#saltea

"Am I genuinely sick of [insert fandom here/fandom in general] or is this a hormonal thing that will be gone in 24 hours?" my detested.

Firstly and foremostly, I think we all need to heave a big ol’ ball of fuck you at the creators over Adam, and WHATEVER ship name you call him and Shiro by.

That was not representation

That was not “respecting your lgbt+ fanbase”

That was a straight up Bury Your Gays trope, and I am sick

Although if we’re being honest with ourselves, it can’t even really canonically be BYG at this point because

not

ONCE

was it even touched upon in the season that Shiro and Adam had been a couple. We had some heavily subtextual lines but had we not had direct confirmation outside of canon that Adam was Shiro’s ex, it would have just been another ship. Klance has more frequent and meaningful interactions. Shieth has more frequent and meaningful interactions. Hell, much as I hate Allurance personally, and as stunted and forced as that relationship is, even they have more frequent and meaningful interactions. Even goddamn Acxa/Kieth have more on-screen dialogue about romantic feelings than goddamn Adam/Shiro.

And I promise this reaction post won’t all be ship related, but on the subject, they did both Klance AND Allurance dirty, too

With Klance the hints and baiting from cast and crew are undeniable. Now being a pretty low-key Klance shipper, I have not compiled all the evidence thereof like so many other blogs have, but at the least

at the very least

we were told to expect more time for Kieth and Lance’s relationship to develop again, much like it had in season three. Outside of them saying each other’s names first in battles, we basically got diddly.

In fact, we got Lance saying Keith should be set free from their weird ass test because he’s an amazing leader, and half Galra, and called him the future. What a great start, right? And wow! Keith even also chose Lance!!!

... so that... he wouldn’t have to spend time with Lance ever again.

What in the actual hell?

Also wasn’t there an interview or something that said Keith and Lance got stranded on the astral plane while the rest of Team Voltron were “asleep for a long time”? Hope is in the stars? Et c. whatever??? Idek anymore. There’s so much crew talk involving Klance that I can’t remember even HALF of it at this point.

Anyway, ALLURANCE

I absolutely hate the idea of this ship just because of the lack of, or at best one-sided build up, but I know a ton of people were looking forward to it under the right circumstances

Something like Lance and Allura actually, I don’t know, talking to each other about this type of thing? The fallout of Allura’s relationship with Lotor? Lance maybe NOT taking an interest in Romelle just ‘cause she’s there?

But no, we got a suddenly blushy Allura, who had previously shown NO interest in Lance and in fact still chose Lotor over him after learning about Lance’s feelings, being all “come back safely~”, and then newly introduced characters having to be like OOOOOOH THE PRINCESS LIKES YOU TOO. I HAVE TO SAY THIS OUT LOUD OR THE AUDIENCE WILL NEVER BUY IT. THIS IS TOTALLY NATURAL.

Like

Come on.

And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there something about Lance pairing up with someone who “isn’t what he wants (Allura since day one) but who he needs (shut up, we all have theories on who this is and I’m not fighting anyone over it,) so did they just drop that bit for him?

And what about Lance being Allura’s rebound being referred to by (I think) Joaquim as being “a disservice to both those characters”

Meanwhile Lance’s promised development has STILL

not

goddamn

come

We got him being very competent in battle and... still... being belittled by his teammates at every opportunity. Like ha ha I get it Lance is the cheap shot comic relief but all Lance really seemed to develop this season is a Millennial’s nihilisticly suicidal sense of humor. Which I mean #Mood but we still haven’t addressed Keith’s suicide attempt, and Lance has already DIED (and not talked about it,) and is making outright “Don’t worry, we’ll all be dead soon anyway” jokes. And when he and Veronica were about to die and Red saved him, that was just Red saving his Paladin like always, not Lance successfully calling him to Earth. (As evidenced by the other lions all lighting up and flying away, and the like two second shot of Red just... sitting there, entirely dark.)

Not only that but we’ve seem to gone backwards? Where was his sword Bayard, hm? Why did he unlock traditionally “Keith’s” weapon (albeit a different style sword,) if that wasn’t going to come into play once Keith was back?

and SPEAKING OF KEITH AND LACK OF DEVELOPMENT well firstly a pause, for the lovely Keith and Hunk scene. That was a long time coming and absolutely wonderful.

But suddenly Keith is just... IN leader mode? No adjustment period, no getting reacquainted with the rest of the team, not even a scene to talk with goddamn Shiro over being more willing and able to accept leadership. Two years in space with one other person and an animal, not matter how cool that animal is, does not suddenly a leader make. Oh, and there was no follow-up whatsoever on said two year time gap either, by the way.

And Krolia just leaving again, after making a big deal about not doing that again?? Like hey son we had a fun and terrifying vacation on an enormous space whale, but once again, mission above all else, peace out. They definitely couldn’t just bring Kolivan with them until he’d recovered and have a few scenes to put a proper plan in action that may still have had Krolia leave, but at least have it make sense. Nope, better just leave right now immediately while Kolivan is almost dead because there aren’t quite as many knives in this wall as their should be.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH GALAXY GARRISON, no one had ever thought about MAYBE defending the earth against POSSIBLE ALIENS when the Kerberos team disappeared!! We’ve known since season one they knew it wasn’t pilot error! We’re told this from the files Pidge is going through!!! WHY WAS AN ESTABLISHMENT CALLED THE GALAXY GARRISON SENDING PEOPLE ALL THE WAY OUT TO OUR FARTHEST PLANET, WITHOUT HAVING ANY SORT OF PLANETARY DEFENSES IN THE WORKS

But instead, let’s just macguffin our way out of danger for half a season straight.

Can’t fly the Galra pod Shiro crashed it? Or the Altean ship Sam brought?? No worries, we SOMEHOW got Navs up and running well enough to make simulators for how to fly them just in case

We have good pilots on the simulators now? Good thing Sam knows how to actually build the things!!

The ships are short range and burn through non-crystal powers quickly? GOSH if only we had some of the season’s first episode’s macguffin left HAHA JUST KIDDING WE DO

Need the Lions from four planets away? Now you can AAAAALL CALL YOUR LIONS, REGARDLESS OF BOND LEVEL OR THE FACT THAT ALLURA KNOWS HER BOND IS THE WEAKEST AND NOT YET UP TO PAR

The lions can come to you, but can’t actually do what you want them to? WHOOPS THEY CAN NOW, IF YOU JUST CONCENTRATE EVEN SUPER DUPER HARDER

Oh no, we built a giant ship! But it won’t!!! Run without a crystal!!!!! or like 7 super massive blackholes!!!!!!!!! Coran: CHECK OUT MY BLING

But Coran, your bling is too small! Look at how big the bling hole is, and your bling is just too smol! Bling: BITCH IT’S MAGIC

THE DEFLECTOR PLATES JUST HAPPEN TO HOLD OUT LONG ENOUGH FOR THE ATLAS TO GET IN PLACE

THE ATLAS’ SHIELDS JUST HAPPEN TO HOLD OUT LONG ENOUGH FOR THE LIONS TO DESTROY THE CANONS

SUDDENLY DUAL WIELDING VOLTRON

SUDDENLY SHIRO IS BASICALLY OLCARIAN BECAUSE OF HIS DOPE NEW FLOATATION DEVICE ARM

SUDDENLY ATLAS BECOMES ANOTHER GIANT ROBOT TO TAKE ON THE SMALLER GIANT ROBOT THAT JUST BEAT THE TITULAR GIANT ROBOT’S ASS

- d e e p   b r e a t h -

Like don’t get me wrong, there was still a lot about this season I liked. I mean I stayed up just to finish watching it all the way through. But with how hyped it was, and honestly how positive the reviews mostly were, I was expecting a better. A lot better.

They did Adam dirty.

They did their (largely lgbt+) fanbase dirty, while patting themselves on the back for idk thinking they pulled another Korra? (Which, haha, no.)

They did lots of ships, characters, plot lines, and honestly their own universe dirty.

I’m hoping to hear more from the cast and crew soon, about things in this season, things in the upcoming season, and honestly just what the heck just happened. Because tbph? For once, Voltron has actually left a very bitter taste in my mouth.

tons and tons of love to everyone who contributed, emailed and did their best to consistently develop this beautiful creative team to start what would of been SALTEA.

unfortunately, due to circumstances i have absolute no control over, i am unable to lead or pursue this summer project and so it’s come to a close before it’s even started.

i apologise, it was not my choice.

thank you to everyone who emailed in, your talent was appreciated nonetheless.