#the switch occurred mid s2

[atorionsbelt]

it’s honestly insane how fast ted lasso went from being a series i casually enjoyed, to one that activated my ancient rooted hyperfixation tunnel vision and dormant power of getting severely attached to new fictional characters. i wonder what changed (it started to be about gay people)

[enderspawn]

still thinking about... a prime defenders power swap based one-off/case fic thing. probably set vaguely early/mid s1 era*, probably caused somehow by le frog like every other oneshot. the practicality of swapping their powers is handwaved, its just some sci-fi magic bullshit

dakota gets william's ghost powers, vyncent gets dakota's super strength and speed, and william gets vyncent's class powers and the greats.

dakota gets so excited, bc williams powers are so cool! he probably immediately starts abusing the wisp form and giving william a heart attack about it. vyncent accidentally rips a door off the hinges trying to open it. william has a second heart attack when he hears a voice telling him to go to bed at 2 am when hes "alone".

but also like... the Key here is that the power swap does a freaky friday type thing where they also learn something abt one another-- both from lived experience and the entire thing causing them to have to sit down and talk to one another abt their powers.

william has to learn to give up control with vyncent's powers, since he literally Can Not Be In Control when one of the greats takes over- its kinda a Big Deal for him. not only that, but allows him to get to know the greats outside of vyncent as a whole. if you want a ghostknife angle, maybe theres some light shovel talk bc its funny. when they inevitable switch back, it helps him feel more safe w the wisp form-- or at least that ppl will be by his side if worst comes to worst. it also helps him better understand vyncent and the greats and Their relationship (much like how the 10 month gap did, but More So)

vyncent has to deal with everything being so much More due to the enhanced senses. (which is also then neat foreshadowing to dakota's sensory overload mechanic in s2, since that only occured after dakota spent a while in Not-A-City and vyncent grew up in a fantasy medieval setting). i want him to go to dakota to ask how to handle it, bc the fan in william's room is keeping him up at night and he's already broken 4 doors. dakota kinda shrugs and tries to counsel vyncent, giving him advice that dakota learned on his own. in that overly casual dakota way, he'd drop his Tragic Backstory(tm) too which throws vyncent bc he always thinks of dakota as so immature and out of touch, someone who hasnt Gone Thru shit and needs to grow up. so realizing just how much dakota has gone thru and Goes thru each day to deal with his own powers kinda changes his perspective (bc that scene of vyncent yelling at dakota.... yeah </3)

dakota is having a Whole Ball abt it, and despite how uncontrollable william's s1 powers can be he seemingly even has it under better control. but that doesnt stop william from asking him to tone it down or Stop, which dakota ignores until he realizes william is serious. he asks why and william gives him the whole tightrope explanation, that he's scared something is going to happen to him yeah but hes terrified somethings gonna happen to dakota. dakota makes a comment abt how even if it did, it would be okay! bc he wouldve been saving someone else, so its worth it. william blows up at him, asking what they would do-- what would happen to william's powers, what would we be without you? etc. it kinda bashes into dakota's head that he has something in his life to be around for, ppl who care about him. not only that, but it also makes some of william's fears Click for him. He still may think its worth the risk in certain scenarios still, but he understands why william is so hesitant-- bc he wouldnt want to lose william, and apparently there are ppl who wouldnt want to lose him either.

in short, they all get a bit of a different Thing out of it, like a different lesson/revelation-- william's is power based, vyncent's is relationship based, and dakota's a bit of both.

after they've all had long enough to learn their various Lessons and hijinx, some hand-wavey, also-probably-le-frog-caused thing happens to switch them back. BOOM, case fic/oneshot done.

*set in this time for simplicity? for one, no s1 finale means william's relationship w the wisp form is simpler to explore bc theres no additional trauma. post s1 is possible, im just lazy FJKFJFDSF. for two, i... did not work ashe into this while brainstorming </3 both for power swapping and for just Interacting w the crew, he would add another layer of possible development and convos. for three, i dont know how the s2 ep11 break thing will impact their power sets yet so.... excluded from the power swap </3

i also just think its something where it would cause a lot of convos they DO have in canon way earlier to achieve the outcome i want, which doesnt rlly work if they've already had those conversations (primarily looking at you, s1 finale convo).

[whenshesayshush]

I want to know about Only war if there's a winner!

Hi Skye! So this will actually be the next installment of my Rivusa Post-S2 series (which you beta for me and I love you for it💛) and it is currently the bane of my existence.

I switch the POV from Riven to Musa every fic, so this one is set to be from Musa's POV, and it will address her trauma surrounding death, specifically her mom's. The previous three fics have been overall pretty light-hearted, but this fic will, at least for some parts, lean more towards Angst as the situation they're in regarding the Blood Witch war turns darker. That said, I'm not sold on the plot line I currently have and I haven't been able to make much progress in recent weeks.

I do really like what I have written for the start of this fic, though, so here's the first two paragraphs:

The first Specialist to die in the Blood Witch war is Deirdre, a second-year with strawberry blonde curls to her mid-back, straight A’s in both Celtic Runes and Otherworld History, and a massive crush on Mikey that everyone but him knows about. Musa had envied both her Dutch braiding skills and her footwork in equal measure, and had been meaning to ask for a lesson in the submission hold she’d seen the girl perform on the elbow of one of her mind-controlled teammates during the night Alfea was attacked. She’s not there when it happens, still only cherry-picked for missions they need a mind fairy on — which hasn’t occurred much since they restocked the antidote — but she’s in the courtyard with Terra and Aisha when the mission crew gets out of their jeeps, their faces ghostly pale except for Riven’s. His is an angry shade of red, jaw clenched and eyes ablaze as he marches straight across the grass and is met by Silva in the doorway of the East Wing.

[ptw30]

So you're saying this theory about Shiro being bp in pre-production, it expanded upon s7 to s8? I thought it'd be just the scripts but there're so many inconsistecies with lion color and lines it baffles me. If they had almost two seasons ready, why would they put effort in remaking them, wouldn't that make up for a higher budget? why would DW EPs change their minds about the former version? (also, I'm sure this means there's no alt s8, just a s8 over a s8)

So which of the four people I started to explain this theory to are you? 

To clarify - no, they didn’t change the Black Paladin role from Shiro to Keith in pre-production. According to this - 

(Keith’s panel is double the size of everyone else and off-center, thus taking over Lotor’s panel.)

- the EPs changed Seasons 7 & 8 in post-production. 

The Theory: Seasons 7 & 8 were a mess because essentially, we were watching different parts of Seasons 3-6 that were re-purposed following the insertion of the clone subplot. 

After watching Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 8 and seeing how Allura and Kuron’s struggles paralleled, I realized - they don’t parallel. These struggles match. Honerva invades Kuron’s mind just like she invaded Allura’s, is connected to Kuron and Allura through some sort of mind-link, and eventually is able to override Kuron’s mind while Allura receives visions in hers.But why would the EPs and writers do the same fight over? Why would they choose to redo parts of the story, rather than advancing the plot?That got me thinking about other theories about reused episodes. Coupled with “Knights of Light” being Shiro’s paladin journey sans Shiro - it occurred to me – Seasons 7 and 8 are, in part, Seasons 3-6. And thus – here’s what I think the original order of the episodes were, heavily influenced by interviews and foreshadowing, and most likely, a bit of bias, too.

Season 3 (released as Seasons 3 & 4)

Season 3 up to “Hole in the Sky” was originally plotted and shown as is; however, we know from EP interviews that “Reunion” was originally slated after “Hole in the Sky” and “The Legend Begins” was a two-parter.

After the clone subplot was conceived, “Reunion” was pushed back, “The Legend Begins” cut to one episode (but footage reused later), and “The Journey” inserted. The reused footage of Lotor’s ships and Shiro being added after the fact (where he barely interacts with the rest of the paladins) puts most scenes from “The Road Home” and “The Way Forward” in Season 3. 

I also want to add in here –  while the EPs said they wanted Shiro to die at the end of S2, they originally said earlier that the execs told them Shiro couldn’t be out a full season. That means Shiro was slated to return – my guess within 26 episodes, a full production season, not a full release season (which is 13 episodes).

So I surmise Season 3 originally looked something like this:

Changing of the Guard

Red Paladin

The Hunted

Hole in the Sky

Reunion

Matt and Kuron’s Keith’s reunion in “Black Site” with parts of“Trailing the Comet”

The Legend Begins Part 1

The Legend Begins Part 2 (with the flashbacks we saw originally in “Knights of Light” Part 1 and 2) 

Code of Honor (switching out the scene with Kuron for a scene with Kolivan; Keith returns to save the team) and/or The Journey Within 

Fight scenes from “The Road Home” with paladins being captured/Zethrid and Ezor torture scenes/Black Site ending

The Voltron Show 

Begin the Blitz 

A New Defender

Just want to add – I wonder if originally, the five paladins stuck their bayards into their lions in “A New Defender” to give Voltron that extra punch, rather than Allura powering up Voltron with a deus ex machina. Then Lance seeing Shiro in the Void would have been the cliffhanger, not Keith almost dying. That would also explain why Keith’s near-death experience was never addressed by the team - cuz originally, it didn’t happen.

Season 4 (released as Seasons 5 & 6)

An early theory by @sol1056​ was that Keith was the second son of Zarkon, born in the rift. It makes sense, particularly since Krolia had no bearing on the plot other than birthing Keith. Sure, she found the Blue Lion on Earth, but as the Galra Empire was originally announced to be misogynistic, and thus having no female warriors other than Lotor’s generals – then Krolia was never meant to be a Galra soldier and therefore, could have not found the Blue Lion. 

I surmise – from Zarkon’s seemingly infiltrating Shiro’s mind in the pilot episode, to Haggar being able to hack Black and Shiro’s bond literally, and Red being on Sendak’s ship, where Shiro also spent some time – Shiro helped the Galra, perhaps inadvertently or unwillingly, to locate the Red and Blue Lions. 

Also, please note - Cosmo was originally inserted into this season, and as you know from previous posts, Cosmo most likely took the place of Shiro in the script, seeing as Cosmo and the Black Lion have the same teleporting abilities. (Yes, I believe the paladins were going to go all AtLA and get powers.)

For this season, I start to get a bit creative since the blanks are gaping here, as the clone subplot came to a head:

The Prisoner

Blood Duel (with Haggar remembering Keith)

Postmortem (if not in the last season finale, then here is where Shiro would yell to Lance and Keith wouldn’t have been in the Void, seeing as he’s not the Black Paladin OR Allura missing from the Void and Keith in Red’s position)

Kral Zera (a bit different, with Keith and Lotor going to Kral Zera; also, there would have been fallout from the team finding out Shiro may be alive)

Bloodlines (Lotor and Keith finding out they are related)

White Lion

Omega Shield (Allura having issues, not Kuron)

“The Colony” – changed as Keith doesn’t find Romelle (potential deletion all together)

Black Paladin redux but this time with the team finding Shiro’s body being drained by Lotor - Lotor and Keith fight

Knights of Lights Part 1 – team goes to find Shiro with Allura feeling for Shiro’s presence, not using the entity; minus the og!paladins flashbacks, which now aired in the third season; Keith says “you’re back to Shiro,” not Black. 

Knights of Lights Part 2 – Keith meets Zarkon surrounded by the paladins; found family trope achieved; Shiro’s history in the arena revealed or even “A Little Adventure” flashbacks

Defenders of All Universe - Voltron vs. Sincline

Please note: “Knights of Light” is a bit of anomaly. I feel it would work better as a mid-season climax - perhaps set in Season 7 - but if Shiro was to return prior by the end of the original Season 6 and Allura was having issues due to Honerva going to Oriande, then KoL would have to be in this season. 

Also, since “The Colony” was literally an eight-minute scene inserted in the middle of an episode and later, the Alteans become pawns - there’s a chance the Colony could have been deleted all together and Honerva, as Empress of the Galra Empire, still could have completed her plan. 

Season 5 (released as Season 7)

This season originally had Shiro back in Black with Lance and Keith going back to their original lions. Allura would be the one on the Atlas bridge by the end of the season, not Shiro. 

Considering this - as well as the re-purposed parts from Season 3-6 - here is where budget question comes in. Moving “Prisoner’s Dilemma” here so Shiro unlocks his bayard and seeing as Pidge should have gotten her bayard upgrade after Olkarion, the original Season 5 may have looked something like this:  

Shiro and Keith parts from “A Little Adventure” (originally written for “Across the Universe”) 

The Ruins (Shiro teleporting him and Keith)

Battle Scars

Prisoner’s Dilemma 

The Last Stand Part 1

The Last Stand Part 2

Know Your Enemy

Heart of the Lion

Trial by Fire

Lions’ Pride Part 1

Lions’ Pride Part 2

Adding in here “Monsters & Mana” and “The Feud”  - you have thirteen episodes overall, but my guess is these filler episodes were added to take the place of content that eventually was ejected from the plot - such as Lotor’s redemption and Shiro’s history, Lance and Blue getting back together, etc. 

Season 6 (released as Season 8)

I’m not even going to guess how this season originally looked, though we can assume “Genesis,” “Uncharted Regions,” “The Zenith,” and “The End is The Beginning” were all in the original rundown but with Allura in Atlas, Lotor returning to help Voltron, and the team back to its original line-up. And seeing as Allura went to Oriande and helped build Sincline, the natural progression of her storyline would have been to change Atlas on the fly in Season 7 and then in Season 8, merge Atlas and Voltron. 

But more importantly, here’s where the budget was really made up -  

Launch Date (filler)

The Grudge 

Genesis (maybe the White Lion wasn’t supposed to die originally)

Day Forty-Seven (filler)

Clear Day 

Uncharted Regions

The Zenith

The End is the Beginning 

There are only eight episodes created here - not thirteen. Coupled with using this season’s budget for “Razor’s Edge” and some of the scenes from “Bloodlines,” that brings the total to ten. By injecting the clone subplot and choosing to redo the storyline for Black Paladin!Keith, the EPs were able to cut-and-paste together the remaining episodes of this season. 

There are also short cuts in production you can see, such as leaving errors in animation and/or post-production. If the EPs and team were truly making sure VLD was the best it could be, we wouldn’t have:

Shiro calling for the MFE pilots to be ready to launch, and the Iverson doing it again less than four minutes later in “Uncharted Regions”

Atlas saying that it would cover the lions and then Keith saying they were giving Atlas a shot (A shot at what? Atlas was just supposed to help) in “The Zenith” 

Quintessence colors that aren’t uniform, considering Keith’s bayard now changes to the same color of Black’s tail when Shiro pilots (There is a gentleman whose sole job at DreamWorks is make sure the colors align.)

Luca coming back from the dead, Lance in Blue, Yellow having Red’s fire power in “The Zenith” 

Reused dialogue lines from previous seasons and perhaps even recorded dialogue with Shiro as the Black Paladin - Shiro as part of the field team in “Day Forty-Seven,” Shiro standing in for Griffin in “Prisoner’s Dilemma,” almost Shiro’s entire dialogue from “The Grudge”

Lance and Allura’s conversations with the original paladins not making any sense in “Knights of Light,” seeing as Allura isn’t overlooked. In fact, Honerva wanted to recruit her. 

Pretty much - VLD cut corners in the last seasons to make up the budget and delivered us a torn-apart story with offensive message and yet another set of ridiculous wings. 

TL;DR - Who really knows what happened with VLD, but what DreamWorks delivered wasn’t the original episode rundown, seeing as the team was supposed to be in their original lion line-up by the end of the series with Allura and Lotor being alive in Atlas and Sincline, respectively. And tbh - it hurts to see what we could have had and know there was an incredible story the EPs and DreamWorks not failed to deliver but refused to. 

[kingofthewilderwest]

I think why I’m intrigued about VLD’s current storytelling direction between Shiro and Keith as respective leaders... is because it’s a direction I myself wouldn’t take as a writer.

I respect the writers completely and believe they’ve already proved that they know what they’re doing in this series. Long-term story arcs have been beautifully laid out and paced; individual episodes nicely formatted; foreshadowing has been cleverly built up for instances like Keith’s Galra heritage and Operation Kuron; parallels and divergences from Defender of the Universe make for intentional work. So I am quite sure they know what they’re doing here, too.

Yet what I see in the story are two fascinating conflicting directions for character growth occurring simultaneously. How one would most logically take Keith from this point... and how one would most logically take Shiro from this point... sort of conflict.

On one side, we have Shiro. He’s a character who started in the Black Lion as the leader of the team. While he is a natural leader, he also contains his fair share of weaknesses and needed growth to be a leader. His greatest challenges thus far - especially in S1-2 - have been handling his PTSD, and struggling to have a strong bond the Black Lion. I feel that neither of these arcs have come to completion. He’s still struggling through trauma and hasn’t dealt with it. 

And as far as the Black Lion and a strong bond are concerned... I don’t feel like the story is done with that either. I’ve seen great analyses discussing how Shiro’s bond with the Black Lion might not be meant to be... how the Black Lion shows preference to Keith even as of S2... and how the growth in the story is the Black Lion moving increasingly decidedly away from Shiro. There’s a lot of merit to this idea, in which case Shiro’s arc would be about him moving away from a Paladin. 

But I feel that doesn’t completely take into account we have seen multiple episodes dedicated to Shiro building a bond with Black even in S2. And the takeaway from those episodes is not that Shiro is becoming increasingly incompatible with Black, that he’d be a better fit elsewhere. “Space Mall” shows Shiro spending a lot of time to build a stronger bond with Black... and that works. Black doesn’t get tempted by Zarkon again after this point because Shiro demonstrates an ability to trust rather than command the Black Lion. Shiro leaves the exercise feeling his bond with Black has deepened. And then there’s the S2 finale. Shiro demonstrates growth with Black again... by unlocking teleportation abilities in Black and retrieving the black bayard. The black bayard he’s seen using in the show opening, in fact! He’s had growth in his bond with Black, even while Black has currently moved from Shiro to Keith.

I as a writer would therefore feel like the logical progression forward in Shiro’s arc is that he continues this growth. Take Shiro a step back away from Black so that he can handle the personal issues debilitating him. Have him finally quit instinctively hiding his PTSD, open up about it, work through it best he can. Have him quit taking on everyone else’s burdens as a leader without seeing to his own problems. Have him take up a support role that helps him act as a more well-rounded member of the team rather than the single leadership head every other Paladin reveres. Then have him return to Black with all the more power to his character.

For dropping Shiro as a leader would be an odd step back for his character growth. It’s not that being a Paladin is an automatic “upgrade”, and it’s not that he can’t do great works outside of being a Paladin, and it’s not that a broken bond with Black means he can’t move forward, either... but the focus of his character arc thus far almost seems to necessitate he returns to Black at some point. To have that continued character growth where he gets over his own inner demons. To have that continued character growth where he can, in fact, build that bond with Black. To have Shiro never return to Black is of course possible, and his bond can be talked away as “Keith fits Black better, I realize now I can’t be the best fit,” but it would be very hard to have a satisfying character growth arc that way. It would be very hard to build a satisfying character arc with growth and development that way. It’s hard to build Shiro and have him develop increasingly powerfully as a character without some building with Black.

I can't easily see his character arc feeling satisfactory without giving him back Black. Not with all the time they’ve spent on Shiro having positive growth with Black throughout S1-2. The trajectory he’s been on thus far has been building up with Black... not learning to step aside from Black.

Now on the other side, there’s Keith. Let’s also not forget Lance and Allura and their respective character growths, too, but I’m focusing mostly on Keith right now. The whole “two leaders” concept, as it were. Keith’s obviously being built up as a leader - first Shiro tells him to be successor, then Keith does take on the role of Black Paladin, and now he’s in the stage where he’s learning what it takes to be a good leader. He’s still not making the right decisions, but we see that kernel of good leadership ability in him. 

Of course it’d only make sense to develop that! Write that story of a character coming into his own as a leader. Write that story of how he builds and becomes a powerful head to Voltron. Write that story where Keith Kogane becomes the leader we are so familiar with in DotU and VF and all the other past Voltron materials out there.

To not write Keith into that firm leadership role doesn’t make sense. It’s clear where his trajectory is headed: become a leader to the team. To completely abandon the central concept of Keith always being a leader in DotU and VF would be bizarre. Keith’s always been leader. Keith always will be leader.  You can’t peel him back into the Red Lion now.

I as a writer wouldn’t make this plot tangle myself. We have two characters, Keith and Shiro, who seem that they would best develop forward by being in Black and leading Voltron. To not give Shiro back Black feels unsatisfactory. To have Keith lose Black feels unsatisfactory. And I think that’s why the fandom is so much in debate about what the state of the Lion switch will be. Everyone sees different angles on how different trajectories work, based upon what storytelling momentums work. 

I would have taken the less complicated route. Give Shiro a solid character arc in S1-2 where he learns how to bond with the Black Lion. Make it feel even more decidedly like he and Black have a lasting bond by the end of S2 rather than one that’s just been unlocked to a new stage. Either that, or have him just about to start to make headway. Perhaps still have him going through PTSD struggles, and just starting to make headway... and then have him die at the S2 climax. Build in that parallel between VLD Shiro and Shirogane Takashi of Golion. Create that logical transition point in which Keith must step into the role of the Black Lion’s Paladin. Build Keith from there into the leader we always knew.

That sort of story arc would be satisfying because the story would start with an unexpected Black Paladin... and then explain how Keith came to fill that role. It’d have enough of an arc to Shiro that it wouldn’t feel like the writers are dropping a character arc (or either that, they’re intentionally severing one for emotional effect), and of course it’d allow Keith to have a great arc without another character mingling in the same area as team leader. It’d be a great stepping stone for Lance and Allura, too. It’d be a great, sad moment of emotional impact and demonstrate the risk the Paladins must take in their duties. And it’d have a lot of evocation to the original content from which the Voltron series came.

Honestly, from S1 E1 I thought Shiro was slotted to die.

That can never happen in VLD now. Everyone’s realized Shiro can’t have a death mid-story, that he probably can’t die at all and have a logical story be told. The writers have introduced too many new, complex tangles regarding Shiro in S3. You wouldn’t throw in a whole story of a clone without wanting to do much more with the character! The start of Operation Kuron signifies a huge launch point into much more development with Shiro.

So there’s part of me that’s nervous some character won’t get the development they need. Another part of me is selfishly nervous that Shiro won’t get the development I want. There’s another part of me that feels I have The Narrative Plan for future seasons with Shiro and Keith all figured out. Another part of me that has No Idea What The Writers Are Planning. And a whole bunch of me is very intrigued about how this will all play out.

The writers know what they’re doing. We all see they’re clearly setting up character growth arcs. They’ve already proven they can execute great writing. It’s just a matter of us as audience members watching that writing unfold.