond, keeping tabs on what the aliens might be saying—and what messages Earth might be inadvertently sending back.

 - Of course this is top secret work—secret even from the Garrison and government where the Holts were employed. Other kids learn how to play piano and soccer; Pidge and Matt learned how to hack virtually impenetrable military databases and hide their data behind uncrackable ciphers instead.

 - But the Kerberos Mission was supposed to be safe. They’d all monitored the chatter so closely—there hadn’t been anything hostile anywhere even near Earth’s galaxy, no sign at all of any technologically advanced race like the Galra in years and nothing about one little Earth mission that would disturb any other intergalactic travelers anyway… Why would they...

 - Pidge is surprisingly athletic for a self-professed nerd. With youthful energy to burn and a family to save, Pidge took to Allura and Coran’s intense Altean training like a duck to water, and while she’s not quite Shiro or Keith when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, she can definitely holds up better than Hunk or Lance.

 - Favorite color is actually yellow, and if Green wasn’t totally The Coolest™ lion, she’d be sort of salty about Hunk getting the Yellow Lion instead.

 - Absolutely capable of cursing up a blue storm, and hasn’t been friends with Hunk quite long enough yet to remember to censor herself around him all the time like Lance does with his “Holy crow!”s. She’s trying, dammit!

 - Big on pets. Gets attached to pet-shaped creatures (whether living or robotic) very easily. 110% kept the space caterpillars, who live happily free-roaming the piles of space junk in her bedroom. The space caterpillars and the space mice do not get along, however, as the space mice do not take well to having their status as the favored fuzzy team mascot squad threatened. In their micro-Cold War, which is occurring without any of the ship’s humanoid occupants being aware, the space caterpillars are currently winning.

 - The caterpillars’ names are Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton.

 - Remember that one post about Lance drawing angry brows on the space caterpillar and siccing it on Keith? I very much accept that as canon. Pidge was Not Happy™ when she found out what Lance had done and she is NOT letting anyone else near her caterpillars again any time soon. Is very, very careful not to let Niresh see the space caterpillars so that they don’t end up stolen right from under her nose.

 - Speaking of the kids, Pidge is super awkward with them and skedaddles at the first sign of tears. Next to Allura, there is probably not any member of the team worse suited to babysitting duty. That said, as someone who has lost members of her family in the war, Pidge is probably the member of the team who most directly understands Dulsara’s anger and the children’s loss. That doesn’t mean she’s really ready to let herself sympathize with the Galra though, at least not until she finds her own family first.

- Pulls all the most bullshit moves in Monsters and Mana. Whenever the team reminiscences on the truly legendary moments from their campaigns, somehow Pidge is the star in all of them.

And that’s all I’ve got for now!

[royalnugget42]

The Blue Paladin

Short fic based on THIS cool AU  

https://inomana.tumblr.com/post/159586928118/space-pirate-au

Check them out here! @inomana​

Feel free to leave comments on how to improve my writing, or other AU’s I could write for. Enjoy!

Btw I use female pronouns for Pidge even though its supposed to be the first episode because honestly using male pronouns feels so fucking weird.

Keith groaned as he and Hunk walked back into the throne room. It turns out that planet wasn’t nearly as “peaceful” as Coran had told them. Pidge and Shiro were already there waiting for them. They said their mission had been difficult, too, but Keith had a sneaking suspicion it hadn’t been. All four of them turned to Coran, who was explaining the situation.

“All right everyone, now this may be a bit more challenging than the last two.”

“More challenging than that?” Hunk asked incredulously. “We barely survived that last trip!”

“Why, where are we going Coran? Is it controlled by Galra or something?” Pidge asked.

“Nope. I’m afraid to say the Blue Lion is in the hands of some rather nasty looking pirates. I’ve had a couple run-ins with some of their lot before. Remember that awful time we had at that Unilu swapmeet, Allura?”

Allura seemed to sense a long winded story approaching. “Yes, yes, get to the point Coran, we have limited time here!” she said, quickly shutting him up.”

“Er, right. The point is that we need to get the lion and get out before we arouse too much suspicion. And, there’s the fact that we have no one to pilot the blue lion.”

“Because we are not sure who will pilot the lion, we will need to be able to get it without piloting it, which will undoubtedly be a hassle if its shield is up,” Allura added.

“Quite so! This means that one of you will need to enter the ship, sneak around until you find the cargo bay, and open the doors so that we can get the lion!”

Shiro and Lance both looked immediately to Pidge. She hung her head, sighing as she realized there was only one person up to the job.

“Coran, are you sure we shouldn’t use our lions?” Hunk asked for the third time.

“Yes! We can’t just blow them out of the sky, they could have prisoners onboard. These rotten gangs are infamous for abducting random aliens. Not to mention, if they spot us coming, they’ll probably try to escape in hyperspace, and come back with Galra, or even more of their pirate friends!”

Keith groaned inside of the green lion. Hunk’s lion was the strongest, so he was waiting nearby to escort the blue lion. Which meant Keith was tasked with distracting the pirates while Pidge hacked into the cargo bay doors or whatever. The entire group knew that it would be difficult for anyone to navigate the ship without being noticed, so Keith would be in charge of keeping an audience. He knew it was the best plan, but it still worried him. They had no idea how long it would take, or how many crew members there would be. They were almost completely blind. It wasn’t the greatest feeling in the world.

Pidge activated the temporary cloak she had somehow managed to rig up, and they made their way into the ship.

The first thing he noticed was the smell. It didn’t smell how he expected a pirate ship to smell. He had also expected it to be filthy, with dirt caking the walls along with unidentifiable smears and stains. It wasn’t flawless, like the castle, or the lions, but it was well-kept. There was a faint aroma of lavender, like…God it smelled like the air fresheners at the garrison. He hadn’t expected to be struck with homesickness in the middle of an alien pirate ship but there he was.

He thought back to how they’d gotten this far. They had found Shiro lying in that pod, only to be pulled off the ground by the massive tractor beam of an alien vessel. It had been chance really, that they made it out of that Galra cruiser alive. That ship had just happened to be the one carrying the red lion. When he had struggled against his captors (nearly getting killed in the attempt), and from within the ship the red lion had come to save him, crashing straight through the deck of the ship. It hadn’t been the most relaxing day for him.

“Keith! Snap out of it!”

He nodded to Pidge and tried to clear his head. “I know, I know, but-“

“I know, Keith. I smell it too,” she whispered. “But right now we have bigger problems.”

She was right of course. He shook his head to clear it once more, and made his way to the main deck, where he’d announce his presence. He could see cameras placed strategically to capture nearly every angle. They all overlapped in one spot. He took a breath and moved into the limelight.

Almost immediately, alarms began blaring all around him. Most of the pirates closest to him were frozen in shock, but he knew it wouldn’t last long. He took off running.

Dozens of guards began trying to flank him as he sped through the ship trying desperately not to get lost in a dead end. At some points he could see three or four guards after him, occasionally eleven or twelve. Both Keith and the pirates knew this chase wouldn’t last much longer.

Eventually, he looped back to the main deck. This time he was completely surrounded. He drew his bayard and raised his shield as some twenty guns and knives were aimed at his head.

A man walked out of the circle who seemed to be the leader, and again, his expectations were shattered. He was thin and wiry almost, and barely taller than Keith, but despite his small frame, the expressions of the men around him were ones of awe and respect. This was not only someone they feared, but someone they trusted. If Keith tried to hurt him in any way, there was no doubt he’d be at the mercy of every one of them. There were two guns visible at his hips, but he was likely hiding a few extra weapons in the many pockets of his clothing. Keith could get no read on him. His whole face was hidden with a large hood, goggles, and a mask around his mouth. He even had gloves on, as though he were trying to hide just about anything that could reveal his identity.

“So, who are you, and what exactly do you think you’re doing on my ship?” Keith shuddered. Even his voice was garbled so it was indistinct and unidentifiable.

“I’m here for the blue lion.” He figured it would be best to be direct, since he didn’t really have any other good reason to be there.

He was wrong.

The crowd visibly shuddered. Then like a wave laughter spread through their ranks, all the way until it reached the captain. Though Keith couldn’t see his face, he somehow managed to radiate both derision and displeasure.

He spoke again, voice still garbled, but now containing an unmistakable lilt of mirth. “Well, at least he’s honest about it! What do you say, guys? Should we hand it over? I don’t know if I’d want to get on his bad side, he looks scary!”

Keith growled as fresh laughter circled him. He’d never been all that good at talking anyway. He lifted his sword and charged the leader, hoping to surprise him.

Faster than he could even register it, both guns were out of their holsters and pointed at him. Two shots were fired, one after another. Keith felt a stinging pain in his hand, forcing him to drop his sword just as the second shot hit him square in the face. He flew backward, unbalanced and defenseless. Groaning, he tried to get up, only to be forcibly yanked off the floor by the pirates standing closest to him. His helmet was yanked off his head, and he looked up to see the leader holding a pistol to his forehead.

As he looked up at him, the man seemed to falter, as though confused. Keith could feel his eyes boring into his, questioning ad, for the briefest of moments, unsure. Then the moment, and he laughed, harder than he had before, like the universe had played a joke on him and he was just now understanding it. He lowered his gun, doubling over in hysterics.

Desperately, he tried to regain his composure. The man removed his goggles, placing them on his forehead while he wiped tears from his eyes. They were startlingly blue, and filled with genuine humor.

“I should have known the second I saw that mullet! I can hardly believe it!” He paused as fits of laughter coursed through him once more. His eyes seemed to harden, though Keith could tell he was smiling. “It’s nice to see you again, Keith.”

He froze, eyes widening.

“It is Keith, isn’t it? Keith Kogane? Here I thought you were just some punk looking for a fight, but now I can see that’s not the case. You just don’t really know the rules around here just yet. Not your fault really, but you must understand I can’t allow you to stay on my ship.”

Keith shook his head, more confused than ever. “Wha-wait how do you know my name? Who are you?”

He laughed, again, more somber than before. “Even if you knew my name, I doubt you’d have remembered me. You likely had other things on you mind.”

He racked his brains, trying desperately to identify him. This person could be from earth, but that was impossible. Even if he’d been at the Garrison, there was no way he’d been able to get this far into space. But how else could he know his name?

The pirates holding him forced his helmet roughly back onto his head. The captain turned back to him, his eyes filled with something…regret? Then he sighed, and replaced his goggles.

“Well, I hate to do this to you, buddy, but I run a tight ship. I don’t have room for stowaways.” He signaled the men holding him.

“Wait, please! Tell me your name, where I know you from, anything!” he shouted, desperation filling his voice.

The captain looked at him, cocking his head as though considering him. “No one is getting my lion. When you get picked up by the rest of your crew, you had better tell them to run far, far away from here.” He turned and walked back into the crowd, shouting for everyone to get back to work.

“Come on, Pidge,” he thought. The two aliens shoved him roughly into an airlock. He quickly closed off the shield of his helmet and tried to brace himself. He could hear a robotic voice counting down the seconds.

“8…7…6…”

Then, through the window he could see the alarms blaring on the inside of the ship. People began rushing by, all heading in the same direction. Pidge had managed to open the cargo bay doors.

“4…3…2…”

He saw the captain outside the airlock. Even with his entire face shielded and masked, Keith could feel the bitter rage pouring from him.

“…1. Airlock opening.”

The doors opened, and he was pulled into the vacuum of space.

For a few seconds he could feel nothing, just the breath in his lungs and the distinct feeling of motion. Then he was swallowed up by the jaws of Hunk’s lion. He made it to the cockpit and nearly collapsed, still shaken from all that had happened.

“Keith are you alright? Are you hurt?” he asked. The blue lion was already in the yellow lion’s paws, and they could see Pidge nearby with the pod.

He looked back toward the airlock of the ship, remembering the haunted look of the captain’s blue eyes they stared into his.

“I’m fine.”

Shiro was able to take control of his lion, but the blue lion remained empty. Both Coran and Allura had attempted to enter it, but its particle barrier had gone up as soon as it touched Arusian soil.

Later, over some of Hunk’s cooking, they discussed the problem of the fifth paladin.

“I still don’t quite understand. How are we supposed to find them? Couldn’t it be literally anyone in the entire universe?” Pidge asked.

Allura frowned into her bowl of goo. “I don’t know, but we must trust that we will find them. It will likely happen completely by chance. Like when you were picked up off your planet by the one ship with the red lion in it. I think we may find the blue paladin when we least expect it.”

“In the meantime, we’ll just have to work together as best we can. We can’t form Voltron, but we still need to practice working as a team. Each of us must have a strong bond with our lions, or we may never defeat the Galra,” Shiro said. Coran stood up from the table. “While you’re all doing that, me and Allura will see to the repair of the castle. It is ten thousand years old after all!”

Keith groaned. He couldn’t wait to leave. Something about being still for so long kept gnawing at him. He didn’t know why, but he felt trapped, caged like the lions in their hangars.

The sun set over Arus. Nearly all of the paladins were asleep, and Allura had finally gone to bed at Coran’s insistence. Besides him, Keith was the only one still awake. He couldn’t shake the eerie feeling he kept getting, so he was listening to music to pass the time until he was tired enough to pass out.

Unbeknownst to him and the rest of the paladins, a ship was carefully landing in the courtyard.

Keith was just about to fall asleep when he was jerked out of subconsciousness by blaring alarms. He could hear the other Paladin’s shouts of surprise, and over the intercom Coran began shouting incoherently.

“Paladins wake up, quick! We didn’t pick them up on our scanners you’ve got to-“ his voice became washed out by static. Keith hurriedly put on his armor and grabbed his bayard. Running past the other’s rooms he made his way to the bridge of the castle. Before he could get there, however, he ran into someone he had not expected to see.

“You.”

Keith barely had time to register the familiar modulated voice as several of the pirates charged at him. He dodged the first two and ducked under the blade of the third. He tried to sweep the legs out from underneath the fourth and raised his shield to block the bullets headed for his skull. Flying into a whirlwind he used his shield and the hilt of his sword to knock them down. In the close quarters of the hallway they couldn’t hope to surround him like they had on the ship, and they went down one after another. Finally, he faced the captain. The guns were out again, but this time Keith was ready. He held his shield up, flinching as several shots hit him but did no damage. As the captain attempted to reload his blasters Keith brought his shield up over his head and rammed it down as hard as he could.

He groaned, voice modulator cracked and messing up his voice even more than before. Before the man could get up Keith kicked away the guns in his hands. He brought his sword under his chin.

“Now you’re going to tell me exactly who you are. How did you know my name? Who are you?” he demanded.

The captain made to get up, hands lifted above his head. Not taking chances, Keith quickly backed him up against the wall.

“Easy, pal, I’d like to keep my face if you don’t mind,” he said, his breath coming slowly. Carefully, and in full view, he pulled back his hood and removed the goggles and broken mask. Keith nearly dropped the sword. The captain wasn’t even a man. He couldn’t have been any older than Keith, despite being slightly taller than him. But that wasn’t the strangest thing. He was…

“You…you’re human.”

“Surprised?”

Keith lowered his bayard and tried to get a better look at him. He had short brown hair, but not short enough that it was wiry. His skin was tanned, and he had a kind of impish grin, one that made Keith so nervous he shuddered.

“How?” He only had room for a few words at a time. He kept getting distracted by those eyes. They were blue, like the ocean, but they had a kind of harshness to them, so that even when he smiled, he looked ready to murder. This kid was battle-worn and sharp as the blade in Keith’s hand.

“Even if I told you my name, I don’t think you’d recognize it. But it still fits me after several deca-feebs.” He smirked, stepping closer and gently nudging the sword out of the way. “The name’s Lance.”

Keith only had time to blink in surprise as he attacked, grabbing his sword hand and pulling a knife from inside a coat pocket. He could do nothing as Lance flipped him around, pinning him to the wall with the blade pressed against his throat. He tried to shout, but felt the knife press into his skin, effectively choking off his protests.

“Listen, Keith, I really don’t want to hurt you. But I need that lion you stole from me. Seems to me like you’ve got four perfectly good ones, so I don’t think you really need mine. Really, how many lions does a guy need?”

Keith knew he could die. Lance would kill him, and he might sleep uneasily for a few nights, but it would pass. Still, despite his better judgement, he didn’t want to give up the Blue Lion. It could end up with the Galra, or worse. He strained desperately against Lance’s grip, but he was taller, and much, much stronger than he looked.

“I’m only going to ask you once, man. Where. Is. My. Lion!”

“Stop!”

Lance whirled, as he heard Shiro’s shout. His knife hand was still pressed against Keith’s neck, but he quickly drew another knife and was about to throw it when he saw the entirety of the group. Keith felt his grip slacken and took the opportunity to shove him toward the other side of the room, as far away from him as possible. Retreating to the rest of the paladins, they turned to face Lance, only to find he was…laughing.

He composed himself enough to look up at the group. “Well, this is not how I thought this day was going to go,” he remarked, dissolving into giggles once again.

Keith was confused, but Hunk stepped forward, his face set in a worried frown.

“Lance?” he asked. Then Keith finally remembered. Back at the garrison there had been a boy who took the blame for his disciplinary issue, all because Keith was the better pilot. Lance had been right. He barely remembered the name. The only person he’d ever heard it from was Hunk, his old engineer.

Lance looked up, his eyes filled with a kind of bitter sadness. For the first time he smiled a true genuine smile. It looked like it hurt, like his face was cracking, and they could finally see the loneliness hidden beneath. “It’s good to see you, man. It’s been, what? Two deca-feebs or so? It feels like forever,” he said, his voice tinged with a mixture of sadness and relief.

Hunk looked frozen, scared almost, but he his jaw was set in a determined line. “How the quiznak did you get here? The last I heard you were kicked out of the garrison then, nothing. Nobody knew where you went. I thought...” he trailed off.

Lance hesitated, then sheathed both knives and retrieved his blasters. He seemed to take a moment to consider something, then shook his head as if trying to dismiss the idea. Finally, he said resignedly, “You want answers, and that’s fair, but you have to get me to the blue lion first. Then, I’ll explain everything, cool?”

The paladins had been unanimous. Keith was reluctant, but even he was curious about the boy who seemed far too young to be in this kind of scenario (a lot like them, he thought). They led him cautiously toward the hangar where the lion was waiting. As they got closer, he began to walk faster and faster. He paused, as though listening for something, then sprinted down the castle’s hallways. Alarmed, the Paladins shouted and ran after him, but he seemed to know exactly where to go to lose sight of them. Finally, Keith found him next to the blue lion. What he saw sent shivers down his spine.

The lion’s particle barrier was down, and its jaws were open to let Lance inside. Lance was the blue paladin.

He turned around before stepping into the lion and smiled knowingly. “Surprised?” His tone held none of the mockery it had before. His smile was wide and his blue eyes sparkled. Keith noticed how much they looked like gems. He looked back up at the metal beast with admiration, like one would look at a close friend.

“She saved me, you know. When I got kicked out of the Garrison no one came to get me. My family just, didn’t show up. So I just left, walked out into the desert. I don’t know why, but this one place in the cliffs seemed to call to me. I found a cave there, with glowing blue markings. They guided me to where the lion was hidden.”

He didn’t know why, but Keith felt the need to explain himself as well. “I never knew you’re name, but the commander at the Garrison always told me how I nearly got kicked out and was only allowed to stay because they shifted the blame onto you to keep me there. It felt like prison sometimes. Hunk and Pidge made it better of course, but it sucked there.”

“I wonder if my parents ever cared that I was gone.”

Keith stared in disbelief. “Of course they did! There was a huge story about it. The Garrison told everyone you ran away, and your entire family tried to sue them, but they couldn’t because they didn’t have enough concrete evidence.”

Lane looked at him, confused. “Really?” he asked, not daring to believe it. “Then why weren’t they there? Why didn’t anyone come for me?”

“I don’t know. All I really know is that you were presumed dead. They probably had a funeral and everything.”

Tears welled up in his eyes as he saw that Keith wasn’t joking. “I…I can’t believe it. All this time I’ve been avoiding Earth because I didn’t think anyone wanted me there, but now…” he trailed off. “Now I don’t know what to think. I miss them. I miss them so much.”

He began to sob then, tear after tear dripping down his cheeks. He made no move to wipe them off. Still crying he suddenly hugged Keith and sobbed into his shoulder. Keith hesitated, stunned, but then carefully wrapped his arms around him.

“Thank you, Keith.”

They broke apart nervously, and Lance wiped his eyes on his glove as the other Paladins burst through the doors.

“Keith, are you alright? What happened…” Allura trailed off as she saw who the blue lion had accepted.

“I’m fine. Everyone, meet Lance, the new paladin of the blue lion.”

[kingofthewilderwest]

Finally watching season 4, is it just me or is it suddenly obvious that they’re being very specific about Gendering Pidge as a girl? It definitely wasn’t this obvious in previous seasons. (I’m only on episode 3)

First, before I start this conversation: for people who may not know or may not be as familiar with me personally, I am non-binary myself. For about the first twenty-two or so years of my life I was referred to exclusively by “she/her/hers” pronouns. So the whole concept of Pidge and her headcanoned non-binariness is something that touches pretty close to my personal life experiences. I just want to make this clear so that people don’t try to dismiss me as trying to wash away non-binary representation… I’m not, I relate hugely to Pidge, I want non-binary characters like none other in fiction, and I’m just saying what I think the writers have intended with Pidge’s character.

So the writers have always typed Pidge as a woman. At least, that’s how she canonically considers herself gender-wise now in the story. I think the reason why it feels that Pidge is suddenly feeling more gender-typed as female is because the moments in which we see her doing more societally female-coded things is in her past when she’s with her family. We didn’t get many family moments in S1-3. The fact we have more flashback scenes with her in S4, and the fact that she reunites with her brother in S4, means we’re going to get more of these female-coded incidences more frequently shown on screen.

Since the first season we’ve seen Pidge demonstrate some things that are coded in our society as female gender expression. One of the prime ways in which she shows female-coded behavior is through fashion. Consider the photograph she carries with her. While Matt is in his uniform, Pidge is dressed with long hair, a headband, and an adorable pink and white dress. Just a year ago, she was voluntarily wearing a pretty darned cute outfit that is societally associated with girls and women.

The flashbacks in S1E5 “Tears of the Balmera” do just show Pidge in her standard green shirt (how many of us don’t own simple unisex shirts though?). It’s to note she wears her hair in a side-ponytail, which isn’t exactly a societally prototypical male fashion. She’s also upset to cut her hair, muscles in her face notably tightening before she closes the scissors the first time. Pidge is attached to her long, female-coded hair.

But overall we don’t tend to see Pidge as markedly gender-coded female throughout the first three seasons because she’s not in the environment where the codes she relates to get brought up. Pidge starts VLD disguising as male to avoid suspicion when she enrolls in the Garrison. She wears clothes that she already owns, but intentionally picks the ones that are most gender-neutral and least revealing to her identity. And once we get on the Castle Ship, Pidge isn’t going to wear a lot of cute, girlie clothes when she’s only got that one pair of clothes she was wearing at the Garrison… and some awesome Paladin armor.

Because while it seems that Pidge enjoys wearing some feminine fashions from time-to-time, it’s not like she’s ever been a markedly “girly” personality in most of her interests, be it either here or in the flashbacks. Most of her personal passions are not societally coded as feminine… technology, video games, mathematics. So she doesn’t ring out as very gendery-wendery-feminine to us - we grow up in a societal culture where we might expect a female character to display a few more female coded things. So she gets translated to audiences as feeling more ambiguous…

…even though she herself makes it explicitly clear to the other Paladins: “I’m a girl.” Those are the words she uses. She thinks of herself as female, she tells the Paladins that, and it’s a pressing matter to her - she feels uncomfortable prior to the reveal, uncomfortable that she’s been disguising herself and being dishonest to them. She’s uncomfortable enough that even a common English figure of speech “man up” bothers her when it’s applied to her. Because it’s not who she is!

Pidge in the Castle of Lions just doesn’t have the proper context whereby we see the moments where she acts the most societally feminine, because the areas in which we see her act the most feminine are things like fashion, which she doesn’t have access to millions of lightyears from Earth.

But yes, even though we haven’t had as much context by which to highlight Pidge’s more feminine coded personal facets, she’s always had those codings in her character, down from the first episode in the first season.

Now S4 has rolled around. We see more flashbacks of Pidge, and with it, new outfits that also read as “feminine” to us. I absolutely love this little number with the leggings… she looks adorable:

And on top of that, in this very same scene with Matt, she tells him to call her “Katie,” not Pidge. She’s explicitly preferring a name that is for girls and women.

Of course we also get the pink dress again, giving audiences yet again more feelings of feminine coding.

Then there’s Matt parading around, calling Pidge “sister” constantly, so we get that “rubbed in” more.

This is all family stuff.

I believe that S4 is also one of the first seasons to use “she” pronouns in the actual script. Lots of times, characters have been speaking directly to Pidge, thus calling her “you,” which isn’t gendered, or mentioning her gender-neutral nickname, “Pidge,” instead of a pronoun. BUT. Even then… in the first comic book… which takes place during S1 times… Pidge is called “she” and “her” by her Paladin buddies:

This means in S1 material alone, Pidge has been called “she,” Pidge has called herself a “girl,” and Pidge has demonstrated some female-coded fashion sense. That’s the exact same material, in fact, as what we get in S4.

S4 just has that material happen a little more often. It feels Pidge is being more gendered as a woman this season mostly because we’re seeing her in the contexts where she’s the most feminine-coded. The flashback scenes with her clothing. The interactions with her brother, who is going to call her “she” and “sister.” It’s not that the writers are pulling out a harder “Pidge is a woman” card… there’s nothing new that they’ve introduced this season than they have shown in the past. Nothing new at all. We’re just in the context where we see the feminine side of Pidge a bit more frequently in 4.

I’ve personally never read Pidge as canonically non-binary. I’ve read her as “she has the potential to develop and realize she’s non-binary later” and “she is pleasantly easy to headcanon as non-binary.” But I do think that throughout the franchise, there has been nothing explicit to target her as non-binary. Please continue to read her how you read her, but this is my respectful perspective.

It’s sort of ironic in that people headcanon Pidge as non-binary largely in part because they use the same societal expectations of gender-coding that so many people across the same community are trying to destroy. Many people talk about how X shouldn’t be exclusive to women, but should be acceptable to all humans… but I do suspect lots of the reason so many people attach to Pidge as a potential non-binary representative is because she doesn’t scream those X gender-coded things. Gender expression isn’t the same as gender identity, so just because Pidge expresses herself in a certain way doesn’t mean she is one type of gender or another. I dress extremely feminine at times. Doesn’t make me a woman. Pidge has what society feels are gender-neutral interests. Doesn’t mean she’s not a woman.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a non-binary gender headcanon, and in fact those non-binary headcanons make me smile because it’s the feeling of people recognizing my own gender, my own identity. The headcanons resonate with me, too. I like them. Please, feel free to keep with your headcanons! There’s nothing wrong with them!

And there’s nothing saying the writers couldn’t develop Pidge canonically to reveal herself as non-binary! It’s totally feasible. Just because she liked long hair doesn’t mean anything about her actual identity, etc. etc. etc. Furthermore, I didn’t fully understand what it was to be non-binary until adulthood, where I discovered an identity that was always what I had felt about myself on the inside. Pidge could find that, too. This is something that often occurs later in life, so there’s certainly still time for that development to happen in a fifteen-year-old.

And if the writers ever did announce Pidge as canonically non-binary, you would bet I would stop the video, pump my fists in the air, and start screaming wildly “YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!” Because non-binary representation is beautiful and important and meaningful! I would love for Pidge to be non-binary, let’s be real!

But at the moment, we’ve gotten four seasons of Pidge demonstrating societally-aligned female coding. We’ve gotten Pidge referring to herself as a girl - which is much more importantly indicative. Pidge not having many feminine gender-coded interests, and being confused at alien bathroom signs, isn’t enough to be a foreshadowing of her announcing a non-binary identity. I don’t suspect that Pidge will come out as non-binary personally. I’m completely fine with that.

Anyway. TL;DR. Pidge is showing the same sorts of female-coded things in S4 as she has in previous seasons. S4 just might feel as though the writers are gendering her more apparently because Pidge is being shown in the contexts where this is the most noticeable about her.

[heretherebedork]

Transcanons (headcanons, but... trans!)

Pidge was AMAB, transitioned to female with full support from family at a young age and went back to presenting male in order to infiltrate the Academy. Now she’s much more comfortable using female pronouns and happy to be back to it.

... Also, Hunk? Totally AFAB who transition as a young teen, gained a lot of weight to be more comfortable with his body before he could change anything and has now discovered that he just really likes how free he is to eat whatever he wants without judgement. Plus, he ended up a great chef.

Keith leans towards agender to go with all the other aces in his life (asexual/aromantic), though he’s starting to realize he might be on the ace spectrum rather than smack dab where he thought he was. But, honestly, he’s found that he doesn’t much care about pronouns and hasn’t found one that fits better than the masculine ones yet.

Lance is totally genderfluid, though there’s no way he’s come to terms with it yet. But when he does, he’s totally the kind of person to change clothing whenever he can if he’s feeling sort of switchy and it turns out Altean armor? TOTALLY responds to gender requests in little ways, if you know how to work it.

Allura has to explain Altean Gender Terms a couple times to the team to explain that what translates to female in ENGLISH wasn’t always the same on Altea. In fact, Altea’s gender categorization was rather complicated. She definitely identifies as a woman in our terminology, but that’s only because we haven’t caught up to them yet.

Coran, also being Altean, is rather confused by this concept of Total Binary Gender Solutions and, although he accepts being called male and doesn’t mind at all, is actually much closer to agender/fluid according to Altean Gender Norms but struggles to explain this to the Paladins. He doesn’t mind, though!