#ATOZCHALLENGE: V IS FOR VOLTRON DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE

let me tell you little tale about a boy and his bot
in 1984 Christmas meant an awful lot
when arose such a clatter and under the tree
a Voltron robot and the boy went happy-pee

Voltron was my everything. it was my first real toy. my first COMBINE!!! toy i could manipulate and pose to hold a plastic sword. the sword was strong enough i could fork my Steak-umms with it. i could push the legs of the lions in and fit the lion rectangles together to form a whole being greater than the sum of its parts for the first time, my first magic, first stab at playing God. i could make it walk over rainwater and shoot at my solitary door since my door didn't have a stick-umm mini basketball hoop. first time i really played by myself. and got so entrenched in my own head i forgot about Steak-umms dinner. first time watching a cartoon that wasn't fluff comedy and colors but a deep, layered, sci-fi fantasy epic. in other words, a real cartoon, an anime cartoon. made me appreciate the vastness of space. Sagan came later. my first real dark-colored villain, which is a dissertation on race waiting to happen. shiny keys and deboair father figures and sources of light and the concept of valor and love and desire and white palaces and lava planets and ancient curses and robots could be evil, too and universe domination and war and peace and slavery. first space battle, Star Wars came later. first mech, not knowing what mech was. first toyetic cartoon, i only learned about toyetic last year. i was being influenced by serious art early on and i am the better man for it. this lead me to Zelda. never underestimate the power of a boy and his first robot. his first robot replaces his first imaginary friend...

and then there's Princess Allura. my first crush. see above. that's not a shrine, it's a tribute. was it my first fap? too young to know. i wanted to get the Allura doll but that would have been too weird. in the '80s i mean. i still remember that water episode................i became a man after that water episode. but i still had to eat all my sprouts.

i wanted to fuck Princess Allura. i know she's apart from the rest of the team but that's cos she's special. i'll write a dissertation on gender inequality and media misrepresentation and subtle sabotage later. i wanted to become her space husband. does that make me a bad person? i put it to an online vote and the results were 100% yes for bad person.

Keith, my first Keith, from then on whenever i thought of a Keith i thought of a cool dude with '70s bush on his chest and a gold medallion. Lance, another cool name for a dude, space knight, gentleman jouster with the jokes, and he had a long lance, only got that last year. Hunk, the linebacker, i swear i called him Hank for the longest. or i saw that he was Hunk but couldn't believe he was actually named Hunk. like, that had to be a typo, right? subconsciously made me hate football for my teen years. Sven, my first foreigner. i believe he kissed Allura first so i was jealous. wanted to be foreign, get a mustache and speak the language of love. either French or Swedish. i like Swedish meatballs just not the sauce.

and Pidge. Pidge frustrated me. didn't know he was a guy till later. he was too close to the boy i was. he was a whiner or something. like a little man or a dwarf or elf or something? was he human or alien? was he a nerd or just annoying? i started wearing bows in my hair watching him. Pidge helped me be a more authentic me. that name, Pidge, it's triggering. like you wanted to give Pidge a big hug and squeeze him to death cos he was so cute but then afterwards send his ass into space. like give Pidge a swift tap on his tiny butt and he flies into space.

the villains are murky, i was young. their motivations were murky, but aren't all villains' motivations? i do remember later when i became more clear-eyed i started thinking in my head about a plot involving the Voltron characters that was more adult. like i had Allura be a double agent who bed the blue guy, my first male witch. not the Blue Lion guy, the blue villain. and she would twirl his crown on her naked finger. in short, full of sex and intrigue. my first fanfiction. wait, they actually had purple skin? my '80s tv wasn't the best in those days. yeah i recall the dashing purple prince who wanted the space nookie from the white princess. that's another dissertation.

i was watching Voltron when i had that argument with my sister. she wanted me to go out more and socialize.........but i had to watch Voltron! it was at that point i knew my life was lost.

that was the DVD. the DVD that first made me appreciate all DVDs for their special features. like i saw fight cells from episodes of the original Japanese '80s series with the blood and guts left in not shown for American broadcast. that blew my mind. and made me anti-war.

the Princess's space mice were so cute. this was before i saw Cinderella. cheese dreams. made me want to get a pet for the first time. i'll always love you, Benji. my dog, not the famous dog.

and Allura's mad space maid above, she was my first T H I C C

Power Rangers came along and got big and i yelled STEROIDS CHEATER!!! at my tv screen to no avail. but it's a rip-off i've learned to tolerate cos of the babes and there's nothing else on Saturday mornings anymore.

as a college kid i got some DVDs of that Voltron series where they were cars instead of lions or something. my first nostalgia.

and then my prized Voltron robot had an accident and smashed into a billion tiny pieces. utterly destroyed, both the robot and my psyche. but i'll leave that for a future instagram story...

Voltron: a fuckload of firsts

Voltron catapulted me into the stars. i could taste those stars. my first chicken-stars soup. this show made me less lonely and alone in the universe. lions became my favorite animal. wouldn't eat any lion animal crackers. mostly, Voltron spoke to me when no one else would.

what would Voltron say if he could speak? what would be Voltron's first words?

Voltron: I AM IN SO MUCH PAIN

CLICK HERE AND LET OPTIMUS PRIME BE YOUR GALAXY GUIDE

THIS IS THE GREATEST END CREDITS OF ALL TIME. I DREAMT I WAS ON TOP OF THAT LION AND ENJOYING THE VIEW

CHRISTMAS, 1984. POSH.

BACK WHEN STREET LAMPPOSTS AND BEAUTIFUL HIGH SKINNY BLACK SPACED GATES WITH A CIRCLED LETTER AT THE TOP ADORNED THE NEIGHBORHOOD

AW, I NEVER GOT THIS ONE. TOO EXPENSIVE. DEFENDER OF THE SATURDAY-MORNING CARTOON. I SEE YOU MER-MAN DOING DOUBLE DUTY

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