-Gets Home At 11:30-

What day is it? What year is it?

I apparently have no clue because I missed posting last Friday! Goodness gracious, my apologies. Things will be back on schedule next week with chapter 11.

In the meantime, enjoy Pidge and Hunk interacting! I really wanted this chapter to feature Pidge, Hunk, and Lance interacting because they are all just so fun and feed each other's chaos, but I just couldn't come up with a situation where all three of them would get together naturally. There's a few ways I could force the three of them into a room together, but this chapter is supposed to focus on Pidge and Hunk's relationship anyway, so I'm not mad it turned out like this.

Also, I don't know if anyone's noticed, but I struggle SO MUCH coming up with chapter names and tend to dislike what I end up with. If you've got tips on how to chose chapter titles I'd love to hear them!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/59077405/chapters/164835976

Final chapter of Arc 1! We did it! It was so fun writing this and it's now my longest posted fanfiction! I'm looking forward to Act 2 already because we're dropping that slice of life tag like it's a potato straight out of the oven!

So, I've mentioned before that I found I really like writing Hunk's POV. But this chapter was NOT supposed to be in his POV and I am so mad at myself for it.

I like how this chapter turned out. It’s great. I like how he comes in as an outsider and has to watch this all go down and how his anxieties stand out compared to the teens who don’t immediately go to worst-case-scenario.

But I’m MAD because I realized during my final edit of the chapter that it was supposed to be written from Shiro’s point of view.

Not only did I miss a chance to write from my favorite character’s POV but now he only got 1 chapter in act 1 and his next is chapter SEVEN in Act 2! That’s SEVENTEEN chapters between his POV chapters!

I have no one to blame but myself. I have everything so meticulously planned up to the end of Act 3 and yet I somehow missed this. The chapter turned out great so I don’t regret it so much as I’m baffled how I missed that so completely and sad that I don’t get to write from Shiro’s POV for so long. Ah well. So it goes!

Hope you enjoy!

New chapter of The Stars in Retrograde! This time featuring our favorite genius siblings :)

It's here. The "Keith gains two new friends in one fell swoop" chapter. I was going to call it the "Keith acquires more than one friend" chapter, but I think at this point he would call Hunk a friend. Hunk is actually...probably the person Keith's age that he would call a friend.

So, to be clear about their relationship, if you were to ask Keith at this point what he thought of the boys (Shiro, Adam, and Matt) he would tell you that they're his friends and would probably call Shiro his best friend. This is true, but there's also a little more to it.

I like the idea that the Galra were originally a pack species. A lot of time has passed and evolution has occurred that makes it less obvious and Galra don't necessarily feel to drive to create a pack or bond as such, but they are comfortable with it and it satisfies a part of their natural instincts. Similar to how humans are a social species, but not necessarily every human needs a lot of socializing and many of us can choose when to socialize and for how long to satisfy ourselves, but in the end socializing and creating bonds is satisfying for most of us.

So, Keith, being half Galra, has some of those instincts. He isn't actively seeking out a "pack", but Shiro, Adam, and Matt are slowly integrating themselves into his life in a way where he would instinctually consider them to be part of his pack, especially since they're younger than him and he feels a responsibility towards them as a teacher. It's satisfying for him and so he's getting something out of it that simply socializing with other people has never given him before. Having a give and take at the beginning of a relationship helps center him around people who he considers to be strangers; which is why the start of his relationship with Shiro was so rocky. He wasn't sure how to interact when it was just Shiro talking with him, but once he had something to contribute (teaching Shiro to fly) he felt more comfortable around him long enough for them to establish a greater bond.

Anyway, this chapter is from Matt's perspective and I'm running my mouth on Keith headcannons lol. Matt's just a silly little guy. He's the youngest and he has simple needs and wants and does not allow anything to get in his way. Which, you know what, good for him

Enjoy the chapter while I untangle the MESS that chapter 13 has turned into

First chapter to a new fic I'm writing! I haven't posted anything in a while and I was nervous to put anything out for fear of not finishing the story, but I've got 12 out of 16 chapters written and outlines for the other four so I feel pretty confident I'll finish this one.

Check it out on AO3 here!

It's a Voltron Age Swap AU that starts at the Garrison, where Shiro and Matt are roommates at school, Keith and Lance are both pilots, Hunk and Pidge have just started building the ship to visit Kerberos, and Adam sets out to get a date with his best friend. Tags will update as I post!

Google Docs

MALAN Fire & Wind Storm Resources

Hi everyone! I hope everyone in the Los Angeles area is staying safe and that the fires are put out soon!

The attached document has information on shelter, free food, animal boarding, and other services that may help.

Stay safe!

So, part of planning out this fic was deciding how many scenes there were going to be and who was going to be in each one. I decided pretty early that I wanted to prioritize character interaction over plot devices, for a few reasons: mainly because at this point, everyone is already familiar with the plot, so I didn't want to just re-write scenes with different names.

What this led to is a pretty detailed excel spreadsheet of each scene because I want to showcase EVERY possible character combo (in pairs).

Because of this, I have more or less forced myself to focus on characters I wouldn't normally seek to write and found I actually love writing them.

I'm talking about Hunk. I love writing Hunk. He's precious and anxiety-riddled and Id find myself easily slipping into his narrative.

This chapter is ESPECIALLY fun because it's Keith POV and I have a lot of fun figuring out how to portray Keith "a cat-alien with non-human traits that are starting to become more prominent" Kogane in a way where you can tell something's weird about him but people are more willing to write it off than investigate it at this time.

So the two of them together in this scene were very fun to write. Even if Keith fought me A LOT for this particular scene. But, if the writing comes across as awkward at all, Keith is very off-balance here so I chose to think it just improves the POV voice ;)

"Beating up the blorbo" is a fantastic way to describe this masterpiece lol. Absolutely go read it if you haven't yet, it's so well-thought out, a slow-burn of encompassing annihilation, and the writing style is captivating. This fic f'd me up in all the best ways

people following me for my art; i dont normally post that here (or draw turtles on the reg, might change though with all the positive attention) so to be in the know gooooo read canary continuity. you should read canary continuity! its 147k words deeeeeeeppp and its about to get to a really good part~~ >:3

id say read this if youre a donnie fan but i think "beating the blorbo up" would be an understatement for what i inflicted on that poor kid LMAOOOO. read this if youre a donnie fan and you love whump i guess (but heed the tags, seriously)

Writing Adam is so much fun. He barely gets any screentime or characterization in the show as is and in this fic he's years younger than in the show, which gives me a near blank slate to futz around with. I've been taking a lot of inspiration from other fanfic writers in his characterization, particularly CaffeinatedFlumadiddle's Storytime: Voltron is (Basically) a Disaster series which I just adore. Mostly I'm just having fun balancing a character who is serious yet sassy, nitpicky yet chaotic, and figuring out how he fits in with all the pre-established characters.

Pidge also is just so easy to write. She thinks logically, yet will take any chance to not be serious about a topic and turn a discussion into a joke. They're so fun to have in any scene and I get to practice writing someone with multiple pronouns at the same time.

In any case, enjoy the chapter!