Red and Blue make Purple

I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty new to this whole fandom thing. It was only a few months after I joined Tumblr that Voltron came out and I joined the fandom. And I’ve met a lot of good friends. I’ve started a review project and I’ve started watching streams and writing more, even though it’s all fics.

I like to think that everyone’s having fun and are all on the same page and are all having a good time.

But it’s not like that. There are ‘toxic’ topics floating around and there are people getting angry at a lack of development and there are ship wars that are getting out of hand. I mean, the season three trailer was released and everyone was having a fun, good time, but now we’re all blowing up over a Tweet?

Guys, we have to be realistic.

Even though there’s all this controversy going around with certain characters getting more screen time and development than others, we can’t just focus solely on that. I mean, look at the following Voltron has. Look how big of a fandom we are! If a show has fans like VLD, then it has to be good. It has to have good points.

And it does.

I mean just look at this:

Look how amazing the season two poster is!

Dreamworks has done some pretty amazing stuff with this show, and we can’t just push that all aside because some of us don’t really get the whole gist of how plot has to work.

Now, Hunk and Lance being used as comic relief for most of the season isn’t really reasonable, but Keith, Pidge, and Shiro being focused on is! First of all, everything’s getting set up for season three.

If Keith really is going to become the leader of Voltron, we have to like him more, we have to sympathize with him, we have to see his problems and the struggles he’s going to have while taking over Shiro’s role.

Likewise, Shiro’s disappearance has to be meaningful. If a person is just watching the show without actually being in the fandom, without being submerged in the screaming and the theories and the #letspacedadrest∞, then they might not feel much at all for Shiro’s disappearance unless he has a lot of screentime and development.

As for Pidge, we’re building up to a reunion of some kind of Matt and perhaps even Mr. Holt. Now, I mean, come on, they are a little too OP with tech and stuff in the second season, but that’s just because the writers played Lance and Hunk down below their level. If everyone was on par like they were supposed to be, then it wouldn’t be too bad.

At this point it’s not really about Pidge being favored or shown as superior, it’s just that the other characters aren’t as equal as they were shown to be in season one.

And, going back to Keith having a lot of focus and time on screen, I just have to say this:

Calm down. Pease.

I want more Lance and Hunk, too, okay, but we all have to realize that Keith is gonna be getting a lot of screentime because his problem and his arc is completely unresolved. Would you rather Dreamworks drop everything and leave you biting your nails for answers that would never come just to start an arc in Lance and/or Hunk that we all know is going to come before the end of the show.

It’s going to happen. We’ve seen the set up for Lance with the whole seventh wheel thing. It’s probably going to be driven deeper into in season three, along with a setup or an arc for Hunk, as well.

Can we just stop complaining for once and just look at all the good things that Voltron has given us?

We have competent, POC characters that are beautifully designed.

We have a beautiful black princess who kicks ass and doesn’t take shit from anyone, who rules like the bomb ass queen she is without ever falling back on the classic ‘hard ass, emotionless black girl’ stigma the media has created.

We have a Pacific Islander that’s not a wishy-washy pansy like everyone makes them out to be and is competent in mechanics, but also breaks masculine stereotypes by cooking and loving food.

We have a Japanese man who is buff as fuck and doesn’t take no for an answer, who isn’t all about ‘chi’ or meditation, who isn’t a ‘weak noodle’ or a ‘fat Asian baby’ like everyone makes them out to be, who is a natural born leader that is caring and dad-like and wears eyeliner.

We have a Cuban boy who not only defies gender standards by taking care of his skin and actually caring about his appearance ‘just like a girl does’, but who also defies the ‘macho, impassive’ stereotype Latino men are made out to be.

Not to mention we have an understanding of all body types, with actual height differences and character designs that can instantly be recognized even through a silhouette.

We have modern day references thrown in like little gems and humor that’s genuine and witty, funny interactions. We have amazing world building and animation, we have minor characters we’re attached to and problems that are bigger than they seem.

We have real life issues represented through the Galra and Altean disputes. We have Allura (BLM) being guarded towards Galra (white supremacists) for what they’ve done to her people, and we have a resistance (liberals) fighting against them, a portion of which is made up of those same Galra. We have people trying to fix what their populace has done, we have those who forgive and those who don’t, we have those (Keith) caught in the crossfire, just trying to make things right.

We have amazing voice acting and a great cast. They have fun together and they have fun with us and their characters. They love the following, love the fans, love how people find joy in the show. We have a storyline that makes sense and characters we’re attached to and we have writers and producers who are competent and know what they’re doing.

Trust Dreamworks.

This isn’t their first rodeo. They know how to make a good show. We all know that they do. A!TLA, LOK, Trollhunters: they’ve all done amazing and have been such good shows. Voltron is the same way. In A!TLA, it’s not like we got every single person’s redemption and arc in the same season and at the same time. Some people had arcs one right after the other, but the others still got development and arcs and redemptions, even if they weren’t there at first.

It’s the same here. Voltron isn’t doing bad, the writers are doing a shitty job. They’re working slowly and building up and maybe there have been some small mistakes that have been blown out of proportion.

Just try to respect the work that all these people have put into the show. People have worked their asses off to design planets, to give life to characters, to make compelling stories. And tossing their work aside because things are working slowly isn’t the right thing to do.

If we love Josh Keaton and Jeremy Shada and Bex Taylor-Klaus then we should love the writers and animators as well. We should respect them just as much as we respect the VA’s.

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.