So, I Figured, To Tide Over All My Adoring Fans [blows Dramatic Kiss To Empty Theater With 3-4 Stragglers]

wish this was how it worked so bad but i read somewhere once "good fanfic is a love/hate letter to canon" and now all my fics are inexorably linked to and cant be read without knowledge of the source material🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ copyright who im referencing exact scenes from the 17th chap of the 6th book rn as a pivotal plot pt

Begging people to stop with the "wow that's so cool you wrote such a long story! Now you just gotta change the names and publish it as an original fiction" do not. That's not how this works.

team voltron and aspects of alienation

I've seen aspects of "not-belonging" in analyses of Lance and Keith's characters and I'd like to shed light on how it's a sentiment that's very well nestled in every member of Voltron.

Starting off with the alienation (ha, get it) that is most flesh out in canon, we have Keith. From the very beginning the show, Voltron is divided into three factions: the Alteans, the Garrison trio, and Keith and Shiro. Keith has trouble mingling with the trio due to Lance's harsh front towards him, and has slight trouble mingling with the alteans due to cultural divisions and difference in views. Then he finds out he's half-Galran and Shiro is removed from the equation, which removes him further from the team. He gains a sense of disconnect from the team due to his heritage, his lack of bonds, and his belief that he's a failure of a leader.

Lance's disassociation from the team is more subtle. It comes from his views of inferiority and the idea that he doesn't contribute to Voltron. Unlike Keith, his sense of alienation comes more from what he does rather than who he is. He doesn't believe himself to be skilled enough, and when he throws himself into gaining skill, he finds that he's not achieving enough. He finds himself becoming more and more irrelevant as time passes, as if he is blending into the background.

The divide between Allura and the team is a storyline that we were robbed of. It's so plainly laid out for the writers to pursue- the cultural differences between Alteans and humans, the unity the humans feel towards each other that they extend to her in friendship to no avail, as she doesn't understand it. The other paladins will not know the part of the war that she knows. They will not know the loss she knows.

Perhaps she finds comfort in Coran. But even the split between her and Coran may grow as she becomes a paladin and he remains support for Voltron. They're still close and they still care for each other, but the way you fight in a war, the things you see, they can define and shape you. War looks different from different angles. Coran has never been in a pilots seat. Hes never been in the mind meld. And he doesn't need to do these things to have a bond with the people he cares about, but he still may feel the distance in his mind.

Hunk's sense of isolation from the team was also something we were robbed of, but were were also robbed of everything when it comes to Hunk. There is a huge difference in drive and fight when it comes to Hunk versus the rest of the paladins. He is unable to throw himself so deeply into the fight it just- it scares him! And I'm sure it scares everyone else too, but can Hunk see that? He sees the way everyone else stands tall and fights and goes into battle and training every single day, and he doesn't feel made for that. He doesn't want to do that. And it makes him feel guilty for not having the "passion" everyone else does even though his heart is in his actions, but at the same time he constantly feels sick.

Shiro is someone who has been both physically and emotionally distanced from Voltron. His kidnappings have shaped and transformed him- but it's not only that he's changed, Voltron has changed while he's gone too. Shiro has left and come back to an entirely different team filled with people who have changed so much because that's what war does, it changes you. There are months of Pidge, Hunk, Lance, Allura, and Coran that he's missed and years of Keith that he's missed. And they'll welcome him with open arms, but it doesn't change the fact that he doesn't feel like he knows them as well as they know each other.

Lastly, there's Pidge. Pidge is a fundamental anchor of Voltron as she produces so much technology to aid the war effort. She throws herself into her work so much that it consumes her, and this ends up eating away at her connections a little bit. There's also the fact that the technological battle she's fighting to combat Galran interfaces and invention rates is a fight that the rest of the team aren't exactly a part of. They can support her, but ultimately it is only she that can do the work she does. This puts a lot of pressure on her and compels her to do even more. She spends so much time working that she misses so much with the others.

The point I'm trying to make is not that Voltron isn't close or that they aren't a family, but that they themselves might not feel close to the team they love. And it's not a sense of isolation felt by one or two members, but instead by all of them equally. I think that dreamworks could've really worked with this dynamic to show the fact that war can make people grow apart (opposite to how a lot of media shows war bringing people together; both are themes that can be explored). Dreamworks could've also taken this opportunity to let the characters grow as individuals and then come together as an even stronger team.

when i was sixteen and insane for my shakespeare class final i had to do the “alas poor yorick” monologue at a competition and while i was doing it i had this insane thought of like. i’ve never been and never will be closer to experiencing hamlet’s mental state than i am right now. like of course all that stuff didn’t happen to me but when you’re 16-19 you kind of feel like all that stuff is happening, all the time, constantly

the lil mannerisms and micro-struggles i give these british teenage boys are so . . unabashedly girl-coded, undoubtedly bc im a gal myself, in what i hope is in a subtle way but idek atp,,,

draco slaps half a pound of gel onto his head whenever he's too dead inside to do his hair in the morning, ron gets sidelined and mansplained to constantly and chooses to smile genially and take it bc it'd take just too much energy to get properly offended abt it . . .

draco hides nearly every single emotion he has behind a polite, blank smile whenever he's not (performatively) taking out his pent-up anger on the gryff trio, he is performing for an audience even when he's not supposed to be, when he's taking a break from the mask to be nasty and cruel . . but of course you have to be nasty and cruel in just the right way of course . . .

ron has so deeply internalized the belief that you have to be exceptional (something he is inherently, at the absolute base-level, not, he believes) to be worthy as a person that he's completely stopped putting in any effort at all; has so completely given up hope for himself (his erised-reflected pipe dream of standing out: head boy, quidditch captain, etc) that he struggles to see his own positive/arguably exceptional aspects at all; is living, essentially, in low power mode . . .

keeping sirius alive in my fic just to make him a fucking wreck in the bg core✨

katsuki wrapped his hand in a vice-like grip around the lower half of the losernerd's face to shut him up. he looked good like this, good as in right, with his fingers digging divots into his cheek, tears pricking at his eyes, with his hand heated up just enough to be uncomfortable. katsuki had always been the cruel muzzle to deku's yappy little dog, the choking collar to his too-short leash, the steel-toed boot to a vulnerable side.

there isn’t . . . there isn’t so i will leave, and run far far away from here . . .

HELP

I learned recently, while researching gaslighting, that there is a second type called ‘Emotional gaslighting’. This is when your abusers deny the reality of your feelings. 'You’re too sensitive’, 'It wasn’t that bad’, 'You’re just faking it for attention’, 'Stop acting like you’re hurt’ 'Come on, it didn’t hurt you’ 'You’re overreacting!’ 'You’re fine, stop exaggerating’, these phrases deny your own feelings to you. They communicate to you that not only the abuser doesn’t believe you’re experiencing pain, they’re demanding you to pretend that you aren’t. They’re asking you to deny your reality and to pretend it’s not real.

This will make you feel like you’re not allowed to feel your own emotions, and you’ll end up questioning if any of your emotion is real or are you faking it? Are you justified in feeling what you do? Are your feelings of pain and terror really just an exaggeration that doesn’t have a basis in reality? Are you making up your own suffering? Is all this pain in your head only?

This, again, will cause you to feel like you’re going insane, and doubt your every reaction to any event, you’ll try to see if thru someone else’s eyes you would be perceived as 'reasonable’ for having a reaction that you do, and it will drive you insane trying to figure out what are the 'correct’ responses while all you feel is shame, anxiety, pain and desperation.

This illusion falls apart when you realize that all 'correct’ responses are only those convenient to your abuser, and that somehow, your every positive and obedient reaction to them is 'correct’, while justified upset and pain at their abuse is 'wrong and forbidden’. So somehow you’ve been reacting to everything right, except the abuse. Somehow, your every thought and feeling needs to be convenient to them or it’s wrong. That’s how you know it’s only a self-serving game they’re playing, and all your emotions were correct all along, as there’s no way for you to 'feel’ wrong. All your pain is still their fault, and not your fault for 'feeling it’, and things are exactly as bad as you feel them. Your feelings are a reflection of reality that is happening to you, if there was no cause of you feeling upset and pained, you would not be feeling it.  

Jungkook' hair highlights 🤝 Jimin' hair color