#pidge's arc

[pidges-lost-robot]

I feel like Pidge only knows to joke about certain crushes if they follow really obvious signs or like tropes. I absolutely think she'd bully Lance about Allura and then later have no fucking clue about him having feelings for Keith because he's a lot more subtle about it and is like "what?! No I bet Hunk so much money that he was just shipping for the sake of it! No! Lance why would you do this to me?!"

I also think this interpretation of Pidge was initially out to the team as a lesbian and would joke she'd get a girlfriend before Lance did, only to begin discovering that she's maybe more on the aroace side of things and would be a little pissed off that this would mean Lance probably would get a girlfriend before her

[pidge-it-up]

change of heart

Everyone noticed, but no one said anything. Not even Izuku. 

They all noticed how he no longer sent death glares at random or called his friends "extra" because he knew very well how each one of their lives mattered. 

How he didn't scream at people on the street, how he would listen to his teachers and how he would yell less at his mother. 

Everyone noticed, but no one said anything. Not even Izuku, afraid of what his reaction would be.

Yes, Dynamight was still ruthless and unforgiving. But Katsuki wasn't. 

It was noticeable in his eyes and, mostly, in his hands. No longer curled into fists, ready to explode at every minor inconvenience.

In the way he would allow strangers to approach him, in the "You want a picture? Yeah, sure" he said to a smiling kid who ran to him in the middle of patrol. 

In the way he carefully wrapped his hands around their tiny waist, putting them on his shoulder and smiling his signature grin, "Say God Explosion Murder God Dynamight!" And the kid did. A beautiful picture that took over the internet for almost a month. 

Everyone noticed, but no one said anything. Not even Izuku, who was the one who had more evidence the most. 

He would feel it in the Katsuki would touch him like a feather, softly and mindlessly caressing his hand scar as they watch TV or walk to class. See it in the way he would kiss his temple good morning in the kitchen, regardless of who was around. In the way he would whisper worships on his lips in the privacy of their room. 

Yes, everyone noticed, but no one said anything. Not even Izuku, afraid he would get self-conscious and stop. 

But of course, it was bound to happen one day. It was only a matter of time. 

And the time came when he was doing an interview, close to his graduation. The first one after the war two years ago. 

Izuku was in the audience, as usual, staring at him like he was the reason the universe existed. 

(To Izuku, he was)

And it was in the 4B sit that he left the mark of his hand on the armrest by squeezing it hard as his breath stuck in his throat and his eyes burned. Because someone had just said something. 

"Dynamight, I can't help but notice, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, that you have changed your posture significantly. You are… well, you are so gentle and kind nowadays."

*Shit*, Izuku thought. Because he knew Katsuki. He knew what was to come. He held onto the armrest for dear life, anticipation tickling his bones. 

But then, something amazing happened. Not the "KIND? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU CALLING THAT??" tantrum he was sort of expecting.

No. None of that. 

Katsuki smiled, looking at Izuku for a second before turning his gaze to the interviewer. 

He smiled and said "Thanks. It was a lot of hard work."

Izuku's heart burst and he squeezed the armrest tighter, imprinting his hands there on the metal forever, trying (and failing) to keep himself from crying. 

Izuku has never been more proud of Katsuki in his life.

[iscabird]

well, we got to discussing properly taking in our pigeon ward today. i'm not allowed to bring him indoors (mum said) but we've got a few spare cages we can house him in. the next question is then, where to put it so pidge is out of the sun

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

"Keith is Asian!!!" How are you all calling Keith anything but white when he canonically wears shoes while on his bed?/j

[cannibalismyuri]

M ok but the fact that Bex is trans nb really just drove my disappointment with VLD sky high cause like you could have done something there. You could have shown support for a marginalized group of people that you literally directly work with and where they could have seen themselves on screen and get to PLAY that character but NO you just went and did the boring, obvious, uncreative, unintelligent, uninteresting, unsupportive, unhelpful same old drivel as every other queerbaity crap show has done since the beginning of eternity and frankly I can't forgive them for that. Also the bury your gays, the random new guy we didn't even know for Shiro. Just. ugh everything everything!!!

.

[askmeanjudge]

[toasterghostie]

Back to back episodes that are gonna hurt me, I've got left over Chinese food and I'm ready for a good cry over the lost potential.

Let's do this

[sasouken]

allgather ♥

                                “what are the chances that we can slip out of this party early? they don't need us here, right? they've got lance."

[contrastparadoxx]

ripjaw pops his head out of the lake's surface, "Frrrrriiieeeend?"

>Unfortunately it would appear that Pidge is not around to answer the call

[pidges-lost-robot]

The episode where Lance's Lion gets taken except they take Lance too and he has to get out and for some reason the only plan they have is having Keith in Yellows Mouth as they desperately try to catch up with them and they have to do the scene from The Runaway Bride from Doctor Who cause Lance absolutely does not trust Keith will catch him

And later Hunk yells at him cause he's known Lance a while and there's no way with the trust issues he displayed at the very beginning that he wouldn't have kept his beady eyes trained on Lance so it ended up with Lance having to track Rolo instead and they have to switch up their plan

[victoryclaimed]

allgather liked ✧ for a starter   !

                               "i swear i didn't touch anything ! i just looked at it and it started beeping at me ! i'm sure it's fine." there's a pause as he glances from computer to pidge. "it's fine, right?"

[auguryes]

i’ll update my carrd in the morning but for the time being my s5 verse (but i settled for a ghost) will also be used for any threads that occur post s4 <3

[lolabearwrites]

Random things I would have loved for Voltron

-Keith never leaves w/ the BOM and stays the leader of Voltron (I have no problem with him being a blade, I actually enjoyed watching it, but I just didn't like him choosing them over Voltron)

-also! I wished we actually saw the "Galra Keith reveal" w/ the team. Such a missed opportunity.

-More of Lance being Keith's second in command. I feel like we didn't get a lot of that.

-Shiro stays dead. Look I love the man. One of my favorite characters. But after S2 it always feels like he just doesn't quite fit into the story like he used to.

-Very biased. But. Klance romance. Not the "will they won't they" shit. No. A actual relationship development. If it was written well I could see it happening maybe in s4/s5?

-Lotor and Keith friendship! Bonding over being mixed race and not fitting in.

-Keith learning Galra culture! Maybe through Lotor? Or BOM?

-Lotura. Pls. They were so cute.

-Oh, should have said this before the other three, but a Lotor redemption arc.

-A Keith and Lance ep. Because in eight seasons they never had an episode centered around them like they did for other characters. Klance had moments. But not eps.

-A Pidge arc !! She had a motivation (save her family) but not really an arc. The same could be said for Hunk.

-follow through with Lance's character development. Writers...you already set him up for it, you just had to follow through with it and actually do something with it.

-more found family fluff throughout the seasons. Because I felt like they never actually got to the level of "found family" if that makes sense

-change the armor color to match the lions. Mostly because I feel Keith wearing Shiro's armor for the first time when he takes over would also have an emotional impact.

- Coran being fleshed out. I know he's a comic relief. But I really love Coran! And I'd love to know more about him.

- I wish the team all had their own little quirks or interests, just something that didn't really have big significance to the story but made them feel more real, you know.

-okay, but It would have been amazing if team Voltron came to a planet that had no idea there was life outside their planet. Just like earth. Idk I feel like it would be funny XD

Anyway, that's my food for thought, feel free to add to this post :)

[leenfiend]

Kissing you on the mouth for your Lance son of Hermes take. I didn't even really have an opinion before but after reading your post I'm immediately sold and so invested in the au

Do you have ideas on what the other characters godly parents would be? Hunk with Hephaestus makes sense to me, and I'm a fan of Keith son of Ares (learning to accept his godly dad could match with his arc about accepting he's part galra, a supposedly evil/violent side of him, + the anger and fighting skills), but not sure about the others...

hello!!! I'm glad you see the vision hehe. I actually sent many a paragraph to heynhay about this only yesterday. I was firmly on the son of Ares Keith headcanon but then... someone reblogged my post saying Keith son of Zeus (I think it was @pidges-lost-robot and i was like WAAAAIT.

Okay so here's my many many paragraphs explaining headcanons for each. Shiro son of Zeus: Okay so in my head Shiro & Keith are both sons of Zeus but for very different reasons. They're like Thalia vs Jason types. Shiro is a great leader, he's ambitious, he's brave, he's a legend. His dad is so proud. He's been on like 20 quests and absolutely demolished all of them. All the kids in camp know he's So Cool and Talented. He can be hot headed sometimes but ultimately he's really adept at setting aside his feelings for the Greater Good etc. Ideal hero type and ideal son to the big guy upstairs. Keith son of Zeus: Keith is all the bad traits of Zeus (sorry to him). He's got a short temper, he's impulsive, he's closed off. He's a prodigy without meaning to be. Everyone pays attention to him but (despite what Lance thinks) it's because they think he's a freak, he's not a big three kid the way you're Supposed To Be. And he doesn't want to be a leader. This really rubs Zeus the wrong way. Keith would rather disappear into the ranks of his fellow campers than be the star of the show and that goes against everything children of Zeus are supposed to be. His dad definitely refuses to claim him for a long time which makes Keith just some weird really powerful kid who doesn't know who his godly parent is. Luckily Shiro takes him under his wing : )) (too bad Shiro doesn't come back from his latest quest tho, no one knows where he went off to and Chiron doesn't want to send out a quest because if something kept Shiro The Legend from coming back to camp it must be really bad). Hunk son of Aphrodite: ANOTHER ONE I'M FIRM ABOUT. I think Hunk's defining characteristic is his love for his friends. Hunk is always looking for peaceful ways to solve problems, he's always forming relationships with people before doing anything else, he really values giving love to those around him. It also doesn't hurt that he's kind of squeamish and particular about a lot of things, as a lot of Aphrodite's children are. But I really think his greatest strengths are the ways he's able to relate to others. I know a lot of people say Lance is the glue that holds everyone together, but I think it's Hunk. I know the fanon is that Aphrodite's kids are all just big flirts but I think both Selena and Piper are great examples that that's not true, and Hunk would absolutely be their brother. Pidge daughter of Hephaestus: I've seen some people saying Athena for Pidge but that's another one where I just can't get behind it. Pidge is so smart in so many ways but so stupid in others. She's too impulsive and single minded to be a daughter of Athena, imo. Her main love is figuring out how things work, what makes them tick, and using that knowledge to help those she loves. Children of Hephaestus are know to hold grudges, fight for their families, and let's not forget Hephaestus spending literally all of his free time trying to play pranks on the other Gods with his little contraptions like that is all Pidge would do all day long. Plus she befriends a robot and that is who she talks to for the first like 3 episodes of Voltron that is so unbelievably child of Hephaestus energy. Anyway thank u for asking this question I've been thinking on it for days. I am also open to the idea of Shiro being a son of Athena, I think that would suit him well. And also in my head I like to think Keith would potentially just remain unclaimed until he stomped his way to Mount Olympus and forced whoever was his parent to fess up.

[digoload]

the paladin line up!!! (click for better quality)

This is a part of my voltron AU that I already did a bit of art on this here. i'll probably update my foolish design at some other time but there he is for now.

Under the cut -- my reasons for these particular characters, plus some sketched story ideas i had for them/their backstories prior to canon.

(also, yes - qtubbo tucks his jeans into his socks)

Green Paladin - Tubbo. He's green already, fantastic. Also, a nerd like Pidge and naturally curious. I considered other Create-oriented QSMPers for green lion but I think Tubbo fits the best!

Yellow Paladin - Missa. For a while I was gonna make Forever the yellow or blue paladin, but then I realised the whole cast would be wayyyyy too zany or weird. We needed a sturdy, relatable character. Someone who was scared. Someone who didn't really want to be there. Someone who would have an unlikely romance with a menacing purple rebellion-leader alien in space. I knew Missa was perfect for the job.

Blue Paladin - Etoiles. We don't know the specific qualifications for someone to be the blue paladin (thanks Lance), but there are some clear similarities between Lance and Blaytz (I know Allura doesn't really fit with the pattern towards the end of the series, but work with me here), so I sort of made up my own requirements. 1. screams with joy when they get to pilot their lion. 2. dogboy. 3. ready to throw down. (season 1 allura fits all 3 of these, but arguably not really towards s6-7-8). I kinda relate him most to Blaytz out of all the blue paladins.

Red Paladin - Roier. You KNOW it had to be Roier. Who else. Literally who else. The man is red. Ready to throw down. Trusts his instincts. Angsty backstory. Right-hand to the guy who takes the lead in most situations. Also, just in general, I have a vivid vision of qroier in the red lion's cockpit. He could totally pull it off.

Black Paladin - Cellbit. The other characters I considered for this role were bbh and philza, but in the end I liked them more with having alien roles mainly due to their backstories (BBH as an immortal soul-guide demon and Philza as an avian). I just think that Cellbit would fit this role better. He already sort of heads the Order, is associated with the colour black as well. But most of all. I think there's a lot of potential for an angst arc where he goes off on his own for some dumb self sacrificial reason I guess, or maybe because of his extremeee trust issues, and neglects his leader duties because of this. and then there's a whole lesson learned kind of thing, maybe roier brings him back, etc.

Now for some backstories:

I think Tubbo would follow Pidge's backstory and motives pretty closely, given his penchant for breaking into the federation offices and snooping around (very Pidge-like behaviour). The thing I struggled with was getting someone to be kidnapped by space aliens that Tubbo cared enough about to go searching for. I already have plans for Fred, Phil, and the eggs, and they're the main things that drive qtubbo. Also, ideally, they'd have to be somewhat older than Tubbo in order to be on the Kerberos mission in the first place. For a while, I thought about somehow having Tubbo and Pierre being connected, but they're not super close in canon, even if he would make an Excellent Sam Holt.

BUT THEN I REMEMBERED: MORNING CREW. ITS PERFECT. I don't think they'd be directly related, but Pac as Matt Holt just works so well. I think Fit and Ramon would be rebel fighters that free Pac from the Galra and they sort of fall in love that way, but Mike was on the Kerberos mission too and is still missing, and that's Pac's main motivation.

So I think the best people for the Kerberos mission crew would be Pac (technician), Mike (engineer), and Cellbit (pilot). Cellbit obviously takes Shiro's role (sans robot arm, that's Etoiles' duty later on - this AU would divert from VLD canon pretty early on). Roier never gives up on Cellbit, just like Tubbo never gives up on Pac (and Mike). Except unlike Tubbo, who has to purposely get enrolled at the Garrison as a cadet in order to get intel, Roier is already graduate from the same class as Cellbit. He KNOWS there's a coverup of some kind, but he has no way of proving it. Fortunately, an old upperclassman/ex-tutor believes in him enough that he believes in Cellbit too, and together they get to work on figuring out this mystery. When an alien pod crash lands, they know they've got to get a closer look.

Missa is an unfortunate decontamination unit first-responder who gets in the way. They can't just leave him behind to sound the alarm - he has to come with them while they rescue Cellbit! Unbeknownst to them, Tubbo has already taken out the alarms and is also on his way over. Miraculously, they all escape with their lives, and magic space lion adventures ensue.

I feel like none of them would really have any time to change into casual clothing, so they're all in uniform. Cellbit would probably still be in prisoner clothing but tbh I just didn't think of that lol. Also, I wanted to draw him in a garrison uniform that wasn't detox or combat oriented. There are so many cool garrison uniform designs out there so drawing the same one twice was kinda soul crushing lol. cant wait to show you guys their individual character sheets!!

[autisticlancemcclain]

Jackie supports the lion swap? How dare you!

Okay SO. This is not the first time I’ve gotten an ask or a comment like this, and I’m fully aware it’s a joke (or at least I think), but I also know that it is kind of a controversial topic on here! And I’ve already written an essay in the topic, but I have some more thoughts I’d like to dive into.

I used to be team Blue Paladin Lance, and hardcore on that team, too. If you look at some of my old fics, you’ll see that. However since I am a contrary person by nature, I started to notice that Red Paladin Lance was way less liked, and so I started to like it more. I really grew fond of the dynamic Keith and Lance got to have as co-leaders, both because it was homoerotic as hell and because the symbolism was fun to explore, but klance is not the main reason I started to care so deeply for the lion change — it was actually Shiro and Allura.

I’m going to start with Shiro, because he’s one of the most fascinating characters in VLD, if not underdeveloped. Part of that fascination for me is that he probably has the most arcs and opportunities for character growth and development in the show, and yet somehow he’s the flattest. He’s portrayed as very one-dimensional in a lot of fic — he tends to be less of a character and more of a role. He’s the Space Dad, or the older brother, or the cool teacher, or the kind and wise friend, or even the stoic Black Paladin. He is loved, I think, but the role he plays is loved, not quite the person he is. And that makes sense, because that is exactly how he’s portrayed in canon.

To Keith, Shiro is “like a brother to [him]”, but what do we see of that dynamic? The show has a clear sense of how a brother acts, that’s a good chunk of Pidge’s character. We barely even know Matt, but Pidge carries herself in such a way that it’s clear when her brother shines through her. And yet even though Shiro also goes missing, twice even, Shiro does not shine through his brother. Keith’s impulses are his own, developed from general abandonment issues rather than Shiro’s specific absence. Shiro’s absence becomes less of Shiro’s absence and more of an absence of a beloved leader figure, kind of a martyr, a “Shiro would have wanted you to carry on”. It is really hard for us as a fandom to use Shiro’s disappearance as anything but a plot device, because that’s all it felt like! We have occasional moments with Shiro, enough to care about him in some way, but as a figure, not as a person. Someone pointed it out on one of my fics and I agree wholeheartedly — Shiro is not shown with any flaws, and that makes it really hard to love him, because you don’t really get the pleasure of defending him, of seeing his motivations, his reasons. Not until the very end, at least.

This is, in all honesty, likely just poor writing. Shiro’s character was honestly just sidelined to a role, because he is really not that present in the show. But I am going to work with the benefit of the doubt, and see if I can use the lion change to explain why we all kind of love Shiro anyway, despite the fact that he’s flat as hell.

Shiro isn’t the Black Paladin. He never was. He flew the Black Lion, yes, and he flew her well — but he was never her Chosen. He couldn’t have been. From the very beginning, the Black Lion was in mourning; she was in no space to choose a new paladin. She accepted Shiro, and she loved him, but he did not fall into her as much as he fell into the role she provided for him. He piloted the Black Lion, but he was not her Paladin. This is made obvious in two ways: in that he never got her bayard, and that from the very beginning, he set up a replacement for himself.

Doesn���t that strike anyone else as odd? I haven’t seen the show in five years, and I don’t plan on rewatching, but I do remember that every moment with Shiro almost had this underlying tension. The closest thing I have to canon off the top of my head is the Handbook (which I had to stop reading because they did everyone SO dirty there, even though some of it was honestly pretty funny), which was released in S2, and even that incredibly early canon talked about Keith replacing Shiro!

From the very beginning, Shiro was planning an out to his role. He knew it was not meant for him. He did the role well, but it was not his to do.

Aside from those two reasons, Shiro also…can’t be the Black Paladin. He can’t be that and himself, I mean. This part is a little more complicated, so I’m going to borrow some of my own tags from some awesome fanart I saw:

I really do think Shiro is defined by his humanity (as is heavily implied by his illness — this is a character who is completely and totally bound to his mortality. Of all the other characters, he is the one most familiar with death, so he is the one who is most intimate with the raw fear of being human. But more on that later), but it’s my last comment that I want to focus on — “he is DEFINED by his his humanity…even as his greatest asset is the part of him that is not human”.

Every second that Shiro is leader of Voltron, he is the Champion. That can literally be his only goal — he is the head of the fight against Zarkon and the Empire. Either Shiro comes out the Champion, or Zarkon does. Either Shiro has to grit his teeth and fight off the flashbacks and the fear and the pain and use the one thing that forces him to reconcile with the fact that he had his entire personhood stripped away (his arm, his Galra arm, one of their biggest advantages as a team; his connection to Zarkon through Black, something that can only help the war effort at a direct cost to him; everything he does in this war is shoving him right back into that Arena again and again and again), or Zarkon wins. Every second Shiro pilots Black, every time he plays her paladin, he has to be who the Empire made him to be. He has to be the Champion. Once again he is not Takashi Shirogane, the person, the astronaut, the man, he is the Role. He is the Space Dad he is the Pilot of the Black Lion he is the Champion. For every second he is in that lion he is stripping away himself.

Obviously, that is something that was never sustainable. On this argument alone, Shiro was going to waste away eventually. There was always going to be a point where Shiro was not going to be able to be the Champion anymore. There was always, from the very way the dynamic was set up, going to have to be a lion switch. Now, interestingly enough, there could have been a really easy fix to this: Black Paladin Allura. She’s already a born and raised leader, already shown her immense competence, already someone the rest of the paladins follow. With her at the helm, nothing else would have to change, right?

Well, maybe. We’ll never know. One part of that is absolutely true — Allura should have been a paladin from the very beginning. Her quintessence is canonically closest to the entirety of Voltron (something that bears its own essay,; the relationship between all six of the paladins and Voltron is wrought with heavy symbolism), she is the most highly trained, she is smart, and she actually wants to be out on the field. She should have been in that armour from day one.

But Allura cannot be the Black Paladin. Allura cannot handle other’s sacrifice.

Of course this is a complicated subject. Should a leader sit back and let her crew sacrifice themselves instead of her? Must she hold herself in higher regard, convince herself she’s more important? Of course not! Teams, especially Voltron, are built with assets. While not everyone might be ‘equal’ in the traditional sense, they are all integral, and expecting sacrifices is not the stance I am trying to take here. But the point of a team, especially a team so small and vital as Voltron, is that everyone is willing to be the sacrifice, as they have to be, and Allura simply can’t handle that. She shows us this from the beginning, when she disguises herself as Galra and is taken in place of anyone on the team she barely knows, and again in Oriande with the White Lion, and finally in the piece of shit canon ending. Allura has to be the sacrifice. Every time.

And how could she not be? The last time she spared herself of sacrifice, she lost her entire people. The last time she let others sacrifice themselves for her, she was left alone, to shoulder a war bigger and greater than she could ever handle. Allura is painfully familiar with the agony of being the survivor, and she cannot do that again. She cannot and will not put herself through that again. As the Black Paladin, she would have to let her team make sacrifices — she would have to let them have their own agency, their own decisions; she would have to let them choose to get hurt and choose to do risky things and analyse and react and act. As leader she would have to trust her team to put themselves in harm’s way, and not only that, but she would have to authorize them to do so.

Like Shiro cannot last as the Champion, Allura cannot last as the Survivor. Shiro cannot even last in Voltron, and it is foolish to keep Allura out of it. A lion change is absolutely necessary for the show to move forward, for the war to move forward. The initial team was doomed to fail.

How would it change, then? What would fit? I know I’ve said my piece. I know who I think would fit where. But since I’ve been comparing character arcs to their roles as paladins, I’d like to keep doing that — what about Keith makes me so sure that he’s the true Black Paladin?

I’ll show you with process of elimination. I know Black Paladin Lance is a favourite, and I can see why. Lance has many leadership qualities, is a good tactician, and cares deeply. However, aside from his desire for power making him less suitable for the role, Lance functions best as support, despite how much he hates it. He is the one who knows how to pick up the pieces of a broken situation. He is an excellent guide, which makes him an unbelievably valuable second. He is adaptable, so he can fill in for many different roles. He can step in for leader when necessary, but putting him in Black would encourage a more active role for him; would force him to anticipate and plan for specific outcomes rather than his strength as one who analyses any outcome as it arises and works within it then. Lance could be the Black Paladin, yes, but taking him from the body and placing him in the head would be a fool’s choice. It would be crippling to Voltron, to put the jack of all trades as a master of one. Lance’s arc is all about learning to love and trust himself as he is, as the seventh wheel. Not to put him in charge of the vehicle.

Well, what about Hunk? Hunk is incredibly intelligent and analytical. He probably could lead Voltron, and did in several occasions. But Hunk’s arc is interesting because it was handled so early in the show. Unlike the rest of the team, Hunk’s arcs were solved largely in the first season. His biggest flaws were his distrust of people and, literally, his inability to fly. He could not take his feet off the ground. He was so untrusting that he could not manage to take a step forward. However his bonding with Yellow and trust with the team and their subsequent and returned trust resolved these issues, more or less, which is probably why Hunk was treated more and more like a side character the longer VLD went on. Hunk didn’t need the role of Black Paladin because he had settled into the Yellow Paladin in a way that was sustainable.

Pidge is in a similar boat. Her arc, primarily, has been about finding her family. Voltron was almost second priority for her, or at least not her only first priority. And understandably so! As the youngest she was afforded with that lenience. Her growth was about growing into her own pain, about becoming her own person alongside what she had become in the absence of her brother. As the Black Paladin, she would no longer have the space to prioritize her search for her family alongside Voltron, so her position as Black Paladin would be unstable. She is best suited in Green, where she can focus on several things at once.

That really only leaves Keith. In many ways it comes full circle — the Black Lion healing from her grief by choosing the man who ran from his Galran heritage and his power as a leader, rather than the man who chose nationalism and power over anything else. Keith is Zarkon’s direct opposite, and as such is the other side of the same coin, the one who is truly Black’s Chosen. We know this because Keith is the one who wields the Black Bayard, and Keith is, from the very beginning, the one the rest of the team chooses to follow — I ask you whether it was for Shiro that the three other humans ran off to chase in the desert, or Keith? Who was it that Lance could not leave alone? Who was it that piqued Hunk’s curiousity? Who was it that challenged Pidge to choose Voltron, rather than the search for her family?

That covers Black Paladin Keith. But what about Red Paladin Lance? I’ve established already why he cannot be the Black Paladin, but why did he have to move from Blue? For that, I bring you another few slices from early, S2 and previous canon:

“I thought what we had was special!” “Seventh wheel, if you count the Alteans.” More than once, Lance laments over being forgotten. He struggles with feeling like anything but the extra, the unnecessary. Whether or not Blue Chose him is irrelevant — he does not feel Chosen by her. The Pilot of the Blue Lion position for Lance is as unsustainable as the Pilot of the Black Lion position for Shiro — Lance does not trust it. He doesn’t trust himself in the role, and doesn’t trust Blue in having chosen it for him. Obviously, this is not the role for him.

But Red? Keith’s Red Paladin, at least? Yes, he struggles with feeling like Keith’s second, but that is literally his arc. Lance’s development is about becoming his own person despite his own misgivings about being second-best. His role as the Red Paladin is the fulfilling of his arc, and is thus the best Lion for him, the Chosen. And Red did Choose him, mind you. There was an adjustment period, of course there was, but Red did more than let Lance pilot her. She opened up new possibilities for Lance — think the broadsword — that he could not see. Red saw his potential and revelled in it. She Chose him.

Lastly — and this turned out to be less relevant to the essay than I expected, but I do want to go over it a tad — is Shiro’s tie to humanity. I mentioned two important points: Shiro’s connection to mortality makes him the most intimate with his humanity out of all the characters, and he is undoubtedly the flattest character of them all. That is, if you don’t consider his clone to be part of his character.

But I’m begging you to reconsider. Reconsider, perhaps, who the clone is — Haggar had pure access to Shiro for a year, you remember. His thoughts, his dreams, his mannerisms, his priorities, his body. Even him at his most human, his most deranged, his most scared. She had Shiro then. She had Shiro when he had nothing to look forward to. She had Shiro when he hurt his crew to make sure they would live, at direct cost to himself.

She stripped him of his humanity — his connection to his own mortality. She took his illness from him. And who, then, did she return to the team? Who was clone? Shiro, mostly. The clone was happy to play with the team. The clone was clever. The clone believed, fully, that he was Shiro, only he was angrier and meaner, a little, and less capable of shoving down his own pain. Shiro, stripped of his tie to humanity and mortality, stripped of his compulsive need to be strained and stressed and the one everyone else can rely on, the Role rather than the Person, is emotional. He has flaws and outbursts. He can’t manage his own pain. He is is cruelest to the one person on the team — Lance — who canonically reminds him closest of himself.

Shiro, in the purest form that Haggar can make him, is flawed and self-hating. That is where our love for him comes. Not the man who pushes himself down at the same time as he sacrifices his personality to be someone for others, but the man who is struggling and can’t keep it locked down. That’s where it comes from.

Anyways. Like with my other essay, I’ll admit that this analysis is probably reading into this. The writing of VLD was flawed, at best, but regardless, I think the lion change is a rich amalgamation of the characters and who they really are.