leading lady whoās been taking voice lessons since she was 7 vs leading man who got the role because he showed up. girl in chorus who is 100% convinced she could be on broadway right now if she had the right connections (she could not). autistic girl who is clearly the most talented one in the cast but the director definitely thought she was too weird to believably play the female lead. gay teenage boy trying to play a ladiesā man. jock who auditioned as a joke but got in and now his mom wonāt let him quit so heās ready to kill himself at any moment. this is the funniest combination of people you will ever see in your life.
listen. aging into your thirties rocks. yes your joints get a little creaky. yes you canāt sleep in a pretzel on the floor anymore after a concert or a convention. and you lose some friends. but the thing is that you sort out who your real friends are and you sort out who you really are. and you get to see your friends settling into careers they like, and adopt new dogs and cats, and you find a job you can stand, and get really good at arts and crafts, and maybe that book you loved as a kid gets a movie deal and it doesnāt suck, and you learn to like new food and bake your own bread, and you realize that the great portfolio of self harm scars you all used to curate are going white with age and not updated, and half your friends are a different gender now and so much happier and maybe you are too, and you know who you are, and that itās a journey and not a revelation. itās a direction youāre headed, and youāre enjoying the trip.
reaching your 30ā²s rocks. and iām hearing good things about what comes next, too.
i am looking into your eyes, i am holding your hand. i absolutely promise.
if you can just live long enough, your soul will build your body into a home. you will live there and you will find a way to be at peace. itās worth the time and itās worth the work. i promise.
My goal in life is to be the person running the bookstore in the horror thriller where the protagonist has to go to track down a rune. I've got stupid hair and a vest or something. The protagonist shows me a rune drawn on a napkin and I say shit like "Aha! Just a moment!" Before skittering off for some gay ass book
you have to pretend to be a wizard sometimes, for your health. the obvious method is d&d, but you can also open the dishwasher on cold mornings and raise your arms dramatically as you're enveloped in the steam, or you can find a really good stick to walk around in the woods with, or you can run a bizarrely dedicated rp blog on tumblr. but it's an important component of human well being to occasionally pretend to be a wizard.
Sherlock Holmes looked up from his book. "My dear Watson, the only thing I love more than respecting women and having feelings is being in a gay triad with you and Winnie the Pooh. Let's hook up with the Great Gatsby," he said, 100% legally
What are your thoughts on autistic Lance and adhd Keith? Iām neurotypical so I donāt have a lot of knowledge on these things, but I think I understand some reasons why u have those headcanons. Iād love to hear a more in depth explanation though!
Alrighty, so disclaimer: I am an English major. Not a doctor. Iām not diagnosing anybody, and I'm basing my thoughts on my own experiences, opinions, and this one dope venn diagram I found from a bio-psychology student (@tfw-adhd ). So take that as you will.
When you think of ADHD, most people think of two traits: impulsivity and hyperactivity. Thatās of course not all there is to ADHD, but theyāre pretty major parts! And most people in the fandom consider Lance to be the poster boy of ADHD. But when I asked you guys who the most impulsive character of VLD was, only one person said Lance. Every other person said Pidge or Keith.
And I have to agree.
In a lot of our fics, we associate the āfiery red paladinā with Keith, in his split-second decisions and crazy things he pulls off mid-battle that always work out for him and terrify everyone else. When I asked you guys for your input, many of you said that while Keith and Lance are both impulsive, Lance is only really impulsive when heās competing, or trying to prove a point ā like when he and Keith drove their lions into the ground trying to race blindfolded. Keith, though, is impulsive a lot, and either doesnāt assess the risks when making a decision or has a tendency to take very big risks without question (like Naxzela, or when he left the team to chase after Lotor).
As for hyperactivity, each an every single one of you told me the same thing: Keith has allotted a certain amount of activity for himself for stress release, and if he fails to meet this quota he struggles to regulate his emotions. He trains regularly because he needs it to feel healthy and happy. Lance, on the other hand, is prone to more stim-like activity (like the GIF that goes around every couple of months where heās lying on the ground and doing that bicycle thing with his legs).
So impulse and hyperactivity, the most well-known pillars of ADHD ā so far we have Keith as the poster boy for both, and Lance for one.
The other most popular sign of ADHD, I would say, is disorganization. Thatās definitely a mixed bag ā organization is really subjective. But when I asked you guys which of the two had the most disorganised fighting style ā something you do with very little preparation, when you have to make split-second decisions with the information that you have and the habits youāve already formed ā most of you said Keith. A fair argument was that Keith has such a disorganized or chaotic fighting style because he has a sword, and thatās inherently kind of messy, whereas Lanceās sniping/shooting requires a specific sort of particularity that requires him to be organized and steady.
I would like to argue that thatās the whole point. The bayards are a reflection of the paladins. They summoned these weapons because that is what they use best, that is what suits their fighting style best. Keith gets the sword because although he has some training, his thoughts are all over the place ā heās picking up on a hundred little details at once, thinking not only about the fight heās currently having but about the fight thatās going to be next. The sword suits him best because it allowed for his natural disorder to be a huge advantage, rather than a hindrance. Whereas Lance consistently summons a long-distance weapon, and even a sniper rifle ā a weapon that requires you to focus on one thing at a time, intensely, until the threat is eliminated and you can move on to the next thing. I have no doubts that Lance is constantly hitting targets and noticing new ones as fast as he can, but the whole point of a sniper is that you are lying in wait and hidden because youāre so focused on your one target that you canāt be in the open because you canāt defend yourself.
This level to detail translates outside of battle as well, for both of them. When I asked you guys who was more analytical, 33% (ish) more people said Lance than Keith. The general consensus was that they both have analytical skills, but Lance is better with small and fleeting details (especially when looking at common behaviour ā think of the Rover incident, where he was the only one to recognise the dupe for what it was, or even how he was the first to see that Shiro wasnāt quite right). Keith is better at choosing certain goals and trying everything he can to get those goals ā like with his quest to find out about his past; he had several different plans that lead to different outcomes (finding the energy in the desert to matching the symbols on his knife to pushing the Blades for answers), and used the information he got to think and overthink about what he was going to do next. While Lance tends to wait for as long as possible with his information until he can come up with the best possible solution (hence why he didnāt act immediately on his suspicions for Shiro and instead made separate note of all the different oddities), Keith tends to use his information immediately and then use the reactions he gets to piece together more answers (the knife incident at the space mall is a pretty good indicator of this specific process).
Okay. So far weāve outlined a few specific behaviours for the paladins: Keith tends to be really impulsive, with chaotic decision-making skills and an ability to read the room very quickly and notice small, fleeting details. This is reflected in his bayard choice and the way he seeks out and analyses information. He doesnāt plan things out for the long term, and instead acts immediately on the information he has and forms conclusions that way. He has difficult assessing risk (or doesnāt take risk very seriously), is very focused on things he cares about, and when heās understimulated or doesnāt make time for vigorous physical activity he becomes unregulated and emotional.
I would call that pretty textbook ADHD, although he certainly also has traits for ASD, and I wouldnāt write that off. But when I think of the more autistic of the two of them, I think of Lance, and I donāt think Iām alone in that.
Like ADHD, autism has some traits that are common in reputation: logic and routine. I went over analysis already with you guys, with the conclusion that Lance is better with small details. Not only is that a common finding among people with ASD, but I also think that Lanceās ability to read people and identify when their behaviour is off is a very autistic thing to do. I know that people think that people with ASD canāt read social cues or human behaviour, and in my experience, I find that it just doesnāt come naturally. I do often miss social cues that some people find inherent ā like knowing when someone is bored/annoyed with me and when to stop talking ā that lead to ostracization (something Lance also faces frequently and has anxiety about, as Iām sure youāre all familiar with in regards to the ā7th wheelā debacle). But it was because of this frequent problem that I learnt to categorize micro-expressions and really small changes in behaviour. I had to learn them, because I didnāt recognise them intrinsically. Like you guys pointed out, and like canon has made clear, Lance is very good at identifying these behaviours. He knows when people are acting differently, based on details that may be unnoticed to someone who doesnāt struggle to read social cues and as such doesnāt frequently analyse behaviour. Also, I think Lance may also use obnoxiousness as a defense mechanism ā unlike Keith, who gets defensive about his struggles to appear ānormalā, Lance tends to butt in and annoy people on purpose (like when he interrupted Allura when she was about to list the common traits of a blue paladin) so that he has more control of peopleās perception of him. If he grew up struggling to understand why people found him weird or annoying, it would make sense that he would be annoying on purpose so at least he understands why people think of him the way they do.
Going off that ā Lance frequently needs justification for things. He needs there to be a reason, he needs to explain things that may not be explainable. I didnāt pose this question to you guys, because I forgot, but I think Keith is more emotional and Lance is more logical, in only that Keith seems to allow himself to feel his emotions (he is the one to tell the other paladins that he is honoured to have served with them, he is the one to frequently and plainly express his anger or frustration, he is the one to outline to Shiro in no uncertain terms that he does not want to be leader because he doesnāt feel ready, etc. Keith is very in tune with his emotions and feelings, he just is also very uncomfortable with people and isnāt sure if he can trust them enough to express himself). Lance, on the other hand, frequently has to explain away his emotions. He feels strongly towards Keith and has a common urge to be near him or talking to him? It must be a rivalry, and he must do everything he can to keep this rivalry going so he can continue to justify his desires. He feels left out and abandoned? He must count himself as a seventh wheel and assign each paladin to a lion and a value in Voltron so that he has a reason to feel left out. Heās jealous of Lotor? He has to convince himself that Lotor is all, 100% evil, so that jealousy doesnāt come from nowhere. Lance does not allow himself to do anything without explanation. He has to have a reason for everything. Everything has to make sense. Everything has to be logical.
His struggle with his own emotional response to things mixed with his intense need to be loved and be social also leads to a lot of misunderstanding and mistakes within his relationships. When I asked you guys whether Keith or Lance is more likely to make a social blunder, most of you said that both of them are socially awkward but Lance puts himself in more social situations and so he makes more mistakes by volume. Iām of the same opinion. Lance wants to be social and understand people and fit in with people, heās just not veryā¦good at it.
One thing Lance is good at, though, is routine, and about half of you agreed with me on that. Both Keith and Lance have several rituals/routines that are important to them (as previously mentioned, Keithās training schedule is important for him to help regulate his emotions and keep himself stimulated), but Lance has more routines, and seems more particular about them. The best example would be his skincare routine, which he mentions more than once and expressed agitation when the routine was disrupted. Also, in the few canon shots we have of him sleeping, he has a very specific set of mannerisms (music, eye mask, sleep mask, pajamas, slippers, robe, must sleep for a certain amount of time for said 'beauty sleep') and complains both in the show and in other canon materials (like the Voltron handbook or the comics) when this doesnāt go as planned. Whereas Keith literally sleeps in his boots and seems to be fine dropping wherever.
ASD and ADHD are very similar. They share more symptoms/behaviours than they oppose, so you can certainly choose whatever feels right for you. But I do find it strange that Lance is almost always the one with ADHD and Keith is almost always the one with ASD, when in both fanon and canon (Keith is the impulsive one with poor planning skills, reliant on physical activity for regulation, low sense of danger and high tendency towards risk, low motivation for tasks he doesnāt care about; Lance is the one with all the wacky plans, who reads behaviour exceptionally well but makes frequent social blunders, specific about several rituals and routines, takes people at their word), their characters show the exact opposite. I just think that somehow in the start of the fandom, we switched them around and just rolled with it. But I love subverting fanon expectations, and I am happy to die on the ASD Lance and ADHD Keith hill!
Keith has a lot going on between his duties as class president, way too much homework, and being groomed to take over his mother's corporation. Heās gotten very used to pushing things down and ignoring them in favor of doing what is expected of him, so itās easy to shove that whole āgenderā thing heās been dealing with lately to the very far corners of his mind. He doesnāt have time to think about it anyway, and he DEFINITELY doesn't have time for the loud, pushy, overfamiliar showboat of a new kid who just crashed into his school and his life. No matter how attractive he is.
Lance is lucky; not many kids from his neighborhood get the chance to attend the prestigious Merriweather Academy - and by āmanyā he means āzero.ā Winning the lottery for a scholarship was a combination of his own hard work and sheer luck. He knows itās going to be a culture clash, but itās just for a year, right? If it means getting into a better university, he can suffer through anything.
Until he starts falling for the prickly class president, and has to question everything about who he is, and what this might mean for his future.
The Message by
shipstiel
(4:07) okay, but considr this, and hear me out here
(4:08) so like, a photobooth u can do with ur pets like thereāll be lil costumes that u can dress them up in, and u can do liek, period costumes and shit with them
(4:09) omg, can u imagine, u and ur cat/dog, and theyre in a lil 1800s dress and one of those lace umbrella things omg so cute
(4:15) Why the FUCK are you texting me at four in the morning with this
ā
Keith is texted by accident by some idiot one day, and honestly he's not even sure why he responds. Or why he keeps responding. Yet somehow he finds himself drawn in, and okay, so maybe this fool is mildly entertaining after all. Who would've thought.
Not A Dream After All by
madnessandbrilliance
The point of all this is that Keith has many valid, good, reasonable causes for signing up for theater as an elective and volunteering for stage crew. Many great academic reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the bronze-skinned boy flaunting a large plastic skull in one hand at the center of the stage, loudly proclaiming āthe pangs of despised love, the law's delay,ā in a complete over-dramatization in front of a giggling audience of fellow actors.
--
Or, Keith and Lance do high school theater together, and Keith develops a highly embarrassing crush.
tangentwithtanner
ellievsbear
discoholicmusic
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
origamiaround
areudirty
pixelskylines
kianamaiart
gracieabrams
