space loser giant kitty committee (voltron)

Spoiler: Episode 1

voltron we NEEDED that moon
oh hey the Black Bayard! But idr if it was in the last season so
you know this is why you shut your hangar doors
a TEMPORAL rift? that is a problem.
huh, she calls herself Pidge by now. I wonder if it was a nickname before now, or if she only came up with it for her Garrison identity?
also the voltron lions comms... what is their range...
well that are a problem
uhhh
ok so they're. jumping through parallels
wonder if we might see spiderverse
omg. why.
WONDERFUL. I LOVE THOSE.
shiroou?
awww. well it looks like he's near keith. so.
handy dandy heads up display!
awwww shirou
uh. but i doubt those things can actually HARM black in any meaningful way.
sounds electronic?
PIDGE NO THEY ARE PROBABLY PARASITES
CORAN
So altean emo music is like opera
BABY
is that a fusion mice
o dear
what pretty beasties!
what the
PIDGE YOU HAVE A JETPACK
wait if there's water so close to the surface how are there canyons like shirou's in
yeah keith did you just forget you had a jetpack
also these things are scagengers, right? why would they be expending THIS much effort?
wow that helmet was not well secured
because momentum is conserved, especially without gravity?
uhh we've seen the lions act independently to protect their pilots. if black ISNT helping it's either because she can't or because she wouldn't anyways
well fine then
god damn katie-pidge 'tony stark ain't got nothing on me' holt
PIDGE SAVED EVERYONE'S ASS GREEN FTW
'and they helped me stave off Space Madness!'
awww shirou
WONDERFUL so we don't actually have to have keith lead because i love the guy but no leader is he
pfff. nice job dude.

Spoiler: Episode 2

oooooo pretty
'reserve power' what even runs a lion
PIDGE'S SCIENCE SAVED 5/7 OF THE TEAM HOW DARE YOU
lance typically mermaids are bad news, especially for the shipwrecked
also, would their guns work underwater. just. as a precaution.
lance are you taking bluelion as your surname now
bless you hunk
'there is no war in ba sing se. here we are safe. here we are free.' I'M SORRY BUT.
i hope the entire entertainment is shadow dancing
aww fine
well shit
and they drugged the food too i bet
meanwhile yellow and blue: 'fuckin space jesus' 'ikr'
yeah it could be any of these or none
awww i was hoping those were their real heads
uh.a full scale assault with three people
ok but uh. hunk is still drugged.
YEAH THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE THE PUFFERFISH FOR
oh dear
NICELY done
ok that won't work so she'll probabl have to go into the garden
or freeze it. that's anoption

Spoiler: Episode 3

D:
ptsd is a BITCH
man he's doing well all things considered
you know what happens if one of those robeasts decides to wreck haggar
oh hey they're gonna go visit Homeworld!
ohhh, they're tracking Black.
he's also not fighting back so.
pidge retract your bayard and slam into him
i hope this person is a lady.
oh it's this guy again
uh. maybe dont have shirou, who is biased go alone
yeah no shit keith
oh my god allura that base has like no defensive capability, or offensive, it's a liability in the fight
so really all you gotta do is wait for it to recharge, then stab it good
yeah like that
no that's not the solution, it has 0 melee capability
uh.... sure i guess
that'll do!
are you sure about that
yeeeeep there it is

Spoiler: Episode 4

that sure is a title.but hey, pidge episode!
:D !
uhh. can't you go inside
uh yeah keith had a clear connection to Blue. poor autistic kid.
turing machine what
because biotech is still tech?
pidge you ARE lion of the forest.
pfffff
how does EVERYONE know this thing after 10000 years
that's not what evolution means but ok
i hope pidge could learn how to make this kind of thing
THIS IS A LIE NATURE IS A C+ STUDENT WHILE ENGINEERS ARE NERDS
SOMEONE TEACH PIDGE TO DO THIS I BET SHE COULD
I LOVE ALL OF THIS
:D
does it work on metal too?
pidge BETTER keep this toy it's so perfect and on-theme
oh i wonder if Coran's cube was an actual toy, that he got as a child.
also if Pidge mods green with this it'll be great
it really didn't
bless you pidge
YEAH NO IT IS A BAD IDEA USE YOUR STABS
ooh they should drop pidge in to hack it
ahahah. well it was a nice effort....
USE THE CIRCLET
GO PIDGE!!!!
HELLS YES
i hope she learns how to actually take control of stuff by shooting it as well
YES GOOD HAVE PIDGE LEARN HOW TO METAL/BIOTECH BEND. I WANT THIS TO BE A SPECIAL RECURRING SKILL. FUSE THE CIRCLET WITH THE GREEN PALADIN HELMET.
well SHIT.

Spoiler: Episode 5

so uh. can the alkari whip up spaceships quickly....
oh ok?
wait what. what are those. color coded turrets?
GUYS GET A GRIP FOR THE LOVE OF GOD
gravity slingshot!
adrenaline crash?
how would you get a virus. you've been on a sterile ship for HOW long?
oh so. you all got infected?
uh. this seems like a bad plan. at least get some rubber gloves first.
wow everyone IS crashing.
god i've read this fanfic. or its cousins.
good lord.
OH MY GOD THAT LOOKS LIKE SO MUCH FUN
OH GOD. I KNEW IT.
I KNEW THAT ALTEA WAS A DEATH WORLD AND ALL THE PEOPLE ON IT WERE HARDENED WARRIORS AND IT WAS ONLY PRETENDING TO BE SPACE ELF ARCADIA
and HOW did they manage to get to you without being noticed? even wormholes are noticeable!
dude no bad plan
uhhh well
ok
fingers crossed?
well. shit.
how do you REPLACE those
ok so. you're kinda boned.
it's either your arm or he's tracking Black
ok, Black then.
also, yeah everyone has been running on adrenaline for a while, crashing is natural.
BUT NOT TO LION TELEPATHY.
and you are staring right down the barrel huh
what now?
so haggar wants the princess dead, and zarkon wants Black
WHY WOULD THOSE BE STORED IN THE KITCHEN
oh god this would probably make the ghostof every altean teledove engineer and safety inspector cry
tbh this is a good outcome.

Spoiler: Episode 6

uhhhh. what?
thanks pidge!
oh that clears things up
pidge ilu
keith you are clearly NOT ok
aww kiddo.
uhhhh. not even a headsup from Allura?
oh dear oh dear. and it is impossible to tell whether the problem is Keith or anything else
OH MY GOD YOU TWO WERE BOTH GOING TO RUN AWAY.
OH MY GOD YOU IDIOT LOSERS
AND IF YOU TWO ARE BEING TRACKED YOU HAVE NO PROTECTION.
omg i just realized they're waterbears
cyborg waterbears
and Tarjeer sounds kinda like Tardigrade!
omg are they going to compare notes about what galra relate to their lives?
allura grew up around them, presumably, and was betrayed. keith is seeking family.
ALLURA THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS. IT KIND OF SUCKS WHEN YOU'RE FIGHTING A GUERILLA WAR.
NO THAT IS A NATURAL PART OF THE PLANET SYSTEM, IT WOULD MAKE THINGS BAD? OR POSSIBLY INTERFERE WITH THE PLANET GROWTH?
well hopefully doing it quickly and only temporarily will work... i mean it DOES need to shed properly at some point.
gee it's almost like your self-sacrificial plan was not well thought out
GO TEAM
aaaand they tracked the SHIP not the shuttle
WELL SHIT
THAT ARE A PROBLEM.
luckily i think these suits have a really amazing power source so. you should be good on air and fuel, but. food. exhaustion.
OH HEY WHAT IF THEY GO TO ONE OF THE REBEL BASES THAT WOULD FIT NARRATIVELY
....wasn't alfor the YELLOW?
pffffff
ok so red is gonna go pick up the kids.
'gdi cub i can't leave you alone for ONE NIGHT'
COMBOB WEAPON
MEGASWORD that bears a striking resemblance to a GALRA sword....
just carry it?
yeah that'll do
and they're engineers, they should be able to fix their engines by the time they can go back.
well you don't KNOW. it's a hypothesis that has not been disproven.

Spoiler: Episode 7

have Shirou mindmeld with Black to force him out?
yeah
oh god bad plan
i think literally only the people who can haggle should go, and also, not bring ANYTHING valuable....
well shit.
oh dear.
oh my god.
so the galra are here, and basically turned the swapmoon into a decent place to trade?
is this part of altea?
UHHH.
what????
so, the galra are in fact CAPITALISTS
well uh shit.
keith do not buy anything from this alien.
NO KEITH THIS IS SUCH A TERRIBLE PLAN
keith why would you even bring your most prized possession here.
so, this is the Gal?
no one's livin there now...
oh dear. poor pidge.
PIDGE YOU NERD
SHOKUGEKI NO HUNK
also MORE NICE GALRA
what the hell
beautiful.
damn though he practically wrote the BOOK on black, huh
'OK KIDS BREAK IT UP'
ooh, a thing happen!
oh my god.
....so they actually just bought everything with legal tender right
wait did he say dammit
pidge you're PIDGE you can probably work it out.

Spoiler: Episode 8

you know. hunk is a tech nerd too. why isn't he geeking out too
uhhhh
HOW
HUNK YOU FIGURED OUT A GEIGER COUNTER FOR AN ELEMENT THAT DOESN'T EXIST ON EARTH
uhhh that sounds like Cree, who's Haggar.
lance you're a hothead too.
i doubt he could lead the group, though. it seems likely you'll all die together.
ooh, very sneaky
oh dear oh dear. why did you bring it with you.
oh, poor keith
so uh. how is a stab fight meant to teach anything or test anything besides your combat skill.
he's also not a knife fighter by preference
ahh, so the path of marmora is one of defying your preordained place, huh?
and teaching endurance
oh god they're going to get entirely the wrong idea from Keith's trial
i also want to make a galra OC who's in this club now.
oooh. so i wonder if this might be part of the trial as well.
oh keith you've got like. 5 blunt force traumas by now.
oh dear oh dear.
oh my god poor keith. i hope the others hug him.
oh my god that's his dad???
oh it's his MOM that's the alien.
WOW he is a damn good liar or she decided he'd be more use alive.
well shit. that is a problem.
wait one of those has a tail.
MAGIC IS HAPPEN
uhhh
oh thank god for that timing. yo ushould probably help repairs though.
so who drugged lance?

Spoiler: Episode 9

Oh my god hunk.
...that ALSO sounds like cree summers.
ahaha. well shit.
YOU HAVE JETPACKS
KEITH WE JUST HAD AN EPISODE OF GALRA NOT BEING ENTIRELY EVIL
well i hope this person is friendly, anyways. they have great colorcoding.
DUDE YOU'RE NOT SUBTLE
are there any other moles?

Spoiler: Episode 10

So, what else needs fetchquested?
beta traz is totally a pun. alca-traz=alpha traz = beta traz.
ooh, sonar
so uh. is there any STAFF on this base.
....yeah seriously who drugged lance.
huh that guy is awfully multicolored for a galra.
that'll work. good thing none of them were alarmed?
just sneak in when that guy opens the door
so, being a supercomputer does not mean you're a good engineer
uhhhhhhhh. it couldn't be that this guy knows a good chance when he sees one?
oh huh. this guy's all in blue and orange, like the mysterious galra from before.
THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TEXT INTERFACE.
Lyca?
lance haven't you NOTICED HE ONLY RESPONDS WITH YUP
oh god having omniversal awareness would SUCK.
oh my god this is that guy's pet.
REMEMBER KIDS. DRUGS DON'T PAY. CRIME NEVER WINS.
ok so uh. the paladins would be fine regardless. it's just slav and lyca that'd have problems
awwwwwwwwwwww that's sweet

Spoiler: Episode 11

aww mouse charades.
well, it WAS helpful.
the balmera have colors now!
oh yeah that thing's still there
the outbound what now
oh dear thace
HOSPITALITY IS IMPORTANT
well uh shit
wait i wonder
if it'll be an enemy, or if the balmera took it over
to be a guardian for its people
i mean they're dark purple so probably not
oh i guess it's still evil
geez hunk give it a rest you all found out like 10 minutes after keith did
YOU HAVE A MOUTH CANNON HUNK
:D
'ziplines were quite fashionable'
THANK YOU HUNK.

Spoiler: Episode 12

....man i don't know if the show has had enough to have a 'let's see how far we've come' moment....
uh. yeah. because there is 1 evil person in the whole universe! zarkon's empire is supplying all the bad in the whole galaxy. and also once he is defeated there certainly won't be a power vacuum or splinter groups or people scrabbling for power. you just need to kill the one guy and then everything will be perfect forever. shirou you're an adult seriously.
wait this organization hasn't prepared for this?
wow fuck u too allura.
so uh. they can't form voltron. they will have only 4/5 of their lions. great plan.
allura, once upon a time you had to have considered galra family. Zarkon and Alfor were close!
aww thace.
also.leaving a prisoner with a weapon. this is a brilliant idea.
yeah why did it take them so long to get in the air....
ohhhh. plans!
oh, thace.
awwww thace.
so uhhhh. really he could've just done THAT and gone with keith. those jetpacks have a pretty good carrying capacity.
oh wait he didn't jump all the way.
outrun the explosion!
yea but there's still one episode left....
wow they all draw power from one source?
oh my god do you REALLY need the stock footage EVERY TIME.

Spoiler: Episode 13

ok so is there a reason they're not pointing all their guns at it right now. is allura the only one who can shoot stuff.
so they're going to turn him into a robeast right
uhhhhhh
so what, did they break voltron? but also themselves?
yep, robeast Zarkon.
ok but. i keep thinking of kittenfists and lion slippers. voltron really has a silly design.
you also have no experience in magical combat that we've seen
GO KICK ASS
oh YEAH allura has quarterstaff training!
predecessors? i thought they DIED. what did happen to them then?
maybe next season will have a plot of 'find the last 3 paladins' along with the quest to find the holt family and keith's mom.
uh.black. you do remember what he doesn't have right.
so wait are zarkon's wings imitating black's wings?
wow that's handy
also the black lion gives you the power of intangibility i guess! too bad shirou couldn't leae any explosives behind
?
well ij then
oh and allura has magic too that's good for her.
anyways it makes sense she'd be altean. they lived together! but what does that mean about the druids? are they just Haggar's familiars? they dissolve into nothing, after all.
sooo what was allura doing, exactly....
oh wow this again
AND IT LIGHTS THE SWORD ON FIRE. AMAZING
and fire isn't even on-theme for shirou!
soo zarkon is dead but haggar is still out there.
uhhhh
???
shirou became one with the allspark!
awwww
!!!!!!!

 

Spoiler: the very end of s2e12

okay okay I take back what I said about giving zero fucks about Lotor and gotdamn I can't wait to see some HISTORY up in here, now I want to know

a) if the Alteans and Galra used to be buddies, what the fuck were they fighting and
b) how did that go so horribly wrong and also
c) Keith's mom, and did his dad actually know he was boinking an alien or???

 

Spoiler

YEAH I am hoping to eventually see the galra empire as being... idk, inclusive? Because they're huge, the galra cannot be the majority in their own empire just by the amount of people they've conquered. So I'd like to see some species that's like, fish people, who have been conquered by the galra for 9k years and consider themselves galra. We haven't seen an indication that they believe in galra supremacy, as I recall, so...

Also I want more lady galra. We haven't seen ANY. take your cue from the fire nation, who were clearly equal opportunity villains.

 

Spoiler

UGH GOD YES LADY GALRA PLEASE.

...I was about to say "but what about Haggar" OH WAIT WHOOPS NVM

 

I have seen the first episode!

Spoiler: pidge snarky sweetheart of adorable

I am slightly disappointed that they went the route of "cute=good" "scary=scary." One the other hand, Pidge impersonating her friends was the cutest combination of salt and "let me tell you about them" I have ever seen. Also: Apparently male Alteans have facial hair at a very early age? Or it was there to be funny. The alternate realities thing/time travel-deaging thing was funny. I am extremely worried about Shiro's evil glowing wound of evil. I am officially Jossed for my fanfics!

 

Can I take Varkon home and adopt him?

 

I love how often Red has gone, "MY CUB NEEDS ME!!!! MOMMA'S COMIN' BABY!" in this season.

 

Spoiler: Spoiler

AAAAW They didn't get to take the yupper! I wanted a new team mascot, the mice are lame.

 

Spoiler

ok but I liked quite a few of the alternate mouse forms. Like the... hippos? And the cerberus.

 

Yeah but they didn't get to keep those either :(

 

I love the variance in galra designs so much I am very much contemplating making an OC.

 

Spoiler: Galra gender

This has absolutely no canon support what so ever but my xeno oriented brain wants to say the reason we see no galra women is because they're all genderless hermaphrodites and get to designing the freaky sex bits.

I bet Keith's mystery pilot turns out to be a lady galra tho. No face and no voice, weirdly cooperative and non-fighty, but still a lone agent doing who knows what. I'm throwing my prediction at them showing up enough next season to get Keith's interest and then there's a confrontation and Grand Reveal, and oh, it's a chick.

 

Spoiler: Obligatory Lance NO post

I think Lance would feel a lot more worried about mermaids if he'd read Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant.

 

Spoiler: Episode three

Okay, we knew that there were people actually dying during the battles in season one. It looks like season two is going to be making the deaths more personal and individualized to the viewer if not necessarily the characters. (I say this mostly because we-the-viewers knew about the one mermaid we see getting fed to the Baku, but I'm not sure that Lance or Hunk knew that someone they knew/met had become Creepyworm Chow.) I am getting a very "kids and fun" feeling from this show.

I am very very Jossed for my fics, but I knew that would happen going in, hence why I write aus.

 

Spoiler: I like how Red is all SPACE RESCUE this season

it's also funny to me that literally the first thing Red did after accepting Keith was save him from a lonely death in the void, and it's become Their Thing. maybe the other lions have gotten used to Red tearing off at off moments going' HANG ON MY KID JUST GOT SPACED AGAIN BRB'

 

Help me kintsugi you are my only hope. I just got out of a conversation I had to block in Discord because someone felt that Allura is a bad character and unrealistic because everyone knows that Royalty gets special training so that they are never ever other than completely diplomatic royalty bots who don't show any emotion or react when their entire species has been wiped out as a result of a horrific war. Allura is also a horrible racist person which Royalty never ever is. Because of all the super special training. Which does not match my understanding of actual real-world history. Just. Why. Why.

 

..............
yeah it's not like Allura had her father's best friend start an empire that wiped out her entire culture. and definitely not like she rather quickly got over the issue.

plus like. i feel like the kind of people who think Royalty are always right are the people who need to have some PTerry books set in front of them for a while. Royalty is frequently and disastrously bad, often involving royalty having issues being perfectly diplomatic forever.

 

omg that's amazing

 

Spoiler: A more detailed write-up/rant

Okay so I was briefly on a Discord with a Voltron season 2 spoiler channel. And I was kind of upset by three people including the moderator of the Discord hating Allura. The reason I was given is that Allura is a racist, a twat and should therefore die.

I was also told that royalty~ is given special royalty lessons/training and would never, ever behave in an emotional or prejudicial fashion, even after the complete destruction of her civilization and her planet, epic levels of mindfuckery, and the "double death" of her father. You know, just like in history, where royalty~ has never ever been shortsighted, ignorant, racist or just fucking stupid because people are people and people fuck up and pitch tantrums, and royalty~ has pitched epic tantrums that have started wars.

Ironically, the discussion was mostly focused on how illogical and full of holes the Voltron universe is. Which yes. The world building is based on a fucking chopped up anime based on I think at least three other animes from the fucking 80s. Which was pretty fucking random and full of fucking holes. Because that's the way anime and manga tend to roll sometimes (most of the fucking time). Just. A lot of nitpicking was going on, and it was fucking stupid.

But back to Allura, who I suspect is being "targeted" for the reason you usually have inexplicable levels of hatred for a female character: she's a female character. Because Coran is um...also deeply racist and openly insulting, but he seemed to get a pass, I guess because he's the funny side kick and is male. Coran is apparently NOT on the racists-should-die hit list.

They were pretty much theorizing that Alteans were secretly the bad guys because Allura is racist. They're also theorizing that Allura couldn't have been the heir, because of the aforementioned utterly superior royalty training~ she apparently didn't get.

Just...no.

What I've been picking up is that Alteans were probably imperial colonialists with a kind of surface-benevolent "white man's burden" shtick. They're bringing peace, they're uplifting lesser species, they're preserving yada yada. Some real paternalistic Rudyard Kipling bullshit. Lots of "positive stereotypes," East vs. West stuff.

The Galra Empire is probably doing a lot of the same things with a lot of the same views the Altean Empire had, filtered through whatever dark lens of perspective Zarkon and Haggar are using to view reality. In the first season, it seems that Zarkon has some feelings of betrayal and hatred toward the Alteans. In season two, Ulaz says that Zarkon was backed as a leader because the Galra thought he'd bring peace and stability, but his deal turned out, ten thousand years later, to be kind of shitty. I'm only at episode three of the second season, so I don't know how much of the puzzle gets unraveled, but the thing is ten thousand years old, so it's not likely to be solved.

So yeah, I think Allura is suffering from some pretty ingrained privilege and classism issues, "space elves burden" paternalism, and a severely damaged psyche that is making her especially hateful and suspicious/xenophobic/racist toward the Galra. I also feel that Shiro and the other paladins are very much aware of it, and are taking what she's saying/doing with a grain of salt.

(Interestingly, Ulaz does not get himself into an argument with Allura, and seems to accept her hostility as "it's a fair cop." Shiro is also aware Allura is off the rails, but doesn't openly disapprove, possibly to show a united front. Shiro is less xenophobic and more trusting in the idea of there being "good Galra," which is not what's been assumed from fanon, which is interesting.)

 

...

Spoiler

Also wondering if the hating Allura but not coran is good old fashioned racism, too. And I would desperately like to know why they think you need the universe's most intensive sensitivity program to be in the line of inheritance, because I think they might have never actually read fiction or history about royalty, ever? Or maybe like half the Disney Princes with character arcs are actually pretenders to the throne.