Okay, get ready for a rant. I just need to get this all out of my system.
So, the vld reboot. Gonna start out by saying I love content creation and AUs. I got a friend who loves that flower shop-coffee shop-university AU to death. It’s fun. I love steampunk AUs. I love canon-divergence AU. Hell, I have literally gotten to the end of the Galra!Keith tag on AO3.
However, when I saw the vld reboot something about it made me indescribably angry and it took me a while to put my finger on it. Eventually I figured out it was because it was nothing more than a bunch of klancers and antis using stereotypes and unoriginality to create a (possibly unintended) fuck you to the creators of Voltron.
First, people said vld reboot needs to exist because Klance was too queerbaited. Well, Klance wasn’t even hinted at after season 3 because at that point the show went in a COMPLETELY different direction. Once Keith went to the Blade of Mamora he became a solitary character and has literally had no romantic development since. Lance, on the other hand, has really grown as a character. I know people say that he hasn’t, but his bravery, strength, and courage and grown by leaps and bounds. He also isn’t comedic relief anymore and has the respect of his team. He’s given missions to lead in season 7 and is looked to for leadership in many instances. Sure, he has the throw away funny lines but that’s just like Sokka in ATLA. Kid shows need funny lines.
Also, YES YES YES the creators hyped up Adam too much and then killed him and it is disrespectful to all LGBT+ fans out there, but it wasn’t queer baited. Shiro is still gay and is open for more romantic interactions.
The creators worked hard on an original show and I have seen countless posts talking about how ‘original Vld is canceled’ and how ‘the how didn’t even try so we are taking over’. This isn’t like JK Rowling appropriating Native American culture then fans being outraged and coming with their own head canons to make up for it. The show creators haven’t done anything that wrong. Sure, there are dicks in the room, but most voice-actors and animators and trying their best to create a show to enjoy. These are fans taking the characters, making them stereotypes of their ethnicity, then passing them off as an AU.
Besides all that, the way the reboot has been researched and names given out is just sloppy. Changing the names is annoying to the highest level, because at this point it’s hardly recognizable as Voltron.
Many name changes like ‘Takashi’ to ‘Hachiko’ just seem plain lazy. God did they even do research? Hachiko is a famous DOG known for waiting for his master patiently until he died. I’m sorry, is Takashi not quite Japanese enough for you?
The research on the cultures screams “IM GOOGLED” and I get the strangest feeling this AU is being driven by white teenage girls who talk about how they are 5% Native American or whatever.
This reboot feels like a cheap and shitty copy of everything Voltron is. Thanks for making the fandom a deeper pit of shit. No wonder fans aren’t taken seriously.
Thank you so much for putting this into words.
