Probably thinking too hard about stuff...

Alex, he/him, 30. Voltron fanboy. This blog is a disaster. Shiro stan. Primarily ship Sheith but I ship other things too. There is no judgment here - your ships are valid no matter what they are! (Askbox is always open.)

[lamealternatereality]

So what you're telling me is that after everything he went through, everything he suffered, all of his hopes and dreams of exploring space that he clung to while fighting so hard to save the universe...

...Shiro decided to settle down and get married to a random guy not important enough to have an actual name?

All before the age of 30? (Guessing here since he didn't age while he was dead lol) He's retired and living in domestic bliss?

Yeah, okay.

Fuck you.

First of all, getting married is not the end game for a lot of LGBT people who are in actual relationships that don't involve them marrying the first queer person they see. Second, don't try and distract us from the shit. Reducing him to a side character just so he can be with another side character and live happily ever after is disgusting. I thought they could sink no lower.

I was wrong.

[lamealternatereality]

R.I.P, Stan Lee.

Excelsior!

[lamealternatereality]

So the thumbnail on Netflix for VLD for me is currently set to Shadam/Adashi. Before that it was pretty pretty Shiro with rainbows everywhere.

No thanks.

I used to watch VLD pretty much every day. But I only managed to watch S7 once...and haven't touched it since.

What happened to Shiro is a huge part of my current aversion to the series. Shadam is part of it too. Every time I see Shiro's new arm I feel sick and the focus on Shadam makes me upset.

I know I can't speak for anyone else but it really hurts to almost hate something I loved so intensely. I'm devastated the series took the turn it did and I'm not sure S8 will be enough to redeem it for me.

So stop trying to pull me back in, Netflix. I'll watch it when I'm good and ready.

Maybe never.

[lamealternatereality]

Does anyone ever think about how hard it is to be a really, honestly, true-to-the-bone good person despite everything the universe throws at you?

To keep going in spite of the odds and never waver, to keep your morals strong and your heart soft?

To do things because they benefit someone else, even when they won't do a single thing for you in return?

To help even for no acknowledgement or applause, just because it's necessary? To help because someone needs you even though there's little chance for glory?

Because god damn it is hard.

And I sure as hell stan the shit out of Shiro for being that guy.

Having a heart and being a good person isn't all of him, but it's certainly the best part. Having the courage to step up and make the hard choices is one thing; having the kindness of heart to live with the consequences is another. And Shiro never falters.

Shiro is faith, patience and kindness. He has other layers for sure but those...those are the important ones.

I just wish the writers could have seen the beautiful character they created and supported him instead of tearing him down at every turn.

[danya224]

i almost never draw dudes so here’s quick Dorian sketch

[atesan]

Life is precious. Life is valuable. We take it, but we do not take it lightly.

[lamealternatereality]

Relationships are tricky things. They should be built on mutual love, respect, devotion and acceptance of all the parts of a person that makes them, them. And if they fail, sometimes they can become hateful depending on the people involved. Emotions are unpredictable and often very strong.

But far too often in fictional relationships there is too much focus on one character to the detriment of the other. It goes back to this idea that one partner is the prize and the other the victor (shoutout to @headspacedad for that description) and thus the relationship becomes unbalanced. One partner gets to call all the shots while the other is simply along for the ride - the relationship now feels extremely one-sided, which is not how a relationship should be. It also serves to cheapen the connection between the two characters, since all the ‘prize’ is there for is window-dressing for the character that has the most importance in the writer’s eyes. And if required they can be all too easily discarded, the relationship cast aside like it was nothing.

Shadam is a very good example of this - Shiro is obviously the main character here so Adam is merely background noise. They used him to make the point that Shiro is a bad guy for not choosing Adam over his dreams (I very much disliked that scene, honestly); it’s an ultimatum, which are never healthy in relationships. And it feels like everything that follows for Shiro (capture by the Galra, torture, etc) only happens to punish him for making the decision to leave - see, if he’d stayed with Adam on Earth none of that would have happened. Right? He would have just been slaughtered/enslaved along with the rest of humanity when the Galra came to claim the Blue Lion instead but hey, they could have had a bit more time together before the worst happened. 

I guess what I would have liked is for them to devote a bit more time to the reasons WHY Adam was so adamant that Shiro needed to choose him. Had Shiro been keeping him at arm’s length while he worked on himself? Had Shiro been putting too much time into being chosen for the Kerberos mission and neglecting their relationship a bit? Had they been in difficulties for a while because Shiro was a workaholic? Had Adam felt like he was second-place to Shiro’s dreams? We can infer that the answer to all these is yes because of the tiny bit of dialogue during their scene - but it still fell far short of an actual discussion of where they stand and why. There could have been at least one other scene where Shiro and Adam were talking things out (heated or not) prior to Adam walking out on Shiro to give us some insight into how things were between them - gives things a little more depth. Even a time-frame would have been good; how long were they together? Months? Years? What exactly was Adam giving up on? And why should we care, when Shiro is the character we were supposed to be invested in here? He didn’t seem to really be that upset when Adam left - why was that? Was it because he’d seen it coming for a long time, or was it because he just didn’t care? 

As a result the confrontation between the pair and Adam’s subsequent death feel cheap, especially given the fact that Shiro only gets a brief moment of screen time to mourn his ex-partner. The EPs can explain in interviews all they want about the fact that Adam and Shiro were planning on getting married, but without showing the depth of their relationship to ground such a declaration it falls flat. Yet another example of things being addressed outside of the series because the story-telling was lacking. If they were planning on getting married, surely showing us the intensity of their emotions towards each other would have been helpful. Shiro is a Japanese man and they’re (stereotypically) not that open about their feelings, but we don’t get more than just a brief hint of how he feels about Adam walking out that door.

I am not a fan of the Shadam pairing particularly but what I don’t like about it is that the relationship was used simply as filler to a) show that Shiro is the LGBT+ rep and b) try to get us to believe that Shiro is selfish for leaving Adam behind to go and chase his dreams before his disease rendered him unable to do so. 

It honestly feels to me as though this relationship and the relationship between Zethrid and Ezor were used solely to point out how progressive the writers/EPs are, and they failed. ‘Bury Your Gays’ is still alive and well unfortunately and while Shiro is not dead (currently, anyway) the other three are, and their deaths were unceremonious at best and extremely targeted at worst.

I guess I’m just sick of characters having relationships for the sole purpose of having them torn away to cause maximum pain without any real reason. I get that there can be reasons why relationships fail but if you do choose to go that route, devote some time to explaining why. Don’t just tear it apart and expect your audience to swallow it. Examine the difficulties, the pain, the heartbreak, the differences of opinion. Make it emotional. Show the character being devastated or relieved depending on their personality. 

Make it easy to empathize with your characters.

Make it real.

[ptw30]

Just gonna drop this here...

[lamealternatereality]

I realised today - I haven’t watched Voltron since I binged S7.

Before it was a daily occurrence. I loved it. Would watch it on repeat while I was working or gaming.

And now....now I can’t make myself watch it. I’ve tried. I can’t. 

It hurts, because previously it was one of my all-time favourite shows and I love every single character with my whole heart.

I feel robbed.

[foxyjoy-art]

More commission work!  

I want to protect him with my life 

[joleanart]

soren stress eats. he’s a big mood and i love him

[headspacedad]

ashacrone

replied to your

post

:

GOD I LIIIIVE for your salt on behalf of Shiro….

I think part of the frustration is that we had JUST ENOUGH hope after s6 (though god, Kuron hurt) and after the first episode of s7 that we had this huge precipice to fall off of

It was really brutal, wasn’t it?  I know some people saw Shiro missing from the end image of season 6 as proof he was off the team but I was so convinced, and even wrote reassuring posts, about how the lions had all roared when Shiro came back and the only other time the lions had all done that for anyone was when he became Black Paladin.  It would have been the perfect visual and story call back to signal we had come full circle and it was time to get back to business.  After all there was, and still is, no logical or in story reason given why Shiro wouldn’t still be the Black Paladin. And no story is going to fail at the most basics of Story Telling of not setting something that devastating up (or at least dropping some kinds of warning throughout the previous seasons and building up his replacement as more competent first). 

…. right?

I was also convinced that the reason they hadn’t shown Shiro (or even the clone) using the Black Bayard yet was because they were using the ‘the more important it is, the more we hold off on the reveal so when we do show it, it will really be a big deal’ story trick - which is great for building interest and making the pay off feel earned.  We’d spent six seasons as a fandom speculating on what cool thing Shiro’s bayard could turn into for someone like him and we, the fans, knew, because previously stories, both well done and poor had trained us to expect a pay off for it, that the longer the story held off showing it, the cooler it had to be.  Like Black getting its wings.  A nice satisfying earned payoff that was pulled off at a super cool moment.  I honestly, before season seven, could not even begin to imagine the lack of reveal was simply that the writers/EPs just don’t care.

and instead we got season seven. 

I have waded through some serious ‘beginners first story attempt’ in my time, both in fanfic and in helping other writers develop original ideas and writing skills and I have never, ever run into such a huge case of ‘makes no sense’ in a story before.  I am absolutely boggled that a company like @dreamworksanimation would ever let something that - the label unprofessional just isn’t enough.  I can’t even call it amateur because that would imply there were actual writing principles going on in the first place and they were just being used poorly.  What we got for season seven was people pretending to do a job but having no concept of how that job actually works. 

As a viewer, I am disappointed in both the story line and the companies that released it and put their name on it.

As a writer, I am absolutely disgusted.

[headspacedad]

I don't like that the failed relationship was two people in military careers and one wanted the other to prioritize their relationship over his own military career. no matter the nuance of the situation re: Shiro's illness, that it can be boiled down to "coworkers in love but one wants the other to stop being ambitious and focus on their relationship instead" isn't the kind of relationship I can defend.

Right here with you, nonnie.  Right here.  Now, granted, the way the relationship was shown breaking apart was very realistic.  It was one of the most adult and realistic things I’ve seen in VLD so far.  Because there are people that think they understand what they’re getting into when they start a relationship with someone (who is military, who has a chronic disease, who is ambitious, whatever) but then find, down the road, that its really more than they can handle and they have to walk away no matter how much they might care for that person.  That is painfully true to life and its tragic and its just one of those things that’s honestly no one’s fault.  Walking away is the healthy option for both parties no matter how much it hurts.  That is an adult realization, I would be impressed if that was the message it had actually been.

But the way it was cast and the way some parts of the fandom are viewing it - and the way the EPs talk about it - grinds my gears three ways to Friday.  Because no!  It is NOT Shiro’s fault that the relationship fell apart.  He is NOT ‘bad at relationships’.  Every indication given by every other realtionship he has is that he’s a thoughtful, caring, attentive, encouraging guy that gives the other person the boost they need and then the trust and space to conquer under their own power.  He’s not perfect, for instance he really needs to work on opening up about his own private battles and reaching out to get help for them.  But he is NOT a selfish person and the EPs pushing the break up of the relationship as if it is his fault is beyond insulting.  It’s viscous against someone that is dealing the best they can with the things in their life and the EPs are blaming them for that.  Adam put the blame of the break up on Shiro but it wasn’t Shiro’s fault.  It was Adam’s.  He’s the one that got into the relationship with someone who had his eyes on going to the stars and then decided it was too much and pulled the ‘chose me or your long term dream’ ultimatum out.  He couldn’t handle it but he put the guilt for his inability to do so on Shiro’s shoulders.  He pulled out the ‘don’t take this last chance at something amazing you’ll probably only get the one shot at because I can’t handle the stress of it’.  Shiro wasn’t pushing him away.  Shiro came in and completely made himself vulnerable about what he’d just gone through to Adam and Adam, instead of commiserating or supporting, knowing Shiro was at a low point, decided to pull the ‘how much do I mean to you?” card.  I.  I.  I.  There’s a pattern there and Shiro’s complete non-reaction to Adam’s leaving says this isn’t the first time Adam’s pushed and that he’s known it was coming to this for a while now.  He’s been prepared.  Which means Adam has been trying to wheedle him out of his dream for a while now.  It drives me nuts when I see a post that says ‘Shiro should have gone after him’.  Hell no, he shouldn’t have!  Because nothing would have changed.  Adam would still want him to put aside his dreams and his hard work and what he’d been fighting so hard for because it made Adam uncomfortable.  Shiro’s shown talking to Keith about the first trip to Jupiter and he’s not talking about breaking records the way Adam accused him.  He never once indicates he’s trying to achieve anything with Black beyond being the best paladin he can personally be.  Shiro’s dreams are about being the person he wants - needs - to be.  And Adam hit the point where he couldn’t handle that anymore.  He should have told Shiro so and broken it off in a way that was honest with both of them - but instead he dumped the guilt for what he couldn’t handle on the guy that hadn’t changed his focus or his drive since before Adam had started dating him.  LM can coo about how they were ‘almost engaged’ but that’s not a relationship that’s going to last, chronic disease or no.  Shiro is Shiro.  He has always been.  You love him for who he is or you love him for who you want him to be but only one of those is ever going to work out. 

Adam and Shiro might have been romantically involved and they might have been deeply in love but what we saw in the little bit we got was the culmination of two people that couldn’t walk the same path anymore.  That’s the healthy point when you need to walk away.  Not pretend its the other person’s fault and guilt trip them with an ultimatum.  And not - LM - think that being true to yourself is something that makes you ‘bad’ at relationships.  Women hear that kind of crap all the time and its detrimental to them.  Its why they stay in relationships and marriages that are unhealthy for them.  Because being true to themselves isn’t as important as staying with someone that says they love you - but only the you that fits into their comfort zone.  Shame on you, Lauren, for pushing that message on an audience of young women and younger girls as if they don’t hear it enough from everywhere else already.

[allurahimesama]

I was at SDCC when the episode aired, and my initial reading of the scene was “okay, this is to show how ambitious Shiro is in his goal, and how alone he was in this moment.” Nowhere did I see “Shiro is bad at relationships”.

As you hinted at, for a supposed feminist, and career woman herself, Lauren is pushing a horrible message to girls. I’m going to get personal here. My mother put her dream career on hold to chase a man. She regrets it to this day, and has always taught me to never stay with someone who insists I give up my dreams. So I forever stand by Shiro’s decision, and am disgusted at the EPs -and fandom’s - insistence that the relationship was all hunky dory and Shiro should have listened and aww aren’t they such a cute couple? Just because it’s a same gendered relationship doesn’t mean it would be happily ever after, guys.

And this isn’t even touching the heavily ableist narrative of “Adam was just worried for Shiro’s health” and “Adam was frustrated he wouldn’t get to spend Shiro’s last able bodied years with him”. Long story short - Adam is not entitled to make decisions for Shiro’s health, or choose what Shiro would like to do with HIS time.

[bbtree]

i watched this ep and……… i really fucking thought the scene– the episode in general– was supposed to remind the audience, among other things, that shiro had always had a higher calling, that when adam said ‘you have nothing left to prove’ the point was that he didn’t, really, since we already knew he wanted to go out there because he loves it. and that the narrative would validate shiro because this flashback follows six whole seasons of shiro going on a whole journey as a hero, something he couldn’t have done if he’d stayed home in some idyllic white picket fence alt scenario.

as we’ve probably discussed elsewhere, it turns out 7.01 seemed to be signalling a very different season from the one we got, and the ‘right’ takeaway from what we got is that shiro was being arrogant and selfish and implicitly guilty for the goddamn invasion of earth.

and even a lot of fans who criticise adam and what we saw in canon of the end of that relationship and that ultimatum, ironically believe the same thing about shiro– that this chronically ill, then disabled traumatised man, reached beyond his limits and needed to be punished for it, stripped of the honour of being a Real Hero and chained back to earth, all for his own supposed good.

[allurahimesama]

ikr!! shiro never found fulfillment through the garrison’s accolades, why would being called captain by them do anything for him? it feels like a “learn to appreciate what you have and don’t try to reach for more” lesson, which when applied to a queer disabled asian man is very disheartening.

it’s why atlas will never feel like an upgrade to me, but a punishment, a compromise at best. atlas was condemned to hold up the sky. in this case, for daring to dream of a greater destiny among the stars.

[sol1056]

I don’t know if it was intentional, but even if not, the way a creator’s subconscious works is to always come out in these kinds of unforeseen implications:

atlas was condemned to hold up the sky

once you see that cultural subtext, it’s very hard to see the character’s endpoint as anything other than punishment for his dreams. 

[paulocalavera]

“I Don’t Believe in Locks.“                                   - General Amaya - 

[mmeishi-deactivated20181030]

“Knees higher! Knees higher!”

[zillabean]

ok ok ok, what about Shiro as superman? Like he would look great in those tights >.>

One of my very first prints was of that exact thing, haha.  

SUPER SPACE DAD

But…. I didn’t even think of doing the whole Superman outfit with the tights and all….  Food for thought!

[shinondraws]

I was listening to an art podcast and I heard someone use “creative hibernation” as a term to describe a period of time when your creative energy and flow of ideas is slowing down.

Honestly, it sounds so much better than “art block”. To me, “creative hibernation” sounds less like a negative thing and more like an organic part of the creative process. 

“Art block” sounds very definite. They sound like something you MUST actively fight against to break them down in order to continue. “Hibernation” on the other hand sounds more like a thing that happens every now and then but that will go away on its own when it’s time. It’s a stage of gathering energy for the next creative pursuit. Art block on the other hand is an artificial, mental block that actually just seems to solidify the more you treat it like an obstacle to get around.

All creative people go through this type of slowing down all the time and it is completely alright. I thought I would share this because I think the right kind of mentality is actually one of the most important things of recovering your creative energy.