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kitsunebellproductions · 6 years

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Thoughts on Voltron Season 7

SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY! Things that annoyed/angered/saddened/frustrated me: *Kuron still being treated as though he was nothing more than some evil monster and convenient spare parts for Shiro. I am still nauseated by the whole thing. This poor precious baby boy deserved so much better. *Shiro’s hair -I mean come on, his fringe was pure white before but now it’s grey? What, did the whole process leach colour from the rest of his hair yet restore some to his fringe?! I will just assume it’s meant to be white but they felt this particular shade of white/grey worked best aesthetically with his outfits etc. *Too little Shiro for too many episodes. *Too much Keef. (Sorry, fandom has completely ruined this character for me, he’s not a bad character but I am repulsed by his mere name thanks to the toxicity in this fandom. I wish I could go back to the beginning of watching Voltron when he was just another decent character that I felt neither yay nor nay about, but it is what it is.) *That weird game show -if it was some magical space mage mumbo jumbo thingy that just transported their consciousness, why wasn’t Shiro there? And the whole ‘comedy family’ shtick with the Galra... I mean, it was a bit funny but... mostly weird tbh. The funniest parts were the commercials. *Way too little background/interaction with Shiro and Adam. *Also Adam’s design -like, why do you make an entirely new character that looks a lot like a mix of two other characters who are father and son (Matt and Sam)? You could have done literally anything to his design but you went safe and way too familiar? I mean holy moly did you see Kinkade? Fuck yeah what a gorgeous design, that is exactly what my hopeful heart pictured for Shiro’s boyfriend but nope. Give us generic floppy-hair glasses boy with a generic medium brown palette, it’s so fresh and new and interesting. Not. *Adam FUCKING DYING before Shiro even got back to Earth. You could have at least let the poor boy have a reunion with someone waiting for him on Earth before burying some more gays, but no. He must suffer. *Shiro getting like three seconds to mourn Adam.

*Speaking of burying your gays... (not to mention a delightful dash of the ‘evil lesbians’ trope): Ezor and Zethrid. Yayy on their relationship, nay on them being presumably killed off (I mean killing 3 out of 4 queer characters while keeping the straight characters safe is not a good way to show how queer friendly your show is. And no the ‘we had to show how dark and dangerous war is’ excuse doesn’t work when the only characters you kill are the queer ones. There were plenty of characters back on Earth we’d have felt just as deeply about -or more even- considering we’ve heard about the other paladins’ families back on Earth but we’d never heard of Adam until now. Just imagine if Veronica had died -that would have been intensely emotional and really had gone to show all that you wanted about the dangers of war -especially as I don’t doubt for a second that Lance would have gotten an entire episode at least to mourn her while Shiro got like three seconds. Because Shiro is apparently not allowed to mourn). *And isn’t it funny how the most alien-looking Galra women are the evil ones, while the ‘good’ ones look more or less like lavender-skinned human women (and are also very pretty, petite and with slender, ‘sexy’ bodies.) Like, seriously... *Not to mention how creepy it is that Keef’s Galra mom and the other ‘good’ Galra woman (Acxa, who for whatever reason the show tried to force some out-of-the-blue yucky heteromance together with Keef) look disturbingly much alike (and they look to be the same age too more or less. So sick and tired of the ‘hot young-looking mom’ trope in media but especially animated shows. And especially when the kids end up banging girls looking to be more or less the same age as their mom). *Shiro not reacting when Ezor and Zethrid went for Pidge -he’s consistently been shown to be very protective and self-sacrificing, yet here he barely bats an eye. I get it was a scene framed to lift Lance, but it felt extremely ooc for Shiro to not at least try to help. *Ezor and Zethrid’s relationship being honestly way more explicitly stated than Shiro and Adam’s (which was the relationship hailed as the big lgbtq+ rep for this season). No, they definitely didn’t need to get back together for Shiro to still be considered lgbtq+ rep -you don’t need a partner to be lgbtq+! But when you wave a specific relationship around as a big banner of glorious lgbtq+ rep to come and then barely even hint at it in the show... well... not so much of a rep then, is it? *Not showing Shiro in that worldwide message of ‘these are our beloved brave heroes from Earth’. Like, this boy was kidnapped by aliens, spent a year being tortured, brainwashed, cloned, dismembered, pretty much violated in every concievable way, then immediately after escaping (with a shitload of PTSD in the baggage) he was sent back out into space and chosen to lead some war against seemingly impossible odds, a war that really wasn’t his war to fight, a war he still fought bravely and selflessly despite his physical and mental issues, a war he died in, but meh I guess he wasn’t worthy of mention. (And I don’t know why Keef wasn’t mentioned either, but maybe being half Galra makes you too much alien to be considered part of the world you were born and grew up in *heavy sarcasm*). *Shiro’s bond with the Black Lion and his role as the Black Paladin being pretty much erased/retconned -it’s like Keef gets to sit his ass comfortably down in the seat Shiro shed blood sweat and tears for and struggled so hard for, easily just gliding along on what Shiro has paved the road for but without acknowledging the huge role Shiro had in it all. Shiro was the one who brought out the wings for Keef in the end of the last season because Keef was unable to do it himself, because Keef had never bonded with her the way Shiro did -Shiro and the Black Lion found and saved each other in so many ways, and the Black Lion loved Shiro so much she saved his ‘essence’ inside herself, yet now we’re supposed to just accept that Shiro is old news and no longer worthy of being considered part of the ‘mighty Paladins of Voltron’. Myeah, did not like the feeling I got of this saturating this entire season. Keef can still be a big hero -or even your new main character- without grinding Shiro down into the dirt on the way. *That arm... it’s so big and clumsy-looking it makes him look weirdly lopsided. The comically large arm works for Sendak, considering his ‘evil sadist who loves crushing people with his alien prosthetic’ shtick, but for Shiro it just looks too big to be practical. If it was intentionally meant to imply that Allura just grabbed a prosthetic modelled after someone bigger than Shiro and remade it, and that’s why it’s so big on Shiro, that’s fine. But it feels impractical for anything other than fighting evil alien generals. *Shiro not getting to fulfil his arc as the abused victim and underdog by overcoming and defeating the evils pushing him down, but instead being forced to take the backset to a character forced into a leadership role for what seems like nothing more than a desperate clinging to nostalgia. It is mindboggling that everything Shiro has worked so incredibly hard for, everything he’s struggled and fought for is being taken from him and he’s supposed to be satisfied with a consolation prize. Yeah, Shiro going full Magical Girl Princess was amazing but he didn’t even get to deliver the final blow in any fight -not even his personal fight with Sendak- because apparently Shiro is not allowed any victories at all. *The whole sense of Shiro being punished for choosing his life’s dream over becoming the obedient house wife of his ex -he had only a short few years left to fulfil his dreams, and yet he’s painted as the bad guy for ‘abandoning’ his boyfriend (who was the one that left Shiro, actually). Yes, Adam had the right to choose to not want to separate for so long -during what was likely the last few years Shiro had enough mobility to do all the fun things couples dream of doing together- he had the right to say ‘I’m sorry but I can’t put my life on hold, and I wasn’t really prepared to go straight to caring for someone with a debilitating disease without a few more years of fun in between, I want to break up’. That still doesn’t make Shiro’s choice to follow his dreams any less valid than Adam’s choice to not wait for him. I bet Adam had an exciting bucket list waiting to start ticking off as a consolation when Shiro was denied the role of pilot for the Kerberos mission -I doubt he’d expected Shiro to actually be allowed to go and that probably seriously stumped him- but it’s incredibly cruel and selfish (and ableist) to expect a person to sacrifice their last few years of being able to fulfil their dreams just so their able-bodied partner can fulfil their small dreams and wishes of things they want to do for the last few of that person’s fully mobile years. And yet everything about Shiro’s arc paints a very very grim and ableist story of ‘you chose your own dreams over bending to your partner’s will, now let us show you what a horrible decision that was by torturing you relentlessly throughout the rest of this series without ever letting up. You will never be allowed happiness again because this is your punishment.’ I agree with other people that the way Shiro’s been treated throughout this series -constantly tormented without ever getting a single break or getting a real chance to fight and overcome his demons- seems way too much like torture porn. *The feeling that Shiro’s Magical Girl Moment was only there to blind us to the fact that him being probably the only one able to transform the Atlas means he’ll be conveniently grounded next season, forced to stay on Earth to ‘protect his home’ while the rest of them get to go off being the ‘amazing Defenders of the Universe’, leaving both Shiro and his legacy behind, unsung. I hope I’m wrong, but I get an overwhelming feeling that Shiro is being pushed into the background because they never intended for him to be the hero of the series but by the time they realised that’s exactly what they’d created with him it was too late to take it back, so now they’re trying their hardest to push him back into some mentor/backseat role in a sneaky enough way that they hope people won’t notice because they’ll be dazzled by the shine of his ‘new role’. ... Things that made me happy/excited/pleased: *The animation level. I mean holy mamacita Shiro is so beautiful he glows in like every single frame. *HUNK. Love this big gentle boy and love that he got to show more of who he is and what he has to give this season. *Seeing the families we’ve heard so much of. Seeing them reunited. Seeing flashbacks to happier times with the families. *Pidge finally getting her entire family back together. *The designs of all the alien/Earth tech. Gorgeous. *The design of some of the new characters <3 *So many new Galra characters with faces and personalities even if we only saw them for a few seconds. *All the ‘Earth preparing for alien invasion’ scenes/episodes. *Finally getting to know more about Iverson and who he is as a person. *Sam and Colleen. *Shiro being the new Princess of the new Castle ship. *Shiro fucking transcending being the Princess and transforming the entire Castle ship Atlas into a new Voltron type battle robot. *The Atlas being this beefy paladin type knight on top but t h i c c femme legs on tippy toes/high heels on the bottom. 10/10 what a beauty. *White Lion Shiro... I mean, I’m certainly not the only one thinking it, right? *Just Shiro. Wow. What a strong, beautiful, good person who cares about everybody else above himself. Someone give this poor traumatised boy hero a fucking vacation with the softest bed surrounded by therapy animals. Perfect cinnamonroll too pure for this world. *Shiro fighting Sendak hand-to-hand on top of a fucking space ship free-falling (read: CRASHING) to Earth instead of trying to escape I mean this boy *Keef fucking anime-slicing Sendak in twaine for daring to try to hurt the person he loves like a brother (bloodless and nice for the young’uns of course, but still). *Hunk carrying Shiro. *@ anyone claiming Lance ‘never gets screentime or development’ -fuck you. Look at this brave, strong boy who started out as a self-centered antagonistic jerk yet has grown into such a good and mature person. I may loathe the Lance I see portrayed in the fandom, but in the show he’s still such a good character. *Coran, Coran, the gorgeous man <3 *The mice and Kosmo the space wolf for MVP *Kaltenecker, most chill character in the entire universe. *Shiro’s prosthetic not being attached -at first I was like ‘noooo’, but then I realised... fuck yeah this is exactly what people in fandom need to stop erasing disabled characters. It is way too common for people in fandoms to claim that a person having any kind of high-tech or magical prosthetic that makes their disability less visible (For example Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist) isn’t actually disabled at all ‘because it’s like they have normal limbs’. Having a prosthetic arm that has a big void between itself and the shoulder attachment makes it impossible to ignore the fact that Shiro is missing a whole arm. (And maybe, just maybe, people will finally stop with the shitty ‘he’s got a full sleeve of tattoos instead of a missing arm in this AU fanfic because erasing disabilities is super cool’ trope.) *The entire Shiro/Atlas transformation scene -ugh so beautiful <3 ... Phew, that got long! (=A=;;) I’ve probably forgotten a lot of things -but it’s been a few days since I watched it so it isn’t as fresh in my mind as I’d have liked, however I don’t have the time to rewatch it right now to refresh my memory so it’ll have to do. These are just my personal thoughts -things I found negative might be things someone else found positive, and things I found positive might be things someone else found negative. This isn’t meant to be a debate or attack -just a way for me to put my thoughts down and remember them for the future. And one last thing -please remember to be kind to each other -and don’t go attacking cast or crew -most of them have no real say in what happens on the show anyway, and harrassing and threatening castmembers to the point where they’re scared to even show up at cons is not the way to make the higher-ups listen to your complaints -however legitimate they might be. Now I guess we’ll just have to brace ourselves for season 8...

#voltron spoilers #both negative and positive thoughts on this season #voltron season 7 #takashi shirogane

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raconteurofdrollery-blog · 6 years

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The Star Wars prequels are terrible. This is widely acknowledged. What’s not so widely talked about is what could have been done to make them better. Mostly people talk about Jar Jar and midichlorians, but the way I see it, there was one big thing wrong with those movies: Anakin Skywalker.

To improve Anakin Skywalker, I’d make him a tsundere loli named Anaki. You probably think I’m joking. No, I’m dead serious: making Anakin a tsundere loli would improve the prequels.

Instead of trying to romance Padme, Anaki would always be mean to her, and Padme would just bow her head and apologize. (Also, Padme in this scenario wears glasses. It’s part of her private self that only Anaki knows.) But then, one day while they’re hiding out together on Naboo while Obi-Wan hunts down the separatists who tried to assassinate Padme, Padme would get scared and start crying, and Anaki would suddenly hold her hand. When Padme thanked her, Anaki would insist that it’s “n-not because I l-l-like you or anything!” and tell her not to get the wrong idea. Padme, however, knows how Anaki really feels and thanks her, with a smile.

Does that scene sound terrible? Maybe it is, but remember that our yardstick is the love story in Attack of the Clones. At least there’s some kind of interesting hook to their relationship: now they’re a tsundere loli who’s mean to a much older girl while secretly being in love with her and a much older girl who is the secret object of affection of a tsundere loli and also a senator and former ruler of a planet.

Later, Anaki and Padme get married in secret, and have to hide it from everyone, because society does not approve of their love and the Jedi are incredibly homophobic due to ancient religious mumbo jumbo. This is cliched, but it’s still more interesting than the dumb reasons why Anakin and Padme had to hide their love in Revenge of the Sith (because the Jedi are jerks). This utter denial of who she is—a girl who loves another girl—also makes Anaki feel that the Jedi don’t value her as a human, which puts her in a state of mind where she can more easily dehumanize them in turn, so that she can kill all the younglings without any remorse.

You might be wondering how Padme gives birth to Luke and Leia if she and Anaki are both female. Luckily, the prequels provided us with the perfect answer for this already: the Force is capable of whipping up a baby inside a lady without any male involvement. So we’ll just say that Anaki’s love for Padme combined with the Force and conceived two children inside her.

You might also be wondering how a tsundere loli would become Darth Vader. Well, tsundere are very immature. They’re like the dumb kids in third grade who like a girl, so they pull her hair and throw mud at her and slip frogs down the back of her shirt. (I have to admit it made me laugh when I slipped that frog down the back of that girl’s shirt when I was third grade. It was without a doubt the funniest thing I’ve ever done. Those stupid teachers just have no sense of humor.) Tsundere are driven by emotion. Every emotion they have—embarrassment, love, sadness—gets translated into anger somehow. They’re driven by anger and rage and they don’t know how to deal with their emotions. Therefore, tsundere are already liable to turn to the dark side. Combine that with the Jedi homophobia that demonizes Anaki’s love for Padme, and Anaki is ripe to become a Sith lord.

Imagine the look on Luke’s face in Return of the Jedi when he pulls off Vader’s mask and finds a tsundere loli inside. (We’ll CG a tsundere loli over that old guy who played inner Vader in the original theatrical release.) He’d have so many questions. We’d have so many questions. Then we’d have an actual reason to go back and watch the prequels. There is no way in which making Anakin a tsundere loli wouldn’t improve the prequels, and through that the other movies as well. It would be hailed as a risky, amazing creative choice that took real courage and conviction.

#star wars #star wars prequels #just add tsundere loli

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