That Drunk Look That Isak Does

I just finished reading your fic. The combination of found family, developing relationship, established relationship, and just overall healing from trauma and growing together was just everything and so cathartic. And the fact that all of it happened as a direct result of not one but two (2) stupid ass rivalries, made it all the more enjoyable and entertaining. (The dynamics of all of the characters was my favorite part). Anyways, my question is will you be doing any other works in the future.

🥺 thank you so very much! im taking a break rn bc 187k words was a LOT but i do have plans for more works in the future! i've thought about expanding the universe a little bit more and writing a shiro/adam side story but im also hoping to experiment a little bit more with my style and voice. i have an idea for a fic marinating rn but i rlly want to try and push something out in a few months now that i've gotten back into the flow of writing again

love me now

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Version date: April 25th 2024.

looking out for you: chapter 4 update and nearing the end.

hi hello good day/night. chapter 4 of my fic is up so please check it out and consider leaving a kudos and/or a comment! i thrive off of feedback.

the way i have the story outlined right now is in 3 acts. chapter 5 will be the ending of act i and i think it would be fun if i did a little behind the scenes after posting and broke down some scenes of different chapters. if anyone has questions, requests, or a comment to leave here, they are 100% welcome :D

status update: suffering

working ahead and writing the confession scene and driving myself nuts with this dialogue... if you even care

read the latest update of looking out for you here!

new chapter dropping soon <3

edit: im a dumbass and forgot to include the link

when they go from this:

Keith tries to keep his elbows tucked to avoid making contact with Lance but it’s increasingly difficult because when Lance talks, he uses his hands as an extension of his mouth....

to this:

Their fingers intertwine, and Lance internally marvels at the feel of Keith’s gloves, the soft worn leather smooth against his palm.

“Is this… is this okay?” Keith’s words almost fade into the night. 

chapter 5 update!

heyoooo icymi chapter 5 is up! i have this fic split up into 3 acts in my mind so far and we have reached the end of act i. i was gonna go a behind the scenes today but uhhh im gonna be at the mechanic's for a good chunk of tmrw (im going off EST) so it might be a little later in the evening tomorrow.

anyway yeah im gonna be talking about my inspiration for the specific characterization and ideas i have for the progression of the klance relationship. <3 thanks for checking it out!

I’m just saying

so here’s our favorite adoptive space dad Bail Organa in Revenge of the Sith:

and here he is in Rogue One:

meanwhile, here’s Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith:

and here he is after the exact same amount of time: 

I’d like some of whatever Bail is having on Alderaan and exactly zero of what Obi-Wan is having on Tatooine 

looking out for you: act ii behind the scenes

just pretending like im on a talk show i am both the interviewer and the host <3

motivation for writing the lance and keith solo chapters

i've been raring to write the solo winter break chapters (i just called them the winter break interlude in my head for a bit) since september/october actually. i viewed it as my reward for finishing act ii 💀 not just because i love angst but also i love a good character study/character development heavy chapter and i really got to dig into each character and their home lives.

the foundation of this fic is entirely based on my dissatisfaction with how the show progressed and ended and subsequent self-indulgence— i've just been addressing a lot of the issues i had with vld. one such issue for me was the lack of in-depth character development. i enjoy a good romance as much as the next person but i really wanted to understand keith and lance as individuals who functioned outside of each other and the context of the group, and the solo chapters were a great writing exercise for me in terms of characterization and character-driven storytelling. so let's get into it baby!

lance's section (chapter 11) first.

we never got to see lance's growth as a character beyond "the dumb one" or the guy who cracks jokes for the sake of the team. the smaller vulnerable moments lance had, where he broke down and felt like he was useless and tried to leave the team or when he admitted he missed his family and Earth— they never got properly resolved. i think lance's identity as a 1.5 generation immigrant (immigrating to the States as a little kid) as well as his status as the youngest in a large family impacted his thought process and self-perception and i wanted to showcase that.

for children especially, immigration can be traumatic. i know "trauma" is an oversaturated buzzword used in pop psychology these days but i refer its definition as something established in one of my classes: "an event or series of events that is perceived as frightening, distressing, or life-threatening and has long-lasting effects on the survivor's emotional, social, mental, and physical processes." i imagine that for a 5-year-old lance, who has always been family-oriented and prone to bouts of homesickness, he experienced his immigration as traumatic when he had to leave behind everything he knew in cuba (his house, his friends, his neighbors, most of his family members) and start his life over in america. like, that's a LOT for anyone, let alone a little kid, to have to deal with. and that's where i extrapolated the notion that lance is afraid of being left behind— he didn't really have a choice in whether or not he got to leave cuba and so he's carried this fear that everyone in cuba will move on without him.

on top of that, i think lance acted as a sponge for his family's negative emotions related to immigration (stress, anxiety, sadness). that's partially where he developed the conception that he had to perform, to always be on and distract them from their negative feelings. ofc, it also doesn't help that as the youngest, he really has to jockey with his siblings for a Thing (i.e. Luis is the family man, Marco is the athlete, Veronica and Rachel are the career-driven women).

i knew from the get-go i was gonna make this bitch have daddy issues lol. first and foremost, i do not want to dismiss the very real fact that there are tons of immigrant parents who hold homophobic notions and ideals because that is 100% real. however, the way that it's portrayed in media can sometimes flatten a lot of the potential for a nuanced relationship. i'm not excusing homophobia by any means but i am coming from a place of engaged empathy. our parents are a product of a society and culture that has ingrained in them homophobic ideals and fucked notions of gender expression. it's difficult to break a way of thinking and acting when you've had that logic shoved down your throat since birth. i think there's a lot to be said on the concept of masculinity and the "strong silent immigrant parent," which i haven't seen much in the voltron fanfiction i've consumed. i wanted to craft a relationship between lance and his dad where it can be boiled down to: "your love hurts." their conversation at the end of chapter 11 is by no means fixing everything, but it's a step in the right direction.

i also just really love lance's relationship with his siblings. i'm the oldest so it was a fun exercise to just see how lance interacts with his siblings as the youngest. also that's not the last you'll be seeing of the McClan in this fic......

let's talk about the keith section:

ok first, we've been able to view shiro from keith, lance, and adam's pov thus far. the thing is, though, is that lance still kind of views shiro as his idol/someone he's looked up to, and i wrote adam's pov primarily so the audience could view klance as a unit. shiro's character felt a little flat, and that was kind of on purpose thus far. keith and shiro are obviously incredibly close since they're brothers in this universe, but there's been an underlying tension so far because keith feels distant from shiro and i wanted to address that finally.

i think it's a natural thing for relationships to change once people hit college/move out. keith's mom left when he was a kid and his dad died and he bounced from foster home to foster home so ofc he's going to develop a huge complex about forming attachments to other people. i think it makes sense that one of keith's biggest fears is that shiro will leave him or grow tired of him, which obvi isn't true, but when you get in your head about something, after years of trauma and reinforcement of a spiral of bad thoughts, it's hard to get out of it. so keith's chapter was kind of confronting this idea that he deserves good, and that he might be good, and maybe he should stop running and learn to accept that he is loved.

i'm sure y'all have picked up on the whole thing i have for keith about showing the evolution of his willingness to be vulnerable and open up through cooking. at the end of keith's chapter, he is making kimchi fried rice with akemi which holds a lot of nuance.

1) keith is slowly but surely exploring his own heritage. (i know i haven't touched on keith's korean identity in a bit but dw that's coming in later chapters). fried rice isn't an entirely new concept to him bc he was raised in a japanese household (and also just exists in the world) but he's embracing positive change within himself and even initiating it himself by trying out a korean recipe, using kimchi, a korean food

2) not only is he trying out a korean recipe, he felt safe enough to attempt it for the first time at college, in a shared house with all his friends, and even served it to them, which is a HUGE step in his willingness to be perceived.

3) he is sharing this recipe with akemi, his japanese kind-of mom. it's the fact that cooking is kind of a love language for keith and akemi, and he wants to share something he's found for himself, away from the texas house, and integrated it into his old life, mixing what he knew with what he knows now.

akemi, who has shared her own recipes she learned from her family with keith and took on the role of teacher, is now the student. she's learning a recipe from keith and engaging in his explorations of his koreanness through cooking. and keith is sharing his culture with her because he tried it on his own with his own little found family, like "hey look at this thing i tried out for myself can i share it with you?"

tl;dr for chapters 11 and 12

i wanted to use the solo chapters as ways to show how lance and keith react to change— the ways they view it and the reasons they fear it. it can be boiled down to this:

lance: i am afraid of being left behind and i wish things would stay the same so i do not have to address the fear of being left behind because that implies i am not good enough for someone to stay for. keith: nothing has ever stayed the same for me and i am afraid of getting comfortable in the love that my community has for me because that could all be ripped away at a moment's notice. i will leave first as an act of self preservation.

allura 💖🧚🏿‍♀️🥰

i love you allura!!!! i got to have keith and lance each have a little moment with our fave princess because 1) keith and allura didn't interact a lot in this supposed found family in the canon other than when allura found out keith was galra and 2) i really liked the friendship between lance and allura in seasons 3-4 and i wish there were more moments like that. i think keith and allura could both connect more on grief and heritage since they both lost their parents, bridges to their respective cultures (keith korean, and allura jamaican). that little moment in ch 6 between both of them was very special for me as well— as an adoptee, i felt disconnected from a lot of traditions and holidays and foods that were a part of my birth culture but i didn't have anyone to celebrate it with. having keith and allura kind of discuss that together was not only a great character development moment but also was me projecting a lil 😗

side note: allura saying goodnight to keith in chapter 8 after halloweekend shenanigans parallels chapter 2, when they're outside the bathroom and she goes to touch his shoulder but he ducks away. i thought it'd be a nice little easter egg to show the progression of their friendship— in chapter 8, keith lets allura touch him and affirm their status as friends who have fun together.

i like lotor as a character but i had to nerf him a bit in this fic in regards to his relationship with allura. i think allura's relationship with lotor adds to her depth as a character— she's seen as the strong girlboss who doesn't take shit but hinting at her toxic relationship and portraying its affects was important to me. yes, allura is a badass but also she is not immune to shitty stuff, and even the most badass of people can get into bad situations. it doesn't make them weak, it just makes them human. i wanted lance, who def has this image of allura that's different from reality, to kind of find allura in this vulnerable moment and 1) realize that she's a person first and foremost, not an infallible goddess and 2) comfort her wholeheartedly because lance, to his core, is a very kind person and even when drunk, he's going to try and find the right words to say.

allura is a side character in all of this but i wanted to give her some complexity as well, since lance hangs out a lot with hunk and pidge and keith is closer with shiro and adam.

ch 9 klance development

ok look everything everywhere all at once left a fucking imprint on my brain when i saw it. "in another life i would have liked just doing laundry and taxes with you" ok stab me in the gut. that being said, i know i really wanted to give klance a moment to just be friends who run domestic errands together, to start nudging them in a direction where they're both like, "hey i kinda enjoy hanging out with this person one-on-one, and im comfortable enough to feel like i dont have to perform in front of them." klance just being domestic and folding laundry together at a laundromat and sharing airpods askgjakdjghlkadjfhgadf.

i also wanted to include the little adam and lance moment toward the end, because let's face it, adam would have absolutely adored lance (i say from the 2 minutes of screentime canon adam w got). lance has hunk and pidge and he's friends with allura but i wanted to give him someone to look up to and rely on the way keith has shiro. esp since lance is the youngest and away from home— adam probably reminds him more of his siblings initially, because lance has a more grounded perspective of adam than shiro, who's a microniche celebrity.

about the beach episode

i love beach filler episodes so fucking much. it's just a great time to get the ensemble out of the typical college setting and see how they function as a unit in a different environment. from the car rides, to stopping for food at some dingy ass fast food chain, to fucking around on the beach and chasing birds and sharing lunch ugh i love it so much it was lovely to write. mirroring adashi's relationship development with klance's was fun, i've had that idea in my head for awhile now so it was gratifying to see it come to fruition. i knew that i would have lance realize he liked keith first simply because keith takes a bit to process his emotions. dw this isn't gonna be some one-sided, drawn out pining for too long.

this beach chapter was a way for me to simultaneously reflect on how things have progressed with klance's relationships. not just with each other, but the rest of the group as well. i wanted them to have gotten a natural dynamic where they're all close enough to go on a beach trip and just fuck around and be normal college kids taking a break for finals. it also allowed me to plant the seeds for further klance development, as well as hint at the central conflict that would follow lance in chapter 11. chapter 10 was a great wrap up for the overall dynamic of the group and a way to end the fall semester.

what was it like to write in adam's pov?

that was so much fucking fun ahhhhh. for one reason, klance aren't together yet and i wanted. to write. domestic bliss. second, it's a great narrative tool to kind of zoom out a bit when viewing klance. we can see how the boys interact in a group setting from an outsider's perspective, without all the gay panic or inner monologues, as fun as they are to write. they just exist as they are, and adam takes note of it. third, i love adam and the potential of adashi and i am so so so sad that adam got killed off after less than 90 seconds of screentime. nothing against curtis, but i've just been more attached to adam since his character was revealed in the show (even if it wasn't for long). shiro deserves a loving partner and healthy relationship and i think adashi are so fucking cute. and yeah, i'm paralleling adashi's relationship development with klance, i just couldn't fucking resist.

when tf are lance and keith gonna get together?

LMAO yeah i knew this was gonna be a slowburn but damn i really am drawing it out. i do want to follow a somewhat logical progression and pacing, though. act i was building klance up as people who could find some common ground and humanize each other instead of just butting heads. act ii has been following the development of their friendship and planting the seeds for romantic attraction, as you might have seen from chapter 10. dw, there is a spike in the klance development in act iii as i focus on their navigation as a couple, and as y'all know, i already wrote the confession scene. it's coming!!!! soon!!!!!!!

multilingualism as a plot device

i've talked about it before but i love!!!! using language as a plot device to demonstrate a character's personality/development/interpersonal relationship!!!

i'm not a fluent speaker in any of the languages that have appeared or been mentioned in this fic (spanish, japanese, korean, jamaican creole, tagalog). i've studied most of them lackadaisically and i'm sort of fuzzy on grammar and cultural nuance. i've been consulting with actual native speakers of these languages to try and make it as authentic as possible but ofc, if you do speak those languages and something sticks out with the translations, please let me know!

i studied spanish in high school, but it was a mix of mexican and castillian spanish because i had different teachers between the years. diving into cuban spanish, which is an entirely different dialect because of its history in the caribbean, has been really fun (and also a lot of work my god i haven't had to bust out my spanish in years). learning all the different curses has been sooooo cool, i love profanity in other languages.

that being said, i think it's really interesting when writing from keith's pov and incorporating language. i have this idea that when keith first moved in with the shiroganes, akemi and shiro tried to encourage him to go to korean school but he probably got embarrassed because he was put with a bunch of little kids due to his speaking ability and stopped going.

the linguistic and cultural barrier was fun to craft between keith and akemi because when they first met each other, keith probably spoke 0 japanese and akemi was more comfortable in japanese and less in english. from the flashback in chapter 12, we see that keith has already been studying hard to work to a conversational level of japanese, and he can understand basic phrases (akemi tries to accommodate him as well). even so, keith still uses 丁寧語 or teneigo, the standard level of politeness for japanese, when he's speaking with akemi. it shows that even though he's progressed in his japanese, he still puts some distance between him and akemi, like he sees himself as a long-term houseguest. ofc there's layers of respect that are interlaced with teneigo, but close family units don't use teneigo when they speak to each other.

this has been a disorganized and rambling behind the scenes of looking out for you act ii. thanks for tuning in and see y'all next time <3