At 18, everyone receive a superpower. Your childhood friend got a power-absorption, your best friends got time control, and they quickly rise into top 100 most powerful superheroes. You got a mediocre superpower, but somehow got into the top 10. Today they visit you asking how you did it.
“Power absorption?” you ask him over your pasta, which you are currently absorbing powerfully. in the background, a tv is reading out what the Phoenix extremeist group has done recently. bodies, stacking.
tim nods, pushing his salad around. “it’s kind of annoying.” he’s gone vegan ever since he could talk to animals. his cheeks are sallow. “yesterday i absorbed static and i can’t stop shocking myself.”
“you don’t know what from,” shay is detangling her hair at the table, even though it’s not polite. about a second ago, her hair was perfect, which implies she’s been somewhere in the inbetween. “try millions of multiverses that your powers conflict with.”
“did we die in the last one?” you grin and she grins and tim grins but nobody answers the question.
now she has a cut over her left eye and her hair is shorter. she looks tired and tim looks tired and you look down at your 18-year-old hands, which are nothing.
they ship out tomorrow. they go out to the frontlines or wherever it is that superheroes go to fight supervillains; the cream of the crop. the starlight banner kids.
“you both are trying too hard,” you tell them, “couldn’t you have been, like, really good at surfing?”
“god,” shay groans, “what i’d give to only be in the olympics.”
xxx
in the night, tim is asleep. on the way home, he absorbed telekinesis, and hates it too.
shay looks at you. “i’m scared,” she says.
you must not have died recently, because she looks the same she did at dinner, cut healing slowly over her eye the way it’s supposed to, not the hyper-quickness of a timejump. just shay, living in the moment when the moment is something everyone lives in. her eyes are wide and dark the way brown eyes can be, that swelling fullness that feels so familiar and warm, that piercing darkness that feels like a stone at the back of your tongue.
“you should be,” you say.
her nose wrinkles, she opens her mouth, but you plow on.
“they’re going to take one look at you and be like, ‘gross, shay? no thanks. you’re too pretty. it’s bringing down like, morale, and things’. then they’ll kick you out and i’ll live with you in a box and we’ll sell stolen cans of ravioli.”
she’s grinning. “like chef boyardee or like store brand?”
“store brand but we print out chef boyardee labels and tape them over the can so we can mark up the price.”
“where do we get the tape?”
“we, uh,” you look into those endless dark eyes, so much like the night, so much like a good hot chocolate, so much like every sleepover you’ve had with the two of your best friends, and you say, “it’s actually just your hair. i tie your hair around the cans to keep the label on.”
she throws a pillow at you.
you both spend a night planning what you’ll do in the morning when shay is kicked out of Squadron 8, Division 1; top rankers that are all young. you’ll both run away to the beach and tim will be your intel and you’ll burn down the whole thing. you’re both going to open a bakery where you will do the baking and she’ll use her time abilities to just, like, speed things up so you don’t have to wake up at dawn. you’re both going to become wedding planners that only do really extreme weddings.
she falls asleep on your shoulder. you do not sleep at all.
in the morning, they are gone.
xxx
squadron 434678, Division 23467 is basically “civilian status.” you still have to know what to expect and all that stuff. you’re glad that you’re taking extra classes at college; you’re kind of bored re-learning the stuff you were already taught in high school. there are a lot of people who need help, and you’re good at that, so you help them.
tim and shay check in from time to time, but they’re busy saving the world, so you don’t fault them for it. in the meantime, you put your head down and work, and when your work is done, you help the people who can’t finish their work. and it kind of feels good. kind of.
xxx
at twenty, squadron 340067, division 2346 feels like a good fit. tim and you go out for ice cream in a new place that rebuilt after the Phoenix group burned it down. you’ve chosen nurse-practitioner as your civilian job, because it seems to fit, but you’re not released for full status as civilian until you’re thirty, so it’s been a lot of office work.
tim’s been on the fritz a lot lately, overloading. you’re worried they’ll try to force him out on the field. he’s so young to be like this.
“i feel,” he says, “like it all comes down to this puzzle. like i’m never my own. i steal from other people’s boxes.”
you wrap your hand around his. “sometimes,” you say, “we love a river because it is a reflection.”
he’s quiet a long time after that. a spurt of flame licks from under his eyes.
“i wish,” he says, “i could believe that.”
xxx
twenty three has you in squad 4637, division 18. really you’ve just gotten here because you’re good at making connections. you know someone who knows someone who knows you as a good kid. you helped a woman onto a bus and she told her neighbor who told his friend. you’re mostly in the filing department, but you like watching the real superheroes come in, get to know some of them. at this level, people have good powers but not dangerous ones. you learn how to help an 18 year old who is a loaded weapon by shifting him into a non-violent front. you get those with pstd home where they belong. you put your head down and work, which is what you’re good at.
long nights and long days and no vacations is fine until everyone is out of the office for candlenights eve. you’re the only one who didn’t mind staying, just in case someone showed up needing something.
the door blows open. when you look up, he’s bleeding. you jump to your feet.
“oh,” you say, because you recognize the burning bird insignia on his chest, “I think you have the wrong office.”
“i just need,” he spits onto the ground, sways, collapses.
well, okay. so, that’s, not, like. great. “uh,” you say, and you miss shay desperately, “okay.”
you find the source of the bleeding, stabilize him for when the shock sets in, get him set up on a desk, sew him shut. two hours later, you’ve gotten him a candlenights present and stabilized his vitals. you’ve also filed him into a separate folder (it’s good to be organized) and found him a home, far from the warfront.
when he wakes up, you give him hot chocolate (god, how you miss shay), and he doesn’t smile. he doesn’t smile at the gift you’ve gotten him (a better bulletproof vest, one without the Phoenix on it), or the stitches. that’s okay. you tell him to take the right medications, hand them over to him, suggest a doctor’s input. and then you hand over his folder with a new identity in it and a new house and civilian status. you take a deep breath.
he opens it and bursts into tears. he doesn’t say anything. he just leaves and you have to clean up the blood, which isn’t very nice of him. but it’s candlenights. so whatever. hopefully he’ll learn to like his gift.
xxx
squadron 3046, division 2356 is incredibly high for a person like you to fit. but still, you fit, because you’re good at organization and at hard work, and at knowing how to hold on when other people don’t see a handhold.
shay is home. you’re still close, the two of you, even though she feels like she exists on another planet. the more security you’re privy to, the more she can tell you.
you brush her hair as she speaks about the endless man who never dies, and how they had to split him up and hide him throughout the planet. she cries when she talks about how much pain he must be in.
“can you imagine?” she whispers, “i mean, i know he’s phoenix, but can you imagine?”
“one time i had to work retail on black friday,” you say.
she sniffles.
“one time my boss put his butt directly on my hand by accident and i couldn’t say anything so i spent a whole meeting with my hand directly up his ass,” you say.
her eyes are so brown, and filling, and there are scars on her you’ve never noticed that might be new or very, very, very old; and neither of you know exactly how much time she’s actually been alive for.
“i mean,” you say, “yeah that might hurt but one time i said goodbye to someone but they were walking in the same direction. i mean can you imagine.”
she laughs, finally, even though it’s weakly, and says, “one time even though i can manipulate time i slept in and forgot to go to work even though i was leading a presentation and i had to look them in the face later to tell them that.”
“you’re a compete animal,” you tell her, and look into those eyes, so sad and full of timelines you’ll never witness, “you should be kicked out completely.”
she wipes her face. “find me in a box,” she croaks, “selling discount ravioli.”
xxx
you don’t know how it happens. but you guess the word gets around. you don’t think you like being known to them as someone they can go to, but it’s not like they’ve got a lot of options. many of them just want to be out of it, so you get them out, you guess.
you explain to them multiple times you haven’t done a residency yet and you really only know what an emt would, but they still swing by. every time they show up at your office, you feel your heart in your chest: this is it, this is how you die, this is how it ends.
“so, like, this group” you say, trying to work the system’s loopholes to find her a way out of it, “from ashes come all things, or whatever?”
she shrugs. you can tell by looking at her that she’s dangerous. “it’s corny,” she says. another shrug. “i didn’t mean to wind up a criminal.”
you don’t tell her that you sort of don’t know how one accidentally becomes a criminal, since you kind-of-sort-of help criminals out, accidentally.
“i don’t believe any of that stuff,” she tells you, “none of that whole… burn it down to start it over.” she swallows. “stuff just happens. and happens. and you wake up and it’s still happening, even though you wish it wasn’t.”
you think about shay, and how she’s covered in scars, and her crying late at night because of things nobody else ever saw.
“yeah,” you say, and print out a form, “i get that.”
and you find a dangerous woman a normal home.
xxx
“you’re squadron 905?”
“division 34754,” you tell him. watch him look down at your ID and certification and read your superpower on the card and then look back up to you and then back down to the card and then back up at you, and so on. he licks his chapped lips and stands in the cold.
this happens a lot. but you smile. the gatekeeper is frowning, but then hanson walks by. “oh shit,” he says, “it’s you! come right on in!” he gives you a hug through your rolled-down window.
the gatekeeper is in a stiff salute now. gulping in terror. hanson is one of the strongest people in this sector, and he just hugged you.
the gate opens. hanson swaggers through. you shrug to the gatekeeper. “i helped him out one time.”
inside they’re debriefing. someone has shifted sides, someone powerful, someone wild. it’s not something you’re allowed to know about, but you know it’s bad. so you put your head down, and you work, because that’s what you’re good at, after all. you find out the gatekeeper’s name and send him a thank-you card and also handmade chapstick and some good earmuffs.
shay messages you that night. i have to go somewhere, she says, i can’t explain it, but there’s a mission and i might be gone a long time.
you stare at the screen for a long time. your fingers type out three words. youq erase them. you instead write where could possibly better than stealing chef boyardee with me?
she doesn’t read it. you close the tab.
and you put your head down. and work.
xxx
it’s in a chili’s. like, you don’t even like chili’s? chili’s sucks, but the boss ordered it so you’re here to pick it up, wondering if he gave you enough money to cover. things have been bad recently. thousands dying. whoever switched sides is too powerful to stop. they destroy anyone and anything, no matter the cost.
the phoenix fire smells like pistachios, you realize. you feel at once part of yourself and very far. it happens so quickly, but you feel it slowly. you wonder if shay is involved, but know she is not.
the doors burst in. there’s screaming. those in the area try their powers to defend themselves, but everyone is civilian division. the smell of pistachios is cloying.
then they see you. and you see them. and you put your hands on your hips.
“excuse me, tris,” you say, “what are you doing?”
there’s tears in her eyes. “i need the money,” she croaks.
“From a chili’s?” you want to know, “who in their right mind robs a chili’s? what are you going to do, steal their mozzarella sticks?”
“it’s connected to a bank on the east wall,” she explains, “but i thought it was stupid too.”
you shake your head. you pull out your personal checkbook. you ask her how much she needs, and you see her crying. you promise her the rest when you get your paycheck.
someone bursts into the room. shouts things. demands they start killing.
but you’re standing in the way, and none of them will kill you or hurt you, because they all know you, and you helped them at some point or another, or helped their friend, or helped their children.
tris takes the money, everyone leaves. by the time the heroes show up, you’ve gotten everyone out of the building.
the next time you see tris, she’s marrying a beautiful woman, and living happily, having sent her cancer running. you’re a bridesmaid at the wedding.
xxx
“you just,” the director wants to know now, “sent them running?”
hanson stands between her and you, although you don’t need the protection.
“no,” you say again, for the millionth time, “i just gave her the money she needed and told her to stop it.”
“the phoenix group,” the director of squadron 300 has a vein showing, “does not just stop it.”
you don’t mention the social issues which confound to make criminal activity a necessity for some people, or how certain stereotypes forced people into negative roles to begin with, or how an uneven balance of power punished those with any neurodivergence. instead you say, “yeah, they do.”
“i’m telling you,” hanson says, “we brought her out a few times. it happens every time. they won’t hurt her. we need her on our team.”
your spine is stiff. “i don’t do well as a weapon,” you say, voice low, knowing these two people could obliterate you if they wished. but you won’t use people’s trust against them, not for anything. besides, it’s not like trust is your superpower. you’re just a normal person.
hanson snorts. “no,” he says, “but i like that when you show up, the fighting just… stops. that’s pretty nice, kid.”
“do you know… what we are dealing with…. since agent 25… shifted….?” the director’s voice is thin.
“yeah,” hanson says, “that’s why i think she’d be useful, you know? add some peace to things.”
the director sits down. sighs. waves her hand. “whatever,” she croaks, “do what you want. reassign her.”
hanson leads you out. over your shoulder, you see her put her head in her hands. later, you get her a homemade spa kit, and make sure to help her out by making her a real dinner from time to time, something she’s too busy for, mostly.
at night, you write shay messages you don’t send. telling her things you cannot manage.
one morning you wake up to a terrible message: shay is gone. never to be seen again.
xxx
you’re eating ice cream when you find him.
behind you, the city is burning. hundreds dead, if not thousands.
he’s staring at the river. maybe half-crying. it’s hard to tell, his body is shifting, seemingly caught between all things and being nothing.
“ooh buddy,” you say, passing him a cone-in-a-cup, the way he likes it, “talk about a night on the town.”
the bench is burning beside him, so you put your jacket down and snuff it out. it’s hard sitting next to him. he emits so much.
“hey tim?” you say.
“yeah?” his voice is a million voices, a million powers, a terrible curse.
“can i help?” you ask.
he eats a spoonful of ice cream.
“yeah,” he says eventually. “i think i give up.”
xxx
later, when they praise you for defeating him, you won’t smile. they try to put you in the media; an all-time hero. you decline every interview and press conference. you attend his funeral with a veil over your head.
the box goes into the ground. you can’t stop crying.
you’re the only one left at the site. it’s dark now, the subtle night.
you feel her at your side and something in your heart stops hurting. a healing you didn’t know you needed. her hands find yours.
“they wanted me to kill him,” she says, “they thought i’d be the only one who could.” her hands are warm. you aren’t breathing.
“beat you to it,” you say.
“i see that,” she tells you.
you both stand there. crickets nestle the silence.
“you know,” she says eventually, “i have no idea which side is the good one.”
“i think that’s the point of a good metaphor about power and control,” you say, “it reflects the human spirit. no tool or talent is good or bad.”
“just useful,” she whispers. after a long time, she wonders, “so what does that make us?”
xxx
it’s a long trek up into the mountains. shay seems better every day. more solid. less like she’s on another plane.
“heard you’re a top ten,” she tells me, her breath coming out in a fog. you’ve reclassed her to civilian. it took calling in a few favors, but you’ve got a lot.
“yeah,” you say, “invulnerable.”
“oh, is that your superpower?” she laughs. she knows it’s not.
“that’s what they’re calling it,” you tell her, out of breath the way she is not, “it’s how they explain a person like me at the top.”
“if that means ‘nobody wants to kill me’, i think i’m the opposite.” but she’s laughing, in a light way, a way that’s been missing from her.
the cabin is around the corner. the lights are already on.
“somebody’s home,” i grin.
tim, just tim, tim who isn’t forced into war and a million reflections, opens the door. “come on in.”
xxx
squadron one, division three. a picture of shay in a wedding dress is on my desk. she looks radiant, even though she’s marrying little old me.
what do i do? just what i’m best at. what’s not a superpower. what anyone is capable of: just plain old helping.
Wait, i just... I need to ask you 'cause i'm really confused. You think sheith will be canon? Please don't take it as an attack, you can of course ship it in fanon but i really don't see how it could ever happen in canon? It's been mentioned multiple times that Shiro is a mentor/brother figure to Keith (and even said by Keith in the show) and hinted that there's this big age gap, and we actually saw Keith in his student uniform while Shiro's wearing his teacher one in the flashback so?? pls tell
Alright, so–the fact of the matter is, I just don’t see how Shiro or Keith could end up with anyone besides each other in canon. All of their major character development coincides with one another, they’re each integral to each other’s story arcs. They care for one another first and foremost, are closer to each other than anyone else. Keith in canon has this desperate desire to see Shiro–in his trial, Kolivan says as much. Keith’s constant fear of losing Shiro and this sense of longing for him–you don’t see that in a platonic, brotherly relationship. Keith’s fear of Shiro walking away and abandoning him is far more characteristic of unrequited love.
Shiro and Keith’s dynamic is built up like a romantic relationship rather than a brotherly one. It’s written with clear parallels to zaggar,
and the dynamic is noticeably different from Matt and Pidge–two actual sibling characters. This isn’t an accident, it’s very much apart of the narrative. Compare the way Matt looks at Pidge to how Shiro looks at Keith. There’s an obvious difference:
Keith’s overarching quest to save Shiro “as many times as it takes,” is also incredibly romantic. The way Keith mourned Shiro like his grief was the only pain that mattered, like no one else could’ve possibly cared about Shiro the way he did, like he’ll keep carrying a torch even when everyone tells him Shiro would want him to move on, that reads far more like someone grieving a lost lover and a brother. And you could see it in how differently Pidge reacts to losing Matt.
There’s also the fact that Shiro always gets these very personal, tender goodbyes with Keith, something you’d expect from a love interest. Not to mention how Shiro is the only one Keith will prioritize over the mission. And even Shiro and Keith’s first scene would’ve established them as clear love interests if Shiro were a girl. The longing gazes Shiro and Keith share certainly aren’t brotherly either. And so many sheith scenes are very purposefully given a mood, framing, and intimacy of romance. Consider how Keith reunites with Shiro in the first episode compared to him seeing the other paladins. The closeups, softness, and tender way Keith reaches out to turn Shiro’s head closer. Or how they both hug after the BOM like they’re the only two people in the world, with Allura staring on and then quickly turning away guiltily–as if she’s intruding on something very private and intimate.
Or how the reunion between Keith and Kuron was exclusively for them and no one else. No team, no loud excitement or group celebration. Just two people longing gazing out at one another as they slowly drifted into each other’s orbit. Or look at any scene where Shiro and Keith are having a tender heart to heart. They’re usually either under a sunset or lowlight. The bedroom scene is especially telling, particularly when you compare it to Keith’s talk with Lance afterwards.
One shows Keith and Shiro in the dark and vulnerable, there’s a heavy atmosphere and gravity to the scene that you didn’t get with the lightheartedness from Lance. The way Keith and Shiro are so close yet so far, closer to one another than they’ve ever been with anyone else, but still backing away and holding their distance–that’s not brotherly. It seems more like two people who are trying to suppress their feelings and are afraid to make that breach. And there’s always that sense of gravity that draws them together anyway
There is the “Shiro, you’re like a brother to me,” line. But curiously, I’ve never seen anyone say kl/ance was impossible because Hunk throws his arms around Keith and Lance and says, “We’re brothers.” I’ve never seen people say ka/llura or all/urance or sha/llura is impossible because Allura says “I’ve grown to consider you and the paladins my new family.”
I’ve never seen people say you couldn’t ship Keith with anyone on Team Voltron because, prior to the brother BOM line, holo Shiro says, “We’re all the family you need.” We as in, everyone on team Voltron is seen as Keith’s found family. Keith singling out Shiro with his brother line response is interesting though, because–yes, he does see all of Team Voltron as family.
But he only focuses on his bond with Shiro, because it runs much deeper than what he feels for everyone else. Focusing on one line out of context as if Keith and Shiro is the only instance of found family is really transparent to me. If you’re going to discount sheith for that, every other ship between Team Voltron is out too. All of them.
And as a bi guy, I’ll tell you that I’ve pulled the “you’re like a brother/sister to me” card before because I was scared of admitting my feelings for someone and it was a way to backpedal out of the situation without worrying that the other person would leave me for it. And we do know Keith’s worst fear is feelings, know that Josh said “[Keith’s] constantly scared he’s gonna say or do something wrong and he’s gonna lose Shiro.” It makes sense for Keith to hide his feelings. Plenty of people who’ve felt romantic attraction have done something similar. Also–Harry and Ginny, Ed and Winry, Aang and Katara–why is it that thinking of someone as just being like a brother or sister and then having it evolve into something more is seen as a natural progression if you’re straight, but somehow doesn’t apply if you’re gay?
We already know that age isn’t a problem in canon because Matt flirted with Allura. He did that. That was fine. Allura has been said to be about the same age as Keith (who started at 18 and now is either 19 or turning 19) and we know Matt is the same age as Shiro. They were in the same class, and they graduated together. One wears the cadet uniform though and one wears an officer uniform. This is because, despite age, they have different ranks. Shiro has never been referred to as a teacher and has only been acknowledged as a past student at the garrison by staff. And we also know that Shiro graduated only a few years prior to Kerberos. You also don’t go up to your teacher and say you think of them as a brother. That’s not how it works and they’re not student and teacher. And if Shiro mentored Keith a bit in piloting, I don’t see a problem. Katara mentored Aang in water bending, but they still got married.
Staff have repeatedly supported Shiro and Keith in a romantic context, and have done so since the very beginning. To the point where Shiro’s VA came up with the ship name for it and one of the episode Directors drew fanart of it. Doesn’t sound to me like they were trying to push the whole “brotherly” idea very much.
And we’ve been told that the show runners are fighting for lgbt representation, and that it’s something they’ve been working towards since the very beginning, that the start of that has been there since the first season:
Lauren (after being asked about the lgbt rep in korrasami and whether Voltron would ever “take that step”): “We have those first 13 episodes and if we ever went beyond that, we would like to push the envelope.” (source here)
Will we be seeing any lgbt representation?
Lauren: “It’s super important to us.”
Joaquim: “Just know that from our prospective, we’re fighting to create as open and broad a spectrum of characters as we can.”
Lauren: “We can’t give you any definite answers, but just know that–”
Joaquim: “We’re fighting for as broad and open representation as we can.”
The only possible relationship I can think of that could’ve grown between two characters since season 1, that the writers have been steadily growing and still supporting, that has even a fraction of a chance of happening and would be worth fighting for in how prominent and well written it would be–is sheith. I know people like kl/ance too, but the writers have already said point black it isn’t happening and have only used female pronounce to describe Lance’s future love interest:
Interviewer: “I feel like there was a little tease? It seems shippers want to ship Lance and Keith together, so are there gonna be any hints of that at all? Or is it just more like–okay, they’re friends, they’re starting to become friends.”
Lauren: “I think we had a very natural arc in mind for those two. Which is, they start out at odds, but then they grow to kind of respect each other. And if that leads into people being like–they’re spending time together! Then that’s a ‘thing,’ but…We’re not trying to cater to or bait anyone into anything, we’re just trying to do what’s right for the story.”
Joaquim: “We also try not to be overtly affected by what popular opinion might be.”
Lauren: “And we’re working in animation. Our schedule is so far in advance for that–even if people shipped Keith and Lance, we couldn’t go back and just change the story–to be like and now they’re in love!”
Joaquim: “There’s just no way. We’re already years past that storyline, you know?” (source)
Interviewer: What would Lance look for in a future Mr. or Mrs. Blue Lion? I’m gonna guess she meant Red Lion now. I think she’s trying to fill out her space Tindr profile. But yea, what is Lance’s–And I like this, because Lance is kind of all over the place. He hits on anything that moves and is pretty, which all the aliens are pretty. But what would he look for, really, in a partner or a soulmate?
Lauren: I don’t know if Lance knows what he needs. I know what he might look for, but what he might look for is not necessarily what he needs. I think he needs someone who is self-assured and knows herself, so that he can kind of become that same person and know himself. (source)
So if there’s going to be any lgbt relationship, I’m certain it’s sheith. Recently, Lauren has also talked about fans pointing out the sheith cameo at the garrison, and excitedly said, “I put that shit in there!” And added that, “Shiro was still his guiding light. It was good.” I honestly think part of why she got so enthusiastic over it was because they’re coming closer and closer to revealing a relationship they’ve worked very long on and fought hard for and have kept under wraps. This was also teased when Jeremy said, “Hey, backstory guys. There’s more of it.” And Joaquim added, “It exists!” So there is a big story there, and we’re definitely getting it. (source)
Unlike Matt and Pidge, any inkling of Shiro and Keith’s backstory prekerberos is something the narrative’s always very secretive about it. Why keep that hidden unless it was going to reveal something monumental about their relationship? Like say, Keith harboring feelings for Shiro? Even just throwing in this little cameo like that, people might say it’s nothing. But we saw a similar background cameo with Zarkon and Honerva in the Black Lion’s flashback–and that leads to a whole love story. It honestly makes sense to me if they were planning something similar with Shiro and Keith.
While I agree with all of this, I also think it’s time the fandom got introduced to the Chair Leg of Truth. And because I find wading through the cesspool of fandom delusions mildly entertaining, I’m going to add a two more points to your list. But before I start, let me just say that 4ntis and the shitty part of the VLD fandom are just a natural conclusion to a specific brand of tumblr narcissism. They’re what happens when your head is so far up your own ass that it forms an echo chamber. And with that introduction, let’s begin with the autopsy, shall we?
1) VLD is a show in no way geared towards tumblr shippers
As far as VLD target audiences go, tumblr shippers probably rank slightly above the Amish. That doesn’t mean that the show doesn’t want them watching - just that it has no reason to cater to them specifically. The reason Netflix sunk so much money into a proper reboot (looking at you, “Voltron the third dimension”) is because they’re calculating that fans of the original show now have kids of their own and will introduce them to the show. This is not to say that the show itself has no artistic merit, but no company worth its salt will produce a product they cannot sell. Nostalgia is money, kids. If you don’t believe me, here’s the producers talking about how they have to compromise on every episode that’s not a massive robot fight. Or how they had to bring back Shiro to sell toys.
Meanwhile, part of the tumblr fandom expects the show to turn into a kl4nce coffeshop AU any moment now because it’s “the number one ship on tumblr!!1!”. Trust me, if every single kl4nti stopped watching the show right now, it would not make a single dent in profits. In fact, 4ntis are the kiss of death to your profits: they drive away existing fans, deter new ones, and threaten to boycott the show every time their tastes aren’t catered to. VLD’s target audience (original fans over 30 and their kids under 12) are the exactly the demographic that would not be on tumblr and are more likely to be in the “passive” fandom (i.e. not creating content or voicing opinions, but participating in merchandise sales). And when Netflix execs want to know what fans think about the show, they let them vote with their wallets: they track Netfix users and merchandise sales. They couldn’t care less about tumblr shippers who watch the show on kisscartoons and buy kl4nce mugs off redbubble.
In other words: dear tumblr, you’re invited to the party, but it ain’t your birthday.
2) When all you have is a hammer, turn every problem into a nail
Deep down your brain is very much aware of point (1), and while kl4nce could theoretically happen, the odds are just not in its favour. Which is why that same brain decides to shield you from disappointment by creating its own little tumblr-reality. So let’s say your a tumblr shipper who wants their ship to be canon and is (at least subconsciously) aware they have no real-world leverage. Well then you’ll have to use the only weapon you do have: tumblr callout culture!
Now again, VLD is a very specific exception here. The reasons nobody sends death threats to Marvel demanding Stucky be canon is because the best you could hope for is some studio exec having a little chuckle before they mark your email as spam. But VLD is a show that can be labeled “progressive”: there’s a desire to make the show more diverse by changing the character’s races, the show runners support LGBT rights, there’s a LGBT person and POCs among the VAs, the show is animated by the same studio that did LoK (which is absolutely irrelevant, but we’re not exactly dealing with sound logic here), and so on. This is what 4ntis use as leverage: if the show really wants to be seen progressive, then it has to earn it!
If the VLD team want to prove their loyalty and devotion to being THE MOST WOKE, it’s not enough to simply have a character with no previous canon sexuality be LGBT+. Oh no, if VLD creators are to be approved by tumblr activists, they must reject all previously established canon! They must destroy the only canon relationship (ka11ura*) and “redeem” 1ance’s canon personality by having him do a character 180-turn**. Nothing less will do! Deny us and prepare to burn in hell be called problematic!***
Like I’ve mentioned before, these fits of impotent rage don’t really have much influence on the show’s decision makers. Unfortunately, impotent rage will not stop until it finds an outlet where it can actually have effect. In the fandom this usually means death threats and attacks against “rival” shippers, trying to get a LGBT VA fired because she’s a “traitor to the cause”, calling people “pedos” for shock value despite the word not applying at all, etc. It’s like a spoiled child kicking the cat because his parents won’t give him cake for breakfast. As it happens, on tumblr being a good person is not a seen as an active choice but as inherent (and therefore
inalienable) to certain identities, so 4ntis will honestly claim they’re trying to protect people from harm while partaking in harassment. Scratch the surface of any of these “moral panics”, from 80s satanist scares to g4mergate and 4ntis, and you will find a group of people angry that they don’t have control and ready to regain it by any means necessary.
Phew, that was long, but it needed to be said. And just because I’m feeling extra cheeky today, I’m going to leave you with a nice little quote:
“Where books are burned, in the end, people will also be burned.” -
Heinrich Heine
Though that might be a bit too subtle for tumblr. Let me try again:
A perfect storm of circumstances working together, mostly:
anti-shipping was already posing itself as against ‘pedophilia’, defining pedophilia as ‘adult/teen ships’ (erer1 for example) or ‘ships with age gaps i don’t like’.
kl@nce, the juggernaut ship of the fandom, shares a character with she1th, which while having a much smaller fanbase was nonetheless teased and joked about by the VLD staff. ‘ship war’ was written all over this.
shiro was clearly a bit older than the other paladins from the start, and had the nominal leader position. younger fans in general and kl@nce fans in particular, more inclined to interpret keith as sharing Lance’s maturity level, saw shiro as far too mature for keith.
The video recorded at SDCC 2016 of the creators verifying that Shiro is in his 20′s (’an adult’), Pidge is a young teen, and K/H/L are all late teens (but ’not adults’) was like dropping a spark on a powder keg. ‘she1th is pedophilia’ - because shiro is an adult, keith is not an adult, and dating over the 18-year-old dateline is ‘pedophilia’ - has been the primary war cry of antis for over a year now.
in short: anti-shipping moral standards feed directly into putting down the main rival ship (she1th) of the juggernaut ship (kl@nce), and was directly embraced by an unusually large portion of fandom like a security blanket. things just snowballed from there. decency never had a hope of survival.
(There are antis that don’t ship kl@nce, of course, but the vast majority of VLD antis do and pro-kl@nce antis dictate the course of anti-shipping in VLD fandom space.
also there’s nothing wrong with being uncomfortable with a ship for any reason at all. it’s when you set out to make a hostile environment for shippers, harass them, and suicide bait them that there’s a problem.)
“Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and placed in the service of a moral, political, and cultural idea.” - Adolf Hitler
* with no regards to how bad it would look to change a11ura’s race and then deny her romantic relationships
** canon 1ance mostly fits the “womanizing cishet male” trope which tumblr believes to be the work of the devil himself, but if 1ance rejects his evil ways and swears everlasting love to one man than the creators will be absolved of their sins and allowed back into the woke parthenon (lol)
*** if all of this sounds a lot like religious fanaticism, that’s because it kind of is
Do you ever just start remembering how Keith, during ones of the hardest trials and bone dead exhausted and wanting comfort, wasn't desperate to his mother or father, despite the fact that the whole reason he was there was to find answers about them and himself, but that he was desperate to see Shiro? And then you start hurting and you're down for the count for the rest of the day? They love each other so much and I can't handle it.
ok thanks for breaking me. honestly i was thinking about this yesterday and crashing people’s dms about it, because i’m pretty sure the blade of marmora was shiro’s trial as much as it was keith’s, if not more.
half of this episode is from shiro’s perspective, and every scene has
some variation of this exchange: shiro implying that keith will
never give up the knife, and kolivan assuring him that if that’s the
case, keith will die.
the
one being tested here–either literally or from a narrative perspective–is shiro:
at
the start of the episode, shiro is in a really bad place with keith. he tells
keith he needs to get himself together if he’s going to lead the team
one day, implying his own loss–which he knows will hurt keith, and then he doesn’t have keith’s back in a dangerous situation.
like just look at how this scene is framed:
Couples receive “parent points”, which they can use to purchase their children. Most parents wait for a few thousand, but you chose to buy the cheaper, 100 point child.
Shane knows what it’s like to be a 100 point child. He knows how it feels to see potential parents–potential families–come through the facilities doors, faces bright with excitement. He knows how it feels to see them reading the little plaques on the nursery doors, scanning the lists there for the right bits of knowledge and etiquette and grace that they want their baby to have.
He knows how it feels to see their faces pinch outside the window before they hurry to the next room.
Shane grew up in a 100 point nursery. They had torn, ratty, books and no teachers, and when snack time came, the tray was pushed through a slat in the door. They were called “unruly” and “damaged” and “stupid.” A lot of the other kids threw tantrums and broke furniture (and sometimes other kids). A lot of the other kids went quiet after the first few years when they realized they’d never be adopted until they were old enough (or pretty enough) to be useful. A lot of the kids cried and didn’t stop until they got taken away or were aged out.
Shane’s grown up a lot since aging out. He put himself through school, got himself a job, shed his 100 points like the torn clothes he’d left the facility in. He’s powerful now, successful, and he’s grown out of the twisted nose, big ears, and gap-toothed smile that had made him one of the less attractive 100 point babies. Or maybe he’s grown into them. Who’s to say?
It’s taken him a long time to get enough Parent Points to do what he wants. Being a man is, for once, somewhat hindering as most of society equates “parental” with “maternal.” He’s lost count of how many social workers have politely hid expressions of surprise when he told them he wanted to adopt stag, that he’s willing to take the classes, get the grades, make the oaths to get even one Parent Point.
Pete and Jane Carson were poor, so poor, and lived so far out away from town that they had trouble managing to earn many Parent Points. The points were awarded very strictly, and since their truck was…third-hand at least, well, they didn’t always make it everywhere exactly on time.
But they were so in love, and so enthusiastic about it, that as soon as they managed to reach that magical hundredth point, they practically ran to the Ward Building.
The lady took down their information and showed them all the brochures and read them all the disclaimers with a distinct air of disdain. It was obvious she thought no one had any business taking in any child worth less than a thousand points. Still, there was nothing to stop them from doing it–at least, nothing she could legally get away with–so she showed them to the hundred-point children.
It was agony making a choice. There were so many children there, and they were all so obviously in need of help. But one boy, the oldest and he was probably about seven, pointed them to a tiny child who’d been very sick lately and explained that the heat in the room didn’t work very well, and so when the little ones got sick, their tiny bodies sometimes couldn’t work hard enough to keep them warm and get them better. There was a look in his eyes that said sometimes there had been sick children who’d been eventually taken away and hadn’t been brought back.
So they took the sick child, whose name was Jakob, and gave him a home in their big, rickety farmhouse so far away from town, but they agreed. “That’s our next child.”
I have a bone to pick with the Sheith fandom. Everywhere in this fandom I see Keith freaking out about Shiro, which I will admit is completely canon. But you know what else is canon?
Shiro’s bias for Keith.
I know that it’s seems subtle, but it’s not at the same time. I rewatched Voltron Season 1 and 2 before Season 3 because I noticed that I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to Shiro the first time around. A lot of his lines are pretty generic-leader-type, but during me rewatch, I noticed that his character cues weren’t. So, without further ado, here begins my long meta post about how Shiro is pining after Keith.
While we all know that that isn't Shiro, I have to wonder what people will think it'll be like if the real Shiro returns? He's a natural leader, that is a canon fact, Keith struggles more in that role, another canon fact, so yeah I can still see him stepping into that role and butting heads with Keith? The real one wouldn't just sit in the back and twiddle his thumbs while everyone else does the fighting either. I know that's what y'all HOPE he'll do, but it isn't what he would do either.
Oh! I mean, I certainly didn’t hope that?? D: If that was the real Shiro I think there would be a lot less conflict though, and for a lot of reasons. For one thing, I don’t think Shiro would be back at the base at all. He’d be right back in Black’s seat where he belongs. Because unlike Kuron, Shiro is a a paladin. After seeing through his lion’s eyes and traversing the astral plane, after learning so much give and take when it comes to trusting her instincts and building up a mutual bond after everything Zarkon’s done–I don’t see all that just crashing down. And I mean, Keith’s entire link with Black has always been rooted in Shiro. His drive to protect Shiro, to carry on Shiro’s will after he’s gone–his motivations for taking on Black have always been singularly focused on Shiro. And even when Black locates Kuron, it’s not him she’s drawn to. It’s his memories. Shiro’s memories.
So if Shiro were really back, I don’t think Black would have any reason to reject him in the first place. So right off the bat, things would run a lot smoother. You wouldn’t have this disconnect of one person piloting the head while someone else leads. Things could easily fall back into step. They obviously wouldn’t be the way they were before, but I think they could work something out. If Shiro were really back, I imagine he would still insist on Keith piloting though, so maybe we really do get a true co-leader scenario where they trade off piloting and providing direction from the base.
The real Shiro was also a lot more trusting though. He wasn’t breaking up the team left and right. He knew to trust Keith’s instincts, even when it led to choices that he dreaded, such as letting Keith shut down Zarkon’s base alone. Kolivan calls it a suicide mission and tells Shiro he would never command someone to take such a risk. Keith snaps back, “No one’s commanding me. I’m doing it.” This is a noticeable callback to when Shiro’s in the astral plane–“No one commands the Black lion.” Just like how he had to learn to trust Black, he lets go of his fear and relies on Keith’s instincts as well. Even though it looks like it’s killing him to do it
So, rather than shutting down Keith every opportunity he gets, I think the real Shiro would let Keith take a chance. More importantly, Shiro would never risk the safety of his entire team, even if it was for the mission. Shiro lectures Keith about how he has to learn to make hard decisions, but Keith does do that. Don’t rescue Allura because you can’t risk Voltron. Fight Zarkon one on one. Hold hostage the guy you were supposed to “rescue.” Split from the team so they can’t be tracked. Go on a suicide mission alone. Keith can make harsh calls. Shiro has always been shown to be more careful, more cautious. His leadership style often ends up being a bit softer than Keith’s (and that’s not a bad thing). And the person who reacts like this when his teammates are seriously injured–
they would never just sit by and say, “deal with the consequences,” and put everyone in jeopardy.
And again, when it comes to this “disconnect”–Kuron practically gaslights Keith. He spends the whole episode overruling Keith’s decisions every chance he gets and then tells him good job. He leads with, “I’m sorry I had to step in back there”--I’m sorry you were too incompetent and I had to take over, not I’m sorry I completely took over, made everyone question your leadership, and then made a rash call that got you all hurt. But then when Keith agrees and says, “I’m no good at this,” Kuron completely contradicts that line of thought with, “Yes you are,” and compliments his “quick thinking.” The quick thinking that wouldn’t be necessary if Kuron hadn’t fought him every step of the way and forced Keith into that position.
I don’t think he’s intentionally trying to mess with Keith. Not at all. But even still, Kuron obviously doesn’t understand him. His “advice” is confusing and contradictory, and only makes Keith further question his position. When Kuron tells Keith he’s the true black paladin, he does not look comforted. It’s obvious Kuron’s words have brought him no relief, and he’s left looking even more despondent than before. Kuron obviously cares for Keith, and he still approaches him for a quiet heart-to-heart the way Shiro would. It’s his way of checking in and offering support. But he can’t quite replicate Shiro’s level of intimacy and understanding.
Like, people who identify as Queer know the word is used like a slur. Trust me, we know.
So when we say “queer is a slur” was started by terfs, maybe use some critical thinking and try to understand what we mean. That is, if you actually care about queer people and the damage terfs do, rather that just screaming “queer is a slur!” and ignoring the actual point.
Terfs did not like that queer was reclaimed. End of. This is a fact. Queer was too broad, too accepting, and embraced all the people they wanted gone. And I know y'all exclusionists feel the same but get pissed when we point it out so you deny it, but sit down and listen for a minute.
Queer was the preferred term for poc. For bisexuals. For trans people. For people with multiple identities. It neatly encapsulated everything, and was a friendly community to those who felt thrown under the bus by mainstream LGBT activism. It was a political and social statement, “you treated my like I was different and weird, and guess what? I am and that’s something to be proud of.”
So the response? “You can’t use that word. Its bad. Its a slur.”
And at the time, a lot of people rolled their eyes. Everyone knew why they didn’t like the word and brushed that off. It was fine.
So they started more subtly. “Just so you know this word is very harmful and is a slur so be careful how you use it :))) in case you didn’t know :)))) its a slur :))) friendly reminder :))) for the sake of other people of course :))))” type shit on every post involving the word, including and especially posts simply mentioning self identification.
Always worded in friendly, concerned ways, like the derailment was meant to be nice and considerate, and not about normalizing their rhetoric.
And what happened because of that was a younger generation of community kids growing up with these statements being thrown at them and absorbed on every. Single. Post. That. Mentionioned. Queer.
The result? That same generation of kids cutting it all short, removing the meant-to-be-palatable niceness, to just say “queer is a slur.”
Exactly how it was originally intended. “Queer is a slur.” People drop on posts where young queer people talk about it being a self identifier that actually fits them. “Its a slur,” they comment, with nothing else, on posts they clearly didn’t read past that word, written by people twice their age who had reclaimed it before they were even born.
Its nasty. Its disgusting. It’s plain old bigotry, whether the people saying know it or not. It is a terf tactic, plain and simple.
And no one wants to deny that it is indeed used as a slur (right along with all the rest of our identities.) No one wants to be insensitive and force it on people who haven’t reclaimed it.
But invading queer people’s posts to spit “queer is a slur” is flat out queerphobic. You do the dirty work of terfs, of cis straight oppressors, by saying in one simple sentence: “its a dirty word, there is no pride in it, you haven’t/can’t reclaim(ed) it.”
And regardless of your actual intentions, when you do this, that is EXACTLY what you are communicating and doing.
“Queer is a slur” is a terf movement. Stop fucking supporting terfs just because you want to pretend like it isn’t.
Hey, I just stumbled upon your meta posts and I love all your thoughts and analyses! I was wondering, though: in season 3 especially, Keith really does seem to make a lot of poor leadership choices, and the writers almost seem to go out of their ways to highlight his bad judgement. But looking back after reading your posts, I feel like I might've been biased, so I was wondering if you could elaborate. What moments (particularly in season 3) convinced you that Keith has leadership potential?
It’s not season 3 that convinced me of that haha. It was mostly what I saw in season 1 and 2. But season 3 really didn’t change my mind.
Even tho at the beginning of the season Keith is a terrible leader.
And I complained non stop about Keith’s extreme reaction and odd decisions even before I saw the first two episodes, just after hearing the sdcc spoilers haha. But now after watching season 3 I understand why it had to be like that and how it all fits. No complains.
And what I feel they are trying to shows you, is not his bad leadership skills, but just his love for Shiro.
Like they weren’t kiddin when they said Shiro was the only thing that could calm him down and keep him in check haha
And I really didn’t expect Keith to fall apart like that, it seemed really out of character for him, just from what I’ve seen in Keith in seasons 1 and 2, I expected him to hurt but to step up and take command just like Shiro wanted him to.
Because he kinda always did that before… Like watch how fast he is to take control of a situation when Shiro is out of commission or a bit lost or away or even in actual danger.
Keith knows what he’s doing and he’s good at giving instructions even and knows how to command a team and knows when to hold back (Don’t forget he was the one against going to save Allura because he knew it was too risky).
And then Shiro is gone, and suddenly all that is out of the window, suddenly it’s What team? What mission? Shiro is the only thing that matters.
And I didn’t like that because of how it made Keith’s character be all about Shiro, but now that they’ve drawn this parallel between him and Zarkon (with how he betrayed everyone and basically screwed the universe for the person he loved) I’m totally fine with it because I see it’s actually going somewhere.
And “Shiro or the universe”, is something I saw them going for already, just didn’t expect them to put so much focus on it and so early on.
Now ok, this is how I explain Keith’s shaky start as team leader there:
He doesn’t want to do this.
That’s basically it.
You kno like when someone asks you to wash the dishes, so you wash em badly, so that they won’t ask you to do that again haha.
I’m not saying he didn’t struggle a bit with the new lion and the new position
(although I dun remember him having any problems with the different controls when he was saving Shiro in “Across the Universe”, but because it was a quick deal I’ll leave him the benefit of a doubt..)
He’s just not really into it.
And at first I was like, he wouldn’t go that far as actually putting his teammates in danger over this, right?
But then with how emotional he’s been acting in the first two episodes all “SCREW EVERYONE IN THE UNIVERSE, SHIRO IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS TO ME”, I dunno if I should put it out of the equation…
Basically what I feel he’s doing in the first 3 episodes is being “Oh no look what I did!! I acted like a crazy impulsive loner and messed things up, maybe we need Shiro after all…hmm I guess we should just keep looking for him.”
And I’m saying it because of this:
Here Allura says
For Keith it seems like it’s true when it comes to Allura (as he had no problem leaving her behind in season 1) but apparently not when it comes to Shiro haha.
And Keith agrees with her there.
But look what he does on that Gas planet, Allura takes a hit and he leaves Allura behind and Lance has to yell at him to stop.
And then Allura apologizes and then Lance is like:
“We’re a team. We stick together. Isn’t that right, Keith?”
And Keith goes:
“It’s not about the team.
We have a mission that’s more important than any one of us.
We need to find Lotor and stop him, and I plan on doing that right now.”
So I feel like in a way he just goes “Oh yeah Allura? It’s bigger than any one person? So I guess I’m just gonna leave you behind for this mission, actually I have no problem leaving any of you behind JUST LIKE YOU’RE LEAVING SHIRO BEHIND”
I think he’s kinda being passive aggressive about them forcing him to pilot the black lion haha.
Also I think he just wants to get rid of Lotor so fast not because he really wants to put an end to the Galra empire thing, because well, he didn’t care about that just awhile ago, but because he’s in the way of them looking for Shiro.
Seriously, listen to him in this scene, he sounds so fake here…
”This is all my fault. I followed him right into this trap. Everyone warned me, but I didn’t listen. I put the entire team in jeopardy.”
And Lance is just: “Yeah, you kinda did. But now we gotta fix it.”
Like yeah sure Keith, I bet he knew it was a trap from the start. (but also that it was nothing that he couldn’t get them out of easily if he wanted to)
So I think Keith tried to convince them he sucks but then he realized it’s not working and they still want him to lead, so he finally takes this seriously.
And it think you can immediately see the switch in his attitude. They form Voltron right away. He knows exactly what to do. He even says “No, we need to wait and not fight Lotor”
That seems like too fast of a character growth haha
Like what, Lance tells him one line? And suddenly he’s a good leader?
I don’t think so. I think he was just faking it so they won’t give up on Shiro.
Also notice that from that point on he doesn’t make any more stupid mistakes.
Like here, who was the one who said “Hey guys… it’s a trap!”
“Hey, Allura, maybe you should not help these guys get that rock”
And guess who didn’t listen and fucked everything up???
And then Shiro, mr “I really need to feel valuable and appreciated rn” comes back and is making stink faces at Keith for taking his position as leader (even though he totally gave it to him before) just cause he can’t face the thought of him being useless.
And again, no one listens to Keith! Even though he’s right!
Keith realizes that Lotor is probably smarter than all of them, but at this point he might not be stronger.
And they already messed up like 2 times with him and gave him an advantage.
Keith knows that if they give Lotor time to think and plan, he will most likely have the upper hand soon.
So yeah, they had to go for him at that very second, because at that point they have a ship with a teleduv and Voltron, Lotor just has some scaultrite and a ship with an inexperienced pilot in it. They had a good chance taking him down at that moment.
And yeah, I think they could have taken down the meteor ship and also got the cargo, but if they had to chose then taking down the ship would be the better choice, because it’s the more dangerous thing to let Lotor have.
Shiro is…. I dunno what he’s thinking.. But he’s obviously wrong and Allura is all “Shiro is right! Yay Shiro you perfect leader you!”
( For Allura’s defense tho Keith kinda left her to die twice already, so I understand why she has a bias for Shiro haha)
But yeah, they screwed up big time there by not listening to Keith.
And like Keith and Shiro are so different in their leading style, and they are kinda set up to complete eachother eventually.
Shiro is very team focused, and he usually strives to avoid conflict and is incredibly soft and I’d say even passive.
And as someone who thinks like Keith most of the time, it’s annoying me till no end haha. But I know the power of his way of leadership, and I know that it’s needed sometimes. So I’m not looking down on that.
Keith is the opposite of that!
Keith’s mind is “progress progress progress now now now” he sees an opportunity and he takes it, like they just learned about Lotor’s existence and Keith already has a tracker on him and is on the way to beat him up haha.
He thinks and operates so fast.
Shiro likes playing it safe. (and slow)
I kinda spoken about this before already, how Shiro is trying to survive and Keith is trying to win. And they need to balance it out or it won’t work.
Which is what’s going to happen in season 4.
Because we see Shiro being all “Our top priority is the coalition!” which is not a bad idea at all. Just not at that time.
And Keith’s like “Nooo we need to get Lotor he’s gonna fuck us all up if we don’t go after him now!!”
And guess who’s right, and guess who’s finally gonna run out of luck (hopefully) and suffer the consequences of their poor decision making?
as ur friendly Neighborhood Nursing Student™ i feel somewhat compelled to remind everyone with the hot weather:
every liquid except sea water and alcohol hydrates you. It’s not CHUG WATER OR DIE. in fact, gatorade and the like are designed to hydrate you efficiently.
yeah, this includes coffee and tea and soda. the diuretic is not enough to cancel out the liquid. juices and milk have solids in them, sure, but they’re also mostly liquid! it counts.
your body can only absorb so much water at a time, so chugging 64 oz of water at noon and calling it good will do a wonderful job of flushing your kidneys, but not so much of hydrating your tissues. it’s more important that you’re getting consistent fluid throughout the day.
there’s a lot of fancy ways to determine How Much Water (Liquid) I Should Drink but honestly? 8 oz (1 cup) every other hour on cool days and 8 oz every hour on hot days should be fine (assuming you sleep for a normal amount of time per day…. i’m assuming ur awake 16 hours a day.)
figure out how many oz each of ur favorite cups is. it’ll help your guesstimation.
if ur urine is darker than light yellow, you’re dehydrated.
if u pinch the skin on the back of ur hand for a couple seconds and it takes more than a second or two go to back to normal then ur dehydrated.
In regards to #1, don’t take this as an excuse to drink the sugar water that they call sports drinks. They aren’t bad for you per se, but please choose water.
actually this entire post was written in the spirit of ppl using it as an excuse to drink sports drinks and soda etc
ppl have been commenting abt sodium levels in soda and sugar levels in sports drinks and thats all well and good but what i’ve noticed is that people who internalize “well, ONLY WATER hydrates me” but who HATE WATER remain horrifically dehydrated cause they dont drink anything.
so like. if ur a person who haaaaates tap water, this is absolutely me giving you permission to drink whatever fluid you can stomach. please take this as a direct excuse to drink nothing but gatorade if that’s what it takes to get enough fluid into ur body.
it’s not the healthiest for you, sure, but you’re a smart enough person to know that. please drink fluids anyways.
if u like water thats gr8. if you can stomach water that’s gr8. if you can’t, that’s okay too, and you need to stay hydrated just as much as anyone else, so pleasedrink.
I used to hate tap water, and in some places (looking at you, Iowa) it is legit disgusting, but one thing I do which helped a ton and was long term cheaper than buying soda or juice was to get a bottle of Angostura bitters. It’s a cocktail additive with a strong distinctive flavor, so although a tiny bottle is like $6 it will last you for ages. Put a small drop or dash in your glass then fill with water. It has a pleasant sort of herbal metal taste (I understand that those words don’t seem like they should go together but it’s hard to describe) which masks tap water. It also helps me smooth an upset tummy but your mileage may vary. It’s not something that will get you drunk, just a flavoring like vanilla extract.
If that all sounds like too much bother, dropping a lemon wedge into water also helps.
I am learning that lemon wedges are magical in almost everything I like to drink.
here is the magic that made me stop being chronically dehydrated:
because yeah, i can’t STAND plain water – it tastes like the inside of my mouth. it tastes like spit. imagine drinking a glass of ice cold spit. ugh. but add a squirt of this stuff to your glass of tapwater, and now it tastes like apple, cherry, lemonade, whatever.
i also got a bunch of these
and pre-prep them with flavored water, iced tea, iced coffee, whatever (or ask my helper to do it), and then when i’m thirsty but distracted and want to just grab some kind of liquid without thinking about finding a clean glass etc., i can just grab one of these.
because yeah, hating water is a thing, and dehydration SUCKS. so drink SOMETHING, don’t be a water purist. better to chug iced coffee than go without.
mio was a damn genius for comin out with that shit
can I just speak up here as someone who has been a nurse for 17 years? I heartily endorse this post and also give you permission to DRINK WHATEVER THE HELL IT TAKES TO KEEP YOU FROM BEING DEHYDRATED
especially in the summer, you can’t play around with that. drink something. seriously. for the love of kittens. DRINK SOMETHING.
this. ive seen too many people dehydrated thinking that a lot of these drinks will make their dehydration worse, so they just dont drink at all.
not to mention the fact that not everyone has access to clean drinking water, and its not uncommon to find sports drinks and sodas on sale and at a cost of pennies vs slightly pricier bottles of water
So I know that a lot of the response to discourse is not intended to be rude and is often just genuine confusion, so I’m going to outline the basic idea of what’s going on.
Why aren’t aromantic/asexual people lgbt?
The LGBT community was created to combat homophobia and transphobia. Obviously, to experience homophobia and transphobia you either have to experience sga (same/similar gender attraction) or not be cis. aro/ace people don’t automatically experience homophobia/transphobia, and if they do it is not because they are aro/ace.
On top of that, aro/ace people being in lgbt spaces often sucks up resources actual lgbt people need, so it really is harming us.
What resources?
Scholarships, funds, beds at homeless shelters,
lgbt suicide hotlines, pride clubs and other safe spaces with limited space, food that’s handed out at lgbt centers and clubs, et cetera.
But some aro/ace people are trans/bi/pan/lesbians!
You’re right! Those people ARE lgbt, but it is not because they are aro/ace. It would be because they are trans/bi/pan/etc.
But the acronym is LGBTQIA!
The full acronym is ‘LGBT.’ Some people do add the “+” to be inclusive of nonbinary people who don’t identify as trans, along with pan/ply people who don’t want to be included under the “B.” But the “QIA” is not necessary.
-”Q” stands for “Queer” which is a slur that not everyone has reclaimed. While it is true that a lot of people DO identify themselves as queer, it is still potentially harmful to include it in the acronym as many lgbt people still rightfully see it as a harmful slur associated with violence.
-”I” stands for “Intersex,” and many intersex people have come forward saying that they do not automatically consider themselves lgbt for being intersex. Some intersex people identify as cis, and it is harmful to force all intersex people to identify as lgbt. intersex people can choose to include themselves in the community on a case-by-case basis, but it is harmful to include it in the acronym, as it makes it hard for intersex people to be taken seriously when they identify as cis.
What about the A?
The A originally stood for ally, to allow closeted people access to lgbt resources. It was not always actually included in the acronym, but it was generally understood that you could identify yourself as an ally and participate in community events without outing yourself.
The “A is for asexual” movement was started in the early 2000′s by a cishet man named David Jay. Jay is openly homophobic, (just one instance of this is his pride at being able to work “fag” into the lgbt acronym) and most of us find it deeply offensive that a cishet man forced us to include more cishets into a community that was specifically designed to be safe from cishets.
LGBT is for all identities that differ from heteronormativity!
This is not true. If LGBT accepted all identities that were seen as “other” by society, we would be supporting kinksters, pedophiles, rapists, etc.
Along with that, cishet aces do not differ from heteronormativity, they actively contribute to it. Het people don’t suffer from heteronormativity.
But ace/aro people are still queer!
Queer is a slur that was used against sga/mga (same/similar gender attraction and multiple gender attraction) people and trans people. Many people have personally reclaimed it and started identifying as queer, but ace/aro people have no claim to the word.
You cannot reclaim a slur if it was never taken from you and used against you violently in the first place.
But “straight” means heterosexual AND heteroromantic! Cishet aros/aces aren’t straight!
“straight” means you are exclusively attracted to the opposite binary gender, (i.e. a binary girl being exclusively attracted to binary boys, and vice versa.) It doesn’t matter if this is sexual attraction, romantic attraction, or both. Heteroromantic asexual people are straight, and heterosexual aromantic people are straight.
If you call bi aces bi, and ace lesbians lesbians, you can call straight aces straight.
ace people can’t be cishet, because they are ace.
Cisgender heteroromantic asexual. Cishet.
But ace people are just as oppressed as other LGBT identities!
This is…also not true. Ace people are not systematically oppressed for their identity. You are not going to be kicked out for being ace, you are not going to be fired for being ace, you are not going to be beaten up for being ace or be killed for being ace.
This is aphobic!
The term “Aphobia” suggests that again, ace people are oppressed. As outlined above, you are not systematically oppressed for being ace.
Ace people face corrective rape!
First of all, “corrective rape” is a term lesbians coined to describe their experiences with being raped to “fix” them. Ace people should not be using this term.
Secondly, the “corrective rape” ace people face is almost always rooted in misogyny, not aphobia. It is almost exclusively a case of a female/female aligned victim, I have yet to see enough cases of male/male aligned asexual people being raped for being ace.
Telling ace people they aren’t lgbt is gatekeeping.
Gatekeeping is a term that trans women used to describe being cut off from healthcare. To use it in this context is gross. Telling straight cis people that they aren’t welcome in safe spaces from straight cis people isn’t gatekeeping.
This is just recycled biphobia!
Biphobia is a legitimate issue within the lgbt community, to compare bi people to cishet aces is super offensive to bi people because we actually face oppression from straight people and discrimination within the lgbt community, we would really appreciate not being used as a token in your argument as most of us disagree with you.
aro/ace people are valid, stop telling us we aren’t.
Sure, you’re valid. Nobody is saying you aren’t-in fact i don’t think I’ve seen one person say aro/ace people aren’t real or something.
“you aren’t lgbt” =/= “you aren’t valid.“
aro/ace people deserve a community!
Sure! the lgbt community just isn’t the right one. This community was created out of hard work, if you want a community to talk about your experiences, to specifically help aro/ace people, you have to create one.
tl;dr aro/ace people are valid, but you aren’t queer and you aren’t lgbt by virtue of being aro/ace.
I appreciate the tone this post is trying to take but it every argument it makes has been debunked thoroughly by the ace/aro community. But even so, it apparently all bears repeating, maybe all in the same place.
It’ll be exhausting to try and debunk all of these all over again, because as has been said on many occasions, one of the functions of oppression is to keep the oppressed continuously reiterating and defending their point, their right to acceptance, over and over again, so that they do not have the time or energy or resources to make gains in other areas. But I’m not asexual or aromantic, I’m bisexual and genderqueer, so let’s pretend I still have the energy to at least try to tell you why you’re wrong.
Asexuals are part of the LGTQIA community and always have been. Generations of queer-identified individuals have included them, and the recent attempt at exclusion is occurring by-and-large among people who don’t know that history. As stated in the link that opens this paragraph, the term ‘bisexual’ used to be a broad umbrella for a bunch of identities in the queer community that weren’t gay or lesbian, and asexuals were part of that (hence part of why the acronym used to only be four letters). To say they don’t have any right to the term ‘queer’ is thus wrong for a lot of reasons, which are described as this post progresses.
Also, if we’re talking about terms we should not use, the term “SGA” is gross and originated in conversion therapy. It’s not a good term to use and it’s only very recently entered usage with the LGBTQIA community, and almost exclusively as a means of deny the legitimacy of asexual and aromantic individuals. I, as a bisexual individual, find the term incredibly uncomfortably and would rather be called almost anything else. The term has homophobic origins and has not been reclaimed by the majority of the community, and so the broad usage of it is far more oppressive than the use of the (predominately) reclaimed slur queer.
Further, while the LGBTQIA community isn’t for kinksters or rapists like you mention, it also did not develop solely for individuals who experience attraction to those of the same gender. It developed as a haven for all of those whose identity and orientation (not kinksters or rapists, but identity and orientation, which is very different), falls outside of the heteronormative mold. If it were only for people who experience attraction to those of their same gender, that would exclude a lot of trans people, and by modern definitions, a lot of bi people, not to mention that the term ‘SGA’ (aside from being homophobia and biphobic in its origins) also inherently erases nonbinary identities. Beyond that, it’s really disgusting to compare ace and aro people to pedophiles and rapists. I could take all day to list the reasons why that’s wrong, but I trust anyone reading this to realize that it’s gross on many levels.
The term gatekeeping is not a trans-specific term, and has existed for eons to encompass the notion that one group is limiting access to a given thing. The example in the definition that google provides is about cultural gatekeeping at Wal-Mart, of all things. Find a source on it being a term used exclusively and with a specific meaning within the trans community and I’ll reconsider that, but I’ve seen trans people using it to describe what’s going on in the LGBTQIA community against ace and aro individuals, not to mention that it’s been used before to refer to what has happened against bisexuals. But if the term is in fact transphobic to use for any reason, the fact remains that there are individuals in the community attempting to deny access to ace and aro individuals on false presumptions and doing so in a manner that is oppressive.
On the subject of terminology, although the term corrective rape was absolutely coined by the lesbian community, what else would you like to call it when individuals are raped due to their sexual orientation?If you want to call it something else, that’s perfectly okay, but the fact remains that this experience happens to a lot of asexual individuals. And for the love of god, stop talking over asexual people who say, directly, that their corrective rape has occurred due to their orientation and not their gender. Talking over a rape survivor about their own experiences is disgusting, and if its a woman who is the survivor, and given that the majority of asexual rape survivors are women or AFAB, you’re also being misogynistic by trying to define her experiences and talking over her. You’re aphobic either way for talking over someone, but misogyny occurs when you try to repackage women’s experiences in a way that fits your narrative and not their own. Stop doing it.
Also, those false presumptions? You’re assuming that ace and aro individuals are cissexual heterosexual. They are not. They are not heterosexual at all, they are asexual, so stop calling them straight. Even if they’re heteromantic, they’re not straight. And what about an asexual aromantic? They seem to fail to exist by your measure? And it’s also literally oppressive to call a queer individual straight. I know that your post mentions that some individuals in the ace community may be trans or bi or another queer identity, but it’s horrific to invalidate one identity to prop up another. An asexual person is valid regardless of whether they are trans or nonbinary or biromantic or not. Your support of only half of someone is reductive, oppressive, and flies in the face of what you purport to want to accomplish. No asexual or aromantic person is straight, so stop calling them that. Period.
On that note, aphobia is a great deal like biphobia and transphobia. This is out of the mouths of bi and trans people. Not all bi and trans people will agree, but many do. I do, as someone who is bi and NB. As soon as I saw aphobic posts, I went “wow this feels familiar” because it is. All gatekeeping looks similar, once you strip it down to it’s core. And the majority of people making the comparison are bi or trans themselves, and because of that, it’s not biphobic or transphobic at all to make the comparison, and it’s not a token defense at all. To minimize it to that is to ignore the very real issue going on, which is that the LGTQIA community has a tendency to try and redefine ‘acceptable’ levels of queerness over and over again in a way that grants power to those doing the oppressing (and I don’t mean any specific identity, I literally mean to the people who benefit by spewing aphobic ‘discourse’ and vitriol). Whenever we see a community that has closed it’s doors to some of it’s own members, we must ask ourselves who benefits, and the reasons for it. Come to your own conclusions about that though, mine are too dark to get into here.
Speaking of benefits, that resources argument that has been touted a lot? Fails to hold water. As has been pointed out from a simple logical basis – if they didn’t need the resources, they wouldn’t be using them. Asexuals and aromantics face oppression, and the fear that aphobes have about them ‘taking’ resources from the rest of the community implies that we have a greater right to resources based on our orientation or gender than other people who are oppressed for their orientation and/or gender. When… we’re supposed to be about supporting those who are oppressed for their orientation and/or gender. So it just… doesn’t logically follow.
As for “who is oppressed more” … we don’t need to do that. We don’t need to say who faces the most/worst oppression for oppression at all to be valid, do we? Oppression is oppression. It’s known that asexuals are discriminated against, even within the community.So as issues of rape, suicidal ideation, housing issues, mental health problems, and intersections with other identities exacerbate all of these, the oppression of the asexual and aromantic community continues to be a systematic issue, one that we can fight alongside them, or one that we can help create. I’d rather be on the side of the oppressed and not their oppressors, when given the option. (I’d also like to point out that acknowledging they need a community of their own, which you do in your post, inherently acknowledges that they’re oppressed, contradicting your earlier point that they aren’t oppressed).
tl;dr - asexual and aromantic individuals are part of the LGBTQIA community and always have been, regardless of the ways that acronym has changed over time. They are oppressed (as acknowledged by yourself) and are discriminated against within the lgbtqia community, as acknowledged by many other members of the community, in a manner similar to oppression that those other members of the community have faced.
Somehow people keep claiming there is no problem with anyone hating aces and aros on this site and particularly in what they call “ace discourse” (but what could often be more accurately renamed to “plain shitting on aces and aros”). So I’ve made another list of some of the shit that’s gone down, except this time with links because apparently that’s the only way to not get dismissed out of hand.
I’ve talked a lot about racism in this mess but I’ve stuck to mostly other stuff this time, because I don’t have the energy to drag up certain shit again (or in other cases don’t want to bring in posts ppl apologized for, or dig through my blog for a long time, or or. Maybe I will add some more shit later. [Though looking over it one more time, there’s actually some considerable stuff here already.])
So, crap the anti-ace/aro crowd on this site has pulled includes but sadly is not at all limited to:
Doing their best to sexualize the orientations of aces, in so many cases. The link before these two is also connected to that. They treat our orientations like (graphic) details about “our sex lives”, frequently acting like if we want to talk about them ever we’re gross/creepy
This one is also “nice” re sexualizing aces (one of many examples of ppl also engaging in sex-shaming while they’re at it, saying only one’s partner should know anything about one’s “relationships with sex”. Except this person goes kinda even further)
One of many examples of white people who hate aces+aros talking over PoC and trying to erase us from our communities (+usually when we call that shit out they don’t care. This is actually one of the more cordial responses I’ve come across despite the lack of apology lol. [Eta: my wording here was misleading before, they weren’t talking to me - I’d also called them on this but they ignored me. Sorry for the confusion!] Also, I have a tag somewhere with several non-black/white ppl who made Rachel Dolezal comparisons to shit on aces/aros). Another example of talking over us here complete with condescendingly lecturing a PoC about racism
Did I mention that many people in this mess have wished death on aces and aros and that they often put it in positivity tags. Some of the most messed up shit I’ve seen is missing because I didn’t reblog/respond to it at the time or can’t find it right now
And I know anons don’t count as hard “proof” for anything but have the less graphic one of the death/rape threats I got in my inbox for speaking out against anti-ace/aro shit (still kinda eerily detailed though. Not linking the other one because it is extremely graphic)
And the really sad thing is that these are all just examples that I could find relatively quickly. I also left out posts for various reasons, and tried to focus on just really blatant shitand not anything where you need a ton of context, or something “just” on the level of the many people who’ve invalidated asexuality/aromanticism as orientations(declaring them to only ever “modifiers”)
But yeah, a lot of people here? Hate aces and aros a lot and what’s going on is incredibly harmful and toxic and it needs to stop. This is serious shit
I had some time and got upset, so here’s more.Mostly just recent stuff, but also a few things I mentioned in passing above but didn’t add links for:
[For ppl who don’t know: Rachel Dolezal is a white woman
who pretended to be black and built her career on it. White people sure as hell do
not get to compare this shit to anything that is not antiblackness and
use black people’s pain for their own purposes.]
What I mentioned about ppl telling us asexuality/aromanticism are not orientations but only ever modifiers? It’s happened a lot but here’s one example. And here’s someone outright saying aro aces don’t have an orientation but only modifiers.
People who hate aces and aros and treat us like dirt are not good people, and they’re doing a lot of damage often while claiming none of the above ever happened or defending it. Again, this is serious shit
So to reiterate: the anti-ace/aro bullshit on this site is toxic and frequently becomes outright horrifying and it needs to stop. Please take it seriously. Please don’t tolerate it.
I love keith!!!!! My kid !!!!! He deserves the world and I Will Give It To Him !!! You ever need to talk abt keith to someone I am here and ready to yell
On the topic of humans being everyone’s favorite Intergalactic versions of Gonzo the Great: Come on you guys, I’ve seen all the hilarious additions to my “humans are the friendly ones” post. We’re basically Steve Irwin meets Gonzo from the Muppets at this point. I love it.
But what if certain species of aliens have Rules for dealing with humans?
Don’t eat their food. If human food passes your lips/beak/membrane/other way of ingesting nutrients, you will never be satisfied with your ration bars again.
Don’t tell them your name. Humans can find you again once they know your name and this can be either life-saving or the absolute worst thing that could happen to you, depending on whether or not they favor you. Better to be on the safe side.
Winning a human’s favor will ensure that a great deal of luck is on your side, but if you anger them, they are wholly capable of wiping out everything you ever cared about. Do not anger them.
If you must anger them, carry a cage of X’arvizian bloodflies with you, for they resemble Earth mo-skee-toes and the human will avoid them.
This does not always work. Have a last will and testament ready.
Do not let them take you anywhere on your planet that you cannot fly a ship from. Beings who are spirited away to the human kingdom of Aria Fiv-Ti Won rarely return, and those that do are never quite the same.
Basically, humans are like the Fair Folk to some aliens and half of them are scared to death and the others are like alien teenagers who are like “I dare you to ask a human to take you to Earth”.
We knew about the planet called Earth for centuries before we made contact with its indigenous species, of course. We spent decades studying them from afar.
The first researchers had to fight for years to even get a grant, of course. They kept getting laughed out of the halls. A T-Class Death World that had not only produced sapient life, but a Stage Two civilization? It was a joke, obviously. It had to be a joke.
And then it wasn’t. And we all stopped laughing.Instead, we got very, very nervous.
We watched as the human civilizations not only survived, but grew, and thrived, and invented things that we had never even conceived of. Terrible things, weapons of war, implements of destruction as brutal and powerful as one would imagine a death world’s children to be. In the space of less than two thousand years, they had already produced implements of mass death that would have horrified the most callous dictators in the long, dark history of the galaxy.
Already, the children of Earth were the most terrifying creatures in the galaxy. They became the stuff of horror stories, nightly warnings told to children; huge, hulking, brutish things, that hacked and slashed and stabbed and shot and burned and survived, that built monstrous metal things that rumbled across the landscape and blasted buildings to ruin.
All that preserved us was their lack of space flight. In their obsession with murdering one another, the humans had locked themselves into a rigid framework of physics that thankfully omitted the equations necessary to achieve interstellar travel.
They became our bogeymen. Locked away in their prison planet, surrounded by a cordon of non-interference, prevented from ravaging the galaxy only by their own insatiable need to kill one another. Gruesome and terrible, yes - but at least we were safe.
Or so we thought.
The cities were called Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the moment of their destruction, the humans unlocked a destructive force greater than any of us could ever have believed possible. It was at that moment that those of us who studied their technology knew their escape to be inevitable, and that no force in the universe could have hoped to stand against them.
The first human spacecraft were… exactly what we should have expected them to be. There were no elegant solar wings, no sleek, silvered hulls plying the ocean of stars. They did not soar on the stellar currents. They did not even register their existence. Humanity flew in the only way it could: on all-consuming pillars of fire, pounding space itself into submission with explosion after explosion. Their ships were crude, ugly, bulky things, huge slabs of metal welded together, built to withstand the inconceivable forces necessary to propel themselves into space through violence alone.
It was almost comical. The huge, dumb brutes simply strapped an explosive to their backs and let it throw them off of the planet.
We would have laughed, if it hadn’t terrified us.
Humanity, at long last, was awake.
It was a slow process. It took them nearly a hundred years to reach their nearest planetary neighbor; a hundred more to conquer the rest of their solar system. The process of refining their explosive propulsion systems - now powered by the same force that had melted their cities into glass less than a thousand years before - was slow and haphazard. But it worked. Year by year, they inched outward, conquering and subduing world after world that we had deemed unfit for habitation. They burrowed into moons, built orbital colonies around gas giants, even crafted habitats that drifted in the hearts of blazing nebulas. They never stopped. Never slowed.
The no-contact cordon was generous, and was extended by the day. As human colonies pushed farther and farther outward, we retreated, gave them the space that they wanted in a desperate attempt at… stalling for time, perhaps. Or some sort of appeasement. Or sheer, abject terror. Debates were held daily, arguing about whether or not first contact should be initiated, and how, and by whom, and with what failsafes. No agreement was ever reached.
We were comically unprepared for the humans to initiate contact themselves.
It was almost an accident. The humans had achieved another breakthrough in propulsion physics, and took an unexpected leap of several hundred light years, coming into orbit around an inhabited world.
What ensued was the diplomatic equivalent of everyone staring awkwardly at one another for a few moments, and then turning around and walking slowly out of the room.
The human ship leapt away after some thirty minutes without initiating any sort of formal communications, but we knew that we had been discovered, and the message of our existence was being carried back to Terra.
The situation in the senate could only be described as “absolute, incoherent panic”. They had discovered us before our preparations were complete. What would they want? What demands would they make? What hope did we have against them if they chose to wage war against us and claim the galaxy for themselves? The most meager of human ships was beyond our capacity to engage militarily; even unarmed transport vessels were so thickly armored as to be functionally indestructible to our weapons.
We waited, every day, certain that we were on the brink of war. We hunkered in our homes, and stared.
Across the darkness of space, humanity stared back.
There were other instances of contact. Human ships - armed, now - entering colonized space for a few scant moments, and then leaving upon finding our meager defensive batteries pointed in their direction. They never initiated communications. We were too frightened to.
A few weeks later, the humans discovered Alphari-296.
It was a border world. A new colony, on an ocean planet that was proving to be less hospitable than initially thought. Its military garrison was pitifully small to begin with. We had been trying desperately to shore it up, afraid that the humans might sense weakness and attack, but things were made complicated by the disease - the medical staff of the colonies were unable to devise a cure, or even a treatment, and what pitifully small population remained on the planet were slowly vomiting themselves to death.
When the human fleet arrived in orbit, the rest of the galaxy wrote Alphari-296 off as lost.
I was there, on the surface, when the great gray ships came screaming down from the sky. Crude, inelegant things, all jagged metal and sharp edges, barely holding together. I sat there, on the balcony of the clinic full of patients that I did not have the resources or the expertise to help, and looked up with the blank, empty, numb stare of one who is certain that they are about to die.
I remember the symbols emblazoned on the sides of each ship, glaring in the sun as the ships landed inelegantly on the spaceport landing pads that had never been designed for anything so large. It was the same symbol that was painted on the helmets of every human that strode out of the ships, carrying huge black cases, their faces obscured by dark visors. It was the first flag that humans ever carried into our worlds.
It was a crude image of a human figure, rendered in simple, straight lines, with a dot for the head. It was painted in white, over a red cross.
The first human to approach me was a female, though I did not learn this until much later - it was impossible to ascertain gender through the bulky suit and the mask. But she strode up the stairs onto the balcony, carrying that black case that was nearly the size of my entire body, and paused as I stared blankly up at her. I was vaguely aware that I was witnessing history, and quite certain that I would not live to tell of it.
Then, to my amazement, she said, in halting, uncertain words, “You are the head doctor?”
I nodded.
The visor cleared. The human bared its teeth at me. I learned later that this was a “grin”, an expression of friendship and happiness among their species.
“We are The Doctors Without Borders,” she said, speaking slowly and carefully. “We are here to help.”
I hate when people down play K/eith's piloting skills. He is the best pilot among the paladins. B4 getting their lions P/dge and H/unk weren't even pilots. L@nce only became a fighter pilot because K/eith dropped out. Need to pursue some1 into an asteroid belt? Sh/ro sent K/eith. That's why Sh/ro chose to bring K/eith with him in BOM (not favoritism) but because K/eith was best suited to navigate such a dangerous path. He's their best pilot.
I think what gets me the most about the Lance scene at the beginning of 2x8 is when people side with Lance—when they act like it’s a great example of leadership from him because he “knew his teammates” and “was right” about why Shiro shouldn’t have taken Keith, when a.) he wasn’t being genuine in his objection, and b.) he wasn’t right, because his argument was that Keith’s temper would ruin the mission because he’d kill everyone, and that’s not at all what happened.
I mean, just so we’re all clear on what was said:
LANCE: “So, uh … any thoughts on who’s going to join you on this little mission? I’m thinkin’ things might get a little hot, so you’re gonna want someone who can stay cool.”
SHIRO: “You’re right. Keith, you’re coming with me.”
LANCE: “Wha—?! Keith’s a hothead! He’s probably gonna shoot first and ask questions later! And they’re not gonna be able to answer his questions because they’ll be dead!”
SHIRO: “We haven’t yet severed Zarkon’s link with the Black Lion, so it has to stay here. And the Red Lion can withstand the heat from that sun, so yes, it’ll be Keith.”
In the first bit, Lance is smirking in a self-assured way. He’s making a bit of a joke with his “it might get hot, so you’ll want someone who can stay cool” bit, playing on the fact that the Blue Lion has ice powers. However, the minute Shiro says that Keith is coming with him, Lance loses it. He screeches about how Keith is a hothead and tries to make Keith out to be some sort of bloodthirsty loose cannon as a way to change Shiro’s mind so that Shiro takes him instead. People try to play this off as Lance knowing what’s best and speaking up for the good of the mission, but the fact that Lance tried to volunteer himself, smirking all the while, right before that disproves that notion. Lance wasn’t speaking out against Keith because he, as a strategic savant, saw what was best for the mission and felt the need to point it out; he spoke out against Keith because he wanted Shiro to take him and was jealous. And furthermore, for all that he rails against Keith for being a hothead in his rant, he’s the one whose temper was so triggered by Shiro deciding to take Keith that he not only started screaming, but also got in Shiro’s face to make sure that Shiro heard every word of it. Shiro is, understandably, completely unimpressed by this:
This is an absolutely terrible way to handle this situation.Even if Lance disagreed with Shiro’s judgment call, there is a way to get that across civilly and respectfully. But of course, this wasn’t really about Lance thinking that Shiro’s call was wrong, it was about Lance throwing a tantrum because Shiro had chosen to take Keith instead of him. Hence, he resorted to screaming and getting in Shiro’s face about it.
And again, I feel the need to emphasize that he was wrong. Not only has Keith never been the type to simply murder people without asking questions (especially in a case like this, given that Keith has been pretty outspoken about wanting to form an alliance with The Blade of Marmora if possible!), but Keith’s temper didn’t cost them the mission. Keith didn’t have an outburst of temper at all; the most he did was get understandably defensive when The Blade of Marmora accused him of stealing his knife (which was a memento from his parents), and refuse to give it up. Prior to that, however, The Blade of Marmora already didn’t want to trust him. Kolivan and the others had already expressed disapproval that Ulaz had given away their location. While it’s true that they felt that Keith had come armed due to him bringing the knife when they specifically said not to bring weapons (even though Keith wasn’t thinking of it as a weapon at the time—he just wanted to ask questions about it), they were already uninterested in forming an alliance with Team Voltron. If anything, Keith’s insistence on doing the Trials in order to learn about his heritage is what opened what otherwise would have been a closed door on an alliance with The Blade of Marmora. His determination—and his acceptance of himself to trigger the knife’s/sword’s awakening—is what won The Blade of Marmora over. Had anyone else gone, the alliance would have been over before it began. Keith saved the mission, he didn’t damn it.
But oh, we want to talk about 2x8!Lance? Let’s remember how he reacted when the Red Lion began attacking the Marmora base:
He’s scared! And I’m not dragging him for this, I think it’s a perfectly understandable and normal reaction for a teenage boy (or anyone, really) to be scared when there’s a very good chance that one (or two) of their friends is dead or dying (which is what the Red Lion attacking implies, especially since we as an audience know that Keith was beat to hell and was pretty much dying at that point). But I will say that he did not act like a leader in that situation. Lance heard that the Red Lion was attacking, heard the implication in what Hunk said, and immediately looked to the leader for reassurance. You can see in his expression that he’s terrified. You can hear in his voice that he’s very, very afraid in the tiny way he says, “Allura?” He looks to her for reassurance and guidance and he gets it, because—as a leader should—Allura takes charge, reminds everyone that they need to stay focused, and asks Coran how soon they can get into the base. It’s not that Allura doesn’t care about Shiro and Keith—of course she does—but she is the leader of that team, she’s the one in charge at present, and she knows that if she loses her cool, so will the rest of them. She may not be the Black Paladin, but Allura functions as a leader of Voltron in her own right. She is, after all, the princess (queen, tbh, not that Alfor is dead and she was next in line for the throne). She’s the commander of the Castle of Lions. It is her job to be mission control in a sense and that’s what she’s doing. She can’t afford to lose her head—she has to remain focused, and she has to keep the rest of the team focused as well. Giving into her fear isn’t an option for her like it is for, say, Lance, who demonstrates pretty well in this scene that when he hears that one of his teammates (or both of them—these guys have no way of knowing that Shiro is okay) is in life-threatening danger, he’s stricken by panic and looks to someone else for guidance and reassurance.
And he remains that way throughout the rest of the scene:
Compare Lance to the others. Hunk, Pidge, and Allura are all looking straight ahead. Lance, as we can tell by comparing this close-up to the other shots, is still looking at Allura. While Pidge and Allura look determined (and Hunk is … smiling? … well, he’s not afraid at least), Lance still looks afraid. And again, I’m not dragging him, I think it’s reasonable to be afraid in this situation, but I am saying that in comparison to the others, who no doubt care about Shiro and Keith but have the capability to stay focused and determined despite their fear that two of their friends might be dead or dying, it says something that Lance is still looking to someone else for guidance and looks as if this fear is debilitating to / distracting him.
So, Lance stans want the Lance of Marmora, do they? Because I really don’t think they do. Because I think that if they really actually looked and paid attention to the Lance that we saw in 2x8 “The Blade of Marmora,” they would see that he’s not at all the logical, leadership savant they’ve made him out to be in fanon. That’s not to say that Lance doesn’t have any good qualities, of course, and that he’s useless, because of course he isn’t—but he also doesn’t demonstrate in this episode that he would be a fantastic, amazing leader, and trying to use this episode as an argument for why he should be the Black Paladin (or whatever else) is completely ludicrous, because it directly contradicts that idea by showing how, in a time of crisis and uncertainty, Lance specifically looks to someone else to lead. And he doesn’t do this because he thinks he can’t, but rather, because he’s stricken by fear, and his natural instinct is to look to someone else for guidance and reassurance.
That’s Lance. Not whatever his stans have made him out to be.
Okay, but hold on - Keith’s determination did NOT win over the Blade of Marmora. It was the number one thing that made them unwilling to accept Keith and Shiro. And Shiro almost spoiled things also by preferring to leave rather than try and get either Keith or the BoM to give in.
What won over the BoM was Keith himself deciding to give in. That’s not a minor point, it’s actually a major point of character growth and character development for Keith. Keith gave in, sacrificing his own personal need for the greater good.
The illusion shows what Keith wants most. What was that? Shiro, yes, for obvious reasons. But also his past - his father (maybe) and his mother (maybe). That should give you some idea of how precious to him his only clue to his past must be.
So no, this had nothing to do with Keith accepting himself. It had everything to do with Keith letting go for the greater good.
As for Lance criticism - believe it or not, Lance is demonstrating himself to be better at those things than the others on the team. Probably due to experience being part of a big family, I’d guess. Standing up for yourself and trying to make a case is important, and Lance is, incredibly, better at this than the others even if he is not very good at it. Hunk is too used to waiting his turn so when he finally does try to insist on something he gets shot down. Keith is a loner who at least knows he’s no good at making an argument so he just walks off without wasting everyone’s time with trying to formulate any sort of explanation at all. Pidge just insists she’s going and that no one can stop him (at this time Keith actually does try to browbeat Pidge into staying, but he gets shot down by Shiro).
So here’s the thing - Lance at least tries and he keeps trying. He’s not good at making a case, but if he keeps practicing he’ll get better at it.
And Lance looking at Allura? He’s being a team player the way Keith isn’t. He wants to go out and help his friends. But he’s not going to act alone. He’s the one who doesn’t want to sneak out on the town by himself, he has to drag his buddy Hunk along. He looks to Shiro for the senior officer’s orders. He respects the chain of command, and when he disagrees with it he follows the chain of command. Is he some uber-perfect paragon of leadership? No, that’s nonsense. But he’s a good team player. He wants to help his friends, but he respects that Allura’s calling the shots. He’s starting at her because what matters is when she orders them to go out. He has tried to make his case, and he’s waiting for the go ahead.
I’m going to have to respectfully point out that you either misunderstood my post, are incorrectly remembering both 2x08 as well as many other episodes in the series (and especially Keith’s character), or both. But in order to do so, I’m going to take apart your response piece by piece to show exactly what it is I disagree with, as well as provide counter-evidence via screenshots to show precisely why I disagree with it.
but apparently the L/ance of Mar/mora seems… more appealing than a K/eith character arc to some people
“Okay, but hold on - Keith’s determination did NOT win over the Blade of Marmora. It was the number one thing that made them unwilling to accept Keith and Shiro.”
This is incorrect. The Blade of Marmora did not trust nor accept Keith and Shiro from the very start, and openly disapproved of Ulaz’s decision to divulge the location of the base.
The Blade of Marmora is, understandably, extremely cautious. While Ulaz believed in Team Voltron’s ability to combat Zarkon and the Galra Empire, Kolivan and the others made it pretty apparent from the start that they were not very interested in forming an alliance. The fact that Kolivan openly disparages Ulaz and how his foolishness resulted in his death makes that more than apparent, which is why Shiro demands to know whether or not they are even welcome there. Keith’s determination to go through with the trials had nothing at all to do with The Blade of Marmora’s distrust or unwillingness to accept Shiro and Keith (and the rest of Team Voltron) as potential allies. They held that mistrust from the start.
Now, you could argue that Kolivan’s disparaging comments about Ulaz divulging the location of the base (against orders) was a direct result of Keith bringing the knife with him, given that Kolivan does point out the fact that Keith is armed in the next line:
You could further argue that Keith’s insistence on bringing the knife to get answers, despite being told to come unarmed, is the display of determination that turned The Blade of Marmora against them, given that his insistence on getting answers about his past led to him ignoring the order to come unarmed. However, there are several points against this idea:
