#safeautistickeith

LM & JDS: dropping lgbt slow-burn storyline hints, along with sheith support on us CONSTANTLY 

the ENTIRETY of the sheith fandom, at once: WE CANNOT HANDLE THE TRUTH 

But so healthy and VITAL concept that you can have all the qualities to lead, and be a leader in your own way and own right, but realize what specific areas are yours to lead, and it won’t always be ””the”” leader spot. And that his support of ””the”” leader is his strength of character. I loved Keith because he, to me, stood for the idea that there is value in places not necessarily ”leader”. And the shrug of American ideals that There Can Only Be One. Anyone and everyone will (2’ 

Chase the leader spot, but only really strong people can find the very real value in places other than leader. And by him taking on the ”leader” spot, it undid what make him so stand out for me. Still love him. Always will. But am so sad that the potential for a revoluntionary stance, one that could help ease pain for many and give a healthy perspective on life (aka the reality that not everyone will lead. By design) so they can grow in whatever role is theirs, was sacrificed (3)

Especially at the cost of making ANOTHER revoluntionary arc (with Shiro). : /

*especially cus i perceieve keith to be Asian. I was excited to see some of my own ideals. Obvs it complicated and I:m not saying asians dont lead or have desire to, but theres emphasis on importance for ALL places. Idk.

That’s what made Voltron so revolutionary to me. None of the lions were more important than another. They couldn’t form Voltron without one. Five becoming one. 

Sure, Shiro has leadership qualities, but those are the qualities associated with the Black Lion. That doesn’t make him better than anyone else. Keith is the fierce warrior. Lance is the cool, level-headed sharpshooter - and heart of the team. Pidge is the brains, and Hunk is the strength/technical one. 

And Allura is the soul. 

But by making the Black Lion a prize to be one - and Keith being the one to win him/her to the detriment of Shiro - is the opposite message that the story conveyed in the first two seasons. It also did stunt the growth of characters who could have grown in other areas - including Lance and Allura - but were forced to embrace the qualities not their own. 

I love Keith. I love him in Red. I love his fiery spirit. I love Lance and his fun-loving nature. I love Allura and her strong leadership. I wish the story would have embraced the idea of everyone having a place on the team, and everyone playing an integral role while being true to their own strengths. 

And you know what I liked best about Shiro in the leadership role? He didn’t have all the answers. Not that Keith does! But in the first two seasons, Shiro listened to the team and then decided on a course of action. He wasn’t the be-all-to-end-all. Most of the time, he didn’t even make the decision alone. 

Hello and thank you so much <3 I added a bit of suffering to your prompt lol

(Guys I’m alive and I read all your prompts and I love them. <3 I just need time to do them ^^)

Happy monday and a lovely week ahead for you as well!  And thank you.  I agree with you entirely in the importance of multiple voices in fandoms.  I’ve got this condition called Being Old (as everyone over 25 does on here I believe) and one of the perks is that the older you get, the more comfortable you get in your skin.  So other people’s opinions just don’t matter as much anymore.  A lot of the tactics that get used to get people to Sit Down and Be Quiet don’t work because I’m Too Old to be effected by them. 

And that’s why I think its important for Oldbies in fandom, who have been here and have the battle scars, who have ridden through enough muck and fire to know how to handle it a bit better thanks to experience, who know the pitfalls because we’ve climbed out of plenty of them when we were young to fandom, to speak up.  Its too easy for people new to fandom experiences to see what looks like a united front and feel as if that’s the only acceptable way to be involved.  Its, honestly, a good way to get hurt or taken advantage of and a lot of us older folks were when we first started out.  There are a lot of cults of personality in fandom.  There always have been.  Some big, some only a few people. And if all someone ever hears is how that person is right and everyone else is wrong - and no one stands up to sensibly and calmly challenge it - its very easy to end up a lot further out than you ever meant to get.  Dissenting voices - not trolls but people that articulate other points of view - are vital to a healthy fan experience.  Whether you agree with them or not, they should force you to step back and look at why you don’t.  Or find out that, looking, it turns out you do.  Dissenting voices, properly done, break down the ‘all or nothing’ mentality.  And older fans have - I hesitate to call it a responsibility because at the end of the day we’re all just here in our free time for a hobby - a certain awareness and a certain freedom from concern about other people’s opinions that allow them to tackle things with a bit more ‘carving skill’.  A bit more practice sorting things into ‘this was fun’ ‘this was bad’ ‘this was harmful’ out of the single beast because they’ve done it often. It doesn’t mean they’re automatically right.  They can be very very wrong.  They can be very very right but only from their own point of view and someone else might have the exact opposite and still be just as right.  And not all Old Fans use their practice for good either.  But we should, hopefully, be Old Enough and Not Bothered By Others Opinions Enough, that we can at least present what we see freely enough and in a way that opens the doors to analysis of a thing and the dissecting of the parts of it, so that it doesn’t have to be either swallowed down entirely whole, ass and all, or else rejected completely even the prime cuts of it.

This doesn’t make Oldbies 'more’ than fans still new to the experience and, again, it doesn’t make them Flawless or Always Right either.  It doesn’t even give more weight to their opinions.  And frankly some of them are raging assholes that never grew up and are ridiculous gatekeepers and puritans.  But fandom must never become a group-think that indoctrinates each new arrival as they show up.  There needs to always be a freedom of idea flow and a healthy back and forth between multiple opinions and points of view. Old Timers are a good resource to have in place in any fandom to help with that.  They’ve been through the wars before, they’ve made a heck of a lot of mistakes themselves and if they (we) can help herd around some of the rougher spots in each new fandom we end up in, well - why not since we’re in the boat as well?