#never did figure out how to format them not shittily

[sonic-adventure-3]

been sitting on these human designs since september and i finally finished them!

[fedoranonymous]

just post the thing

i’m only human and have a full time job, so i gotta deal with the fact that i’m not physically capable of writing every single little idea i come up with for a fic, even if it’s a good one or completing the set makes me happy. one thing i really wanted to do for a long time, though, was write at least a one shot for every way to ship keith with the rest of the paladins, with a bit of au flavor. this is the kidge one.

so I wanted Keith to be born deaf but they HAD to throw in the garrison giving Matt LASIK and being totally deaf is probably more of an impediment than having shitty vision, so like. They definitely gave Keith a Cochlear

honestly it makes sense because if something happens and your glasses/hearing aids break there’s gonna be bits everywhere so really the alternative is “people who are nearsighted/blind/hard of hearing/deaf just aren’t allowed to become spaceship pilots” since they’d be so far from replacements and what goes into/off of a spaceship has to be deeply monitored

it does mean we have to take a lot more steps before Keith’s hearing comes into play though

so first off: Lance’s Whole Everything is so much, all the time, but especially when ya boi isn’t used to hearing anything at all. And Keith isn’t used to talking, you know, with his mouth so much, so he gets worn out by trying to have a conversation like this so quickly 

and Lance is offended and also probably makes some (well meaning but incredibly shittily received!*) jokes about Keith’s voice being rough/giving out, how many words Keith has only seen written and not heard said aloud, etc. Just. They decided it was Keith’s decision who to tell and Keith decided he’d rather not be embarrassed than get help from his peers, and it backfired in the form of Lance McClain

As in canon, Keith doesn’t take Shiro’s “”death“” well and gets into a physical fight with Iverson and ends up dishonorably discharged over it. Unlike in canon (or, you know what, it’s my headcanon, show me where it’s jossed, I’ll wait), Keith steals Iverson’s car as an act of petty revenge

he crashes it and ends up biting through his own tongue. Maybe fucking with the implant a bit too? I’d have to do a bit of research into how these things work and how they behave if they’re damaged, if it’s gonna be constantly screeching/being annoying Keith’d probably get it removed anyway, and I specifically want him to be skipping out on further surgeries after a point because The American Healthcare Industry and also because I do want to deal with how being mute/hard of hearing/deaf affects people and not just an Informed Attribute. 

Like I want the Paladins to have to learn ASL, and have them realize how useful it can be and how everyone should fucking know it

So ya boi ends up largely back in society with a bit more ability to communicate, but it’s a Thing and he hates it so he doesn’t get out much

like honestly smartphones and text to speech are a GODSEND but people fucking detest having to wait for him to type/constantly think he’s snubbing them if he doesn’t have a “I can’t speak, let me type” set up (some kind of emergency button on his lock screen?)

I like the idea of him not being totally deaf (anymore, if I go that route instead of hearing aids, since it would have to be much more of an AU for him to remain deaf so why float it in the first place, you know?) but definitely hard of hearing so like, sometimes he has to hand people his phone and get them to write shit down because he just can’t understand and them getting mad because they think they’re making fun of his accent or something

only going to certain stores at certain times because the Nice Clerk is on shift

Also everything Red comes up with in Peaks and Valleys and its sequels. I love those fics.

also I’ve read more than one where Keith himself goes nonverbal for anxiety and/or autism related reasons, and those are all great too, but none of them quite have the couple of scenes I really really wanna see for this. They’re all great though.

So then Shiro falls back to earth and that goes largely the same as in canon, with the exception that Keith cannot talk, isn’t even gonna try to sign, and pulling out his phone for speech to text is too time consuming when you’re in a fight, so he’s down to communicating exclusively through interpretive dance and eyebrow gymnastics.

Lance just. Isn’t having it. being “”ignored“” is a trigger for him, so by the time they make it back to Keith’s dad’s shack, he snaps, grabs Keith’s shoulder from where he’s trying to open the door, screams at him to talk to him

so Keith goes for his phone, but it has a bullet hole in it. Apparently there was a very close call that Keith didn’t realize, and there’s a matching gouge in his jacket, which is all very traumatic, and Keith’s knees go out, but Lance isn’t done making this about him yet, so Keith ends up having to shout as best as he can, pointing in his own mouth and showing off for mostly just Lance that he doesn’t have a tongue

Lance blanches and takes a seat too, of course. He tries to ask Keith when that happened, but there are some things you just can’t communicate without words or a very strong visual, so Keith kinda halfheartedly shrugs

The shack IS Keith’s childhood home, though, so he does have a backup device that is literally JUST for text-to-speech, likely for in school when the teachers would have given a fuck about the fact that smartphones have calculators and he could “”cheat“” with it

so after he tries to dig that out, he goes all ⛧  ̷̲͕͠"̵̥̍Ẅ̵̤̳́̾e̴̹͒l̸̦̯̓l̴̢̿,̶͍̰̾̾ ̸̼̀̈́t̵̞̽͊ḧ̷̡̒i̵̺̞̽ṣ̸͙͒͋ ̵͕̯̄̋s̴͎̭̍h̶͔̻̓͊o̶͇̓́͜ṳ̵̂l̸̘͕͊d̷̯̦̐͆ ̵̧̈w̶̩͆ỏ̴͎r̴̖͉̋̏k̴̰̃̔ ̴̼̜̒͠f̸̙̓ô̶͔r̴̥̈́ ̸̖̎̊n̷̩̙͌͠ó̸̳́͜w̶̧̔̅.̸͓̜͑"̸̛͉̠ ̴̨̺̓ ψ and even he, having never had to hear it (assuming I go THAT route smh pick one binch) is HoRrIfIeD and it’s regulated to emergencies only starting immediately

Shiro wakes up asking where Marvin is and telling him to put that Demonic Teddy Ruxpin Ass Thing away

Hunk: “Wait, did you name your phone Marvin the Paranoid Android.”

Keith two thumbs way, way up, and a bunch of fingerguns and snaps

Hunk: “I love Hitchhiker’s Guide!”

Keith: *chef’s kiss*

yes this is one of my Candybar Scenes for this AU

A lot of things don’t change enough to be interesting, not in a prose format anyway. The Lions are psychic, so it’s not like Keith needs spoken words to communicate with Red, and while Altean text to speech isn’t possessed, Keith can’t write Altean

Oh look, guess who canonically wants to learn to read and write Altean too. Hello Pidge, time to kiss kiss fall in love

Pidge is honestly kind of puzzled to learn that not only does the garrison not teach ASL, but they also don’t require it as a prerequisite for signing up or offer it as an elective. Like. What if the radio goes out on your spacesuit? The fuck? So she bullies Keith into starting to teach her ASL as well as studying Altean with her.

the fact that Altean language learning casettes make Keith super happy but the fact that they rate pronunciation means he can’t? actually? do them? right now?

the way the show handles language makes no sense but the way they handle spacetravel science actively contradicts itself in the same sentence so I’m guessing that’s just their sense of humor and the netflix voltron team is a bunch of n e r d s

So it’s literally just Shiro and Pidge and neither of them are very good but Keith starts using ASL again because there’s a chance he won’t have to repeat himself in interpretive dance and pictionary and the rest of the team starts picking it up by osmosis, 

it really is useful for when Keith needs to communicate to Lance that there’s a ladder behind him that he can use to crawl up onto the ceiling at get on the other side of the guard for a pincer attack, etc. Yeah Lance only picks up half of that, but it’s enough to get him looking, and they really do work well together when neither of them are being precious as fuck

i love my boys but they are

scene where Keith does pushups with Pidge on his back, with her laptop. The bouncing makes it hard to type, but he ends up with a personal EMP device so he can safely knock out the robot gladiators in their training room in an emergency, that way he can train by himself the way he’d prefer. 

this is probably the first time (at least in a very very long time) that someone gave him an accessibility thing that was about making things convenient for him and not for them, and he may get a little choked up

Keith is in general just REALLY expressive emotionally, because he kind of needs to emote three times as hard to be understood. Whoever said 90% of communication is nonverbal needs to do some factchecking, in his opinion.

literally just because I want Keith around for a later scene and a stupid one at that, the Blades decide they can’t properly train/work with someone who cannot communicate in a crisis.

Keith tries to be like “I’ll learn Galra Sign Language/I’ll use text to speech/I’ll have Coran make me a new tongue/I’ll be support/Anything just let me get close to my mother’s family” and Kolivan’s like. Stars. Can’t do it. Not today.

He does end up send the communications that have Krolia ditching her deep cover assignment before shit hits the fan though. Kolivan can make what he considers to be a “tough but necessary call” but let’s not have all of them be ablest dickwads. 

he gonna get yelled at so hard when she comes back. She will train her boy herself, and Keith doesn’t have to change a thing about himself for that.

Kolivan: all according to keikaku dot jpg

So Keith’s miserable and it’s breakfast time, he’s kind of picking through the story, but he figures no body’s paying attention and he rambles about that for a while

Pidge has a too big bite in her mouth so she signs “Keith. how could I ignore you. you never shut the fuck up” 

And Keith. Has never felt so seen?

Pidge goes to swallow because what she wants to say next is important, then she signs anyway because that’s more important.

“yeah it sucks when people refuse to listen to you for no real reason”

Keith has to eat his breakfast under the table because he can’t look at anyone right now

so fucking in love

SO all that to say that, not being in the Blades, Keith’s around when Matt shows up,

Pidge: “This is my boyfriend, if you hurt his precious little feelings, I’ll show you how my bayard can be used as a shovel and bury you alive on an uninhabited planet.”

Matt: “Shouldn’t I be saying that?”

Keith: “What boyfriend? I’ll fight him.”

Pidge: “I’m talking about you, dingus.”

Keith: panic dot exe 

Keith: loading

Keith: executable “launch Pidge into the fucking sun” engaged

Keith: panic harder dot exe

Actually Keith being around probably changes a lot of the Kuron arc doesn’t it? Depending on if he’s a puppet Haggar can pilot or he’s got some but not all of Shiro’s memories or if he’s a perfect clone with added subconcious triggers. 

Would he know even as little ASL as Shiro does? Depends on if ASL gets coded in the brain the same way as other languages, since it seems like he speaks English fine. 

He also seems to fight fine, so yeah, operational memory is all there, no reason for him to not know ASL

I figure at the least we can have him be a bigoted dickhead about it, since getting Keith to fuck off/stop being around to notice how off he is being is a Priority, and that cluing the rest of the team in because why the fuck would he tell Keith to stop trying now when they all know sign now would be a very wholesome moment

Also maybe a moment back on earth where Lance/Hunk calls Keith over to where he’s speaking with his family and just starts signing what he’s saying automatically and just making Keith feel included would be nice

Hunk would be nice because I haven’t done much with him here but Lance would be nice because of what I have done with him. Pidge would also be cute if you wanted to keep this strictly romance, but I like the idea of Keith getting to connect to people beyond the connection he has with the person he’s dating. Those found family vibes are everything, y’all.

*I really think Lance is just one of those guys who likes the vitriolic best buds trope so much he tries to skip the normal acquaintance phase and that’s where all his problems lie! And considering I know a literal fifty year old man who still tries to do this, still doesn’t stop me from headcanoning the paladins as being in their mid twenties, please let me pretend I’m not enjoying a show about literal children being blown up in the engine room, shot at, stabbed, going on suicide charges, etc. This show is too dark to be about children, for my mental health.